My last column of the year — and since I live in a city that is cold and getting colder, I can’t think of any better theme for this month than doorstopper books. By which I mean, books that are so thick that they take weeks to read, all the better for curling up under your blanket with a friendly cat or two nearby (or dogs, if you’re a dog person, but let’s face it, cats are better reading companions). I came up with these month’s recommendations by also thinking of family: the one we’re born into, the one we make, and the one we just stumble into. Let’s get started.

Watercooler

Already on several best-of lists, including mine, Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee, is the sort of novel you feel sad about finishing even as you race to the end. Set in Japan, right before World War II, the book traces the family tree of one Korean immigrant family, starting with a man who was born with a club foot and a cleft lip. This man’s ancestors make a life for themselves in Japan, despite the deep prejudice against them, and with each new member of the family, you see how entrenched they get into their new lives. It’s the best sort of family saga, long but with a tight narrative, spanning generations, but with enough chapters on each person to get to know them individually and intimately.

There is a certain satisfaction the fan of the family saga gets from books like these, you’re going back in history while also watching what the previous generations contribute to the next. You’re watching a person become, for better or for worse, thanks to the choices that people before them have made. It’s the unfolding that is fascinating, I find.

Watchlist

“How many times will you read A Suitable Boy?” asks my partner, as I take my well-worn hardback to bed with me again, and in return I say, “As many times as it takes.” I’ve owned my (signed!) copy for several years now, and each time I do a re-read, I find something new that I didn’t notice before. For example, on this re-read, I saw the caste overtones in several parts of the book, bits I had blithely skipped over before. There’s the “suitable boy” himself, who must be a khatri, in order to be eligible, a subplot about a village serf who is about to be disinherited from the landlord he’s been serving, and a shoemaker who is losing caste by working with leather. Then there are the landowning and communist nuances I never read before, being too occupied with the personal relationships. If you haven’t read Vikram Seth’s masterpiece yet, now is the perfect time to start — there are so many layers, the book is like an onion, you keep peeling it to find more to look at and understand. The only problem is, once you’re done you’ll have to wait forever for his much-anticipated sequel: A Suitable Girl.

Wayback

I remember my mother giving me Coming Home, by Rosamunde Pilcher, but I cannot remember the occasion. It could have been on the way to boarding school one year, it could have been for one interminable summer holiday in Hyderabad, which I had started resisting in my teens and was bribed with books to go for (A Suitable Boy has the same origin). I do know my copy has the inscription “here at last: a book that will never end!” Sadly, I read this story — again set between the World Wars, a period that seems to inspire a lot of long novels — much too fast, and had to find something new to read within the week.

Coming Home is long and satisfactory, however. For those not acquainted with Pilcher’s work, it’s all about stately homes in England and large, close families, and the people who are friends with them, and how they weave in and out of each other’s lives. This book is different from the others, in that, while the basic themes are the same, there’s war, and seriousness and homesickness, and through it all the story of Judith, a young girl left behind in England while her mother travels to Singapore to reunite with her father, and how she makes friends with Loveday and, through Loveday, is initiated into the kind of life she’s never even heard of before. If you’ve ever gone home with a new school friend and been slightly unsure and also excited at the same time, you’ll understand Judith’s life and how she’s drawn into this new world.

Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is the author of five books with a sixth, The One Who Swam With The Fishes; out now in bookstores; @reddymadhavan

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