Top 9 Plus-Size Books
So people tend to judge others by their size; and people tend to judge books by their size.
I recall that Mick Foley has this warning about a big book:
"A big book is like a serious relationship; it requires a commitment. Not only that, but there's no guarantee that you will enjoy it, or that it will have a happy ending. Kind of like going out with a girl, having to spend time every day with her - with absolutely no guarantee of nailing her in the end. No thanks."
Some friends of mine said they’ll never read fat books. They get discouraged when they see a giant door stopper. They thought: “Why should I suffer to that just because the author is prone to over writing?”
But I for one believe, more to hug, more to love. We can’t forget that our favorite Game of Thrones was a novel series, our beloved Harry Potter was a novel series. There are so many great classics and modern literature that are gigantic. These authors aren’t rambling polemics, and the plots are neither slow nor drag-on: they simply have this much to offer.
So if you discriminate against fat books, you are surely missing out. Here are the top 9 fat books that I think everyone should read:
1) The Count of Monte Cristo—Alexandre Dumas
“When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.”
Revenge is a dish best served cold. That’s the best description I can come up with. So the protagonist, Edmond Dantès, was a man of 19-years-old. He had a gorgeous fiancé, a loving father and a bright future as he was going to become a proud captain of a wonderful ship. But here come some jealous bastards who later on ruined his life by having him wrongly imprisoned. Throughout the book, you get to see how Dantès cruelly hunt down every single one of them without mercy. This is one of my dad’s favorites, and I’ve heard it as a bedtime story numerous times as a kid. Perfect way of turning your kid into a cynic.
The full version is like sixty-two hundred pages long but every damn page counts. You will miss out massively if you read the abridged version because it has a trillion subplots, the most intricate character relationships and conflicts. This is the best book about betrayal, revenge, and more revenge.
2) Crime and Punishment—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Crime? What crime? ... My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman who brought no good to anyone, to murder whom would pardon forty sins, who sucked the lifeblood of the poor, and you call that a crime ?”
Here comes my favorite genre: dark, psychological novels that explore the depths of human nature. If this is your thing, Dostoyevsky’s work will surely impress you. If you’d like to explore Russian literature, this book is also the perfect starting point. Crime and Punishment has a lot of monologues of the protagonist, Raskolnikov, as he faces inner turmoil that manifests itself into the world and people around him. If you pay close enough attention, you’ll understand the philosophy of his thinking. Dostoyevsky is one of the top five authors I love. He always provides readers with this sensational experience and unconditional surrender to an atmosphere of fear, anxiety, and confusion. The battle of wills in this specific novel is epic and you will not want to miss out.
3) Infinite Jest—David Foster Wallace
“Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?"
"I give."
"You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.”
Do you like books with baroque subplots, zany political satire, morbid, cerebral humor and astonishing range of cultural references? If yes, this is your book. This book is equally philosophical as it is a screwball comedy. The mission of Infinite Jest is to explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. It's not an easy read, a lot of readers don’t have the stamina for it, but after a while you discover that there are good reasons why it has to be the way it is.
4) War and Peace— Leo Tolstoy
"At the first approach of danger two voices always speak out with equal force in a man's heart: one tells him very sensibly to consider the exact extent of the danger and any means of avoiding it; the other says even more sensibly that it's too wearisome and agonizing to contemplate the danger, since it is not in a man's power to anticipate future events and avoid the general run of things, so you might as well turn away from the nastiness until it hits you, and dwell on things that are pleasant."
War and Peace is another classic that I can’t bring myself to write any reviews or thoughts in the fear of staining this classic with my potentially distorted views. Yet, I have this intense urge to persuade people into reading this book, so I’ve decided to just briefly share random bits of my feelings about this masterpiece. This book took an extensive look at history during the time Napoleon had ambitions to take over Europe. The central theme is about humanity and Tolstoy observes humanity and all its weirdness with a sense of humor, and occasionally sadness.
One of the greatest part of reading War and Peace is to encounter characters struggling with serious philosophical issues, not as airy abstractions, but rather in terms of how they ought to live literally during War. The way Tolstoy illustrates human life at war time is a testament to the fragility, beauty and fleetingness of life itself.
As Tolstoy zooms in and out of historical events, he enabled readers to sense the contradictory feelings of the lightness and heaviness of being. It was in the sweeping war scenes that Tolstoy depicts how insignificant the individual life really is--how even authorities are at the mercy of unpredictable events. Yet, later on as Tolstoy switches to the scenes of intimate drawing room, the entire perspective shifts, and nothing becomes more significant than the individual consciousness that he illustrates. Juxtaposition of both feelings, absolutely mesmerizing! Ok just go read it already, I can’t come up with a better review at this moment, maybe I’ll try again in a year.
5) Gone with the Wind—Margaret Mitchell
“Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry them.”
“Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.”
The remarks on this all-time classic has been extremely controversial. Frankly, the only reason I read it was because I was curious about the divided views.
Most people have heard of this classic, and know that it’s a novel about civil war, starvation, rape, murder, and slavery. It is also about a strong female try to survive as the world collapse around her. Some called it a book of hope, featuring the independent women, Scarlett O’Hara, who got to be one of the most ruthlessly optimistic characters in literature. Some called it an undeniably racist work, where Scarlett O’Hara an appalling racist and ethical impaired woman, who has relied on her feminine charms to get her way. She has stolen multiple husbands and has flirted with pretty much everyone who’s male and white.
So whether or not Scarlet O’Hara should be recognized as a heroic symbol of feminism is up to you to decide after reading this book. Don’t let the flaws of the characters stop you from approaching this masterpiece. Throughout the book, the author carefully analyzed the nature of human resilience, and taught readers to stay hopeful and positive to get though the worst times. That is the essence of this book.
6) Les Misérables—Victor Hugo
This book is the tour de force of Victor Hugo. We all know Jean Valjean, a noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread. We have probably watched the musical or movie of Les Miserables. I saw both the movie and musical version of this before reading it and was utterly shook by the powerful nature of the story. When I read the book I hoped for the same experience, instead I had one more powerful than a bazooka.
In the book, Hugo guides readers into the Parisian underworld, engage us in the war between good and evil, and brings us to the barricades during the uprising of 1832. Hugo captured social injustice in the most brutal form; he demonstrated the foolishness of rigid laws of a system that failed to open its eyes, and how the common man will always suffer under the despotism of the tyrants. Yet, somehow, our protagonist, Valjean, retained his decency and humanity. Somehow, in the face of sadistic ruling, he managed to remain Valjean; somehow, he managed to better himself and improve the world around him. Les Misérables is not just a canvas for Hugo to illustrate his criticism of French society and judicial system, but a portrait that reveals our universal desire to escape the prisons of our own minds.
7) The Man Who Laughs—Victor Hugo
And another great work of Victor Hugo. The Man Who Laughs is a sad and sordid tale of the protagonist, Gwynplaine in early 18th century England. This poor little boy is deformed as he had his lips cut off and his mouth split open from ear to ear, mimicking a creepy smiley face. His face is frozen in a permanent rictus which makes him the subject of mockery. This tragic destiny echoes that of an entire martyred people, waiting for the coming revolution. It is true that Hugo’s work contains overwhelming details, and there were times that I hoped that extensive detail had not been provided. Yet, I was always rewarded for my patience. Seemingly throw-away acts came back at a crucial point of the story later, and plunged into the depths of my emotions. This is exactly what skinny books are less capable of achieving. To be able to stir up deeper emotions, writers will have to build rapport with the readers through the overwhelming descriptions and seemingly unnecessary details. Good things come to those who would bear Hugo’s ramblings.
8) 11/22/63—Stephen King
I know people who have been putting this book off for the last few years and later on mentally kick themselves for not giving in sooner. Yes, this is a 800+ page giant, but it’s about history and time travel. Isn’t it enough said?
So there's two main story lines:
1. A Romance story with wonderful well developed characters.
2. Time travel to stop President Kennedy's assignation in U.S. History
Even if you’re not a fan of time travel fiction reading, I bet you will appreciate how Stephen King improved this type of storytelling by adding themes, choices, and consequences in his story. He did the butterfly effect trope creating ripples throughout time and improves on this by making time fight back, the past in 11/22/63 does not want to be changed.
And just as previously mentioned, this book is not just about sci-fi, it blends fiction, nonfiction, science fiction and love story all together in one book and it flowed without any effort. You just have to like this book when it already crosses multiple genre to impress you.
9) It—Stephen King
For avid readers, you’ve probably seen the cover of It somewhere. Yes, it’s the scary clown. And to my friends, yes, I picked up a horror novel. Out of my typical dislike for horror fiction, the fact that I’m recommending this book is a testament of how brilliant it is. I read this book after I was impressed by King’s 11/22/63, not knowing what I was getting myself into. I blame kindle for not displaying the cover page of a book. I blame myself for refusing to read any introductions about any books. I blame my compulsive need to finish a book that I’ve started even if I’m scared as fuck. But I’m glad I stumbled into this book and learned that horror fiction can embody themes greater than I have ever imagined.
As a briefing, It is a story of a group of children who are not among the most popular, strongest or smartest; a tale about the group of seven friends living in Derry in 1958. They established a self-called "losers" club and encounter a horrible force lurking in their hometown...a force feeding on fear and devouring young children. A force that adults can’t seem to see; a force that appears as a clown, holding a hand full of balloons.
This book by all means, is not a simple horror fiction. To classify it as a horror fiction is the same as saying that The Old Man and The Sea is a very long manual on fishing. To say that this book is all about the clown is equivalent to saying that the large marlin is the villain of the novel. If one truly believes so, Ernest Hemingway will probably weep in his grave. So though it is hard to explain what this book is really about, please do believe it is more than the mediocre horror story. Essentially, the book deals with themes of the power of memory, childhood trauma and its recurrent echoes in adulthood. Through this book I learned that fears aren’t confined to us as children. Those same terrifying thoughts often rear their heads in our adult lives, often manifesting in vastly different, far more complicated ways. This novel may give you a few sleepless nights but it is definitely worth a read.
