to ask what book you've read that you'll never forget?

[sunshineNdaisies]

I'm looking for new books to read and I'm trying to find something similar to those I've read over the years that have stuck with me. I'll start:

Of mice and men, the rats of nimh, persuasion, pride and prejudice, nicholas nickleby, oliver twist, little house on the prairie, the help, 12 years a slave, the color purple, the red pony, sunset song, memoirs of a geisha, little women, all the harry potter books, the prime of miss jean brodie,

I'm sure I'll remember more

Please recommend a book that will stick with me! Nothing scary though, I don't like scary. Also I hated Wuthering Heights so that stuck with me for the wrong reasons!

Tattooist of auschwitz

Ooh - I remembered Goodnight Mr Tom and Back Home - I read them over and over again and cried each time!

@Genderwitched - YY to Precious Bane! I really cared for Prue Sarn, I so wanted things to go right for her

Peony In Love - Lisa See
A Painted House - John Grisham
Sons & Lovers - D H Lawrence
For Whom The Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
A Kiss Before Dying - Ira Levin
Four Frightened People - E Arnot Robertson
I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith

His Dark Materials, The Lord of the Rings, the Discworld series (particularly The Hogfather).

The Remains of the Day. Crime and Punishment. Calvino's Our Ancestors or Cosmicomics. Decline and Fall. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr.

To be fair, I'll read any old shit if it sits still long enough.

Life of PI
Dr Zhivago
Tattoist of Aushwitz
Midnights children
Remains of the day
Never let me go

English Passengers (Matthew Kneale)
Pure (Andrew Miller)
Perfume (Patrick Suskind)
True History of the Kelly Gang (Peter Carey)
Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon)
Restoration (Rose Tremain)
We the Drowned (Carsten Jensen)
Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)
Watership Down (Richard Adams)

dapplegrey Oh we did national velvet at school - loved it by your name I bet you have read most of the pony books :)

Most unforgettable for me is Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham.
Also like Cakes & Ale by ^ same author, so sly & really clever.
Yes to Stoner & The Reader
All Ian McEwan's books excluding the Cement Garden. Solar is extremely funny and perceptive.
Julian Barnes Sense of an Ending & also, Levels of Life.
Faulke's Human Traces & Where my heart used to beat.

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Most recently "when breath becomes air" 😔

The Secret History

I remember finishing it and thinking- I will never read anything better than that, and I still haven't - what a book, glad to see it features in a number of posts on this thread.

Yes to the Crimson Petal and the White, completely compelling. Reading it reminded me of childhood reading in terms of utter transformation to the world of the book.

Following on from Freidrich, The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne. I also loved the Tattooist of Auschwitz, because the tension constantly rises but you can anticipate the ending.

Wonder was a book which I passed around my friends. I haven't read Crow Lake by Mary Lawson or Araby by Greta Mulrooney for years, but the both immediately sprung to mind. Elizabeth Strout is one of my favourite current authors for stories where you feel that nothing much happens until you get to the last page and realise the shift that has taken place along the way.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Old man and the sea - Ernest Hemingway
Small great things - Jodi Picoult

Also, there’s a children’s book called A Taste of Blackberries. It’s about a young boy whose best friend dies after an allergic reaction to a bee sting, and how he copes with his grief. When I read it as a child I really understood for the first time that people don’t always die when they are very old. It’s a very sensitive and lovely book, and reading it was powerful for me.

Rebecca,
Catch 22,
We need to talk about Kevin,
This five people you meet in heaven,
Survivor.
'The perks of being a wallflower' has always stuck with me too but I think that's because I read it at the right time in my teens to make it resonate with me.

A fine balance by rohinton mistry, such a sad story, so well written, will stay with me forever.
Against the grain, I thought a time travellers wife was awful, so bloody boring, going on and on, I gave up.
Same with tattooist of auschwitz

Robert Heinlein's Time Enough for Love and Stranger in a Strange Land.

Both are science fiction with a heavy dose of social commentary. I read them in my teens and they really challenged my thinking, as well as being splendidly told stories with great characters.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven: Mitch Albom
The Road: Cormac McCarthy

Lolita
Pride and Prejudice
One Day
All Terry Pratchett
Lovd Jilly Cooper
La Morte D'Arthur
Watership Down
1984
Brave New World
Lord of the Flies
A Clockwork Orange
The Handmaids Tale
All john wyndham

The 5 languages of love - gary chapman (normally hate self help books)

Do you mean Saturday?
I also second the Khaled Hosseini books and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Also, Stay With Me, Rebecca, to Kill a Mockingbird and i recently enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow - maybe not one you’s Remember all your life but I really loved it.

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill.
Anything by him. Meaty and funny.

There are just so many to choose from, I can’t remember what day of the week it is most of the time but can remember far too many books;
The Little Princess
The Wasp Factory
The Chrysalids

Exodus
Songlines
Lord of the Flies - first and last book I enjoyed reading in English at school.
Wolf Hall
Goldfinch
Sabriel trilogy
Wool trilogy
and my current favourite to reread Charlie Higson’s The Dead - kids zombie series just love it.