Five Favorite Big Books I Couldn't Put Down by Author Holly Christine

Five Favorites is a special feature at the LA Books Examiner in which our favorite authors share and discuss their five favorite books within a category. In this edition, Holly Christine, author of Tuesday Tells It Slant, discusses five favorite big books (books with 700 to over 1000 pages) that she couldn't put down.

Five Favorite Big Books by Holly Christine

1) House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)
I had no idea what I was getting into when I started reading this one. Always one to find a treasure in the endless list of Amazon recommendations, this book found me. I was hooked from the beginning: “And then the nightmares will begin.” To say that I had nightmares wouldn’t do this gem justice. There are winding staircases that never seem to end, a fortress within a house all found by a mysterious hallway, a plague of curiosity on a man that moved his family to Virginia for a fresh start, and that prose—that beautiful prose that flows from sentence to sentence all the while there is another story, the first, or maybe the second, floating around through rambling footnotes at the bottom. This is a symphony of words. A perfection of the craft. An enviable production. And it hasn’t received anywhere near the praise that it deserves. 

Favorite Quote: "For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won't understand why or how."

2) The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins (1860)
Published in 1860, I’ve read that this suspenseful tale was inspired by a true story. During that time, Collins’ fictional work fell into the category of “sensation novels,” which later gave rise to detective and suspense fiction. The original text nears 700 pages, and though I’ve never read the smaller editions, I would say that this story is worth every page. The tale made Collins famous in his day and he also adapted the novel for the stage. His mysterious woman in white is an escaped mental institution patient with a secret to share. The story is told through multiple narratives, each filling the reader with more anticipation for the answer to the question: what is the woman trying to tell? An heiress with a large inheritance, a suitor, and the man going after the cash—all in a darker English setting.

Favorite Quote: “Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”

Bonus: the Kindle edition is free! 

3) The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (2005)
I read this 700-page beauty in a weekend. I simply could not put it down. After reading Dracula, you will surely appreciate this work of art. Though it is fiction and delving on a theory that Dracula is still alive, I learned quite a bit of European history. The Historian is set in three time periods: one in 1930 that follows a professor in his attempts to find Dracula, one twenty years later when a student tries to locate the professor and begins his own hunt for Dracula, and lastly the story of the young teenage girl who finds a mysterious medieval book in her father’s library. Her curiosity leads her on the final hunt for the man who sleeps in a coffin. The book itself is beautifully written and a thrilling page-turner. 

Favorite Quote: “When you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.”

4) I am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe (2005)
Wolfe still has the coolest prose out there. I am Charlotte Simmons follows the life of a small town North Carolina girl through her college years at a major university that she always dreamed of. Wolfe’s descriptions of college life—sex, fraternities, sports, parties, and sex again—are spot on. It speaks to every college freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. All the fears a parent has of sending their first born off to college are revealed. There really isn’t anything to prepare you for college with the exception of an open mind and the ability to stand up for what you believe. I can remember feeling like Charlotte. I remember lusting like Charlotte. I remembering treating friends like Charlotte does in the end—all in the name of Cool. We all do things that we aren’t proud of. And Charlotte has those moments too. 

Favorite quote: Too TV-MA to reveal itself. 

5) The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett (1989)
The opening line couldn’t be simpler: “In a broad valley, at the foot of a sloping hillside, beside a clear bubbling stream, Tom was building a house.” Like a camera zooming in from larger landscape to subject. It’s simple and elegant. But the physical aspect of this novel is anything but simple. Rounding out the list and number one on the who-has-got-the-longest-book scale, The Pillars of the Earth weighs in at 952 pages of a glorious tale. The book made me appreciate the art of architecture, as Tom Builder is a man on a mission to build a grand cathedral. But first, he has to take on jobs that he feels are menial compared to his dream. He must sacrifice for the well being of his family and pregnant wife. He fights temptation. At its core, this novel delves into all of the raw human emotions that we feel and face and does so brilliantly. 

Favorite Quote: “To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color."

Holly Christine is the author of The Nine Lives of Clemenza, Retail Ready, and the recently completed Tuesday Tells it Slant, which is highly recommended by the LA Books Examiner. Holly is a regular panelist on Book Chatter with Stacey Cochran and RJ Keller. She resides in Pittsburgh and is co-creator of the Pittsburgh South Writers Group with Sandy Ward Bell. Learn more about Holly and her books at her official website.