To ask what are your top ten favourite books?

Little Women Louisa M Altcott

Rebecca D de Maurier

Star of the Sea Joseph 0'Connor

The Secret Scripture Sebastian Barry

The Speckled People Hugo Hamilton

Five Quarters of the Orange Joanne Harris

The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd

Stones from the River Ursula Hegi

Suite Francaise Irene Nemirowsky

The 19th Wife David Ebershoff

I say, I can see from the photo you're an alphabetical-by-author shelver! But that's a subject for another thread 😃

Posting then going to read the thread.

Katherine
The Secret History
The Book Thief
Ballet Shoes
Little Women (and subsequent novels)
Anna Karenina
The Great Gatsby
Circe
Rebecca
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee (nf)

Oh yes! I’ve still got my childhood copies 😍

Milly Molly Mandy makes a welcome appearance 😍 Although absolutely nothing surprising ever happens (going for a walk with Little Friend Susan being the height of excitement!), these books are just great - I think M-M-M in her pink-and-white stripy dress beats e.g . the Alfie stories. Yes, the entrancing map of the village. Like the map in the endpapers of Winnie the Pooh (which interestingly hasn't cropped up as anyone's favourite?).

Adding The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell

A Dark-Adapted Eye, Barbara Vine

Anno Dracula, Kim Newman.

Loved this as well.

Forgot about In Cold Blood by Truman Copate - really good!

I'm re-reading Miss Jean Brodie at the moment but that is definitely AFCFK is the favourite. I first read it five years ago in the height of publishing's cancellation era and it felt very relevant.

I also want to do a big shout out for The Door - about a Budapest cleaning lady in the 50s/60s. It's so good and gothic.

@FKAT
Thank you for reminding me of A Far Cry from Kensington. I’m going to reread it. I also enjoyed Muriel Spark’s short stories.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
The God of Small Things
Jane Eyre
Emma
Fingersmith
His Dark Materials
The Kingkiller Chronicles
The Book Thief
The Secret History
A Mexican Gothic

Ah Flowers for Algernon too!

Great thread!

Adding some books to my to-read list from here!

Some books I love; in approx order

My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout
Crow Lake - Mary Lawson
Amy and Isabelle - Elizabeth Strout (anything by her is great also love her short stories)
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Every Last One - Anna Quindlen
Blackbird House - Alice Hoffman (this is actually short stories but they are linked)
The Other Side of the Bridge - Mary Lawson
Desperation Road - Michael Farris
All the Wicked Girls & We Begin at the End - Chris Whitaker (roughly equal)

There are lots of other books I really like, but to get on the favs list it has to be something I enjoy enough to read again.

Goodnight Mr Tom and 1984 are my two favourite books! You've reminded me to reread. Thanks 😀

Wuthering Heights
Agnes Grey
Jane Eyre
Rebecca
The List of Suspicious Things
None of this is true
All of the books in The Seven Sisters Series
Hidden Pictures
The Strange Adventures of H
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Hilary Mantel – A place of greater safety
Sebastian Faulks – Birdsong
Madeleine Miller – Circe
Amin Maalouf – Samerkand and Leo the African
Bill Bryson - A short history of nearly everything
Ken Follet – Pillars of the earth
Falling Angels – Tracy Chevalier
Coetzee - Disgrace
Elizabeth Kostova the Historian - changing to Isabel Allende - house of the spirits.
Harry Potter books
Into that Darkness – Gitta Sereny.
Yeah but no – Patrick Rothfuss because he’s never going to finish it.
I do read a lot of fantasy but it hasn’t really made my list.

And When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

Pride and Prejudice
To kill a mockingbird
One flew over the Cukoo’s nest
The Joy Luck Club
The Bell Jar
Oranges are not the only fruit
Brooklyn
The Beach
The Women

Have made a note of so many books from this thread!

In no particular order:
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Circe by Madeleine Miller
A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill
Anne of Green Gables series
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
Marie Antoinette by Stefan Zweig
Colette’s short stories
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Brighton Rock by Graham Green
To Serve Them all my Days by RF Delderfield
The Citadel by AJ Cronin
A Bouquet of Barbed Wire by Andrea Newman

The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck
Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
The Master and Margherita, Bulgakov
The Reader, Schlink
Opinions of a Clown, Boll
Raised from the Ground, Saramago
Teresa Batista: Home from the Wars, Amado
The name of the Rose, Eco
Alias Grace, Atwood
Metello, Pratolini

It's post apocalyptic. There is a scene with a marauding band with a pregnant women dragged along with them.

Not long after, we see the the same band. The pregnant woman is missing and there's a small body being roasted on a spit to feed them all.

Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier

Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott

Witch Light - Susan Fletcher

Pride and Predjudice - Jane Austen

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Age 13 3/4 - Sue Townsend

The Book Thief - Marcus Zusask

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank L Baum

Misery - Stephen King

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

Maybe not in that order, and the list changes from time to time. Daphne du Maurier is always at the top though.

I need an 11th - just saw Life after Life on someone’s list and need to add that to mine and if i’m allowed a twelfth - Behind the scenes at the museum