Ten of the best long books

Martin Seay's debut novel is The Mirror Thief.

One of his ten best long books, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville (1851, 720 pages in Penguin Classics trade paperback edition)

Moby-Dick’s status as a “classic,” though certainly deserved, tends to obscure what a strange, profound, troublesome, and completely nutty book it is. By using one artificial, precariously-constructed reality (i.e. the form of the novel) to depict another one (i.e. life aboard a whaling ship), Melville sets out to explore fundamental questions about the nature of the world and our places in it, and to do so with humor, humility, and wonder that remain deeply affecting. By a substantial margin the best book of any kind ever written.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Moby-Dick appears among Ian McGuire's ten best adventure novels, Jeff Somers's five top books that will expand your vocabulary and entertain, Four books that changed Mary Norris, Tim Dee's ten best nature books, the Telegraph's fifteen best North American novels of all time, Nicole Hill's top ten best names in literature to give your dog, Horatio Clare's five favorite maritime novels, the Telegraph's ten great meals in literature, Brenda Wineapple's six favorite books, Scott Greenstone's top seven allegorical novels, Paul Wilson's top ten books about disability, Lynn Shepherd's ten top fictional drownings, Peter Murphy's top ten literary preachers, Penn Jillette's six favorite books, Peter F. Stevens's top ten nautical books, Katharine Quarmby's top ten disability stories, Jonathan Evison's six favorite books, Bella Bathurst's top 10 books on the sea, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best nightmares in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, Susan Cheever's five best books about obsession, Christopher Buckley's best books, Jane Yolen's five most important books, Chris Dodd's best books, Augusten Burroughs' five most important books, Norman Mailer's top ten works of literature, David Wroblewski's five most important books, Russell Banks' five most important books, and Philip Hoare's top ten books about whales.

--Marshal Zeringue