Big novels to get lost in

[TheOtherSideOfSilence]

I love reading long novels that I can get really stuck into. My favourites are the big Victorian novelists, particularly Dickens and Trollope, and my favourite book ever (possibly) is Middlemarch. I have pretty much exhausted the classics now so need to discover some modern equivalents. Any recommendations? Something similar to Middlemarch, with lots of characters and interwoven stories would be ideal, but anything long and engaging would do.

I have recently read The Goldfinch and just finished The Luminaries.

I love the Cazalet chronicles. I have been searching for something as good for years.

Just read the first of the Poldark series recently so am looking forward to cracking on with the rest of those. I do like a family saga!

Thanks for all the suggestions. My Amazon basket is getting rather full ...

I am in the middle if The Cazalet Chronicles. Loving them.

What about Thomas Hardy?

What about Hilary mantles wolf hall and bring out the do dies set in Tudor times. The other Boleyn girl and its sequel can't remember the name of it now. Also birdsong Sebastian faulks and the regeneration trilogy by pat barker

Have you read any Douglas Kennedy? I loved the Pursuit of Happiness.

Have you tried Ken Follet? - his Century Trilogy is a good historical saga and massive tomes!

Well obviously I like AS Byatt (MN nn is from the final book of the Frederica quartet)

Seconds to those, the Quincunx, anything by Margaret Atwood and The Crimson Petal and the White.

How about Robertson Davies? He has written three lovely big trilogies and these are real 'comfort' reading for me.

My favourites are 'The Way We Live Now' and 'Vanity Fair' so I will be looking out for new things to read on this thread.

I've enjoyed the Edward Rutherfurd books based on a city - New York, London were both good - but there's also Sarum (about Salisbury), Russka and Dublin too.

Second Ken Follet - century trilogy and the pillars of the earth books.

All of the above are big books - think getting on for 1000pages each!

I'd recommend The Horseman Riding By series by R F Delderfield. Also The Swann Family saga (3 books starting with 'God is an Englishman' set in the Victorian/Edwardian age), and The Avenue (two books set during WW2) by the same author. Have re-read all of them several times. Historical and loads of characters. In fact I might just have to have another go at some of them after I've finished with the Cazalets

Marking place! Lots of great recommendations here.

Marking Place. Am in the middle of moving but looking forward to curling up with something new when the dust settles. These sound great!

Maia by Richard Adams (He of Watership Down fame, but don't let that influence you either way! ) Maia is epic and ever so good, but does have some adult and very explicit scenes in it if that makes a difference...

Love in the time of cholara
One hnudred years of solitiude.

Both by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'm a big hairy assed gadgee and both these books had me rationing my reading of them by the end as I didn't want them to finish!

'The Crimson Petal and the White' by Michel Faber is brilliant, very absorbing and kept me going for ages.

pombear watership down isn't exactly a light read either is it! I remember trying to read it as a youngster after loving the film and being baffled. I thought it would be exactly the same. A life lesson well learnt

Another vote for The Quincunx, one of my all time favourites. I've read it three times now and get lost in it every time

I have two ideas, may seem hokey but both are amazing

M M Kaye The Far Pavillions
Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind.

The latter saved my sanity one sad summer when I was recovering from a miscarriage. Just being able to lose myself in a novel like that made a massive difference to me.

Another vote for the Quincunx . I also love the Avenue and Avenue at war by RF Delderfield and Susan Howatch books.

Emile Zola's books are really good as are Balzac's.

Persephone books, especially those by Dorothy Whipple are great immersive reads.

Two thousand streets under the sky by Patrick Hamilton is heartbreaking.

Middlemarch is one of my favourites and I also love books by George Gissing such as The Odd Women and the Netherworld.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh - I missed motorway exit once listening to this book in my car
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ( I know film is coming up very soon but this book was amazing)

It's been about 35 years since I read Watership Down and I can't remember much about it, other than being shocked by the "Pees off" by Kehaar
I cry at the film though, and would probably avoid it if it was on now, and would definitely steer my DCs away from it.
Maia is most definitely an adult novel, but for all the "sex and violence" it is realy exciting and a gripping storyline and has a happy ending for Maia, even if lots of the other characters get "lost" along the way...

I was just coming on to say Robertson Davies but I see I have been beaten to it. Also another Canadian, Carol Shields, if you haven't read her stuff already - not as long as Middlemarch etc, but full of absorbing human interest.

And more recently, have you read A Fraction of the Whole? Or The Northern Clemency?

Ken Follett, Fall of Giants, part 1 of 3.

I've really enjoyed the mahoosive Ken Follett 20th century stuff so far. I've read two chunks - Fall of Giants and a direct sequel (borrowed from library, so haven't got it to hand to check title, sorry)

His Pillars of the Earth, and World without End, also pretty good.

I've read the entire sequence of Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian - they're basically a roman a fleuve and should keep any reader quiet for a couple of months.

And Elizabeth Chadwick's big novels about 11th-13th century England etc are well worth it. Any female reader who doesn't end up with a massive crush on William Marshal by the end is rather sad IMHO!

Also - and slightly prompted by the advert at the top of this page - Khaled Hosseini's novels.

The Kite Runner was so good I forgot to put more suncream on when I went to Crete at Easter (crazy cheap RyanAir flight, see other threads...) and thus burnt my bosom.

The Lymond Series by Dorothy Dunnett is my absolute favourite. Six books, set in Tudor times and ranging in setting from Scotland to Russia. Interwoven stories including historical characters. Totally amazing. Brilliant research and the most charismatic hero ever!

A fine balance by Rohinton Mistry