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.

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford - surely? (Pedant alert)

Talking of which I re-read Love in a Cold Climate every couple of years - I love it so much just for the emotional detachment, the very very funny lines and the characters.

Old friends are also:
Lolita
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
Madame Bovary - Flaubert
Farewell My Lovely and The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
Jane Eyre

So really I like misplaced lust, sex scandal and crime with a side of vivid language and imagery and a large helping of humour.

I am sure my favourite books are not the 'best' ones IYSWIM. I don't have very highbrow tastes and I also struggle with anything written recently apart from Anne Tyler. I'm a mid-century girl.

sorry, typo with the Hons & Rebels - cut and pasted in the wrong place

I remember falling in love with Raymond Carver (any)

But right now am enjoying The Bonfire of the Vanities immensely.

Sorry Light I feel a bit of a cow for pointing it out now - given your diligence and detail.

Love lots already mentioned. Also these:

Gone with the wind - Margaret Mitchell

Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh.

The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner. I read that book and it takes my breath away every time.

The Salterton, Deptford and Cornish trilogies by Robertson Davies are wonderful books.

Gone with the wind

American Boy = Andrew taylor

Lord of the flies

Wuthering Heights

Shadow of the Wind

Anything by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Oh I finished Never Let Me Go.

I don't think I can read another book again for a while now, as I need to process it.

Incredible. Not sure I'll want to see the film though.

Another vote for Cloud Atlas here. So clever and creative, and had me gripped.

Also Brave New World- Aldous Huxley, my teenage favourite which really got me thinking about life.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Again, I can't bear to watch the film as I know it would ruin things for me though

To Kill A Mockingbird and Forever Amber

I also loved 'The Worst Journey In the World' by Apsley Cherry-Garrard.

'Of Mice And Men' is about as good as a book is possible to be I think - I would go so far as to say it is almost perfect, apart from the silly bit with the giant rabbit.

Jane Austen of course - though I can never decide which one I like best!

Isabel Allende's 'Paula' is sublime.

Love 'Lord Of The Flies' and 'Lolita' too.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
La casa de Bernada Alba - Federico Garcia Lorca
Como agua para chocolate - Laura Esquival

Catch 22. Absolutely love it.

Thank you for the list, will be looking into some of these.

Great thread - lots of ideas here and new books to look for

Already on the list, my vote would be for All Quiet on the Western Front.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Time Traveller's Wife
Wuthering Heights

ohhh and The Bell Jar

Wow! What a great response. Special thanks go to LightShinesInTheDarkness for putting it all together!

It's fascinating how many of the books here come up on the 'books you've never finished' thread too. I love books that have the 'marmite' effect. Cloud Atlas is one that comes up lots on both threads - I'm going to read it asap.

I am also really pleased to see 'Of Mice and Men' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird' come up so many times - I have taught both of these books to GCSE students in the last few years.

As with many of you, I could not choose just one book (notice the lack of my own suggestion in the opening message!) and can only offer a few instead:

Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare) is fantastic.
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Stevenson).
Lolita - a book I could never read again as it really made me cringe, but one I have to acknowledge as very well written and extremely effective.
Terry Prachett's Discworld series.

Hmm I had better stop there or I could be here for some time!

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureshi

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

We Need to talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver

The Post Birthday World - Lionel Shriver

I hated The House At Riverton - read it on holiday a couple of years ago and only finished it because I was desperate. I took a dozen books for a fortnight and still ended up having to read stuff that other people had left behind at the apartments - this was one of them.

I did like The Book Thief though. :)

Rivals - Jilly Cooper, and I don't care who knows it

And Pride and Prejudice