To ask what are your top ten favourite books?

I'm almost as chuffed to see some of the books I hate most on the lists as I am to see the ones I love! It's nice to see a big variety in our favourites.

It's also nice to see so many 'Classics' of English lit still being read and loved.

(My top most hated book ever is The Road by Cormac Macarthy. I will never forgive him for some of those mental images. Never.)

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Lord of the Rings
the Harry Potter books (cheating, I know)
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
La Isla Bajo El Mar by Isabel Allende
Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
One of the Jeeves books (hard to choose)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

And if I could have 16 (I'm just being greedy now) the Bean Tree trilogy by Barbara Kingsolver.

Ooh good thread as I’m always looking for book recommendations. I really need to go back and read some more ‘classics’. I tend to read modern fiction. Some of my faves include:

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1984 by Orwell
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Trainspotting and Maribou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman
The universe vs Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood
Scabby Queen by Kristin Innes

I love the little white horse and remains of the day. I also love never let me go by kazuo Ishiguro.

It’s hard to restrict it to 10! But my top list below
1 Persuasion by Jane Austen
2 The tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
3 A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens
4 To Kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee
5 No Name by Wilkie Collins
6 Middlemarch by George Eliot
7 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
8 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
9 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
10 Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Hmmm I don't know if I could say but here are some contenders (after looking at my shelf):
The poisonwood Bible by Barbara kingsolver
The summer book by Tove Jansen
On the road Jack keruac
The humans Matt Haig
Stoner by john Williams
American gods, Neil gaimen
Good omens terry Pratchett and Neil gaimen
The ocean at the end of the lane Neil gaimen
Life after life by Kate Atkinson
The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
Warlight by Micheal ondaatje
The cats table by Michael ondaatje
The lion and the unicorn by George orwell
The memory police
The silver sword by Ian seralier
The fifth child
When God was a rabbit by Sarah winman
Day of the triffids john Wyndham
My family and other animals by Gerald Durrell
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Tigana Guy Gavriel Kay
LOTR JRR Tolkien
Wind in the Willows Kenneth Graham
A Song for Arbonne Guy Gavriel Kay
The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
Monstrous Regiment and most of Terry Pratchett
Anne McCaffreys series of books on the Dragons of Pern books
Katherine Kerr;s Deverry novels
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
The Chronicles of Narnia - C S Lewis
Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy Laini Taylor

There are just so many books but those I re-read the most are Kay, Taylor and Kerr

The Crimson Petal and The White, Michel Faber

Under The Skin, Michel Faber

Adrian Mole (all of) Sue Townsend

Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, Isabella Beeton

The Fortnight in September, R.C. Sheriff

The Darling Buds of May, H.E Bates

Twopence To Cross The Mersey, Helen Forrester

Ronan's Rescue, James Bibby

The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year, Sue Townsend.

Not particularly in that order.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Darkness is Light Enough (nature diary by Chris Ferris)
Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons)
The Third Policeman (Flann O'Brien)
Good Omens (Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)
The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
Interview With the Vampire (Anne Rice)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course

A farewell to arms - Ernest Hemmingway
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood
The Neapolitan Novels - Elena Ferrante
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Sweet Thursday - John Steinbeck
The pursuit of love/love in a cold climate - Nancy Mitford
Down and out in London and Paris - George Orwell
To kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Also just reading Hamnet for the first time and I love it (but haven't read the ending so can't put it on the list yet!)

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
a Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Middlesex by jeffrey Eugenides
hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland

I need to write down what I read as depressingly finding it hard to remember my favourites!

Wow, I applaud your choices, @TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross ! Some of my favourites in there.

I'd go with:

• all the Jeeves books by Wodehouse
• Discworld
• Heyer's Regency romances (except Cousin Kate which deserves to be burned and forgotten)
• Persuasion
• the Kinsey Millhones series
• Silence of the Girls trilogy
• Red Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Robin Hobbs series
• Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day
• To Kill A Mockingbird

But now I'm thinking of about 20 more that I also love. Ithaca series by Claire North - so goo! Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Middlemarch, which is probably the best novel ever written. All the children's books I love so much like the L.M. Montgomery and E.B.White and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart Trilogy.

Oh god, why not just ask me who my favourite child is!

Totally agree and if I could have 15 then I would have included Rebecca, The Woman in White and Far from the Madding Crowd as well! (And also The Collector and Midnight's Children).

Amit Patel - Kika & Me
Anita Moorjani - Dying to be me
Bekhal Mahmod - No safe place
Cupcake Brown - A piece of cake
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips - Mum Can you lend me twenty quid?
Jenny Smith - The refuge
Matt Haig - The midnight library
Warren Fellows - The Damage Done
Peter Stark - The last breath
Charlotte Levin - If I can't have you

Wow, this is difficult! Not in any particular order and it would depend on my mood, but I'd probably say:

1. Rebecca
2. Wuthering Heights
3. Song of Achilles
4. To Kill a Mocking Bird
5. The Blind Assassin
6. The Mill on the Floss
7. Our Mutual Friend
8. In the Company of the Courtesan
9. The Nightwatch
10. Cloud Atlas

That's an interesting take on the book. I just found so many of the characters weak or just not likeable and found it painful to read. I always try and finish a book so read it to the end but found it so disjointed.

I've not actually seen the film adaptation for Rebecca. I am often disappointed by films. I'm actually reading Harry Potter with my kids at the moment and they keep pointing out bits that are different from the film.

Rebecca .
Wuthering heights.
The woman in white.
The distant lands of my father .
The secret life of bees.
The book thief.
All the light we cannot see.
Far from the madding crowd.
Anne of green gables.
I capture the castle.
I found it difficult to list 10 favourite books as there are so many others i love too, really inspiring to read others lists

I can't really put them in order - except for the first one.

Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
The Painter of Signs - R. K. Narayan
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Life Before Man - Margaret Atwood
My Life as a Fake - Peter Carey

1. Pavane by Keith Roberts
2. Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
3. The Man In The Moss by Phil Rickman
4. Duma Key by Stephen King
5. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
6. Night's Master by Tanith Lee
7. Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
8. The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernieres
9. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
10. Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones

I know it's a bit of an odd collection.

@EmpressaurusKitty
I had completely forgotten about the Abbey girls series! I loved them. The only one I remember in any detail is Maid of the Abbey.

Thank you for the memory jog!

I'm not sure I have all time faves but I like -

Books by Ann Cleeves especially the Two Rivers series

The Rebus series by Ian Rankin

The Ruth Galloway series by Ellie Griffiths

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Tim Sullivan's DS Cross series

Entire disc world series by Terry Pratchett

Pride and Prejudice

An Evil Cradling - Brian Keenan

Hitch Hikers Guide - all in the Series - Douglas Adams

Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gamen

Adolph Hitler and My Part in His Downfall - Spike Milligan

Unruly - David Mitchell

Jeeves and Wooster series - PG Woodhouse

Jude The Obscure - Thomas Hardy

Tom Jones - Henry Fielding.

This is not going to be highbrow enough!