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!

Eek reading more- clan of the cave bear and thousand splendid suns. Also the yaya sisterhood

Rebecca
Count of Monte Cristo
Goodnight Mr Tom
Pillars of the Earth
Watership Down
(P&P completes my list, but you have that)

Hmmm might have to go and re-read these again. Except Watership Down, I couldn’t go through that again.

I read Rebecca on holiday and it had those scholary notes in the back. I had run out of things to read, so read that bit too. I then immediately re-read the book - total revelation (and I hate all that book analysis normally).

Love Precious Bane as a pp said . Have read it over and over.

Jane Eyre has always scared me and never actually finished it for that reason.

Anything by Paulina Simons...especially Tully, and TheBronze Horseman the first time I read it.

Owen Meany.

The Beach by Nevil Shute

Losymyunicorn I love Elizabeth Bowen’s books. The Death of the Heart is my favourite and I would love to know what happened when Matchett went to fetch Portia from Major Brutt’s hotel. I think Major Brutt is the most tragic character in English lit - so awful when Portia tells him the Quaynes just laugh at him.

Also
Rebecca
A Handful of Dust
The Goldfinch
The End of the Affair
my favourite book as a child was National Velvet.

I have just finished a book called The Coordinates of Loss. I have never cried so hard at a book. I don't mean to sound so dramatic but I actually feel like I'm grieving with the mother in the book, properly sobbed hard numerous times. So well written I had to check it wasn't autobiographical.

edwinbear
A Prayer For Owen Meany is my favourite book ever. I recommend it to anyone I can. They almost never read it though!

It is one book that has really stayed in my memory and made a huge impression on me, and you can’t possibly describe to someone what it’s like. I’ve read it about five times and have recently started it again.

I came on to recommend it as soon as I saw the thread title, but you beat me to it!

Second favourite - His Dark Materials - I remember crying on a busy bus reading the last book!

@Justonemoremojito

The only novel similar to that I can think of is 'Island of a Thousand Mirrors' by Naomi Munaweera but it came out in 2012 so might be too recent?

Nevil Shute "On the beach" (it was written in the 1950's so you have to forgive male/female roles but it is strangely topical)
Hershey "Hiroshima"
"Hunt for Red October"
& for pure light heartedness "three men in a boat" it is the stories within stories that makes this hysterically funny - if you read it in a train be prepared to giggle - this book is perfect for picking up &
putting down because its the side stories that make it.

when we downsized we chose our new place by how many bookcases we could fit in!

Angelas ashes is another one I love.

So many great reads already listed. I would add:

The Diary of Anne Frank
The Light Between Oceans
The Secret Life of Bees

Another vote here for
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Can never get it out my head. The bit where they say goodbye. Nearly called my DD Miriam. Absolutely amazing book. Read it so many years ago and still still think about it regularly. The whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking ‘but this is now’! Because the things that happen make you think it’s set in history. But nope. When I was reading it, it was very recent.

All the Harry Potters (like PP wish I could erase them from my mind to get the joy of them first time around again)

So many already mentioned, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention Sophie’s Choice.

Potentially quite obscure - Five Smooth Stones - I’ve never met anyone outside my family who has read it but would love to!

@HelenaDove oh yes, Children of the Dust. I read it as a teen too. It's one of the few novels I can remember the plot.

Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Night Waking, Sarah Moss (every academic mother should read this)

Any other books by the same two authors, though these two stand out for me.

Wuthering Heights - been obsessed since I was 9.

Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford

Lonesome Dove
Purple Hibiscus and
Half a Yellow Sun
The Magic Toyshop
David Copperfield
The Dark is Rising

Revolting Rhymes
Harriet the Spy
Anne of Green Gables
My Family and Other Animals
The Diary of Adrian Mole
I Capture the Castle
A Girl of the Limberlost
Jane Eyre
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Wuthering Heights
After You'd Gone
The Way I Found Her
She's Come Undone
The Time Traveller's Wife
All the Pretty Horses
A Prayer for Owen Meany

Also recommend
A Million Little Pieces by James Fray
Enjoyed it a lot, but fairly easy reading

A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Power of One
Any Human Heart
The lost art of keeping secrets
High Fidelity
Replay - Ken Grimwood

The book that has always stuck with me is the triology by Helen forrester; twopence to cross the mercy, Liverpool miss & by the waters of Liverpool. Absolutely amazing! I was about 13 when I read it and was gripped!

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Notebook by Agota Kristof
All of the Harry Potters by JK Rowling

The English Patient

Also the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell. Perfect