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Original poster

What is the best book you have ever read?

360 replies

damnedgrubble · 03/03/2017 22:34

I think mine has to be (at least at the moment) The House at the End of Hope Street because I grew up not far from there.

Which is your favourite book and why?

OP posts:
buckeejit · 04/03/2017 22:56

Just finished Eleanor & park, it was really good so feel the need to push it. Just one book though? So hard, Middlesex as I don't think it's been mentioned

Bambambini · 04/03/2017 22:52

The Little Women series - loved them so much.

minifingerz · 04/03/2017 22:49

Loving all the recommendations on this thread. Thanks OP!

elQuintoConyo · 04/03/2017 22:48

Oryx and Crake, After the Flood, MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood. And Handmaid's Tale. All 3 books nearly killed me.

When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro.
A Room With A View by EM Forster.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr.

There are a whole host of books I love but those I love most.

Nowhere near my list would be: Brontes, Austens, Rowlings, Hardys,... They deserve their place on various lists but bore the absolute arse off me Blush

minifingerz · 04/03/2017 22:48

My absolute favourite childhood books were the Mazo De La Roche Jalna series, and all the Little House on the Prairie books.

And the Narnia books, of course!

I lived in Narnia for many years as a child. Grin

Bestthingever · 04/03/2017 22:43

As an adult (well teenager onwards):
Down and out in Paris and London
Catcher in the Rye
As a child:
James and the Giant Peach
The House of Sixty (or Fifty?!) Fathers

wowsaidtheowl · 04/03/2017 22:43

I love The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder. It reminds me of the magic of being a child listening to fairy tales.

I also love I capture the castle.

ChateauCollapso · 04/03/2017 22:43

Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee

EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 04/03/2017 22:40

I think the The Lovely Bones is a very good book it stayed with me, for sometime I couldn't read anything else

Sadik · 04/03/2017 22:40

catkind though I don't think I'd rank it as the best book I've read from a literary POV, the Dispossessed is the book that has probably had the greatest influence on the course of my life (and I didn't read it until I was in my early 30s).

Bambambini · 04/03/2017 22:34

Crinkle - i read Rats (the trilogy) when i was 11 - scared me silly and loved it at the same time.

EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 04/03/2017 22:34

Wuthering Heights. Read it a few times every time I fall in love with it a bit more

Other favourites
Americanah
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Of Mice and Men
Giovanni's Room
The Invention of Wings
The Bonesetters Daughter
Wild Swans
The Glass Palace
The Kite Runner
Paddy Clark ha ha ha
The Crimson Petal and the White

80sMum · 04/03/2017 22:33

I'm surprised to see The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society on the list! I would rate it as the very worst book I have had the misfortune to read (for a book club) in recent years. I thought it was truly abysmal!

Bambambini · 04/03/2017 22:33

Jings - reading Goodnight Mr Tom now with my son. Lovely book but tough reading in parts.

ChoccyJules · 04/03/2017 22:27

For some reason, books I read in childhood have stayed with me longer than those read more recently.
My list off the top of my head:
Tom's Midnight Garden
Z for Zachariah
Goodnight Mister Tom
Les Miserables

YolandiFuckinVisser · 04/03/2017 22:26

English Passengers - Matthew Kneale
Red Shift - Alan Garner
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Goodnight Mr Tom - Michelle Magorian
Human Croquet - Kate Atkinson
Billy Liar - Keith Waterhouse
Room at the Top - John Braine
Restoration - Rose Tremaine

Crinkle77 · 04/03/2017 22:19

Bambambini I had to stop reading James Herberts Rats. Absolutely bloody terrifying.

Artus · 04/03/2017 22:17

The LymondChronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Anne of Green Gables

(quite a contrast there!)

Crinkle77 · 04/03/2017 22:16

Not very high brow but I loved Jilly Cooper's Riders and have thorroughly enjoyed all her other books. I want to read the new one Jump!

catkind · 04/03/2017 22:10

The most well thumbed is
Keri Hulme, The Bone People

Close contenders
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
David Brin, Earth
Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed
Pride & Prejudice
Terry Pratchett - the witches books in particular
Diana Wynne Jones, various, but will plump for Dark Lord of Derkholm
Chris Moriarty Spin State

Sleeperandthespindle · 04/03/2017 21:47

The Count of Monte Cristo for me, but I have many close seconds.

PageStillNotFound404 · 04/03/2017 21:36

The Handmaid's Tale would just about be #1. It was the book that set me on the road to feminism, and it's one of the most well-drawn dystopias ever. Atwood uses every word with a poet's precision.

Others that would make the top 10:

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood again
HP & the Deathly Hallows
The Collector - John Fowles
From The Beast to the Blonde - Marina Warner
The Dark Is Rising (love the whole series but particularly the eponymous book) - Susan Cooper
Rachel's Holiday - Marion Keyes
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantell
Lords & Ladies - Terry Pratchett (narrowly, just nosing ahead from pretty much every other Discworld novel)

MorrisZapp · 04/03/2017 21:32

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Pestilentialone · 04/03/2017 21:30

A non fiction book [whoops]

Pestilentialone · 04/03/2017 21:30

Cod by Mark Kurlansky.
A fiction book, so many disassociated bits of history fell into place. Boston tea party, doh obvious.