To ask for the best book you've ever read?

[chxm19]

Recently got into reading again and want to ask for suggestions!

I've just finished The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena after it being recommended by a friend.

Needless to say I was so disappointed with the ending

TIA

Taste in books is such a personal thing. I've lived books and lent them to friends who I assumed would also love them, but the weren't keen. Likewise, I've been recommended many 'incredible' novels that I struggled to get through.

My own favourites, that I've read over and over, are:

Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)
A Place of Greater Safety (Hilary Mantel)
Cryptonomicon, and the related Baroque Trilogy (Neal Stephenson)
Dominion (CJ Sampson)
The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
and The Wasp Factory (Iain Banks)

Also loved A Thousand Splendid Suns but it was so harrowing I couldn't bring myself to reread it.

A man called Ove
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy. Both by Rachel Joyce.
Any Kate Morton Book.
Anything by Jojo Moyes
Lisa Jewell's books are great as well.

@TheGirlWhoLived definitely give the ones I mentioned a go. If you like them, I am happy to provide more inspiration

Lord of the Rings

As mentioned by a pp - The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. You think it's going to be like Little House on the Prairie, but it absolutely isn't.

"Graphista* if you like twists try Sarah Waters - Fingersmith and Affinity." Thanks - I'm struggling with reading at the moment a mix of high anxiety and poor concentration.

I read "behind the scenes at the museum" because I had to for uni. When I saw the cover & blurb my heart sank as I really didn't think it was a book I'd like, it seemed like one of my mums family saga faffs a la Danielle Steele or Catherine Cookson (which I cannot stand) but it was SO much better than I expected.

I didn't learn from the experience and still had a fee set texts I was dreading reading which I then found I loved.

Since graduating the kindle has become more popular, I got my first one about 6 years ago, I love the smell of real books etc BUT where kindle is great is you can read the first few pages, sometimes even a chapter for free before buying so by that point you generally know if you want to read more.

My all time faves are;

The Time travellers wife
Thousand Splendid suns and Kite Runner
Lovely Bones
The Girl on the Train
Room
The woman who walked into doors - Roddy Doyle

I am pilgrim.
And still eagerly awaiting his next book ‘year of the locust’

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint Exupery

For Whom The Bell Tolls - Hemingway

Alexandria Quartet (esp Justine) by Lawrence Durrell

My comfort-read is Rosamund Pilcher's Shellseekers. Also love Wind in the Willows.

If you like Crime 5ry Jane Casey. Her Meave Kerrigan books are brilliant - cant remember the first but all soooo good.

Harry Bingham's Fiona Griffins books are great too. But weird.

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker, such a moving read. :)

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.

It's based on Isherwood's real experiences living in Berlin as the Nazi Party were rising to power; watching his friends in the Jewish community slowly being further and further harmed by what was happening, but not being able to do anything about it.

The musical Cabaret is verrrrrry loosely based on it: Sally Bowles is a friend of Christopher in the book.

One Day - David Nicholls

The Rosie Project

The Other Boleyn Girl

The Kind Worth Killing

Norwegian Wood

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Recently read My Absolute Darling. Very good!!

The collector, John Fowles
Bonjour tristesse, i read every couple of years
I like the secret history too and Jean de florette/Manon des sources
And Anne of green gables as a child

Another vote for anything by Kate Atkinson (apart from the one set at Dundee University which I found unreadable).

The Island by Victoria Hislop

Behind the beautiful forevers by Katherine Boo
Reads like a novel, but the characters and story are real. Heart wrenching but amazing writing.

We need to talk about Kevin - wonderful book and I’ll never forget it!

@combineharvester same here. I loved that book. As heartbreaking as it is. The twist is just genius. The sense of menace just gets bigger and bigger and the twist punches you in the gut.
Have you read 'So much for that'? So funny and clever. I tried to read double fault but 8 didn't get it at all. I don't think I'm that clever.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

The Kite Runner - Khaled Husseini

Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin

The Bonesetters Daughter - Amy Tan

Goodbye to Berlin is ace isn't it? Obviously I wasn't there at the time (!) but it comes across as completely evocative. Also given what was going on around the characters it's instructive how even sane, smart people were sleepwalking into what their society was becoming. I don't know why he's not higher thought of - he seems to be loved by literary types but not the general public which is odd as his writing is very accessible.

I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Basically a rip off of Suetonius but it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the generations of women in power in the background

Anything by Terry Pratchett because his “cute and quirky fantasy” fiction is anything but. It’s actually deep satire on the world around us. I’m currently rereading Thud and reminding myself of his genius.

Hitchhikers Guide - see above

Pride and Prejudice - see above but pretends to be romance instead of pretending to be sci fi. And a good reminder that the brainy girl is really the prize

Stainless Steel Rat - bit dated now but the roots of Han Solo. Also very keen on bigging up the brains of the female character

There’s a bit of a pattern......

My favourite book is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I do love crime novels though and the best ones I've read recently are the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French and Susie Steiner's Missing, Presumed and Persons Unknown. Also if you haven't read Val McDermid's A Place of Execution, that is proper excellent top class crime writing. In my view, of course!

Another vote for Lianne Moriarty’s novels. Loved Big Little Lies.

A book that’s stayed with me for a long time is Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde.