What are your favourite BIG books?

It's always fun to have a nicely produced folio-sized volume open before you with those large spreads of fine paper, jumbo illustrations, or simply a typographic design that works on a large page. But sometimes folio just isn't big enough. Then we must venture into the realm of elephant folio and beyond (books that are 23"/58cm+ tall). Does anyone have some nice examples of these monumental books to recommend?

I have been leafing through Posters From Whittington 1996–2013 and the even larger A Book of Posters Printed at Whittington and am quite enjoying the scale of the things.

If fine-ish press is concerned, Folio Society Birds Drawn for John Gould by Edward Lear Limited Edition is not a bad drop.

Though nothing can beat Taschen's SUMO sized books. Those are pure monsters.

>1 ubiquitousuk:

Giant folio books (20 - 23 inches height) in my collection, all recommended:

1. The Temple of Flora, Arion Press

2. Old Spain (2 vols.) by Muirhead and Gertrude Bone, Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1936

3. Genesis, Limited Editions Club (Sidney Shiff), 1989
https://booksandvines.com/2011/10/24/genesis-illustrated-by-jacob-lawrence-limit...

4. Macbeth, Circle Press, 1970

5. My Sister, Life by Boris Pasternak, LEC, 1992
https://booksandvines.com/2011/10/19/my-sister-life-by-boris-pasternak-limited-e...

6. A Venetian Story by Lord Byron, Allen Press, 1963.
https://booksandvines.com/2012/07/15/a-venetian-story-lord-byron-the-allen-press...

7. Hippolytos by Euripides, Gehenna Press, 1969

8. The Great Book of Thomas Trevilian (2 vols.), edited by Nicholas Barker, Roxburghe Club, 2000
https://www.librarything.com/topic/327407

Fine'ish print text wise but superlative binding-wise and that Anne Muir marbling...I love Johnson's Dictionary by the Folio Society. It's right by my side at my desk and I often go there first for words just to see what the good doctor has to say before I might need a more modern take.

>4 jveezer: Very much agreed. I think the FS edition is the best possible facsimile. Printing that behemoth letterpress is totally infeasible.

My favorite big book is "A Vision of Order" (Whittington, 2011), a collection of linocuts done by Andrew Anderson, which owe a lot stylistically to Eric Gill. It's a beautiful production, but storage is not easy, as the volume is roughly 22"x16." My highest shelves are 20" so we've had to be creative in storing it. Before I realized the storage issue with "A Vision," I planned to purchase "Broadside Vignettes" (Bird & Bull, 1997), but that one is even bigger! Henry Morris, the printer/publisher/papermaker behind B&B, suggested people use it as a doorstop. Apparently he got a lot of returns on that book!

Somewhat OT: I find now that I am far less enamored of books larger than quarto. They're usually pretty clunky/awkward, way too heavy, etc. and I don't like having to sit at a table to read books. I do make an exception for large artist's books/portfolios, like Circle Press and some of the Allen Press. But big folios+ put a lot of strain on the bindings, they can be harder to open, etc. I guess I'm just more inclined to buy smaller, slimmer books now.