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.

Some of my favourite books have already been mentioned. These are the books I have read more than once -
A Town Like Alice
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Midnight’s Children
The Time Traveler's Wife
Life of Pi
Great Expectations
On Chesil Beach

A Suitable Boy- Vikram Seth
The Secret History- Donna Tartt
Scrublands- Chris Hammer
Lonesome Dove- Larry McMurtry
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Any Terry Pratchett

Life of Pi also great!

The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck.

Also love Neville Shute - Trustees of the Toolroom is a brilliant story, A town like Alice is also beautiful.

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
A Star Called Henry - Roddy Doyle
Mrs Hemingway - Naomi Wood
The Shining - Stephen King
Still Alice - Lisa Genova
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

Already mentioned
The Poisonwoood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
Or any of her books but that's the best.

Rebecca
East of Eden
The Portrait of a Lady
The Poisonwood Bible
The Bell Jar
No More Meadows
A Passage to India
Sons and Lovers
The Greengage Summer

I don't really have favourite books but any book I'd be happy to read again I suppose would be a favourite.

Books that have stayed with me are Carrie's War, Goodnight Mr Tom, Warhorse (a theme here) The Book Thief, The Nightingale, The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Shell Seekers.

Rebecca
Wolf Hall
Atonement
Life after life

Wild swans Jung Chang
Caste Isabel Wilkerson

I don't really have a favourite book, have loved loads over the years.

A couple of favourite series have been Vera, Dublin Murder Squad and Riders/Polo etc.

The well of loneliness - Radclyffe Hall
Life after life- Kate Atkinson
The sleepless moon- HE Bates
Emma - Jane Austen
Couples -John Updike
Diary of a mad housewife - Sue Kaufman

An equal music by Vikram Seth and Life after Life by Kate Atkinson.

Star of the Sea - Joseph O Connor (if I remember correctly)

Really gripping.

A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music - both by Vikram Seth
Jane Eyre
The Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling
Anything by Ian McEwan
Anything by John Le Carre

@LagneyandCasey - snap - all of those you have mentioned would be on my long list.

One of my favourites, not already mentioned, is The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman.

So many stand-out books I've read in my life, but the books I re-read regularly are the Enderby novels by Anthony Burgess, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, F Scott Fitzgerald's Pat Hobby stories, and DH Lawrence 'The Rainbow'.

With all of them, I just love the writing, the words are like settling into a comfy armchair.

Memoirs of a geisha- Arthur brown
The count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
Clan of the cave bear- Jean m auel
The whole shardlake series by CJ sandsome
THE STAND BY STEPHEN KING

and everything else by Stephen king hahaha he is a genius

@MooseBreath glad to see someone mention a king book!

I loved And Then She Was Gone - Lisa Jewell.
Tuppence To Cross The Mersey- Helen Forrester, is a book I read a lot.
Stepping Stones - Maureen Lee ( rip) - in fact all of hers.
Master of the Game - Sydney Sheldon. I first read when I was about 15 and it kick started my love of reading.
Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends
9 perfect strangers- Lianne Moriarty.
Blood Orange was good.

So many really.

Also Martina Cole's earliest. Two Women especially.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, all of his books are great to be fair.
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Behind The Scenes At The Museum by Kate Atkinson is wonderful.

Classics wise, I love Wuthering Heights but it’s nothing for everyone. Great Expectations is superb, as is Jane Eyre.

Phantom - Susan Kay
His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
The Book of Dust parts 1&2 - Phillip Pullman
The Dark Tower series - Stephen King
Howls Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
Castle in the Sky - Diana Wynne Jones
House of Many Ways - Diana Wynne Jones
The Last Unicorn - Peter S Beagle
The Neverending Story - Michael Ende

*not for everyone