Life changing book

Love this thread, my kindle wishlist has grown!

I consume books, the following have really stuck with me:

How To Stay Alive - Matt Haig
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
You Left Early - Louisa Young

Bizarrely, it’s Gone with the wind for me🤷🏻‍♀️ I think it was the first female (character) I’ve ever encountered that had to overcome total ruin. I had a seriously shitty childhood and in my head I convinced myself my life will always be bad, till I read about Tara. Then a light bulb went in my head and it all started to turn from there.

Thank you I haven’t read Patrick White so will certainly be looking for those books you recommend.

Ladder of years by Ann Tyler is so unique .
I go back and re read it , and also similarly
The time travellers wife because I love the detail as well as the plot.

Me too.
(Even though it is very much of its time, I would still recommend it, as an “awakening” book, even though feminism is now so misrepresented that it has become an undesirable thing.)

DH and I agreed that the Wind in the Willows was the book for both of us, as children. The juxtaposition of animals doing quite ordinary things within a vast beautiful countryside setting and then that beautifully written pagan chapter was wonderful.

Terry Pratchett's books have always done it for me, as they are very funny and wise. The authorial voice shines through.

I would love to hear from the posters who have listed books about why they have chosen them.

Haven’t read that - will look it up. (People have been shocked when I say HJ is my all time favourite writer …)

Have you read any Patrick White? He has the same ‘heft’. You pick up Voss or The Tree of Man and from the first paragraph you know you’re going to be in ecstasy for hours, or days.

MuddlerInLaw. It is Leon Edel. The best biography of all..

MuddlerInLaw So pleased to see The Portrait of a Lady and the Golden Bowl mentioned as Henry James is more often dramatised than read these days. Like you, the Golden Bowl stays with me. Like the bowl which has a hidden fracture life incurs fractures of one kind or another but are plastered over but those fractures still exist and make us more vulnerable. Henry James was often thought of as difficult to read which I could never understand as he wrote introductions to explain his intentions. I read these books years ago, along with others and so enjoyed his writing. I also read a definitive biography which I also,enjoyed. It was a long time ago but think the author was Edell , maybe Leo Edell.

The English Patient. Better in print even than on film, and it is my favourite ever film.

Also: anything by Margaret Atwood, but particularly "The Blind Assassin". The Handmaid's Tale will (quite rightly) destroy you, but this Booker Prize winning book will seduce you. It's so good.

Kindred is a brilliant book. So was Parable of the Sower by the same writer.

Shuggy Bain
Birdsong
The Road

Are probably the books off the top of my head that have stayed with me and I can remember 😁 and thanks to the recommendations here, I will be downloading Burial Rites tonight as looks like my kind of read.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I should add the author...The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

The Joy Luck Club

I loved the first 2/3 of 'All the Light', then thought it went Nazi apologist and the ending was ... disappointing at best.

'The Time Traveller's Wife' is a knock off of the much better 'Kindred' by Octavia Butler, I've read both and thought Kindred was much better.

Books I haven't seen on this list but are in the same vein as many mentioned: 'A Thread of Grace' by Mary Doria Russell ('The Sparrow' and 'Children of God' by the same author are also excellent); 'The Bone People' by Keri Hulme and...slightly out of left field but possibly a go 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt.

Tales of the City series - v odd in parts but great characters
My Dear I wanted to tell you - part of a trilogy
Testament of Youth
Birdsong
Captain Corellis Mandolin

I agree with lots of previous suggestions:
Shuggie Bain
The Hearts Invisible Furies
The Poisonwood Bible
The Goldfinch
The Beekeeper of Aleppo

Fantastic thread

currently re reading Captain Corelli

need the next books for an upcoming hol

I loved the Lincoln Highway

Yes!
Also Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Time Traveller's Wife, both much better than the films.

I second Love in the Time of Cholera and also The Book Thief

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia

Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Reese Witherspoon book club recommendations are almost always fantastic
The Storyteller and Nineteen Minutes both by Jodi Picoult
The Last Summer Karen Swan
Lucy Foley’s early books for historical fiction and her later ones for excellent thrillers.
Jennifer Weiner has written some great books

Currently reading Wrong Place Wrong Time which is excellent Gillian McAllister

Fahrenheit 451, Birdsong, American Wife, A town like Alice