Tomes and Doorstoppers
Selected by the Bookshop
This month marks thirty years since the publication of Infinite Jest. Amid the discussion of that novel’s legacy, we’ve been thinking about the big books that have had an outsized influence in our lives. We’ve collected a list of some of our favourite least-portable books, the kinds of tomes and doorstoppers that will keep you going into next month, the month after and maybe even the month after that.
Recommended by David
‘The first in a series of as yet indeterminate length introduces John Cromer, physically disabled and intellectually athletic, and one of the great characters in contemporary comic fiction.’
From the publisher:
'The best book ever written' Nicholas Lezard, GuardianRobert Burton's labyrinthine, beguiling, playful masterpiece is his attempt to 'anatomize and cut up' every aspect of the condition of melancholy, from which he had suffered throughout…
Recommended by Rachael
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell shares Infinite Jest’s obsession with, and superlative technical deployment of, footnotes, if very little else. Susanna Clarke’s huge fantasy bestseller imagines an alternative 19th-century England in which the Napoleonic wars are won with the assistance of a prickly and reclusive magician, Mr Norrell, who emerges as a ‘practical magician’ after the art was believed lost. Of course, he’s not the only one: enter Jonathan Strange, close pursued by faeries, myth, balls and battles.
Recommended by John
‘Cherry-Gerrard’s first-hand account of being part of Robert Scott's expedition to the South Pole definitely lives up to its title. But while the journey might have been the worst the narrator is one of the best: if you were obliged to overwinter in the Antarctic with anyone, Cherry-Gerrard would be the man.’
Recommended by Tasha
‘This is not a particularly original pick but it is an honest one: this is probably the novel I evangelise about the most. It may be 800+ pages but there is not an ounce of fat on it, a book so good and so life-affirming that it should be prescribed.’
Recommended by Anya
‘Lost Illusions is a classic and one of the first novels of the French realist period. It follows Lucien Chardon, a young poet who moves to Paris to chase his literary dreams. He soon realises that this world is more corrupt and cynical than he thought.’
Recommended by Liv
Nicholas Urfe - tired of London, life and love - assumes a teaching position at The Lord Byron School on the fictional Greek Island of Phraxos. As Urfe befriends the island recluse, his desired escape from life turns into something far more sinister. The Magus is an uncanny, sordid page-turner and - in my opinion - an absolute masterpiece.
Latest booklists
Latest booklists
