What is the best book you have ever read?

[damnedgrubble]

I think mine has to be (at least at the moment) The House at the End of Hope Street because I grew up not far from there.

Which is your favourite book and why?

[BeastofCraggyIsland]

I can't pick just one but the following I can read over and over again:

Pride and Prejudice - timeless
Jurassic Park - dinosaurs
The Lost World - more dinosaurs
The Lord of the Rings - epic
One Hundred Years of Solitude - magical
All the Harry Potters - literally magical
Anything by Bill Bryson - laugh out loud
Anything by James Herriot - my career inspiration
The Master and Margarita - genius

[DarkestBeforeDawn]

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

[Crunchymum]

Nineteen Eighty Four.

Hands down my winner.

[Crunchymum]

Reason is just how fucking gritty and depressing and prophetic it is.

[JumpingJellybeanz]

The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen. Read it as a child at school and have loved it ever since.

[OnHold]

A Prayer For Owen Meany

[EssentialHummus]

Disgrace by JM Coetzee. There is not one spare word in that book.

[empirerecordsrocked]

I couldn't do it. Every single one said above plus about ten million others. If a gun was to my head, to kill a mockingbird.

[VanellopeVonSchweetz99]

Agree Disgrace is v, v good. Didn't get the Nobel prize for nowt, still v readable.

[gentlydoesit89]

Another struggling to pick just one, so I'll go with the one that surprised me most, which was when I picked up The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett as I was about to fly to Greece for a weeks holiday years ago and absolutely loved it.

[RedBullBlood]

Maybe not my favourite (and I couldn't pick just one anyway) but Cormac Mccarthy's The Road is seared into my brain. Read it a few years ago and will never forget it. Very spare and very grim.

[damnedgrubble]

I've ordered the Owen Meany book. Pillars of the Earth was amazing.

[elephantoverthehill]

A Thousand Splendid Suns and Wild Swans, but also Trainspotting, Pride and Prejudice, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Wuthering Heights. Too many I know and I've not got onto children's books I love

[minifingerz]

The books which have poleaxed me in the past few years

• 100 years of solitude
• A Little Life (Hana Yanagihara)
• Any Human Heart (William Boyd)
• The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)
• A God In Ruins (Kate Atkinson)
• The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurst)

My lifetime favourites

• War and Peace
• Sense and Sensibility
• Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
• Love in a Cold Climate
• All of the Molly Keane novels

[RedBullBlood]

Owen Meany will make you cry. Wonderful book. There was a movie made of it and it was shockingly bad!

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

The Shellseekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
Phantom - Susan Kay
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Anything by Bill Bryson

[elephantoverthehill]

I will be going to bed with Bill Bryson shortly via my Kindle.

[AddToBasket]

I loved Cider House Rules.

I Capture the Castle
Jamaica Inn
All Jane Austen
The Sun Also Rises

[Brixhambelle]

Kushiels Dart by Jacqueline Carey, an epic muti story line read, beautifully written love/ spy/ fantasy story, strong female lead.
Diana by RF Delderfield.
Polo by July Cooper.
The S,one Jumper by Nicholas Evans

[Eragonsegg]

Not sure of my ultimate but, the first five people you meet in heaven by mitch albom. Stayed with me for a long time

[annandale]

It's impossible to pick one.

I know it's a cliche but War and Peace really is absolutely mindblowing - if you can get past the first chapter - i just read it as if it were supposed to be a joke, then kept going, then i couldn't stop.

[drigon]

Read Lucky Jim several times and the 2 Kate Atkinsons, A God in Ruins and Life after Life were excellent.

[ProfessorPickles]

God Collar by Marcus Brigstocke, it makes me laugh out loud!

[AIsForAndroid]

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
What a carve up, Jonathan Coe
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
Atonement, Ian McEwan
Are the first ones that come to mind. I must get back into reading again!

[seagazer]

City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre, a book i'll never forget.