What is the most beautiful book you have ever read?

Anything by Isabel Allende or Salman Rushdie ( yes really)

Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott. Everything by Anne Tyler but Saint Maybe and Ladder of Years would be two of my favourites. All the Anne of Green Gables books. Union Street by Pat Barker. Unless by Carol Shields. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham. Brideshead Revisited and A Handful of Dust. I also agree with Possession, The God of Small Things and Of Mice and Men.

I read Annie Rose is my Little Sister to my ds just after his sister was born. I nearly didn't get through the ending. Also Dogger. I also had never enjoyed The Owl and the Pussycat until I read it to an enthusiastic child.

Robert Louis Stephenson's poetry for children.

Poetry, can't beat Keats for beauty, To Autumn.

Sylvia Plath 'Morning Song' and 'You're' for motherhood.

Katherine Mansfield, some of those really stay with you, it was mentioned on another thread recently but 'The Doll's House' especially.

Agree Murakami.

The inheritance of loss.. this reminds me it's due yet another rereading!

Completely agree with Evelyn Waugh and Katherine Mansfield's short stories. Oscar Wilde's short stories (especially The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant and the Happy Prince) are also exquisitely heartbreaking.

I always find 'By Grand Central Station I sat Down and Wept' exceptionally beautiful but maybe I just fall in love with the title every time. :) The Brothers Karamazov, some Doris Lessing and Jane Austen.

I agree you should include poetry E.E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Philip Larkin.

And as others have said so much children's literature. Obviously The Velveteen Rabbit but also authors like Shirley Hughes. Annie Rose is My Little Sister has me choking every time I read to my children. I guess beauty is always a reflection of your own life.

not a huge fan!

The Jeanette Winterson mentions reminded me of Lighthousekeeping. I'm no a huge fan of hers, but the writing in this is stunning.

Jim Crace writes beautifully, too.

A thousand splendid suns. [as above]

Also The Bridges of Madison County, Robert James Waller. The only book I have ever read that tears actually dropped onto the pages of the last couple of chapters............

The alchemist

Casson family, not case on!

I hated Lolita for what it was but it is so beautifully written.

I love the Case on family books. They're YA but something about them just grabs my heart. I've cried at every one, but not from being sad. They just...there's something about them that makes you see how lovely ordinary people can be.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

And another vote for anything by Haruki Murakami.

Great thread- I'm also taking notes for when I have time to read again!

A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Poisonwood Bible are two of my favourite ever books.

lovely thread - makes me want to reread so many books, and a few for the first time too. And revisit a few I abandoned like Remains of the Day which I got bored with.

I read 'remains of the day' today, because of this thread - what a truly lovely book. I've opened 'never let me go' as I fancy re-reading it, I love book recommendation threads

Always Coming Home! Ooh, I loaned my copy of this wonderful book to a very beautiful much younger man whom I attempted unsuccessfully to seduce about 20 years ago . Bastard never returned it. Or the book.

And yet another vote for Possession - one of my all-time favourite comfort re-reads.

In complete contrast - 'Winter's Bone' by Daniell Woodrell (made into a film starring Jennifer Lawrence) and 'The Shipping News' by Annie Proulx (film starring Kevin Spacey and Judy Dench) are both novels which are beautiful and bleak in places with uplifting and redemptive endings, written in prose that is terse, punchy and incredibly evocative.

A Room with a View, EM Forster.

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's one of the few books that I have read that I would love to read again but without knowing what happens, if that makes sense.

I am also shamelessly note-taking.

Schindlers Ark (film being Schindlers List) is a very powerful and beautiful book.

Have recently finished The Summer Book but wasn't as overwhelmed by it as some of my friends but it is a lovely gentle read. A recent book I loved was May we be forgiven by A M Holmes. I'm halfway though the hundred year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared which is brilliant for taking your mind off anything. The most beautiful books Ive ever read were The Little Prince and The Velveteen Rabbit but they are kids books.

Cloud Atlas.

Room - Emma donahuge.

Another vote for The English Patient.

Also Italo Calvino's ^Invisible Cities".

I thought immediately of 'God of Small Things' and but it's been mentioned several times. Sleepwhenidie my favourite phrase ever in a book comes from If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things.

I've read a few Kazuo Ishiguro books but not Remains of the Day yet, so I'll put that on my wishlist.

I found Five people you meet in heaven complete tosh - like reading the inside of a Hallmark card.

Also taking notes from this thread - thank-you.

Pride and Prejudice, Mrs Bennett jumps out of the pages and makes me laugh.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I think this is a modern classic. The way Haddon open's your eyes to how an Autistic boy see's the world is truly touching, but with some very ironic humour.

Sea Glass, Anita Shreve