Books that were recommended to you and turned out to be absolutely fantastic... an inspirational list for others!

[Anonymousbird]

OK, so I've copied the thread title, but I really want to read something but I just don't know what - nothing too heavy going, but cannot abide any form of chick lit drivel bollocks.

What have you been recommended that really surprised and impressed you?

Something interesting, intriguing, that I can get my (reading) teeth into...

We Need to Talk about Kevin - recommended to me a couple of years ago, I hadn't heard of it or the author but ended up engrossed.

Although I think this appears several times on the other thread!

The Road Home - Rose Tremain

The Woman In White - Wilkie Collins

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day

Rebecca

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton - it made me feel happy

Not the End of the World - Kate Atkinson

Wasted - Marya Hornbacher

The Historian

Half Of A Yellow Sun

Ohhhh another one here for Rebecca and also Rebeccas tale by Sally someone or other. (hangs head in shame that I work in a library and am unable to recall the surname)

Molokai by Alan Brennert, reccy by a mnneter

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I know it's very popular and has been around a while, but it was sat on my shelf caught up in a long list of others I had to read and I only just got around to it. It was really lovely, sad and humourous in equal parts. One of the World Book Night 25 titles so there are 20,000 free ones floating around if you're lucky enough to come across a copy!

Diary of Anne Frank

Ditto to Rebecca too

Shadow of the wind - carlos ruiz zafon - amazing book

Good luck, I'm always after good reads that aren't the usual chick flicks

The House on the Strand

Cold Comfort Farm

The Amber Spyglass trilogy

Room by Emma Donoghue

It appeared on the staff room coffee table at school - a colleaague had a clear out. I was not going to read it due to the subject matter but another teacher (literacy coordinater) had read it and highly recommended it.

Sooo, I started reading it in my lunchbreak on Thursday and almost forgot about going back to class, I became so engrossed.
Unfortunately I have left it in my pigeon hole so am unable to continue reading until Monday but it is very very absorbing and thougt provoking and I can't wait.

Never Let me Go - Ishiguro

Fingersmith - Waters

The Penelopiad - Atwood

The Book Thief - Zusak

The Woman in Black - Susan Hill

Disgrace - Coetzee

Music & Silence - Tremain

Wolf Hall - Mantel

These are pretty much of different genres but all blew me away, and not an ounce of the dreaded CL amongst them...

The Red Tent - Anita Dimant

Lonely Werewolf Girl - Martin Millar

Dissolution - CJ Samson

She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb

Castles Burning - Magda Denes

Disgrace

The Book Thief

God of small things

The Kite Runner

The Handmaids Tale

The Road

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (yes it was a TV mini-series recently)

Chippy I live and die by that book - I just adore it!

The Crimson Petal and The White - Michel Faber

The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon - Tom Spanbauer

Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Do you mean the Wally Lamb? Yes, it's brilliant. I notice someone has suggested 'She's Come Undone' further up the thread, I'm going to check it out.

Ahh. I always meant to read Cloudstreet. Thanks for reminding me, dalek.

Wally Lamb, yes!

She's Come Undone got me into Wally Lamb. That I found on a charity shop shelf though. I consider it very fate-ish to have come across it. Never had a find like it since.
He also did a great writing project with women from a prison in New York, helping them to write creatively - really interesting and some of the stories quite sad.

Some good reads on this thread.

Daphne du Maurier has a couple of other good ones:
The House on the Strand
The Glassblowers

The Observations - Jane Harris

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

Actually they are all books I repeatedly recommend apart from Sarah Waters who I borrowed off a friend and now I love her.

God I have a huge list of recommendations. Ian McEwan should really be on there too...