5 Books You've Been Longing to Have Time For

Does your apartment seem strangely quiet? Has the pitter-patter of little feet raced away down the rapidly cooling sidewalk? These are the telltale signs that your children have finally gone back to school. So the question is: what are you going to do with all your spare time? Read a very long, complicated book, of course! Here are BPL’s selections for books to read when you’ve really got the time:

Outlander (850 pages) by Diana Gabaldon: In 1945, Claire, a former combat nurse, is reunited with her husband for a second honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands. When she walks through a standing stone circle, Claire is catapulted back to 1743 when Scotland was ravaged by clan warfare. It is here that she meets another great love, James Fraser- a fierce warrior. Torn between past and present, warrior and academic, Claire embarks on one of the most epic, conflicting romances ever written.

Seveneves (880 pages) by Neal Stephenson: What would happen if a black hole blew up the moon? In this dazzling, tense novel, Neal Stephenson lets us know that he thinks we’d figure it out, but not without heavy losses. With the planet rendered a ticking time bomb, Earth’s nations bang together to enact an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of the species. But the unforeseen challenges of life in space coupled with the complexities and tensions of human relationships leave humanity on the precipice. Written in his typically detailed, fast- paced, and totally engrossing style, Stephenson explores who we are and, more importantly, who we can be when everything we know is taken from us.

Anna Karenina (964 pages) by Leo Tolstoy: Tolstoy’s sweeping panorama of life in pre- revolution Russia doles out some of European literature’s most passionate, memorable characters, more than a dozen of them, in fact. The complex, eight part plot focuses on the titular character’s extramarital affair with a dashing young officer. Spread across class lines and political borders, Tolstoy paints tragedy and betrayal in bright colors to create the book that many consider to be the world’s greatest piece of literature.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (1006 pages) by Susanna Clarke: Magic practitioners were once common in the England of Clarke’s masterful novel, but by the early 1800s, it is all but a fading memory resigned to the dull pages of academic texts. Enter Mr. Norrell, a wealthy, reclusive man who has managed to regain some of the magic that England lost. His notions of magic as something to control are challenged when he meets Jonathan Strange, an untrained, wildly powerful magician with a potentially deadly obsession with the past. Written as a pastiche of 19th century literary styles, Clarke creates a world that is darkly comic, rife with over- complicated manners, and underscored with magic.

Goldfinch (784 pages) by Donna Tartt: At age 13, Theo Decker is plunged into tragedy. Having miraculously survived the event that killed his mother, he finds solace in a small, captivating painting of a bird to chained to its perch that ultimately leads him into the dark, labyrinthine world of art. Plagued by grief and unrequited love, a now- adult Theo plunges further into a spiral of drug- fueled self- destruction that began when he was just a boy. Tartt has an eye for romance and tragedy that creates a tense novel full of longing, told with the voice of a poet- philosopher.

Stephen King. Too many to list.