Top 5 ever books- what else would I like

[slet]

I was eating a bookstagram type video where this American woman listed her “god tier” books and it made me wonder what I would choose as mine. I have narrowed it down to 5 but when I thought about it I realised my 5 have a lot in common.

the 5 are

The Lacuna by Barbrara Kingsolver
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Life after Life by Kate Atkinson
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

i have realised they all share certain characteristics. They are all pretty long (except for atonement, all are over 600 pages). They are all large in geographical and/or historical scope and often follow a main character through their life. They all have some sort of interesting narrative structure and/or a twist or clever ending.

Can anyone think of any others that would match this criteria? I have read all of the other books by these authors.

some that come close but not quite which I also enjoyed are:

The Heart’s Invisible Furies
Hamnet
The marriage portrait
Everything ever written by William Boyd, Margaret Atwood and Clare Chambers
The Goldfinch
Caledonian Road

The obvious suggestion is the Wolf Hall trilogy. But perhaps you have already read them?

Others that I think you might like considering your list are:

Fingersmith by Sarah Walters
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

off the top of my head in that sort of vein I would suggest

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Claire Lombardo
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
Gillespie & I/The Observations both by Jane Harris (massively underrated author imho)
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Holingshurst
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

A Fine Balance: Rohinton Mistry
Cutting for Stone: Abraham Verghese
Pachinko: Min Jin Lee
This Thing of Darkness: Harry Thompson
The Nightingale: Kristen Hannah
The Mountains Sing: Nguyen Phan Que Mai
Burial Rites: Hannah Kent

Thanks for suggestions!

@mimbleandlittlemyI have read and enjoyed all of your suggestions except for The Luminaries, but I do have it on the shelf so maybe it’s time to give it a go. I know I said I like long books but it looks an absolute beast!

i completely agree with the Jane Harris recommendations !

At least I was on the right track - sounds like we have very similar tastes.

I second God of Small Things and Fingersmith.

Have you read Shantaram? Any Human Heart?

Also thinking of Cazalet chronicles, The Pallisers.

A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Roots - Alex Haley
The Thornbirds - Coleen McCullough

Also - Isabel Allende - Daughter of Fortune

Sorry just saw you've read all the William Boyd

How have you found Sebastian Faulks?

The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
The Household by Stacey Halls
The Secrets of Blythswood Square By Sara Sheridan
All The Colours of the Dark Chris Whitaker

@cheezncrackers - I thinkThis Thing of Darkness is another book that's loved by everyone who has read it but is slightly underrated.

Back to the long book list:

The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

There are lots of my favourite reads coming up on here.

On Chesil Beach

Similar books on my favourites list include:
A Little Life, Hanya Yanigahari
Stoner, John Williams
The Radlett & Montdore books, Nancy Mitford
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
East of Eden, John Steinbeck

The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
Olive Kitteredge, Elizabeth Strout
Sorrow & Bliss, Meg Mason
Life, A User's Manual, Georges Perec

Pat Barker? They aren't collectively very long but if you read The Regeneration Trilogy one after another you're clocking up a lot of pages! Ditto with her Trojan War trilogy that starts with Silence of the Girls.

A few more international ones for you:

The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence (Canadian classic)
The Republic of Love - Carol Shields (ditto)
The End of Days - Jenny Erpenbeck (trans. from German)
The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt - Tracy Farr (Australian)

Urgh, so depressing!

And at 166 pages (of total tedium - sorry @Meem321, not a favourite of mine but I know people love it), a bit short if OP likes chonking books.

@SoloSofa24 - anything by Carol Shields I'd say - so sad she seemed to be forgotten so quickly once she'd died. The Stone Angel is beautiful.

I did a module on Canadian literature at university MANY years ago and read some Margaret Lawrence and Carole Shields then and loved them. I remember loving The Diviners by Margaret Lawrence and Unless by Carole Sheilds.

is the Stone Angel about Vimy Ridge or have I imagined that?

Laurence sorry