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Original poster

Best book you’ve ever read...

140 replies

Beautyschooldropin · 09/07/2021 11:57

Wanting ideas for summer reading really. What’s the best book you’ve ever read? Do you have a book that you go back to and read again and again? Do you listen to audiobooks? Would you recommend them?
TIA!!!📚

OP posts:
yoshiblue · 14/07/2021 14:45

@colouringindoors I bought The Enchanted April at the weekend and will start it later!

Winniewonka · 13/07/2021 14:56

Another vote here for Katherine by Anya Seton. I re read Green Darkness by her recently and really didn't like it. I think it was written in early 1970s and had the attitudes towards women of that time.

I think my all time favourite is A Tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. It's wonderfully written, set in 1912 and you really feel transported back to that era. Life was so hard. Some of the liberal subject matter surprised me as it was written in 1942.

ohsuzannah · 12/07/2021 19:09

@DramaAlpaca

My favourite book ever is Katherine by Anya Seton. I re-read it every few years. Great literature it isn't but for some reason it touches my heart.
One of my favourites too! I love all her books, Avalon is another good one!
Cotswoldmama · 12/07/2021 18:50

Bonjour tristesse by Francois Sagan is a great book to read in the summertime. I really like Zoli by collum Mc cann and The Collector by John Fowles.

Yellowtulips33 · 12/07/2021 18:43

@YellowMonday

My favourites include,

Atonement
Middlemarch
Jane Eyre
Cave of the Clan Bear (Earth's Child series)
Far from the Madding Crowd
The Alchemist
Year of Wonders
The Thorn Birds
The Blind Assassin
Wolf Hall
Life of Pi
The Sea

My most respected non-fiction works are Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation and This House of Grief. Both texts significantly challenged me and left a lasting impact. I adore Garner's body of work.

Couldn't agree more re Helen Garner - a wonderful writer.
GCAcademic · 12/07/2021 16:33

@AgentProvocateur

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, but it’s a terribly sad book.
This is my all-time favourite too. Brilliant and devastating.

I also loved A Suitable Boy, which seems to have polarised opinions on here.

CharityPecksniff · 12/07/2021 16:32

My cousin Rachel
The Mayor of Casterbridge

PermanentTemporary · 12/07/2021 16:27

The best book I read last year was Girl by Edna O'brien. Not the most cheerful subject but the author has such an incredibly skilled, light touch that it's not the agonyfest others might have made of it.

AnyFucker · 11/07/2021 11:14

.

DedalusBloom · 11/07/2021 11:04

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser.

Charley50 · 11/07/2021 10:47

I couldn't choose one best book. For long family sagas, I loved Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
One of the only books I've re-read more than once is We need to talk about Kevin, by Lionel Shriver.
Never Let Me Go, brilliant and devastating.
I am Pilgrim: Gripping to the Max!

yoshiblue · 11/07/2021 08:09

I've only recently got into reading as a hobby so I've not read widely enough to say the best book ever. Though I have loved Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet (My Brilliant Friend) and All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

yoshiblue · 11/07/2021 08:06

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld Bought The Poisonwood Bible yesterday in Daunt Books after one of the booksellers recommended it to me as amazing and totally addictive!

Ikeameatballs · 11/07/2021 07:58

@Defeatedbylife

Shuggie bain,couldn't put it down
I’ve just started this recently.
Defeatedbylife · 11/07/2021 02:01

Shuggie bain,couldn't put it down

Flamglimglubberty · 11/07/2021 01:46

Favourite books ever are easily the Elenium series by David Eddings. I've read them so many times now the pages are falling out!

stayingontop · 11/07/2021 01:44

Anne Frank

slightlysnippy · 11/07/2021 01:26

A suitable boy by Vikram Seth. Wonderful story and characters to lose yourself in.

JanuaryJonez · 11/07/2021 01:03

Last year while on holiday in Spain (never thought we'd make it) I read Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift. It blew me away and has now been made into a film with Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth and Olivia Coleman (now showing at Cannes).

Straight after I read his latest, Here We Are, which affected me in a way no other book has done since Atonement, and maybe more so. Just thinking about it makes me actually well up sometimes.

BookShark · 11/07/2021 00:59

I think there's a big difference between best book and re-readable books. My best books still generally be classics - The Count Of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre being my particular favourites. But my go-to holiday re-reads are Harry Potter, trashy chick-lit like the Bagshawe sisters and the Chalet School.

None of the re-reads are big or clever, but they're a comfort zone which is great for holidays.

That said, if you've got a long plane journey - either Wild Swans or A Suitable Boy - both great books, but needed some uninterrupted reading time to get going.

Valhalla17 · 11/07/2021 00:52

Loved American Dirt this year...which is my new fave

Before that probably Memoirs of a Geisha or the Sunne in Splendour

Disneyinmyveins · 11/07/2021 00:40

I am pilgrim
Where the crawdads sing
Hearts invisible furies

Are my current top 3

PearlNextDoor · 11/07/2021 00:14

NO WAIT.

Robertson Davies books. He had a few trilogies. They were amazing. Before the internet, in my 20s, I devoured them.

Neiphin · 11/07/2021 00:14

The Outlander series series
Game of thrones series
Wayward pines series
Comoran strikes series
Shugie Bain
The eagle of spinalonga
The island
The children of men
The Road
Rachel's holiday
American Dirt
The thirteenth tale
The woman he loved before
Area 187
Anne Frank
The kitchen house
The Help
Inside the o'Brien's
Big little lies

PearlNextDoor · 11/07/2021 00:13

A book that opened my eyes to the subject of family dynamics was Jonathan Frantzen's The Corrections. Really good read. I still think about that family! Grin crazy. Also found Wild Swans very memorable.

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