I need a big fat book for traveling

February 15, 2022 • 8:52 am

I’ll be traveling for a month starting in about ten days, and I need something to read in airports and in spare moments on the ship.  I can’t think of anything at the moment, and so I’m crowdsourcing a book. Here are the criteria:

a.) It has to be VERY LARGE

b.) It should be nonfiction although I’d make an exception for a long, high-quality work of fiction.

c.)  It should align with my interests as far as readers here know them (i.e., no mystery books or similar light reads). Books I’ve read that are long and interesting include every book in Robert Caro’s multivolume biography of LBJ (and of Robert Moses), Bloodlands (which I’ve just finished). History, biography, popular science (or science biography), and the like are great.

I welcome suggestions below, perhaps with a few words about why you like the book.

Thanks!

207 thoughts on “I need a big fat book for traveling”

    1. I thought I suggested Josephus earlier, but perhaps I did not submit.

      The Wizard & the Prophet by Charles Mann?

      Two friends just published books –
      Ananyo Battacharya – The Man from the Future about von Neumann, &
      Rebecca Nesbit – Tickets for the Ark, inter alia on what we can or cannot save from extinction.

      1. Also want to read The Burgundians by Bart van Loo, also
        With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 by David Stevenson, also
        Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe By Norman Davies.

  3. Independent People by Halldor Laxness. I loved it for its heartbreaking story and it’s written beautifully.

  4. I know it is too late but I really want to share this great book I just found that meets the criteria : apologies for the all caps I am in haste :

    A Treasury of Jewish Folklore

    STORIES, TRADITIONS, LEGENDS, HUMOR,
    WISDOM AND FOLK SONGS OF
    THE JEWISH PEOPLE

    EDITED BY NATHAN AUSUBEL

    CROWN PUBLISHERS, INC. • NEW YORK

    1948, 1975
    >743 pages
    ISBN 0-517-50293-3

    … it has copious short witty tales, songs, and more that I’ve only just started on, which originate in antiquity – or at least a long time ago.

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