You know that heart-achingly wonderful, bittersweet feeling you get when you finish an incredible book? I want more of that in my life.

[SpaghettiBologneighs]

That feeling you're left with when you've been utterly immersed in another life or another universe. I've just finished a wonderful series. Not high literature by any stretch, but beautifully written with characters who lived and breathed and moved me. I finished with my eyes full of tears and I feel bereft, but in a good way :).

I want more of that in my life. What books have left others feeling this way?

I loved the Tawny Man trilogy (and the Assassin trilogy). LiveShip books are good, but don't bother with Soldier Son set, they are rubbish.

I just wrote a review of a the Gone series by Michael Grant, which is a sort of Young Adult scifi dystopia sort of thing. It was good enough that when the last book came out I bothered to reread the earlier ones.

Trills - I couldn't get on with Gone. I liked the first one but I found it really disturbing, the violence, when they are all children. I love apocalyptic stories normally.

Fannie Flagg books are fabulous. Just finished Standing in the Rainbow - just so lovely! Sad bits and funny bits but overall really does just make things seem sunny.

Any Margaret Atwood, but particularly Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. And The Blind Assassin.

The Time Traveler's Wife I couldn't put down. That and The Year of the Flood are the only two books I've read cover to cover twice in a row.

Boy's Life by Robert R McCammon also a wonderful, wonderful book. Magic and suspense and mystery, heartbreak and wonderful things all in one book. I love it.

Anything by Richard Yates, one of books was made into a film - Revolutionary Road - but all of his books really stayed with me afterwards including the short stories.

This thread is great, I have just made a list of books to look for on kindle another day!

Greenshootsandleaves!
I've read 'summer of my German soldier!'

I know this feeling!!! I tend to be a fast reader and have to consciously tell myself to slow down when nearing the end of a killer book as I know I'll be gutted when its over.....

Recently I loved Me Before You...surpassed my expectations completely. Ok, was a bit chick lit but I invested in those characters and was bereft by the end.

Old faves, The Stand definitely. And Birdsong. Just didn't know where to put myself for a while after that one.

Thanks though....just downloaded Restoration and The Poisonwood Bible. cheers!!

I love this thread!

From childhood: the Sadlers Wells series - I must have read them twenty times or more each. And Katherine by Anya Seton (read 10 times?) And yy to Summer of My German Soldier and The L-Shaped Room.

Adult novels: yy to Atonement, Poisonwood Bible, anything by Atwood, anything by Yates but especially Revolutionary Road and Easter Parade, We Need to Talk About Kevin, I Capture the Castle,.

Some not mentioned yet (or only other books by the same author):

The Colour (Tremain), Paradise and Song of Solomon (Morrison), The Outcast (Sadie Jones), Corrections (Franzen), Oscar and Lucinda (Carey), all of Alice Munro's short stories, all of Margaret Laurence's Manawaka series, The Crimson Petal and the White (Faber), Underworld by Don DeLillo, My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin, Katherine by Anya Seton.

Ooh, I could go on forever - but those are the ones I've read at least three times and are old friends but make me sad I won't ever read them again for the first time.

I love everything I've read by Rose Tremain but haven't read her historical novels - I'm not usually a huge fan (except for Katherine!) - but I will definitely give Restoration a go after this thread.

Thanks!

Some of these may have already been mentioned:

State of Wonder- Anne Patchett
The Stand- Stephen King (best book ever)
This Much is True- Wally Lamb
Rebecca- Daphne dau Maurier
A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving
A Monster calls- Patrick Ness
The Fault in our Stars- John Green
11/22/63- Stephen King

For me it has to be the brone horseman by paullina Simmons and the other two in the trilogy, tatiana and Alexander and the summer garden.

Utterly utterly beautiful, heartbreaking and gripping!

Oh, I loved Tully but didn't think it necessarily stood up to a reread. I might give those a go at some point.