Can you recommend me just one

[ivykaty44]

and only one book to read - please, thank you

Harry Potter - well actually that's 7 books but one main character! Does that count, lol!!!

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

I'm so going to read Crimson Petal and the White now after all the recommendations - thanks everyone

a Secret History Donna Tart

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

Small Island - Andrea Levy, a modern British classic, imo.
Jigsaw - Sybille Bedford
All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy; harrowing, epic, romantic.
Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell. Impressed, in spite of myself (meaning I didn't really want to like it, self-congratulatory young upstart!)
I could go on. I've read a lot - at my age I've had plenty of time - but not some of those mentioned above (eg One Day, A Fine Balance) so thanks for recommendations. BTW did like Birdsong, Half of a Yellow Sun/Purple Hibiscus (actually preferred PH) but not quite THAT much. Actually hated The Kite Runner,found it trashily and predictably written & plotted, despite obviously original setting. Still stunned that nobody else did, apparently.

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry.......lost myself in it and didn't want to finish it....but yes very sad in places

And I loved Mr Starlight, will reread it now!

I LOVE Behind the Scenes at the Museum (kate Atkinson). Also Birdsong and Kite Runner, but make sure you have tissues ready!

Found "Behind The Scenes At The Museum" quite self-conscious and annoying myself, and all the dotting about in time really pissed me off. Plus when I saw there was a wedding chapter set in 1966, I thought "She'd better not write a scene where all the men sneak off to watch the World Cup, leaving all the women at the wedding." And lo and behold...

DW loved it, to be fair.

One Day shit

Kite Runner ludicrous over long shit

Thousand Splendid Suns unbearably dull with cardboard women

Birdsong, indeed ALL Sebby Faulks, shit

The Alchemist absolutely so far beyond shit there is no word

All Mistry superb, ditto McCarthy (except The Road), particularly Blood Meridian, Patrick White, Gore Vidal, particulalry Creation and Julian and the Empire series, Cider House Rules, John Irving, not dreary old Owen Meany.

Cloud Atlas v gd and Half Yellow Sun.

Kate Atkinson good read, but nothing more

I love "Behind The Scenes At The Museum" think it is Kate Atkinson's best book. Was the first I read of hers and looked forward to reading each new one. Afraid to say I'm always a bit disappointed.

One of my favourite books of all time is Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey. It is a real page turner - fantastic lead characters , set in an interesting time in history and great great story. I have lent it to around 10 people at this stage and each one have loved it as much as me!

Hullygully!

You are spot on with all you say except re Seb Faulks - Birdsong is good and Engleby is much better.

Nope, Sebby is SHITE

Marisa De Los Santos' Love Walked In and its sequel, Belong to Me. They're better than their titles suggest. :) They're not classics or anything, but they're fun reads and quite moving at times.

I wonder how IvyKaty will pick the books when they are at the same time Superb and Shite!! Hullygully, I know what you mean. I particularly dislike SF's way of getting a cliche and dealing with it in an intelligent but cliche'd way (sorry can't do accents). It suggests that he could be a better writer, but chooses to be a successful one (and who can blame him - didn't say anything about selling out on the paycheck...)

Anyway. 1984, George Orwell.

If you ever write anything, you should read Orwell's essary Politics and the English Language. It changed the way I read pretty much anything, and certainly the way I wrote. And this was before collateral damage was invented!!

The wrong boy by Willie Russell.

Silas Marner

Unless by Carol Shields

Hully, I thought I was alone in my intense dislike of Sebastian Faulks. My mum keeps giving them to me and I think, ok, everyone else thinks he's so great I'll try one more... Doh!

The Corrections

Bel Canto - Ann Patchett

And I am sneaking in Two Lives - Vikram Seth. Absolutely absorbing.

This is like the book choice in Desert Island Discs!

Silas Marner is a very good choice, a wonderful beautiful book. I will think more to see if I can come up with a single choice of my own (unlikely though)

(The God of Small Things is the most depressing book I have ever read - I think I put it in the bin so nobody else could ever read it)