I got caught in the Chicago blizzard (8 Dec 05) and spent 8 hours on the runway. Fortunately enough, I had just started the 400-page Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. I finished it before I got back to Denver (10 1/2 hours later). Good book. 
I’m not quite sure whether this would be to your taste, but I greatly enjoyed the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Hilarious, offbeat, and thrilling. It’s usually sold in one volume and has about 900 pages.
fnord
Warning: contains sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, violence, odd religions, conspiracies, and strong language. 
fnord
Thudlow Boink: AG! Thanks a billion. After racing through twickster’s Straight Man (really good by the way), I began Handling Sin a day or two into my trip. Could not stop reading. Which is weird, when you’re in Andalucia and all you should be doing is drinking red wine till 4:30 in the morning. I literally spent most of my siesta time with that book, then all my flights, finishing it with blurry-tears in the airport before coming home. I’d honestly put that book in my top ten. Brilliant recommendation. Thanks.
Adds Handling Sin to Amazon wishlist
You will not be dissapointed.
Since you did me right, let me suggest “Brothers K” by David James Duncan. I would have suggested it to myself under this very heading and it remains my favorite book. No need to know Karamatzov before hand…
(as you might be able to guest, since I can’t even spell it)
The Brothers K is amazing. Also exceptionally engrossing: Watership Down. Just a damn, damn good story.
Juuuust did Watership Down a few months ago. Took me a little to get used to the style & start enjoying it, but when I did I just couldn’t put it down.
I also grew up on Redwall books, so it was nice to read Jacques logical inspiration.
I’ll second the Illumnatus trilogy. I read those books years ago and some of the scenes still stick with me, such as the orgy aftermath with the men’s magazine publisher, in which NopenotHef spouts ludacrious philosophy to his butler while watching two girls … well, you’ll just have to read it.
Someone’s already recc’d Robertson Davies’ Salterton trilogy, so I’ll recommend his Cornish Trilogy. instead. I’ve read it at least three times. Hard to say what it’s about, but it touches on the life of Francis Cornish, a wealthy art collector, and the effects on a group of people from his death. A foundation financed by his will puts on an opera based on King Arthur, and their lives parallel the story. In another book, one of the characters from the first book investigates Cornish’s life and discovers the meaning behind a masterpiece he painted. There’s also a murder mystery involving gypsies, the tarot and the meaning of life. Great, thoughtful stuff, full of no-nonsense Canadian meaning of life, with some mysticism thrown in.
I’d also recommend George Macdonald Fraser’s The Pyrates , which I’ve also read several times. It’s a farcical story in which there are pirates (natch!), buried treasure, walking the plank, the Hearts of Oak and Rule Brittanica, alongside Spanish deviltry and hearty sword-fighting (Stamp and sa-ha!) and he throws in tons of historical anachronisms. The only problem is that you’ll probably finish it in two hours.
I second the suggestion of Augusten Burroughs’ work, although they are very fast reads.
This doesn’t exactly fit the authors you listed in your OP, but I have to throw out The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber. A lot of people say it’s what Dickens would have written if he were living in this era but writing about the Victorian age. It’s thought-provoking, at times amusing, VERY dirty in certain sections, and just an all around wonderful read. The narrative device Faber uses is also brilliant. It’s nice and fat at around 900 pages, but it moves lightning quick. Highly, highly recommended.
I’ll second this. I actually thought of it when someone recommended Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but, um, didn’t say anything. It’s a very fast read – I gulped it down in little over a day while I was on vacation. (A beach vacation of the “not much happening but hanging out reading” persuasion, obviously.)
I picked up The Straight Man because of this thread and am thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks everyone!
Thanks for letting me know you liked it. (I may have to go back and rereadit myself, now.)
I recommend Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. It’s another darkly funny book about a young boy who gets stuck in a lifeboat with a tiger.
If you like Carl Hiaasen, you’ll probably like Tim Dorsey too. I was recently introduced to them both and they’re pretty darn hilarious.
I actually read Life of Pi a year ago on a similarly lengthy journey and have nothing but good things to say. I even liked the beginning, which a few cohorts chastized as slow-moving, you know, before that whole stuck-in-a-tiny-boat-with-maneating-tiger plot device came 'round.