Top Ten Tuesday on a Wednesday – Chunksters!

I’ve never done one of the ‘Top Ten Tuesday’ prompts hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl but having seen some blogger friends joining in this week, couldn’t resist – but I’m a day late.

Last year, I had a bit of a rant about the time that chunksters take to read, which means that quantity of books read is affected, if not shelf inches. Naturally, one aims for quality reads whatever the length, but it is irritating in a chunkster where more editing would have made a better book, although this isn’t always the case – some long books need all their pages. Looking back over my spreadsheet, I read plenty of books between 450 and 500 pages, but few over the 500 mark. Many consider 450 a suitable point at which to define a book as a chunkster, but for my purposes below, I’ve stuck to approx. 500+ pages for ten long books I’ve enjoyed reading over the past few years – links to my full reviews are in the headings below.

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (536p)

Starting in 1975, this story is one of obsessive love – found – lost – found – lost – commemorated. Kemal is a rich young man of about thirty, he sort of runs one of his father’s factories and is engaged to Sibel, from another wealthy family. Both educated in the west, their attitudes are liberated by Turkish standards. Then everything changes, but not all at once. Kemal meets Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl. For Kemal it is lust at first sight. Füsun is just 18 and a distant cousin of his from a much poorer family. He invites her to an empty appartment owned by his mother and he offers to give her lessons to help her pass her exams to go to college, soon she becomes his mistress. Kemal’s father had had a mistress on the side and an ostensibly happy marriage and Kemal thinks he can have his cake and eat it too. It doesn’t work out like that of course, and I haven’t got to the museum bit yet. At the time of reading it went on and on and on, but I remember it now with more enjoyment.

The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (547p)

A totally devourable Georgian adventure, travelling eastwards from its Cornwall beginning to London, via a stop in Bath. A young girl known as Red travels the inns and byways of Cornwall with her father, a fortune teller, who uses a divination method known as ‘The Square of Sevens’ described on an ancient document he carries safely with him, which will cost him his life. Red will take on his mantle having many adventures as she grows up, not least discovering the truth about her family. From the Cornish beginnings which echo Du Maurier’s period novels, to a Bath that doesn’t feel so Austenish, and a London that obviously owes a debt to Dickens, but moved back in time of course, all the settings are brought to life vividly. Red is a super heroine, a feisty underdog in society, but mistress of fortunes, the latter a skill that puts her in danger. I must admit, this is the kind of historical fiction that I particularly enjoy, having a central mystery to it to drive the pacy plot. Huge fun.

Psalms for the End of the World by Cole Haddon (515p)

This novel is one of those sprawling, uncategorisable novels. If I said take David Mitchell’s history-hopping Cloud Atlas, add a dash of the Man in Black and world-hopping doors of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, sprinkle with a bit of Westworld and The Matrix and infuse liberally with a love of David Bowie, you’re nearly there if you entangle the whole lot in a quantum sense! It’s a bit SF, a bit spec fic, a bit historical fic, a tiny bit fantasy, and there’s a love story, but Psalms for the End of the World is perhaps more a thriller than anything else. It begins in the 1960s with a man called Robert Jones arriving at the Kellogg’s Diner for his dinner greeted by Grace Pulansky the waitress who’s a physics student looking for adventure – which comes with the FBI arriving, after Jones for planting a bomb – which he knows he didn’t… It gets more complicated from there on, with many strands and timelines. Amazingly, it all pulls together, and despite the multiplicity of threads, they do entwine to make something that is more than their sum.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (592p)

The year is 1954, a sort of in-between postwar (WWII & Korea) year in which things are about to happen, rock and roll is just about born, and there is potential in the air. Emmett Watson is eighteen, and returns home to Nebraska after serving fifteen months at a juvenile work farm for accidental manslaughter. The only time he ever fought back, his opponent fell, hit his head and died.Emmett wants to start a new life with his eight-year-old brother Billy in Texas. Their mother abandoned them years ago, their father had died since, and the farm is to be foreclosed on. Billy, who has lodged with their neighbours, tries to persuade Emmett that California is where they should be headed, not Texas. He has found postcards their mother sent, moving westwards to the Golden State, and is convinced she’ll be at the Independence Day celebrations on July 4th. Billy shows Emmett the map of the Lincoln Highway – a road that crosses America, starting in Times Square and ending in San Francisco. So their road trip begins, travelling in Emmett’s blue Studebaker – his prized car in the barn, and boy do they have an adventure. The Lincoln Highway was a joyous adventure for me and a superb dose of escapism.

Silver by Chris Hammer (583p)

Hammer’s second novel, Silver, the sequel to debut Scrublands is set a few months after the events in Riversend. Journalist Martin Scarsdale took some time to write a book about the case and his experience – he was fired from his Sydney-based newspaper – and now he is arriving at his home town of Silver up the coast north of Sydney. Martin was brought up there by his alcoholic father after his mother and sister died in a car accident, living in the area of town known as the ‘settlement’ – Silver’s equivalent of a trailer park. his father died too. Now he is returning, with some trepidation, but also looking forward to making a new home with Mandelay Blonde, Mandy, his girlfriend and her baby son. Mandy is also escaping the events back in Riversend where they met. However, Martin’s reunion with Mandy is not to be a good one, for he arrives to find a body in the hallway of the rented house and Mandy sitting in the lounge with bloody hands. What’s more, the body is an old friend of Martin’s – Jasper Speight. This is just the beginnings of their troubles… (NB: Now on the BBC)

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley (508p)

Natasha Pulley’s 2015 debut novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, introduced us to a trio of characters; bluestocking Grace, Home Office telegraphist Nathaniel, and the enigma he falls for that is Keita Mori, the watchmaker of the title. Mori is a former Japanese diplomat descended from Samurai, who seems to know what is going to happen before it does and he gives the novel a slight steampunk – or rather clockwork-punk – feel – and his supersense adds a fantastic edge to things. I’m pleased to say that they’re back and Katsu, Mori’s clockwork octopus is ‘alive’ and well too! The Lost Future of Pepperharrow is written as a standalone, you can read it without having read Watchmaker… However, if this sounds like your thing, you’ll want to read both. The action moves to Japan, to Mori’s ancestral seat, looked after by Mrs Pepperharrow. Mori is suffering from future memories, Thaniel, now a translator with the British legation there is tubercular, and Grace is working at a secret electricity project. Pulley pulls all the strands together skillfully blending science and period history for a pageturning read.

Dune by Frank Herbert (884p in A Format)

Published in 1965, Dune can claim to be the ‘Moby Dick of SF&F’. Once you’ve read it, you see its influence everywhere – most notably Star Wars of course, which has a desert planet as well as the mystic Jedi who owe a lot to Herbert’s ‘Bene Gesserit’ religion. The novel centres around young Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto and Bene Gesserit mother Jessica. Leto is assigned to the planet Arrakis, to control the spice trade, ‘melange’ being an unique and most expensive and desirable condiment/drug that’s a bit like catnip for humans. The evil Harkonens, who had controlled Arrakis want it back of course – so there is the set up for much politicking, and underhand espionage. When the Harkonens attack, Jessica and Paul flee into the desert and are taken in by the fiercely independent Fremen, the Bedouin-like tribe who inhabit the canyons adjoining the sand dunes inhabited by giant worms who guard the spice. It is with the Fremen, that Paul will determine his special-Bene-Gesserit abilities fulfil the prophecy, and become leader of the rebel Fremen. Although it has dated slightly, its prescience and influence can’t be neglected and it is full of intertexual influences too deriving from a multitude of languages, religions and other touchstones – from Navajo to Catholicism to Islam and Lawrence of Arabia (the model for Paul), and a whole lot of ancient Greek – Leto’s house echoing that of Atreus. A classic and still fun to read.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (640p)

The story of two teenaged cousins. Sam Clay who lives in Brooklyn, and his cousin Josef Kavalier, who escapes from Czechoslovakia in 1939 accompanying the Prague golem. Josef is an accomplished artist, Sam is a story man – and together they come up with an idea for a comic superhero – The Escapist. Sam’s boss is persuaded to finance the fledging comic – and soon Superman and Batman have a rival The novel follows the duo’s trials and tribulations over the years. It has a very boy’s own adventure feel to it. Their superhero, The Escapist specialises in beating up Nazis, and makes Joe and Sam a fortune, but all the time Joe is wishing he could get the rest of his family away from war-torn Europe. In true boys’ own style, the book rather lacks women – there is only one really, Rosa Saks, with whom Joe falls in love. I liked Rosa a lot: she is a different kind of artist I wouldn’t say I found this book flabby, Chabon’s writing is too good for that, but it could have been condensed to sub-500 pages, it can be rather slow, although he builds in some great set-pieces. What is great though is the deep friendship between Joe and Sam, which made this a great read.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (500p)

This was the subject of a readalong I hosted back in Jan 2019. I very much enjoyed revisiting this world but I do have reservations about the book. As I said already, Eco the medieval scholar was obviously entranced by the philosophy behind some of the heretical sects and the politics of the Avignon Popes; the rivalries between the Dominicans and Franciscans, the Pope and the Emperor. This means the mystery often has to play second fiddle to the theology, and in truth, I felt that Eco should have used Occam’s razor to cut some of it out, which would have made the mystery much tauter, and left the reader expecting a medieval mystery and getting it, which is how the book was marketed. It is a mystery set totally within the abbey’s world, though – totally full of liturgical and relgious detail, but it is William of Baskerville and his acolyte Adso of Melk that you’ll remember – even if William resembles Sean Connery!…

A Winter’s Promise (Mirror Visitor Quartet, book 1) by Christelle Dabos (492p)

Christelle Dabos’ wonderful Mirror Visitor quartet totals nearly 2000 pages (and a fifth is on the way – Squee!). Technically the first book doesn’t meet my 500+ pages criteria – but you can’t read the second which is over 500 pages without having read the first. Although written with a YA audience in mind, Dabos’s worldbuilding with its intrigue, politics, and underlying philosophy makes for a rewarding adult read too. Her world was smashed apart by an angry god into ‘arks’, the inhabitants of each have grown to manifest different super powers. Into that milieu we have an arranged diplomatic marriage between the gawky, bookish Ophelia of the Anima ark, where inhabitants have power over objects, and Thorn of Pole whose people are the complete opposite of her folk. She must travel with a chaperone to their ark to meet her fiance and that’s where he adventures start. This of this as a fantasy version of Dune with a female protagonist in pace of Paul and you wouldn’t be too far off! Loved it!

See also, lists by: Elle and Marina Sofia

Have you read any of these?