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.

Anything by Graham Greene
The Red Tent
Chocolat
Woman on the Edge of Time
Gone with the Wind

The Life and Loves of a She Devil, Fay Weldon
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
So Much For That, Lionel Shriver
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

ooooh Gone with the Wind, how on earth did I miss that off my list?

Forever Amber

I have favourite authors. Maggie O’Farrell writes beautifully. I love Ian McEwan’s early stuff... Also love David Mitchell as find his stories really intriguing. Love Donna Tartt too.

In terms of individual books...I Capture the Castle is fab - it has a brilliant narrator. Also really loved The Time Traveller’s Wife and Memoirs of a Geisha.

I agree with a lot of the previous suggestions. So.e of the greatest novels I've read include:

The Grapes of Wrath ( Steinbeck)
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Redemption Falls ( Joseph O' Connor)
My Name is Asher Lev (Chaim Potok)
Anything by Sebastian Barry, especially Days without End and The Whereabouts of Enaeus McNulty
The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
Exit West ( Mohsin Hamid)
The Nickel Boys ( Colson Whitehead)
Poisonwood Bible ( Barbara Kingsolver)
Jane Eyre (CB)
Great Expectations (CD)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (TH)
A little Life (Hanya Yanagihara)
American Rust (Meyer)
Blood Meridien (McCarthy)
The Goldfinch, Secret History (Tartt)

Too many more to mention....

Also, We need to talk about Kevin By Lionel Shriver. Phenomenal. Not nice subject matter but an incredible twist at the end (well, I didn’t see it coming!!)

Ooooh really loved Sebastian Faulkes too. Girl at Lion D’Or is my favourite.

Oh yes Frankenstein, absolute genius
The Lovely Bones
The Bluest Eye
Music and Silence
The Miniaturist
Anything by Tracy Chevalier.

A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara (Amazing book, I didn't want to leave it)
All of Donna Tartt's books
Love a Barbara Vine book!
The Pursuit of Happiness, Douglas Kennedy
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, Peter Hoeg
The God of Small things, Arundhati Roy

and lots more!

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
The Book Thief
Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
The House at Riverton
The Red Tent

Roll of thunder, hear my cry. I read it for my English GCSE but just loved it so much I got a copy for myself. It's fantastic

Just a few!

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - top of the list.

Then, in no particular order - but I love them all:

Germinal - Emile Zola
Jayne Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Middlemarch - George Elliot
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Stand - Stephen King
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
The L Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks
The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
The Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Stig of the Dump - Clive King
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
IT - Stephen King
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubart

Yes, I'm a bookworm with eclectic taste!

The last lecture-Randy pausch
Why we sleep-Matthew Walker
Big magic -Elizabeth Gilbert
Harley loco -rayya Elias
Magician -Raymond Feist

Some old favourites:

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Wuthering Heights - Bronte
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

Some recent great reads:
Three hours by Rosamund Lupton
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

@Dannydevitoiloveyourart Absolutely, he is my favourite writer. Every book of his has stuck with me long after and none more-so than The Remains of the Day which is just heartbreaking. He is a superb writer. His new one is out later this year, very much looking forward to it.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

A child called it

I've read ridiculous amounts of books over the years, nothing particularly highbrow, but my favourite five stories are:

Jodi Picoult - My Sisters Keeper
Alex Garland - The Beach
Alexander McCall Smith - No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
Lionel Shriver - We Need To Talk About Kevin
Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones

Gosh so many of my favourites already mentioned

I capture the castle
Fingersmith
the Summer Book
Housekeeping
Cloud Atlas
Knowledge of Angels
The Goldfinch
Wolf Hall series
Anything by Lissa Evans
Purple Hibiscus
Tomorrow when the war began trilogy (YA)
Cold Comfort farm
About a Boy

The count of Monte Cristo
Wind up bird chronicle by Murakami. Most things by Murakami
Love in the time of cholera and the autumn of the patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Most things by PG Wodehouse but especially the Blandings castle books
Wuthering heights
Gothic victoriana like Wilkie Collins
Jilly Cooper Rivals (delicious)

Neither here nor there by bill bryson had me bursting out with random laughs on a plane once. It was slightly embarrassing but i couldnt help it. I read it on a whim and as a last resort due to boredom and it wasnt my normal sort of book, but one that was really enjoyable. I expected it to be really dull. Someone else i know witnessed someone doing the same thing on a train with the same book.

@, thanks, not heard of @holly**@hollyandkit, excellent! Will add them to my list.

In no particular order and trying to miss out any already mentioned
A Clockwork Orange
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Shadow of the Wind
The End of Mr Y.
Shantaram
Valley of The Dolls
The Reluctant Jesus
The Hobbit

A Little Princess
The Wild Swans, both my absolute favourite as a child and still read them as a comfort.