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Original poster

What is the best book you have ever read?

189 replies

Toni2011 · 01/02/2011 22:31

I'd love to know which books really stick in people's minds. Any genre, any author.

OP posts:
yama · 02/02/2011 21:59

Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald

Read it when I was 20 and had the world at my feet.

Gillybobs · 02/02/2011 21:55

Midnights Children was incredible but very intense to read.

The Kite Runner and A thousand Splendid Suns both incredible, powerful stories that stay with you long afterwards.

Not a chick lit fan at all so for something lighter I love Christopher Brookmire, incredible Scottish author of the most wonderfuly black comic thrillers. Def helps if you're Scottish when reading them mind you!

duchesse · 02/02/2011 21:49

Brick Lane by Monica Ali. Not a word out of place.

Maud2011 · 02/02/2011 21:48

What an impossible question to answer... describing "the best", I mean.

Here are few that stuck in my mind though... and reasons why:

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola - definitely not the best I've read, ludicrously over-heated but OMG how it carries you along. Unsympathetic characters, graphic sense of place, fantastic ratcheting up of tension. What a page turner. 20 years since I read it though and there is a horrible episode of animal cruelty which now I am owned by cats, would disturb me today far more than when I originally read it and it was nasty enough then.

Got to go, will add some more later.

Bumperrlicious · 02/02/2011 21:47

Bookmarking to read :)

usualsuspect · 02/02/2011 21:40

A Prayer For Owen Meany
The Grapes of Wrath
Most of Bill Bill Bryson
Oranges are not the only fruit

Jajas · 02/02/2011 21:32

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3littlefrogs · 02/02/2011 21:32

Earth's Children series by Jean Auel

The Womens' Room - Marylin French

I used to love Anya Seton's books when I was in my teens - particularly "Avalon" and "Katherine".

Wilfrid Owen's poetry.

Hassled · 02/02/2011 21:27

Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald, and/or A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre.

stickylittlefingers · 02/02/2011 21:25

Germinale is the only book where I can't remember what I did for the half hour after finishing it. Jude was shocking, but that was something else.

But I don't think anyone would beat Dickens for me for an absolute treat, like the equivalent of a five star luxury hotel with every wish granted of a book...

Rebecca West, love her too.

Clockface · 02/02/2011 21:21

Some of my favourite books...

The Life of Pi

Cloud Atlas

Gilead - can't remember the author but a lovely book

The Idiot by Dosteovsky

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

They are my top 5! Smile

NorthernSky · 02/02/2011 21:15

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NorthernSky · 02/02/2011 21:13

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LostInTransmogrification · 02/02/2011 21:09

Life of Pi - the only book I have ever finished reading and really wished that it was true

BogWoppitt · 02/02/2011 21:08

Favouite? Possibly Midnight's Children

Closely followed by
A Suitable Boy
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
The Lovely Bones
Any Angela Carter
The Hours
Purple Hibiscus and also Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

hocuspontas · 02/02/2011 21:04

So many that I love ...

I think my favourite is 'Three Men in a Boat'. Still laugh-out-loud funny considering how long ago it was written.

Jajas · 02/02/2011 20:53

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Takver · 02/02/2011 20:52

The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin - it really changed my perspective on life (not as a teenager, didn't discover it til I was in my 30s).

Mansfield Park would run it a close second as best book ever though - I love all of Jane Austen's books (Northanger Abbey not quite so much) - but MP is very much my favourite.

TooPragmatic · 02/02/2011 20:52

doh. "very impact"???

meant "very big impact"

freshmint · 02/02/2011 20:50

actually midnight's children has to be on there, of course
and the red badge of courage
and diderot's the nun

no there are too many

TooPragmatic · 02/02/2011 20:49

and another vote for Birdsong

TooPragmatic · 02/02/2011 20:48

Don't think I could narrow it down to just one but An Evil Cradling, Brian Keenan, had a very impact on me.

freshmint · 02/02/2011 20:45

a suitable boy
the scarlet letter
pride and prejudice (of course)
scarlet and black
master and margarita

my top 5! today anyway

MrsvWoolf · 02/02/2011 20:41

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WidowWadman · 02/02/2011 20:23

The Life and Opinion of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne