To ask what are your top ten favourite books?

[Theda13]

I’m looking for recommendations, and thought this thread may be of some help to others too.

Mine are:

1. The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
3. The Book Thief by Markus Kusak
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
6. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
7. The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
10. Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Don’t Mr Disraeli Caryl Brahms & SJ Simon

@RustyBear I read that years ago and I’ve never heard it mentioned by anyone. Thanks for the reminder.

In no particular order, except for Steinbeck. I love all of his books but particularly East of Eden.

East of Eden - Steinbeck
The Overstory - Powers
Disgrace - Coetzee
Cry the Beloved Country - Paton
Stoner - Williams
The Bell Jar - Plath
The Jump-off Creek - Gloss
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Dillard
Mink River - Doyle
Things Fall Apart - Achebe

And the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London is great too.

As an English Literature student 30 years ago, there was quite a lot of discussion about which modern authors would be the Classics of tomorrow. The same discussion probably still continues today.
John Le Carre was seen as a potential contender. My A Level English Literature teacher didn’t like his style but she thought that Graham Greene would be a contender. If I could add another book to my list it would be The End of the Affair. The premise is brilliant: please God, save him (her affair partner), and I*ll give him up forever. And then he survives…

And how did I forget Precious Bane??
10 books is not enough!!

1. The Master and Margarita
2. A Confederacy of Dunces
3. Wuthering Heights
4. Burial Rites
5. Lolita
6. Nausea by Sartre
7. Blue Eyes, Black Hair by Marguerite Duras*
8. Little Birds by Anaïs Nin
9. Nearly anything by Charles Dickens

10. Ditto but Gabriel Garciez Marquez

*This is pretty niche - I read it on a university course. If I re-read it now I'd probably be like wtf. Amazing when you take the time to understand it though.

In no particular order

1. The Count of Monte Cristo
2. Beartown
3. Rebecca
4. David Copperfield
5. The Remains of the Day
6. To Kill a Mockingbird
7. Crime and Punishment
8. The Kite Runner
9. Stoner

10. Sherlock Holmes (all of them)

I'm struggling to get it down to 10 but in no particular order, these would be in the list:

The colour purple, Alice Walker
The yellow wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The secret history, Donna Tartt
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
Behind the scenes at the museum, Kate Atkinson
Giovannis room, James Baldwin
84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
All quiet on the western front, Erich Maria Remarque

Then two from here:

Pied Piper, Nevil Shute
The garden of evening mists, Tan Twan Eng
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
The crow road, Iain Banks
Stoner, John Williams
Fatherland, Robert Harris
Any Human Heart, William Boyd

1. Pride and Predudice
2. What Katy Did
3. What Katy did Next
4. The Secret Garden
5. Dracula
6. Wolf Hall
7. The Importance of being Earnest
8. A Room with a View
9. Anna Karanina
10. The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Some of my favourites are:

Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
The Girls by Lori Lansens
Carnavale by M R Lovric
The Rose Grower by Michelle de Kretser
The Lady and The Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
Precious Bane by Mary Webb
That Bonesetter Woman by Frances Quinn
Cats Eye by Margaret Atwood
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
Black Heart Blue by Louisa Reid

I know that’s more than 10, I could go on….😁

FajitaQueen · Today 20:02
As an English Literature student 30 years ago, there was quite a lot of discussion about which modern authors would be the Classics of tomorrow. The same discussion probably still continues today.

That’s interesting - can you remember any of the other modern authors - apart from John Le Carre & Graham Greene (I agree about The End of the Affair) - that would be the classics of the future?
I guess Kingsley Amis isn’t considered appropriate nowadays but maybe Martin?

The works of Nancy Mitford and Daphne du Maurier remain stubbornly in print 😂 and they’ve been on quite a few of the lists on this thread though I don’t suppose they’re mentioned in books on 20th century literature.

Nightingale Wood, Stella Gibbons
The Fancy, Monica Dickens
Experience, Martin Amis
The Satsuma Complex, Bob Mortimer
Hotel Avocado, Bob Mortimer
The Happy Prisoner, Monica Dickens
Lionel Asbo, Martin Amis
Anything by Hilary Mantel
The Happy Death of the General, short story by Louis de Bernieres
Anything by Stella Gibbons

• The Foxes of Harrow - Frank Yerby
• The Willowpool - Elizabeth Elgin
• Rebecca - Daphne de Maurier
• Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernier
• The Nightingale- Kristin Hannah
• Where the Crawdads Sing - Delis Owen’s
• The Hanging of Hettie Gale - Tess Burnett
• The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
• Enigma - Robert Harris

I find most books a bit meh. I love a proper story, an epic, an adventure, something that really works the imagination… I’m not sure about a top ten but here are some titles that I’ve enjoyed:

1. Jane Eyre
2. Memoirs of a Geisha
3. The Time Traveller’s Wife
4. Piranesi
5. The Bone Clocks (generally anything by David Mitchell as I love the worlds he creates)
6. I am I am I am - Seventeen Brushes with Death (generally anything by Maggie O’Farrell as she writes so beautifully)
7. A Gentleman in Moscow (but currently reading The Lincoln Highway which a PP included up thread so maybe it will push A Gentleman in Moscow off the list)
8. The Heart’s Invisible Furies
9. After The Party
10. The Gold Finch

I like a lot of the early Ian McEwan novels too.

Agree with so many of the books already mentioned, including Rebecca, Name of the rose and Precious bane.

Would also include any of the trilogies by Robertson Davies, HG Wells Anna Veronica and Elizabeth Strout's Tell me everything.

Got the title wrong. Not “After The Party” but “Last One at the Party” - read it over two days last summer. Loved it.

1. Pride and prejudice - Jane Austen
2. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
3. Then she was gone - Lisa Jewell
4. The Grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer
5. Mr Mercedes - Stephen King
6. Trespasses - Louise Kennedy
7. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
8. Shuggie Bain - Douglas Bain
9. TKAMB - Harper Lee
10. The woman in white - Wilkie Collins

You are the first person I’ve ever come across who has The return of the Native as their favourite book. Its mine too. So many people have never heard of of it!

It’s impossible to choose just ten! In no particular order:

The Murmur of Bees - Sofia Segovia
The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
A Room with a View - E.M. Forster
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
Room - Emma Donoghue
Animal’s People - Indra Sinha
The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler
Take What You Can Carry - Gian Sardar
Emma - Jane Austen
Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell

Plus the Strike series, anything by Bill Bryson and also Jilly Cooper

Aww! Hello! 👋

You're absolutely right, so many people don't know about it at all. And it is honestly amazing. I generally love Hardy anyway, but this is such a standout book, it's so layered and has brilliant symmetry that just makes it feel like a fait accompli if that makes sense? Love, fate and the human condition. My original copy is so dog-eared now that I probably need to buy a new one before it falls apart completely - which is almost a metaphor for the marriages in the book!!

1. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
2. The Heart’s Invisble Furies by John Boyne

the others, in no particular order…

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Goolden
The Enchanted Wood/Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Me Before you -Jojo Moyes
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

and many other books I love but too hard to prioritise them.

Oh the Magic Faraway Tree brings back memories - Silky, Saucepan Man and Moonface, or am I misremembering?!

I read it for A level. It’s a million miles away from most books I read but it captured my heart and I still read it from time to time. It’s a masterpiece. In fact, I haven’t read it for a few years so I think I’ll read it again soon.

You’re not misremembering and when I went to the cinema the other day I saw that a film is coming out soon! All those characters. And Dame Washakot and the Slippery Slip.

The Lady vanishes - Ethel Lina White
Pride and Prejudice/ Persuasion - Jane Austen
Travels with my Aunt - Graham Greene
Rivers of London series - Ben Aaronovitch
Things in Jars - Jess Kidd
And then there were none - Agatha Christie
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh
Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes ( Also loved The brightest star in the sky )
Rita Haworth and Shawshank redemption - Stephen King

I can’t possibly choose just 10 as it depends if I’m in the mood for a comfort read, a crime , espionage’or a more thoughtful read. Authors I enjoy over and over
Elly Griffiths
Kate Atkinson
Miss Read
David Mitchell
Donna Tartt
Charles Cummings
Alex Gerlis
Philip Kerr
Ken Follet
Mark Dawson
Ruth Rendell
ELizabeth Jane Howard
Jodi Taylor

Re reading my vast collection of childhood books

Plus non fiction…

Sorry is this greedy?

Books are the best!