To ask what the best book you've ever read is?

[AtlasShrugged]

As above really. Inspired by the worst book thread running at the moment. What's the best book you've ever read? And why?

All Leanne Moriarty's books.

Lamb: the gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal (Christopher Moore). Irreverent, sweet and brilliantly crafted. I have never laughed so hard and so often.

Shibumi
Testament of youth
Green darkness

so many of my favourites are already mentioned so i’ll choose

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino

clearly the book that Cloud Atlas was inspired by and just insanely talented, brilliant and clever writing

Following with interest.

A town like Alice
By Neville Shute

On the Road Jack Kerouac
Catcher In the Rye
Love In the time of cholera, Gabriel Garcia Márquez
Engleby, Sebastian Faulks
Amsterdam, Atonement, The children Act, Saturday and the first few short story books all by Ian McEwen. ( Not so much his latest books)
All the Bronte books
Less Misérables Victor Hugo ( never ever understood how this became a musical massive amount missed like the Wuthering Heights films)

Speakingtruthfully, A Town Like Alice - I remember reading that at school and got upset at her ',news' during the book! Might have to re-read it.

I was engrossed in The Mandibles, a brilliant take on the social impact of a financial crash and how easily it could take place,.

Dark Matter and Thin Ice by Michelle Paver, two very very dark creepy books perfect for a winter read...they are the two only books that have made me scared to go to bed!! If you haven't read them please do, they will make the hairs on the back of your neck raise and you won't want to look up at the window in case you glimpse something...

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

This thread is a walk down memory lane for me, and also a reminder of how much I used to read, compared to now, (post-DCs muscling in). One DS is a bookworm though, which is lovely to see, and so life isn't all bad here on the reading front.

My memory is shit, so I'm probably heavily influenced by what I've read on here already, but I agree that The Stand is brilliant, I loved it when I read it as a teen.

I loved Wild Swans. I love a good history written as fiction book, so I also loved Wolf Hall and Memoirs of a Geisha. Also, I like the James A Mitchener books about countries, particularly Poland.

I hardly ever re-read books, but I recently read Wuthering Heights again and loved it.

We Need to Talk about Kevin mentally scarred me, I probably shouldn't have read it just after giving birth to a boy! Great book though.

Oh and of course, To Kill a Mocking Bird. It deeply affected me when I read it in my early 20s, as did The Colour Purple.

I remember sobbing on the tube whilst reading Watership Down

@Proseccoagain I always come
On these threads to say The Far Pavilions, it's such a wonderful book. I can't read it again as I pretty much know it off by heart. I know there was a musical at one point but I always wonder why it hasn't been filmed, although it would be hard to capture in a couple of hours I guess.

@costacoffeecup Looks like the made a mini series in 1984.

Persuasion
Rebecca
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
Spade and Archer

Thought of some more!
The Stand.
Anything by Margaret Forster.
James Micheners Tales of the South Pacific.
Somerset Maugham's Short Stories, particularly those set in the Far East.
The Road to Bethlehem by Norah Potts - tells the story of each of the three king's journeys to Bethlehem.

Loved the storyteller
Couldn’t put it down.

Shadow of the Moon - M.M. Kaye
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susannah Clarke
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
The Hounds of the Morrigan - Pat O'Shea
The Shadow of the Wind _ Carlos Ruiz Zafon
His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
The Magus - John Fowles

I couldn't choose!

I loved Katharine by Anya Seton and read that many times.

The Book Thief.

Not sure if it's the best book I've ever read but I adore Ready Player One it's just so wonderfully geeky and a real pleasure to read

Lonely Bones Alice Seabold. Harrowing but beautiful.

Also A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

Court of thrones and roses series by Sarah J Maas.

One that I’ve read and re read several tones. Excitedly waiting for the next book.

The throne of glass series by the same author. She just finished these and I loved them too.

Mansfield Park. All those horrible characters and for each of them the smallest decisions swing them a tiny fraction the right or wrong way, reducing but never completely eliminating the chance of redemption. It's scary and you can see why so many conservatives love Austen. But also, lots of jokes.

Wuthering Heights
My Cousin Rachel
Rebecca
The Goldfinch
Skallagrigg
Black Beauty
A Thousand Splendid Suns

'Brothers' by Bernice Rubens. It follows the stories of 3 different sets of Jewish brothers, in subsequent generations, over the course of about a century. Beautifully written, and harrowing. It was the first book I ever read that actually made me sob really, really hard.