The best book you’ve ever read?

[ICECream821]

There we go! Sorry if there is a thread like this…but what’s the best book you’ve ever read? Or I guess the book that left you thinking about it for days after?

For me I would say The Kite Runner

@Loubiemoo you and I have basically the same taste in books
I will also add any of James Clavell's works, especially Shogun.

@grapewine

I am glad to see the love for The Poisonwood Bible. It is amazing. I was also impressed with her novel The Lacuna.

The Underground Railroad was uncomfortable, but that was the point. Ditto The Bluest Eye.

The Handmaid's Tale is incredibly unnerving, and I can't shake it.

I agree about the Handmaid's Tale: the opening where her cash card wouldn't work. Shudder!

@EmmaGrundyForPM

All The Light We Cannot See - absolutely spellbinding

Agreed. I loved this one. We read it for my book club. 2 of us read it and loved it. The other 4 didn't even finish

Many of my favourites have been mentioned already so I will add:

The Dark is Rising
Tom's Midnight Garden
Ballet Shoes

I Capture the castle. No contest

Some of my favourites

Where the Crawdads sing

The Book Thief

The Tenderness of Wolves

An oldie classic I love was To Kill a Mockingbird

Or any Nancy Mitford except Don't Tell Alfred.

Fantastic thread!

My fave book as a child was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
As an adult prob Birdsong or The Shipping News .

Flying Solo by Roald Dahl is my comfort book, I like Boy too and his collections of stories for adults. There's something about them that makes me feel like he's a dear old friend talking to me personally.
Dracula is one of my all time favourites.
For some reason YA fiction tends to be the genre of the books I go back to over and over. 2 books stick out for me and I read them once every few years- Acid and When She Woke, I can't remember the authors. I'm not sure they are the best books I've ever read but they're easy, comforting reads that bring me in from the first page and I can't put down.

Shantaram
g.co/kgs/UJMcSF

An incredible autobiobraphical account of a man who escaped from prison in Australia and went on to lead the most amazing life in India.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Dreaming Suburb and The Avenue Goes to War by RF Delderfield (One follows the other)
The Heart of London by Monica Dickens
Possession by AS Byatt

Oh yes - Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (the first paragraph grips me), and Cold Comfort Farm (laughed out loud at this).

All time favourite is Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler.

Love everything by her, Ann Patchet, Helen Dunmore, Maggie O'Farrell, Margaret Forster and Kate Atkinson to name a few.

Naomis room

Diana by RF Delderfield
Tully by Paulina Symonds

A Testament of Youth by Vera Britten
Wiuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Ballet shoes - Noel Streatfield
Lord of the Rings - Tolkien

It's hard to narrow down a particular book to bring a favourite, as I read a lot and books read during a particular period in my life can resonate more deeply than others.
Having said that, We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver has stayed with me. I read it before I had kids of my own and I think, it would be a different experience now to read it having become a mother myself.
I also loved A Secret History. I read it on holiday, sipping wine and balming out by the pool, so that definitely made reading it a more pleasurable experience than just reading it in bed back in rainy Ireland

Remembering a by Sinead O'Connor. So inspiring.

*Rememberings not Remembering a!

Also love the Boudicca series by Manda Scott

The Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cromwell.

Pretty much any of Elizabeth Chadwick's books

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon

I read most of them ( and the same for the Last Kingdom series) before I ever watched the TV versions, both of which are also very good!

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is one of the few books that has really stood out to me over the years

The Crow Road

A Thousand Splendid Suns

The Barrytown Trilogy

@Thirtyrock39 I read another of her books, "Quite Contrary" about twenty years ago and it's always stayed with me. I'll look up Blood Sugar. Thank you for the recommendation.
My book is "Moon Tiger" by Penelope Lively. Just superb writing.

Shantaram

I was thinking about this book the other day... It's on my list of books to read again!

Three Men in a Boat. I have a first edition.