What book was so good you couldn't out it down you burned the dinner and let the kids run wild and chaos reign about you?

The thirteenth tale by Dianne Setterfield is the last book I read. We were inseperable for a few days. From the cover picture it looked like something my mum might read but don't be put off!

The forgotten garden by Kate Morton

Everything I have read by Rachel Cusk

I made myself finish a Thousand Splendid Suns - very depressing

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts was BRILLIANT!

Again like CJ Sansom and Philippa Gregory books.

I've just finished Sisters, the new one in Richard & Judy's new book club, it was really good.

There are some great recommendations on here.

A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Tolz.

Excellent book, bought it on a wim when I was browsing Waterstones, fantastic book couldn't put it down for days. So underrated!

"How on earth did she get away with writing the same story twice? Appalling."

Jodie Picault's written the same book about 12 times

L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks, and the others in the trilogy - show how difficult it was to be an unmarried mother in the 50's and 60's.

Muriel Spark? A Far Cry from Kensington and The Girls of Slender Means. Barbara Comyns?

Daphne Du Maurier, Stella Gibbons, katherine Mansfield.

Bang goes the housework today - off to rifle the bookcases.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson had me gripped. So clever and absorbing.

All of the books by C.J. Sansom

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada - oh my, this is a page turning, terrifying book set in WWII.

Fingersmith is one of the worst books ever written. How on earth did she get away with writing the same story twice? Appalling.

Won't get a Booker nomination BUT

Sophie Hannah- The Other Half Lives.

Basically, a thriller type plot but very well written (think she hit her peak with this one because I read "Little Face" as well and it was rubbish by comparison).

Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido (actually, anything by Barbara Trapido)

Someone earlier mentioned Lisa Alther - I like her later books, Other Women, Bedrock.

Susan Hill's The magic Apple Tree - one of the best countryside books ever (imvho!)

Flora Thompson - Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, Candleford Green - nothing like the TV series. A lovely look at late Victorian rural life.

Winifred Holtby - A Child in the Forest, about the Forest of Dean in the 20's.

i can truly recommend half of a yellow sun by chimamanda ngozi adiechi. ( i skipped work to read it !)

i thought a thousand splendid suns was shit.

kate daniels series- all four books great paranormal fiction books and couldn't put them down!

Recentley - The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson - read in one day.

The Secrets She Left Behind - Diane Chamberain - took 3 nights as I had to keep turning out the light at 2am as I have been a zombie at work because I just wanted to read and read and read the story - amazing 2 books.

If you like anything that makes you desperate to get to the end to discover the whole truth - highly recommended.

Now what's next !

The Twilight Saga .

The Pursuit of Happiness - Douglas Kennedy amazing amazing...love him generally but this is by FAR the best, have read it more than once...

The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons plus the 2 sequels to it - Tatiana and Alexander, & The Summer Garden...the type of books you worry about finishing because you won't know what the hell you'll read next -yet hardly anyone I know has read them (except my friends/family I have given them to)

Also her latest Songs in the Daylight was terrific

Ghosts at the Feast - Chris Bojalian, plus most of his other books (loads more)

Sarah's Key- Tatiana de Rosnay, my MIL is currently weeping her way through it

also love Maeve Binchy

currently loving Susan Hill Serrailer series

can't go wrong with Stephen King (well,you can, but the majority of his early stuff is fantastic, and Under the Dome seems to be a return to form)

Is there anything better than a book that makes you neglect real life? (and the dcs!)

One of the more unusual holidays I had when I ended up in the Seychelles on my own but fortunately with a half a suitcase of of excellent books. The ones I found particularly gripping, poignant and unputdownable for different reasons were:

Seven Types of Ambiguity by Perelman

Any Human Heart by W.Boyd

Betty Blue by Philippe Djian

I agree with Half of a Yellow Sun - set in 1960s Nigeria and Biafra. My children were thoroughly neglected.

Daphne du Maurier: Castle D'Or, The Loving Spirit and the Flight of the Falcon. I find her books strangely intoxicating and really hard to put down. Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love also fantastic.

Another vote for the Shardlake series, Philippa Gregory, Wolf Hall and Alison Weir's The Lady Elizabeth.

Recently enjoyed Lindsay Davis' recent offering in the Falco series 'Nemesis'.

'The Help' by Katheryn Stockett - read it on holiday in about three days - ignored DCs and DH completely!

Thank goodness, Wukter. I sometimes wonder if my brain is wired differently to everybody else's on the planet. I thought 'Fingersmith' was dreadful and couldn't even finish the 'Poisonwood Bible' because I thought it was so badly written.

I am one who thought Fingersmith was rubbish, also Poisonwood Bible.
And A widow for OneYear. I keep seeing them recommended on here and I shake my head.

Three books I couldn't put down:

The Beach by Alex Garland. Got it for my sixteenth birthday and stayed up ALL night til I was finished.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I read it on holiday when friends came to stay. I felt irrationally irked with them whenever they spoke and distracted me from reading.

And....Stephen King's latest, Under the Dome. I totally lost five days with that one, and ate only food I could manage with one hand, so I was free to tuen pages. And that one's just come out in paperback, so is pefect holiday reading!

Anything by Sophie Hannah, any of Susan Hill's 'Simon Serralier' crime books, Ruth Rendall writing as Barbara Vine..

I've just finished 'Havoc in the 3ed year' - wonderful, didn't do anything else today, couldn't tear myself away.

I have just read Thousand Autumns of J de Zoet and loved it so much even my children (who usually ignore me) were asking why I had my head buried in the book