You know that heart-achingly wonderful, bittersweet feeling you get when you finish an incredible book? I want more of that in my life.

There's a trilogy that follows on from Frost in May, looking it up: The Lost Traveller, The Sugar House and Beyond the Glass. As a teenager I read The Lost Traveller and enjoyed it as far as I remember, but I never loved it like I loved Frost in May - I kind of lost interest when she left the convent to be honest.

Some books just need a respectful pause at the end of them... No rushing off to the next in the pile. Sometimes I need to dip back into odd sections just to 'say goodbye', if that doesn't sound to whimsical.

A Suitable Boy certainly is one of them. Loved Kinsolver's 'The Lacuna', wonderful book, so can recommend to all the Poisenwood Bible fans out there. Will return to Restoration now... I can't remember why I didn't get on with it but maybe it was the troubling 1st chapter! Love many of her other books.

Dorothy Dunnett`s books leave me drained but in a good way. Takes a couple of days to come back to earth.

I also loved the poisonwood bible and immediately reread it when I got to the end, but THE book that did this to me was A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. I had to slow down towards the end to make it last longer and I felt lonely and deflated after it. I missed the characters. I loved spending time with them.

And I always feel a little bit bereft when I get to the end of a David Sedaris book, but the beauty of those is that you can pick one up again and again, and dip in and out for twenty minutes, marvel at the man's brilliiance and laugh like a drain, as though you were reading it for the first time.

The one that most recently did that for me was Room by Emma Donaghue.

My clutch-to-the-chests

Frenchmans creek
Great Gatsby
Time Travellers Wife
The Red Tent

I have Restoration lined up for my next.

Yes yes to many already mentioned on this thread - The L Shaped Room and I Capture The Castle when I was younger, and Atonement and The Book Thief more recently.

Also Wuthering Heights as a teen - not sure it would stand the test of time though.

I loved The Pursuit of Love too.

Will try Saplings. Does anyone remember Noel Streatfield's semi autobiography, A Vicarage Girl?

Also as a result of this thread I will give His Dark Materials another try. I didn't really get into it last time.

My favourite book EVER is Jane Eyre though. Might read it again now that I've been inspired!! Loved The Time Travellers Wife, liked One Day. Am so brain dead & energy depleted since DD3 was born I can't even REMEMBER all the brilliant books I've read. This thread is bringing some back though. And I've made a list of books to look for next time we're at the library. Was my favourite place in the world when I was growing up. Thk you all! Oh-The Help was pretty good. Trying hard to remember books that took my breath away....

I was engrossed by J K Rowling The Casual Vacancy. At teh end I was and one sentence in it had me in tears.

Loved the Poisonwood Bible! Cutting for Stone...brilliant.

YY The Poisonwood Bible - fantastic book.

Penny Vincenzi's Spoils of Time Trilogy
No Angel
Something Dangerous
Into Temptation
Follows the Lytton family from the early part of the century right through to the 1960's. I got so involved with all the family and was upset when I finished the last book. Might have to read them again.

YY to Brideshead revisited. The Great Gatsby is similarly devastating.

The end of never let me go had the same resonance. As did (I expect to be mocked/jumped on for this) the pursuit of love by nancy Mitford. It really is an extraordinarily well written book.

An Equal Music - Vikram Seth.
I enjoyed A Suitable Boy but this one tore me apart.

Also The Map of Love - Ahdaf Soueif. Loved it.

Saplings is a good read but quite dark. Very unlike Noel Streatfeild's children's books.

Great thread. I loved The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. A lot of Wharton's books are bittersweet (don't read Ethan Frome) but the journey is always amazing. Her prose is so beautiful.

I fucking love Restoration. It's brilliant. Also Bring Up The Bodies is really incredible. When Mantel was getting slated in the press for the Kate Middleton comments I thought 'I don't give a toss. She wrote BUTB. She is amazing'.

The Poisonwood Bible is amazing too, Atonement, THe Sea by John Banville I loved. The Remains of the Day breaks my heart. The Accidental by Ali Smith is brilliant and surprising.

Less profoundly brilliant but still loved them and couldn't put them down - all the C J Sansom Shardlake books, The Other Boleyn Girl (film was so shit tho), any Rumpole yarn makes me happy, and Snobs by Julian Fellowes is so true.

Most of the books by Daphne du Maurier do that for me. I feel like coming up for air at the end, they are so absorbing.

It was Alias Grace for me.
Love that book.
Also The Siege of Krishapur.
Must re-read soon.

Oh yes please to Cloud Atlas.

And of course we can't forget This Thing Of Darkness.

Both epic stories. Guaranteed immersion.

Ooh I LOVE that feeling too. Yes to I Capture The Castle. Also Cloud Atlas and Lord of the Rings. I think maybe the first time I had it as a child was with a Michael Morpurgo book - King of the Cloud Forests or something

Dune and its first 3 sequels - Frank Herbert
Hyperion and its sequels - Dan Simmons
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

I don't know how close you will be to tears (don't do much crying while reading myself) but you will find in the books above epic stories of fine detail, brilliantly imagined worlds that are fantastical but credible, and characters that come alive.

Oh, yes, the Poisonwood Bible. I got really caught up in that.
And almost all Margaret Atwood.
We read Sunset Song at school as part of the Highers syllabus and some of the passages are still really vivid in my mind.
I seem to remember that Middlesex (Eugenides) had me fairly gripped for a while.

It's so long since I had that oddly happy yet sorrowful, empty feeling after finishing a book. Am hoping that when the kids are older I'll get back to reading other than for work...

Thanks so much for this thread - I'm reminded so easily of childhood / teenaged moments like this (one more random one - was anyone moved by Galaxarena as a youngish child?) but have rarely felt this as an adult. Off to finish my Noel Streatfeild I bought this weekend (saplings) with fingers crossed for this kind of love.