What is the best book you have ever read?

[Toni2011]

I'd love to know which books really stick in people's minds. Any genre, any author.

The Hobbit and Exodus, both read quite young and gave me the understanding of not wanting to put a book down.

Hunting Midnight by Richard Zimmler.

Beautiful. I've given about 4 copies as presents and lent my copy to at least 4 more. Everyone loves it.

To kill a mockingbird would be mine.

Recently it was Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

Beautifully written books that always stay with me are The Virgin Suicides and The Kite Runner.

Also a big fan of Therese Raquin by Emile Zola. Read it when i was 18 and thought it was wonderful.

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Industry of Souls by Martin Booth
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

These are the ones that spring to mind.

To Kill a Mockingbird. I re read at least once a year.

The God of small things - Arundhati Roy

How many of these "best" books did you read as a teenager ?

All of mine date from that period - not sure if I was just being more impressionable or just being very adventurous and reading ahead of my age.

I read masses of novels dealing with big issues in history - holocaust, russian revolution etc in my mid teens.

Maybe it was just that I had to the time to tackle big books then - mostly since then I have not had the same time to devote to reading for pleasure.

As a teen, the books that had the most impact were -

Dance on My Grave - Aidan Chambers
Franny & Zooey - JD Salinger
The Razor's Edge - Somerset Maugham
Mockingbird - Walter Tevis

As an adult, I would say -

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Middlemarch - George Eliot

but actually, the most extraordinary and brilliant book that had the hugest impact on me, was and still is -

Parade's End - Ford Madox Ford

Song of Soloman by Toni Morisson.

'The Edible Woman' Margaret Atwood. it is so good, i have read it loads of time
same for 'Cold Comfort Farm'
Ghostwritten by david mitchell i prefer it to cloud atlas

Ooooh - can I add The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck as an equal favourite?

Best books which aren't 'airport' reads -
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

I also love Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (and all her other books, but this is her best IMO), and most Marian Keyes. Anybody Out There has me sobbing every time I read it.

And for books I can return to time and time again and alway love - Neither Here nor There and The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson. They've kept me going through many a shitty day!

The worst journey in the world by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. It is account of the expedition to antartica on the Terra Nova.

(apparently he was going to call it 'To hell with Scott' which is quite an amusing play with words!)

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Two books I re-read every couple of years.

Also, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, although I've never been in the mood to read it again.

Perfume - Patrick Suskind

Cold Comfort Farm

rofl @ 'To hell with Scott'.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (hence the name ).
Great Expectations by Dickens.

Difficult one, but has to be Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh).

So much more to it than the "Oxford toffs" image it has. It is really about the changing nature of English society in the first half of the 20th Century, about love & relationships and about religion/faith.

"Best" ever in terms of well-crafted etc, probably Beloved by Toni Morrison. Yes I read it at college (17ish) and, although I didn't love it at first as it is not exactly an easy read, realised just how bloody brilliant it is about halfway through. The last chapter is just...can't describe.

Favourite book ever is definitely something else though. Behind the Scenes at the Museum probably. Some of my favourite "books" ever are books of short stories though. Ali Smith's collections "The Whole Story and other stories" and "Other Stories and other stories" are both wonderful, although I don't know anyone else who has read/likes them.

Another vote for Possession (A S Byatt) here.

I'm reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being for the first time (on someone's recommendation). It's quite powerful.

I am reading Never Let Me Go at the moment. Am enjoying it immensely.

Another vote for Cloud Atlas. But my all time fave is The Cleft by Doris Lessing. I like a book that makes me think a lot afterwards. I think I must also really like books about alternate realities, as my favourite chapter in Cloud Atlas is an Orison of Sonmi.

Any recommendations for other books that have alternate realities or supposed futures?