The best books you've ever read

[JustNotFunAnymore]

Following on the from the other thread
where someone asked what the most ridiculous thing you've read in a book was. (And therefore ruining anything on my wish list 😂)
I want to know what the best book you've read is. What book I must read soon.

I'm partway through 'Becoming' by Michelle Obama. I got it as a sample and after two or three chapters had to buy it on my kindle. It's so good. She writes really well.

MirandaGoshawk the sequel Redemption Falls is even better. It's magnificent, IMO.

Dervla Murphy, Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson for travel
Dianne Wynne Jones - charmed life series
Toast by Nigel Slater
I know why the caged bird sings - Maya Angelou
The millstone- Margaret Drabble
Nevil Shute

Philippa Gregory - The other Boleyn girl and most of her other ones
House of Spirits - can't remember authors name

Any Sophie Kinsella book but the Shopaholic series is my favourite
Marshmallows for Breakfast by Dorothy Koomson
Room by Emma Donoghue

I don’t read nearly enough these days but as a child/ teenager my favourites were:

• Midnight by Jacqueline Wilson (actually and Jacqueline Wilson!)
• Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
• Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

Monseuir la merde by Flaubert, absolutely breathtaking.

Books I've loved:

The Otori Trilogy:

• Across the Nightingale Floor
• Grass for His Pillow
• Brilliance of the Moon

Uncle Tom's Cabin - do not read the end in public, there were tears - many, many tears

We Need to Talk about Kevin - not to be read if you're not in a good place

The Kite Runner

Empire of the Sun

As a child I loved all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books
The cricket in Times Square
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
As a teenager: Gone With the Wind
Any Jilly Cooper books
War and Peace
Evelyn Waugh books
As an adult:
Some of Jodie Picault books
Mauve Binchy all books
Harlen Coben and Linwood Barclay books
Ad I've got older I've noticed my choices have got more low brow!

@JessicaHyde

Placemarking I must reread the secret history, I remember disliking it but no idea why.

I read it recently and thought it was mediocre at best, i am amazed at how many people loved it.

Rebecca
The Time Travelers Wife
Station Eleven
His Dark Materials trilogy
The Horse and His Boy (Narnia)

i think I would have to say When the crawdads sing and The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Both very different but both fantastic. Finished Crawdads yesterday and it is a beautifully written story and think it will stay with me for a long time.

What a fabulous thread, I have lots of favourite books, but some that I return to:
My Cousin Rachel - du Maurier
An Equal Music - Vikram Seth
Grand Avenue - Joy Fielding
Most Brontë but particularly Agnes Grey
Most Pullman but particularly The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ - never expected to like Dark Materials until I had to read it - then loved that and went hunting for more
Wilkie Collins - particularly his short stories
Most non Wexford Rendell, but Vine even better
The Yellow Wallpaper - short but stays with you
Misery - probably only King though stopped reading him much a long while back
The Wild Swans
Roald Dahl - nearly all adults and children’s
Little Women was a favourite till had to re-read a few years ago and found it cloying and bit old fashioned, but weirdly very recently enjoyed reading Streatfield Wintle’s Wonders
Three Things about Elsie

Lots to go and read now 😁 - I have just started Platform 7 and also have just been given Still Alice - glad to see both recommended on here. I have eclectic tastes but currently revert to fairly mainstream easy read mystery/psychological books - unfortunately I can relate totally to the other thread with a lot of recent kindle purchases but I now have faith in my current ones thanks to this thread.

Lots of great recommendations here.

I recently enjoyed reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

And a long time ago I loved Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. Became a tv series that I’d like to see again.

And Stephen King’s 11/22/63.

Rebecca
A thousand splendid suns
Memoirs of a geisha
1984
Wild swans

@Serin

A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute. Love it.

my absolute favourite book too

Come in Spinner by Dymphna Cusack and Florence James
Riders by Jilly Cooper

@Brawsome

And Stephen King’s 11/22/63.

That's what I'm reading right now. I can't put it down, I think my eyes might be bleeding now.

Following to find later 👍🏻

Forgot The Quiet American by Graham Greene

My most dog eared books are
Brave New World (hence my username)
1984
Cold Christmas by Nina Beachcroft
I adore Robert Rankin & his far fetched fiction
Albert Camus - The Plague
Concrete Island - JG Ballard (love Ballard)
Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
We. have over a thousand books, it’s hard choosing favourites!

Both by John Irving- Garp and the hotel New Hampshire (an amazing book with a terrible ending!)

And Stephen King’s 11/22/63.

Yep, great book, very clever writer is Mr King.

And yes, whoever said The Yellow Wallpaper - I'd forgotten how much I loved that.
And I forgot Woolf - anything by Woolf too.

So many great books, so little time!!

Great thread, I'm noting some of the books to pop on my Kindle!

The Great Gatsby
Catcher in the Rye - J D Sallinger
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood
A Streetcar Named Desire (not a novel but I love reading it) - Tennessee Williams
The Sisters Brothers - Patrick DeWitt
Gone With the Wind, I find the racism difficult - not the racism of the time it was set but Margaret Mitchell's racist views showing in the story and the narration. But I love the story and the way the protagonist has no pleasant characteristics but you want her to be happy because she simply will not give up. I'd love to find an epic novel with a story I love as much but without the racism.

@JaneJeffer

An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan is so good.

Seconded. That book has stayed with me.

Any Human Heart by William Boyd.
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb

Oh yes 11.22.63 - Stephen King - amazing book 'life turns on a dime' and 'oh how we danced' are lines that will stay with me forever from reading that.

And as a child I loved A Little Princess and The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burgess .

Another vote here for Cloud Atlas. I picked it up for a dollar in a random op shop in the middle of nowhere and devoured it in a couple of days.
I also recommend Ngaio (pron: Nigh-oh) Marsh, she was a crime writer similar to Agatha Christie but with much more rounded characters and well-thought out plots. I want to be friends with Roderick Alleyn and Troy. I also enjoy an Agatha Christie as a more brainless read.
Other recommendations are:
Anything by Graham Greene, especially Travels with my aunt
John Wyndham, particularly the Midwich Cuckoos
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Cloudstreet Tim Winton
Terry Pratchett
Bleak house
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I recently got Circe as well which I'm looking forward to starting
There are loads more but I shall stop before I just list everything on my bookshelves!