Tell me a book that you just couldn't put down.

[Cantusethatname]

I haven't read anything good for ages.
I like autobiographical, some historical, I do like psychological thrillers. I liked The Girl on The Train. I like Louise Candlish.
I'm not keen on chick lit. I don't like a happy ending.

Loving 'Kindred' by Octavia E Butler at the moment.

It's fairly gritty sci fi / historical fiction, a black woman is transported back in time to the times of slavery. It's brilliant.

HHhH by Laurent Binet couldn't put it down

Five people You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver - when I'd finished, I didn't want to read anything else because it was so wonderful
How to Build A Girl by Caitlin Moran
The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin
Louisa The Poisoner by Tanith Lee

I gave up on Room after a couple of chapters, the way it was written really irritated me, it didn't ring true as the words of a five year old.

I absolutely love Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow, could not put it down.
Same for The Time Traveller's Wife.

Time travellers wife! Got to the end and then immediately went back to the start and read it again just to get my head around it!

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Earth by Zola

The Collector by John Fowles, could not put it down and a man on the train stopped me to say how great he thought it was too!

The Magus by John Fowles.

My most recent one was The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters. The Goldfinch was also very gripping.

Two books that I have recently read and loved are 'The light between the oceans' and 'Versions of us'

The five people you meet in Heaven by Mitch Album

Before I go to sleep

Pride and Prejudice

If God was an astronaut

Accidental hit man by alan Wilson. Made the mistake of reading it in bed and woke Dh up with my hysterical laughter. Same with Christ man by the same author. Really cleverly written and very easy to read.

Dear Nobody - it's a teen book but I still remember it

I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith

Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Beside Myself by Ann Morgan and Before I Sleep by S J Watson :)

The Prince Of Tides is a page turner, also more recently The Kite Runner, Thousand Splendid Suns, Room, the Night Circus

Fatherland by Robert Harris is superb OP, I think it would totally fit your criteria.

I also love all of Margaret Atwood's work- The Robber Bride is outstanding, a proper page turner and definitely not 'chick-lit', but is a wonderful story of women's friendships and loves.

Philip Kerr's 'Bernie Gunther' books are great too, well the first few are. I feel the last few are not great sadly, but do try the Berlin Noir trilogy. Superb and grim.

Am currently in love with Dicken's though- try David Copperfield or Hard Times- wonderful old stuff.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent - a lovely bit of bleakness, set in Iceland.

Anything by Rose Tremaine is great and any Tracy Chevalier book (she of the Girl with the Pearl Earring) also can't go wrong.

The Tent, The Bucket and Me, by Emma Kennedy.

A lot 'lighter' than some of the other recommendations, but fits into 'autobiographical' category, and is very, very funny.

"The Persimmon Tree" by Bryce Courtenay
"A Town Like Alice" by Neville Shute
Ken Follett's Century trilogy
"Night Sky" by Clare Francis

Also a lot of stuff already mentioned - Anything by Lianne Moriarty, Gone Girl, The girl on the train etc etc

Dead medium

Hands down "Wild Swan" about a Chinese family.. Profoundly changed my perceptions!!

And emperess Dowager which was an attempt to recapture some of the feeling of discovery and history with wild swan..

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet also by David Mitchell
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Stand by Stephen King
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg... obviously
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier