The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. At 900 pages, you better be on a long beach vacation. Many contributors listed it as an all-time favorite. Others didn't like it. "I tried so hard to read it, as a guy I was trying to impress said it was his favorite book of all time. I got horribly bored and gave up on it. (and on the guy)." For whatever it's worth, it was popular enough that they made a big, popular miniseries out of it.
