Page-Turners

I am presently reading a thriller called "Home Before Dark", and what a thriller it is. It's a page-turner, which is how book dealers describe the type of book you just can't put down.
But there other books that you start to read, put down, pick up again later and keep on reading for a long time. You enjoy them in a different way. They mean something to you.
When you've finished a page-turning thriller like this one by Charles Maclean, you usually remember them for the story; the others you remember for the story as well as other things: the characters, the depth of meaning in the plot, the ideas.
It took me twenty years to get through "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann and I don't think it was a useless exercise. I put it down, sometimes for months then picked it up again to carry on. I never had to go back to read what I had read before becsuse it had stayed with me, whereas some thrillers are forgotten quite soon after finishing them.
There are some books though I don't read through, don't pick up after reading just the opening; some of these are thought to be literary - Booker prize winners for example. Salmon Rushdie for example.
"Women in Love" by D.H.Lawrence was one that was neither a page-turner nor a book you could read slowly over a period of time; I think it was Hemingway who said that he felt like throwing the thing across the room every time he continued reading it, but continue reading it he did.
And so did I.