I am looking for suggestions for an epic, more than 800 pages, book to read for booklikes-opoly! This might be last book - and I'm playing my cat. So far, I've come up with:

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett: It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and to two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. In a plot of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, "Fall Of Giants" moves seamlessly from Washington to St Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton: It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner. 

Iberia by James Michener: Here, in the fresh, vivid prose that is James Michener's trademark, is the real Spain as he experiences it. He not only reveals the celebrated Spain of bullfights and warror kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards; he also shares the intimate, often hidden Spain he has come to know, where toiling peasants and their honest food, the salt of the shores and the oranges of the inland fields, the congeniality of living souls and the dark weight of history conspire to create a wild, contradictory, passionately beautiful land, the mystery called Iberia.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon: The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

Any other brilliant ideas for a novel that is more than 800 pages? Has anyone read these four, and can you recommend/not recommend? For now, I am going to go finish Sarum and check back when I'm ready to select the next book!

—James A. Michener

Today we took a day trip into the N.C. mountains, which is just over the border from us, about 45 minutes away, to Flat Rock.  (We also crept into Hendersonville, right next door, for one stop.)

On the way up to Flat Rock, we bought apples.  And apple butter.  And apple cider.  And sugar-free peach jam.  All from Sky Top Orchard - it was in the 40s and windy, on a mountain top, but very sunny, and they had lots of cool stuff.  As well as apples and preserves, they had pumpkins and other produce, and some baked goods.)

In Flat Rock itself, we stopped in at the Wrinkled Egg, which sells everything from clothes to toys, and greeting cards to everything for the teenaged horse-obsessed girl.  We also visited the jewelry store next door, Sweet Magnolia, which had some cool stuff.

Then we were off to Yarns to Dye For, in Hendersonville, where my mother saw a gorgeous white mohair shawl with sequins knit in, and asked if I could knit something like that.  I said I could, and we got the yarn - one ball of a fine white mohair, and a separate silver yarn with sequins in it; I'll double strand it, and knit it on big needles - US 15s (10 mm) if I can manage it (it calls for 17s, 12 mm), 13s (9 mm) if I can't.  (I know I can manage size 13s.  I've never knit successfully with 15s, but I haven't tried in a couple of years, so it's possible.)  It should be light and airy and sparkly, probably just garter in a very large needle/small yarn combination, and it will be for Christmas for a friend of ours who pretty much only wears black and white.

We then had lunch at Seasons, where I had a delicious Cuban sandwich, with zucchini fries.  The fries were a revelation; they were fantastic.  We're going to see if we can figure out what they did, and whether we can do it or not.  (We always have prolific zucchini in the summers.)

And then our last stop was a used bookstore, the Book Exchange, run by the local Ladies Aid group (founded 1880), where we bought about 25 books for 11 dollars.  Including one grab bag, which had quite a variety of things in it.  That'll be fun, for later.  (I've put some of them that I can remember here.)

And then we drove home, and collapsed!

 http://skytoporchard.com/

http://www.sweetmagnoliagallery.com/

https://www.thewrinkledegg.com/

http://www.yarnstodyefor.net/

http://hlinn.com/Seasons/

According to the New York Times, To Kill a Mockingbird was on its best seller list for 98 weeks, but weirdly never made it to number one. Here's the list for the week it debuted--I've heard of several of these books but the only other one I've read is Hawaii:

NYT article link