What is the best book you have ever read?

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. I read it about 6 years ago but still think about it all the time.

Thank you superflyhigh. Love these threads.

lobster I also love Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

the Prodigy (very sad though).
Invitation to the Waltz and the prequel The Weather in the Streets

Alias Grace
the Handmaids Tale

the Life of a Nobody (absolute classic)

curly thank you! The Sea, The Sea -fabulous!

I love Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. I think I just read it at the right time. I've never met anyone who thinks it as good as I do.

Lots of John Irving, toss up between A Widow for One Year and World According to Garp.
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
I remember reading The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks when I was younger and living in a bed sit and it really resonated.
Non fiction is News from Tartary by Peter Fleming (brother of Ian) and auto biography would have to be Anger is an Energy by John Lydon.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
A Suitable Boy
A Secret History
Middlemarch
The Wasp Factory
The Poisonwood Bible
The Portrait of a Lady
A Passage to India
I Capture the Castle

Just off to buy Zemindar though, thank you. I have never heard of it. Agree with loads on this thread.

Have not read the whole thread, sorry. But Rebecca! I re-read it last week and still love it.

IT
The Stand

Stephen King books to name a few..

And most other earlier books by this man and his brilliant mindset.

In no particular order:
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
Little Women
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Life after Life, Kate Atkinson
The Little Friend & The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber
Dr Norrell and Johnathan Strange, Susanna Clarke
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl
The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling
The Sabbathday River, Jean Hanff Korelitz
Over Sea Under Stone, Susan Cooper
Mrs Lincoln, Janis Cooke Newman
The Lace Reader, Brunonia Barry
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
The Love of Stones, Tobias Hill

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I first read it when I was about 11, although I'd watched the miniseries years before. The book is simply incredible. I recommend it to anyone I know who loves to read.

To read over and over again

Elinor M Brent-Dyer's Chalet School.
Harry Potter.

The hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy.
(One of the best books ever.)

John Fowles' The Magus, Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong and Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres all stayed with me for a long time after reading. I love a proper immersive read!

I have lots of favourites from over the years starting with The Three Investigators from Alfred Hitchcock when I was eight (The secret of the Stuttering Parrot etc), through Barbara Michaels (Wait for What Will Come), to more "recently" Steven Saylor particularly "Roman Blood" as it was the first one I read and only by accident as I liked the picture on the cover but could not put it down, Dorothy Sayers "Busman's Holiday" and just earlier this year Flora McGowan "Material Witness" as it was written by a friend of a friend.

Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson.

Another vote for Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks.

As my username suggests - the Handmaids Tale would be the one if I had to choose just one book. The fact it is so relevant still today is depressing but I think a mark of how good a writer Atwood is.

Close second places works be The Poisonwood Bible and Midnights Children.

I think I'm going to add A prayer for Owen meany to my to read list after reading this thread!

Wow offblackeggshell I think you might be me!

Shadow of the wind- Carol Ruiz Zafon
Harry potter series
Dark Tower series
Time Travellers Wife
Never let me go

Elinor M Brent-Dyer
LM Montgomery
Dorothy L Sayers
Dick Francis
Diana Wynne-Jones
Eva Ibbotsen
Jilly Cooper

The above are my absolute go-to comfort reading books where if I read one, I find myself reading the entire works. (Honourable exception for EBD - I read her best works, given that there are 70-odd).

Best fantasy: Ilona Andrews, Lois McMaster Bujold; Harry Potter; Lord of the Rings.

The Time Traveller's Wife
Possession
Jane Eyre
Wilkie Collins
Josephine Tey
Ellis Peters (not the Cadfael ones, the Felse chronicles)

I can't decide!

Pride & Prejudice I could read it over and over again

AM Holmes - This Book Will Change Your Life - anything by AM Holmes is fabulous -
Brother of The More famous Jack - Barbara Trapido - actually my fav book
The Shipping News Annie Proulx - has saved my life.....(read while recovering from cancer)
Collected work of Dorothy Parker - like a Bible - by my bed at all times for the last 30 years
Brightness Falls Jay McInnerny - LOVE THIS BOOK ......why has it not been made into a film!!!!!!!!!!!!
Poison Wood Diary......Barbra Kinsolver (is that her name?)

love this strand!

Possession
Persuasion
The God of Small things
Anything by Ursula Le Guin, though agree that the Disposessed is a standout

But all time favourite is the Bone People