Can someone recommend a really good book for my holiday?

[Anothernamechangeplease]

I need something to read on my holiday - preferably on my kindle, but doesn't have to be. Ideally I'm looking for a novel, but I would definitely consider non-fiction if anyone has any really good suggestions.

If it's a novel, I want something that I can really get into. Not interested in anything too trashy - I want something that is genuinely well written and that has some actual depth to it, characters that I can get invested in. Ideally something that makes me think while also evoking an emotional response. Nothing too hard to read though (ie no James Joyce style text to wade through...I have adhd and can struggle to maintain attention in the early stages of a book until I'm hooked, and then I can't put it down.) Happy for it to be a classic or something more modern.

A random selection of books I have previously enjoyed (in no particular and definitely not an exhaustive list):

All Jane Austen (especially P&P, Persuasion)
Lots of Dickens (especially Bleak House)
Some George Eliot (especially Middlemarch)
Turgenev - Fathers and Sons
The Book Thief
Half of a Yellow Sun
Purple Hibiscus
The Kite Runner
A thousand splendid suns
Elizabeth is missing
Captain Correlli's Mandolin
Northern Lights trilogy

What books have you really enjoyed, and what would you particularly recommend?

TIA!

I have Lessons in Chemistry downloaded for my next holiday, looking forward to it.

<shameless bookmark> 🔖

100% agree with this. I've just finished The Song of Achilles and I'm half-tempted to start reading it again, it was so beautiful.
Also recommend A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara for something a bit more brooding and deep, or The Couple at No.9 by Claire Douglas for an easy read with a good twist!

Another vote for Circe

I Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves - so very well researched our Professor added them to his reading list for ancient history...

The Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon - I think they are all available on Kindle now

A well written and engaging non fiction read is Under Fire by Naomi Clifford - based on the diaries of a volunteer ambulance driver in the Blitz - I'm recommending this to everyone as it is the best book I've read so far this year.

I also enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.

I tend to read historical biographies and non-fiction, but that and the Clare Pooley one stayed with me for a while.

I really loved Josh Widdicombe's "Watching Neighbours Twice a Day". He's a similar age to me and our TV viewing formative experiences are very alike - even down to Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays...

Thank you everyone for all of these amazing suggestions, and sorry that it took me so long to update the thread.

I have just finished reading one of the books that you recommended (The Midnight Library) and really enjoyed it. Now going to select another title to download onto my kindle! Might take me a little while to choose though!!

I have just read;

The Homes - JB Mylet (he's my friend so kind of a shameless plug but it's also a very good & emotional read based on his mum's upbringing in a Scottish orphanage in Glasgow)

Utopia for Realists - Rutger Bregman

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

If you're going to read anything in this thread please pick this one. Absolutely beautiful.

Here to get ideas but also

Empire of Pain

non fiction - OxyContin opioid in US

I haven't actually read it yet but i had similar criteria to you and bought American Dirt based on what I have heard about it.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Second the Where the Crawdads Sing suggestion too. Definitely up there in my top 5 best ever books 🙂

Non-fiction but I found unputdownable, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, Any of her books in fact.

Non-fiction: Wintering by Katherine May, so interesting and thought provoking
Just finished Where the Crawdads Sing while on my hols, couldn’t put it down 😊

I absolutely loved both Paper Palace, American Dirt & Hamnet previously recommended. Other great suggestions would be All my Mothers or The Other Half of Augustus Hope by Joanna Glen, The Girl with the Louding Voice, The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue and A single thread by Tracy Chevalier.

I'm reading 'Still Life' Sarah Winman at the moment. I'm trying not to finish it because it's just so good. I know I'll really miss the characters once I've finished. I'm desperately trying to take it slowly, which is very unlike me!

The Island g.co/kgs/aaG3B5

I read every night. I read this 12 years ago and I still think about it often and have reread a good few times. I love all her books but this one in particular.

Have you read the Poldark books by Winston Graham? They are truly wonderful - much better than the TV series. I read all 12 in a summer once and am thinking of re-starting them.

Another vote for John Boyne - The Heart’s Invisible Furies is among my favourite books.

Anything by Daphne Du Maurier.

A Room With a View - E.M Forster

I really Enjoyed how to stop time by Matt haig.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Last year on holidays I read Anne Brontes Tenant of Wildfell Hall, it was excellent, this holiday I read A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson (had read Life after Life before the hols, loved both) and previous holiday reading has been The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (I had book bereavement after this one for a good while)

A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie is beautiful. This holiday I enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry. A few people have recommended a Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles but I preferred The Rules of Civility by the same author.

Do you get spooked by a different weather/landscape from where you are staying? If not, The Shipping News and The Siege by Helen Dunmore are both fab, but are cold weather books. They freaked me out as sunbed reads but have stayed with me.

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Some that I have read on Kindle and liked recently :
the Dutch house Ann patchett
Mother of all secrets Kathleen m willett
Everyone is still alive- Cathy Rantzenbrink

Also just read the one hundred years of lenni and margot it was engaging, bit sad in places though.

Just read Where the Crawdads Sing on holiday and loved it.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is another one I enjoyed.

I'm just reading The Devil You Know which is not a novel but I'm really enjoying it if you like things about crimes and forensic psychiatry!

Just thought of another one - A Terrible Kindness. Another book which stays with you for a long time.