What Hefty Classics do you have?

[Elizabeth A.G.]

I recently obtained The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas for the anticipated Hefty Read for October-December and came across this article about the author:

http://www.thehistoryreader.com/moder...

[Catherine]

Thanks Elizabeth. That was an interesting piece of news about Maquet co-writing Dumas' books.

[Susan]

I wish I had read more hefty classics when I was younger because I no longer have the patience or stamina for them. My heftiest classic, at 1526 pages, was Clarissa. I really enjoyed it and I recommend it to anyone who has the patience to devote a few months to one book.

[Claire]

Susan wrote: "I wish I had read more hefty classics when I was younger because I no longer have the patience or stamina for them. My heftiest classic, at 1526 pages, was Clarissa. I really enjoyed it and I recom..."

What if you just devote some time each day or week? Would that help?

[Samantha, Creole Literary Belle]

Sometimes really thick books seem intimidating. If you don’t want to see the size of the volume every time reading and constantly be reminding how much you have left, try ebooks. On the other hand, if you rather see your progress so the task does not seem impossible, use a physical book. Reading is all about mind over matter, I’ve found.

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

I have not read Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry but Blue Duck was something else in the movie.

[Blueberry]

Cphe wrote: "If you read Lonesome Dove then you should really read:

Dead Man's Walk
Comanche Moon
Streets of Laredo
to get the full story.

Was surprised t..."

Should they be read in that order after Lonesome Dove?

[Kirsten]

I own Vanity Fair, and I have Lonesome Dove checked out.

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Yes Blueberry if you want to get the full story.

The do work as stand alones as well.

[Zuly]

I own several hefties, but the biggest is Clarissa or The History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson, weighing in at 1500+ pages, Penguin edition. If there is enough enthusiasm to place this on a list, I'll give it a go.

Also, The Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, and The Count of Monte Christo, and Moby Dick.

[Zuly]

Susan wrote: "I wish I had read more hefty classics when I was younger because I no longer have the patience or stamina for them. My heftiest classic, at 1526 pages, was Clarissa. I really enjoyed it and I recom..."

Just saw your post.... encouraging!

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Claire, would you mind checking Zuly's wish list in msg 62? Thinking those might be or could be a Hefty Read?

Thank you!

[Doreen]

Have War and Peace started.

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Best wishes Doreen with your Hefty read!

[Stefania]

I think immediately to The Brothers Karamazov and Ulysses. The second one is hefty in a different way....

[Claire]

Stefania wrote: "I think immediately to The Brothers Karamazov and Ulysses. The second one is hefty in a different way...."

I think it is hefty in more than one way:-)

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

I have added The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas to my Hefty Collection!

[Doreen]

Lesle wrote: "I have added The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas to my Hefty Collection!"

Oh Lesle you will truly enjoy this one!

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Thanks Doreen, I so hope too!

[Karin]

Patrick wrote: "I’ve always heard The Count of Monte Cristo, Les Miserables, and War and Peace were the big 3 in literature. I read 2 of them but as I researched I found that Middlemarch should have been counted i..."

The Count of Monte Cristo
Les Miserables
Don Quixote
The Man Without Qualities (the entire book is longer than the three above)
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady
The Complete Works of Plato (over 1800 pages)
Camilla
Several of the longer Dickens' novels, including:
Nicholas Nickleby, The Pickwick Papers, Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House--there are a couple more long ones by him that I've read

The Way We Live Now

There are others, but I don't remember and can't easily find them on my books because they aren't shelved classics or they aren't even added to GR.

Also, LOTR.

ETA Kristin Lavrandatter entire) and Gone with the Wind. (saw those elsewhere on this topic).

[Karin]

Patrick wrote: "The biggest classics I've read are:

Les Miserables
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Lord of the Rings
The Iliad & The Odyssey
Don Quixote"
Plus Iliad and Odyssey. Also, The Once and Future King.

I am chiefly sticking with books that are at least 800 pages.

ETA I have also read all of Kristin Lavransdatter and Gone with the Wind (saw that post earlier as well but then GR stopped working...)

[Doreen]

I'm not sure if others would consider Night and Day by Virginia Woolf a hefty classic but I do. Maybe it's just me. I started out good with this one but a quarter of the way through I'm struggling. Like a good lover of classics though I will continue until the end. Maybe this just wasn't the one for me.

[Doreen]

Just started Don Quixote. Not sure about this one. Wonder what others thought of it.

[Rosemarie, Northern Roaming Scholar]

I find that Don Quixote is a book you can read slowly, since it is very episodic. I really liked it when I read it years ago.

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Doreen I enjoy Virginia Woolf and have added your suggestion to my wish list! Thank you!

[Pat the Book Goblin]

Don Quixote is one of my favorite classics! It is long but it’s worth the laughs.

[Jazzy]

Patrick wrote: "Don Quixote is one of my favorite classics! It is long but it’s worth the laughs."

It was bloody hilarious. I loved the bit where Sancho feigns to recognise any odour whilst Don Quixote is holding his nose. I read both parts earlier this year :)

[Mark]

Ulysses
Don Quixote
Brothers Karamazov
The Devils
The Idiot
Crime and Punishment
Rememberance of Things Past
Moby Dick
Finnegans Wake
War and Peace
Anna Karenina
Independent People
The Peloponnesian War
The Gulag Archipelago

[Gilbert]

The following is an updated listing. please note there are duplications as well as multiple novel issues. And, based upon the particular publisher, the number of pages will vary:

Alexander Dumas The Vicomte de Bragelonne 2,468
Leon Edel The Life of Henry James 2,195
Leo Tolstoy War and Peace 1,932
O. Henry The Complete Works of O. Henry 1,652
Alexander Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo 1,595
Alexander Dumas Joseph Balsamo-Memoirs of a Physician 1,560
William Shakespeare The Complete Works 1,527
Henry James Literary Criticism 1,484
Henry James Literary Criticism 1,408
Henry James Novels 1886 - 1890 1,296
Henry James Novels 1871 - 1880 1,287
Henryk Sienkiewicz The Deluge 1,276
Henry James Novels 1881 - 1886 1,249
Homer Iliad 1,247
Doris Lessing Canopus in Argos: Archives 1,229
Victor Hugo Les Miserables 1,222
Henry James Novels 1903 - 1911 1,197
Dorothy L. Sayers (ed.) The Omnibus of Crime 1,177
Maxim Lieber (ed.) Great Stories of All Nations 1,132
Henry Fielding Tom Jones 1,111
Fanny Burney Cecilia 1,056
Rudyard Kipling Kipling:A Selection of His Stories and Poems 1,036
Henry James Novels 1896 - 1899 1,035
Charles Dickens David Copperfield 1,027
H.G. Wells The Short Stories of H.G. Wells 1,015
Charles Dickens Dombey and Son 992
George Eliot Middlemarch 980
W. Somerset Maugham The Complete Short Stories - Vol. 1: East and West 977
Charles Dickens Nicholas Nickelby 974
Henry James Complete Stories 1864 - 1874 972
Charles Dickens Bleak House 965
Charles Dickens David Copperfield 957
Fanny Burney Camilla 956
Charles Dickens The Pickwick Papers 953
Henry James Complete Stories 1892 - 1898 948
Thorne Smith The Thorne Smith Triplets 947
Henry James The Complete Stories-1898-1910 946
Charles Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit 942
Henry James Complete Stories 1874 - 1884 941
Anthony Trollope The Last Chronicle of Barset 914
Charles Dickens Little Dorrit 912
Anthony Trollope Can You Forgive Her? 911
Bernard Shaw Seven Plays 911
Charles Dickens Our Mutual Friend 911
William M. Thackeray Vanity Fair 910
Henry James Complete Stories 1884 - 1891 904
Charles Dickens Bleak House 902
Charles Dickens Dombey and Son 901
Charles Dickens David Copperfield 895
Charles Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit 863
Charles Dickens The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby 861
Dorothy L. Sayers (ed.) The Second Omnibus of Crime 855
Charles Dickens Little Dorrit 852
Anthony Trollope The Prime Minister 849
Charles Dickens Our Mutual Friend 848
Henry James Autobiographies 848
Henry James Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America 846
Henry James Collected Travel Writings: The Continent 845
Alexander Dumas The Two Dianas 836
Charles Dickens The Pickwick Papers 824
Anthony Trollope The Eustace Diamonds 815
Alexander Dumas La Dame de Monsoreau - Chichot the Jester 810
Dorothy L. Sayers (ed.) The Third Omnibus of Crime 808
Alexander Dumas The Red Sphinx 807

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Gilbert your copies of Dumas is amazing! I have not heard of some of them.

Love your list. Thank you for sharing!

[Jazzy]

Here is a start of mine, I've read all these so far.

Les Misérables - Victor Hugo 1272pp
Les Misérables - Victor Hugo 908pp
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 1273pp
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 1008pp
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 1065pp
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare 1263pp
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1023pp

Will add more later.

[Jazzy]

Collected Stories - Raymond Chandler 1299pp
Gray's Anatomy - Henry Gray 1257pp
H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction - H.P. Lovecraft 1098pp
Charles Dickens: Five Novels - Charles Dickens 1483pp
Jane Austen: Seven Novels - Jane Austen 1232pp
H.G. Wells: Seven Novels - H.G. Wells 944pp
Tarzan of the Apes: The First Three Novels - Edgar Rice Burroughs 776pp
Jules Verne: Seven Novels - Jules Verne 1208pp
The Complete Tales and Poems - Edgar Allan Poe 1023pp
The Bronte Sisters: 3 Novels - Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë 862pp
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories - Lewis Carroll 1165pp
The Wizard of Oz: The First Five Novels - L. Frank Baum 728pp
The Iliad & The Odyssey - Homer 731pp
Life and Fate - Vasily Grossman 864pp
The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy - James Purdy 752pp

[Jazzy]

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 796pp
The Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle 1077pp
Little Women and Other Novels - Louisa May Alcott 825pp
The Arabian Nights - Anonymous 735pp
F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic Works - F. Scott Fitzgerald 852pp
The Phantom of the Opera and other Gothic Tales - Gaston Leroux, Various 704pp
Dracula and Other Horror Stories - Bram Stoker 757pp
Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales - Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm 721pp
A Treasury of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales - Various 748pp

[Pat the Book Goblin]

Wow! I need to add my list later lol

[Karen]

I, also, am daunted by hefty classics these days and try to listen to anything over 400 pages anymore. In my youth I would take anything on - which has its drawbacks because I read Solzhenitsyn before I had the knowledge to make any sense of it.

In 2018 (ALL of 2018) I read War and Peace, and loved it.
In 2019 I listened to Ivanhoe and Kristin Lavransdatter and loved both of them. Ivanhoe was a re-read as it was required reading for me in ninth grade (too many years ago to think about) and I remembered loving it - which seems strange for a ninth grader? It was everything I remembered and more.

I've also read:
Moby Dick
Gone With the Wind
Lots of Thomas Hardy
Portrait of a Lady
Started Middlemarch but never finished

And too long ago to remember (must re-read)
The Count of Monte Cristo
Lots of Dickens

Current top Bucket List read in the hefty category:
Don Quixote - need to find "the best" translation

[Pat the Book Goblin]

I need to read the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevski. I missed it last January when the group read it.

[Gilbert]

You may find The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu very interesting. Definitely a hefty.

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Karen wrote: "I, also, am daunted by hefty classics these days and try to listen to anything over 400 pages anymore. In my youth I would take anything on - which has its drawbacks because I read Solzhenitsyn bef..."

Some great reads in your list Karen!

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Gilbert your hefty list outweighs my whole collection!

[Gilbert]

Lesle wrote: "Gilbert your copies of Dumas is amazing! I have not heard of some of them.

Love your list. Thank you for sharing!"
Here's the whole Dumas list:
Author Title "Year
Published" Pages
Alexander Dumas Ange Pitou 1853 783
Alexander Dumas Ascanio,2 Vols. 1843 617
Alexander Dumas Joseph Balsamo-Memoirs of a Physician 1846 1,560
Alexander Dumas La Dame de Monsoreau - Chichot the Jester 1846 810
Alexander Dumas Le Chevalier of Maison-Rouge 1845 462
Alexander Dumas Louise de la Valliere 1849 607
Alexander Dumas Marquerite de Valois 1845 575
Alexander Dumas The Chevalier de Harmental 1843 439
Alexander Dumas The Companions of Jehu 1857 634
Alexander Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo 1845 1,595
Alexander Dumas The Countess de Charny 1853 661
Alexander Dumas The First Republic, or, The Whites and The Blues 1867 739
Alexander Dumas The Forty-Five Guardsmen 1848 697
Alexander Dumas The Last Cavalier 2007 751
Alexander Dumas The Page of the Duke of Savoy 1854 676
Alexander Dumas The Queen's Necklace 1850 585
Alexander Dumas The Red Sphinx 1866 807
Alexander Dumas The Regent's Daughter / The Black Tulip 1845 572
Alexander Dumas The Three Musketeers 1844 628
Alexander Dumas The Two Dianas 1846 836
Alexander Dumas The Vicomte de Bragelonne 1849 2,468
Alexander Dumas Twenty Years After 1845 366

Enjoy!

[Lesle, Appalachain Bibliophile]

Wow! Thank you more to look into!

[Pam, Southwest Enchanter]

Here are the ones I’ve read that I can think of:
Vanity Fair
Atlas Shrugged (twice)
The Fountainhead
An American Tragedy
East of Eden
Buddenbrooks
Of Human Bondage (twice)
Anna Karenina