Suggestions please for a chunky book?

[judgejudyandexecutioner]

I am a fast reader and am looking for a challenge. Any suggestions for an epic read? I loved The Stand but have exhausted all Stephen King books. I just want something I will finish in one sitting..

holmessweetholmes I was going to mention The Kingkiller Chronicles as well - also waiting impatiently for the third in the series.

For a definite doorstop book there's Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. Which, to be fair, I am only suggesting because it's one of those books where I keep thinking I will get through the damn thing one day! I first picked it up from the school library when I was about 14, after seeing the TV adaptation with Sean Bean. It's an epistolatory novel telling the story of a young woman being pressured by her family to marry an odious wealthy man she detests. Her virtuous reputation is such that she becomes the subject of a bet between a couple of disreputable men, and is eventually tricked into fleeing her home and putting herself under the protection of the untrustworthy and notorious rake Robert Lovelace.

I have made it about halfway through in the past, but it's nearly 1,500 pages long so I keep taking breaks to read something else, and now it has been so long since I picked it up I will have to start from the beginning again. Maybe I should set myself a challenge to actually finish it this year.

Roberto Bolano's 2666 is an amazing read and is almost 1000 pages. Other weighty books I've loved are War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, Life and Fate, Shantaram and A Suitable Boy. Some of Murakami's books are quite long as well if that's what you're looking for. Wind up bird chronicle and IQ84 spring to mind.

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. 1248 pages. An epic read but gripping.... Creepy, weird and what an ending!

Maia by Richard Adams (who also wrote Watership Down) Maia is epic and most definitely an adult book though, not for children.
If you liked The Stand, you'll probably enjoy Swan Song by Robert McCammon. It's as if he and Stephen King were given the same brief for a post apocalypse "Battle of Good and Evil" epic and SK wrote the Stand and RM wrote Swan Song.

The Name of the Rose and Fucault's Pendelum bith by Umberto Eco.
Goldfinch by Donna Tart
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Oh forgot to add Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller books.

Wally Lamb does v chunky but readable and compelling. I loved 'I know this much is true'

Shantaram - mentioned already

Thorn Birds?

Gone with the wind

Stephen king - 11.22.63

The Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett

Start with the second book (Queens Play), then go back to the first. Set in 16th century Scotland, England, France, Mediterranean and Russia, brilliant but troubled hero, beautifully written...

There are 6 books in the series, so should keep you going :)

I love the bronze horseman trilogy.
Another vote for goldfinch too - so beautifully written.