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

the Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
Middlemarch - George Eliot
1984 - George Orwell
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie..
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Choice - Edith Eger
Candide - Voltaire
Lost and Found - Oliver Jeffers

Oh and I meant to put David Copperfield too!

In no particular order but these are ten books that I recommend to everyone

1. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
2. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë
3. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
4. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
7. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
8. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
9. The Master and Margarita- Mikhail Bulgakov
10. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

I also love the Jeeves and Wooster series. At the risk of being banished from the thread, I cannot get on with Jane Austen and the Thursday Murder Club books are my literary guilty pleasure.

1. Lady Chatterley’s Lover-DH Lawrence
2. Lolita- Nabokov
3. Laughter in the Dark - Nabokov
4. The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
5. How I live Now - Meg Rosoff
6. The Graduate - Charles Webb
7. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
8. The Collector - John Fowles
9. The Quiet American- G Greene
10. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

I narrowed mine down by cutting out a couple that had been mentioned a lot already.

Hurray for another fan of The Real Charlotte! I must reread. The Death of the Heart rather than The House in Paris or The Heat of the Day.

@FallingSlower
I wish Somerville & Ross had written a sequel to The Real Charlotte!
25 years later the Troubles broke out and I don’t think Charlotte would’ve got off lightly - if she was still alive.

I love all those E Bowens you mention - maybe The House in Paris is the best of her novels, but I love the study of the outsider Portia coming into the Quaynes’ lives - and also Major Brutt, one of the most tragic characters in 20th century lit.

I've already posted my list but have just realised I'm on my third copy of The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill . . . the previous 2 copies fell apart through constant re-reading, so this definitely should have been on my list!

In no particular order:

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
Tracks by Robin Davidson
Crooked heart by Lissa Evans
V for Victory by Lissa Evans
Never Let me Go by kazuo Ishiguro
Memorial by Alice Oswald
The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

James Herbert - secret of crickley hall.
Stephen king - Mr Mercedes/holly.
JD Kirk - DCI Logan series
Gabby Hutchinson crouch - wish you weren't here series.
Virginia Andrews - flowers in the attic series.
Dean Koontz - odd Thomas series.
Stephen king - the long walk
Stephen king - the institute
Stephen king - fairytale.
Dan brown - all of them.

I love Lisa Jewell books

Moominpappa at sea
Other voices, other rooms
The weirdstone of Brisingamen
The chrysalids
The call of the wild
The Martin Beck series
The sacred and profane love machine
The French lieutenant's woman
The Franchise Affair
The quiet American

Yes, I love the chronicles of st Mary’s! Never see them talked about anywhere

I heard about them on MN & then found a Jodi Taylor group on Facebook. I binge read the lot recently & I’ve just finished listening to Doing Time on Audible.

Max would have loved Mumsnet.

Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson.

The Thursday murder club books - they please me and make me happy

Quite alot of the Jinny at Finmory books

The Moonstone- Wilkie Collins

Definitely The Chrysalids John Wyndham.

Swallows and Amazons - and all their progeny in the form of the Harry Potters.

Ooh following. Love posts like these 😊

Round About A Pound A Week needs to go on my list too!

Oh yes it's a brilliant book!

Stephen King 11:22:63 is also on my list.

Great thread , these come to the forefront today but if I saw this thread tomorrow it would change a bit I'm sure..
Tell me everything Elisabeth Strout ( best to read series in order.)
The Great Gatsby F Sott Fitzgerald
Duma Key Stephen King - everything by him really.
Good to see it on your list too
@piggywaspushed I love it!
Ballet shoes Noel Streatfield
A Little Life Hana Yanagahara (This one always divides opinion)
The Hallmarked man JK Rowling ( All the Strike/Ellacott books)
1984 George Orwell
We need to talk
about Kevin Lionel Shriver
The Mill on the Floss George Eliot
Vera books Ann Cleeves and the Matthew Venn ones.

1 Revolutionary Road
2 The Easter Parade
3 Lord of the Flies
4 Catcher in the Rye
5 Pride and Prejudice
6 The Handmaid’s Tale
7 The Knife of Never Letting Go
8 Watership Down
9 Olive Ketteridge
10 1984

Honourable mentions to:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
Never Let Me Go

I’ve just discovered the Strike series and am addicted. I’m reading via audiobook and the actor- narrator is superb.

So:

1. Strike series - Robert Galbraith
2. Chronicles of St Mary’s - Jodie Taylor
3. Frogmarten Farm series - Jodie Taylor
4. Ruth Galloway series - Elly Griffiths
5. Chronicles of Narnia - C S Lewis

(I do love a well- written series!)

1. Me before You - Jojo Meyes
2. Thousand Splendid Suns
3. Half a Yellow Orange
4. Boy in a Million
5. American Dirt

Im going to sneak in another one and make no apology:
Malory Towers - Enid Blyton

Also every short story by Elizabeth Taylor.

I would also like to add every book published by Persephone Books, particularly those written by Dorothy Whipple . . .

I’m lumping series together because I’ll run out of spots else and in no particular order;

Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit - J R R Tolkien
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Riders (and Rivals and Polo) - Jilly Cooper
Lady Chatterly’s Lover - D H Lawrence
The Shadow and Bone/Six of Crows series - Leigh Bardugo
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Harry Potter - J K Rowling (this one is 50% nostalgia I think)
Heartless - Elsie Silver (shoot me, I love me some smut, that whole series is great 😂)

Nana / Zola
Old goriot / Balzac
I capture the castle

Jude the obscure

Meniors of a geisha

Shultz / jp donleavy

All Evelyn waugh

The last tycoon / f Scott Fitzgerald
Madame pompadour/ Mitford

A tale of two cities dickens

Oh yes gone with the wind ...stunning

Bonfire of the vanities /Wofle

So many