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I am looking for a good book to read that is also enjoyable! There are so many "must reads" out there, but I am looking for some that is also pleasurable to read (I am thinking along the lines of something like A Fine Balance, everyone says you must read it, which I have, but I found it very harrowing).
Am watching with interest. I have The Book Theif sitting next to my bed, but am not up for a holocaust novel just at the mo. Prince of Tides is a fabulous read, but there is a rather dark part.
The Blind Assassin (M. Atwood)? Atonement (I McEwan)? Both wonderful, but Margaret Atwood can't put a foot wrong, IMHO.
A Fine Balance was great too, though agree about it being harrowing. How about some Rushdie (Midnight's Children is amazing), or Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy or An Equal Music)?
I loved The Woman in White and Cold Comfort Farm Very different but immensely enjoyable. They're not modern though. The Prince of Tides is a really good read too.
The Book Thief is a fantastic book, beautifully written. You must read it Bubbaluv. It's not all that harrowing really, not in the way you would expect of a holocaust-based book. Can't really explain but I really, really loved reading it and thoroughly recommend it.
Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro - not really my sort of thing (usually I run a mile from 'literary' books) but I flicked through it at the library & was totally hooked. My mum also picked it up to look at & then stayed up til 1am to finish it.
Takver, I found this one in the spare room on the bookshelves. I thought I must have read it, or why would it be there, but have no memory of actually reading it at all....So I will be giving it a go (or it was really crap the last time and never made an impression).
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson was a recentish one that still stands out.
Lovely, but madly difficult, question. The very most of all ...
maybe a Trollope perhaps Geoffrey Trease's Crown of Violet, when I was about 10 or The Phantom Tolbooth or Once on a Winter's Night a Traveller, I did enjoy that TH White's The Once and Future King Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Will have to ask at the library for the Remains of the Day. One of my all time favourite novels is The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin. But then I like utopia novels, they cheer me up . . .
(sorry, that's my standard "enjoyable read" recommendation!)
Just finished an absolutely FANTASTIC book - The Wasted Vigil - but it is pretty gruesome and ultimately very sad. Just one of those books that you don't really notice as much the gruesome sadness because the writing is so beautiful. So I recommend it highly, but perhaps not as a specific response to the OP...
What were the last 3/4 books you read and liked, OP? Because book tastes are so diverse - no good recommending you a misery memoir or Jordan's autobiography if the last thing you enjoyed was by Naomi Wolf, no good recommending you Dostoeyevsky if you last enjoyed Terry Pratchett.
The last book I really enjoyed (ie yesterday) was Christopher Brookmyre's Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks. WHich I would recommend to everybody - but I could never choose just one book as my favourite, it would always be a shortlist of about 20 valued for different reasons.
I'm reading a book my mum bought for me from a charity shop: The Flight of the Maidens by Jane Gardam. I'd recommend that. It's about three girls in 1946 and what they do the summer before they go off to University / College. Sounds really girly but it isn't.
Anything by John Irving is a great for a feel good book: World According to Garp, Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules. Wonderful.
The Book Thief is excellent and not about the holocaust at all really. It's about the human spirit. I loved it.
Or if you just want light no brainers how about PS I love you. or similar?
TBH, I haven't recently read a book that I could rave about.
I have read Time Traveller's Wife, which I enjoyed second time round.
I read Da Vinci Code, then Angels and Demons, which I didn't like so much.
I have read two of Ian McKeown's which I did enjoy (Atonement and On Chesil Beach).
I liked Pride and Prejudice, and quite enjoyed Mansfield Park.
I have also recently started Unpolished Gem, but gave up on it, and started The Duchess too (know it's not fiction though...), and gave up on that one too!
I have read Book Thief, and I think because of the build-up (particularly from my DH), I felt let-down (still thought-provoking and I agree more about the human spirit - great too to get the German perspective).
At the moment I am reading Barack Obama's first book (Dreams From My Father), and while it's also not fiction (obviously) I am enjoying it and it's fascinating.
Thanks for all your suggestions, they are great and definitely Food For Thought.
