Please recommend me a great or your favourite book!

[msrisotto]

I'm looking forward to having time to actually read on holiday soon!
I don't fancy too much gore or too much twee romance. Classics or modern are good.
My favourite to date is "I know this much is true" by Wally Lamb. I liked Atonement and I have 1984 next on my list (and the much trashier but lovely Jemima J by Jane Green). Wrong section for nonfiction but I like stuff like 127 hours and Touching the void too. Any ideas?

[cq]

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is my all-time favourite.

Also loved The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb.

The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver

Me Before You - Jojo Moyes (less heavy going but needs a box of tissues to hand)

My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You - can't remember the author, but another great wartime novel if you liked Atonement.

Love anything by Minette Walters - she writes really gritty psychological thrillers.

Agree with The Crow Road - a great read.

[hazeyjane]

Any Douglas Coupland
The Bone People by Keri Hulme

[Worksitoutwithapencil]

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
these are three of my favourites

[OneHolyCow]

The invention of solitude by Paul Auster. A story about how he finds out things that were hidden in his family after his father died. Beautiful.

Other things by George Orwell like Down and out in Paris and London or the one where he writes about his time in Spain during the civil war.. I love those. Hommage to Catalonia.

I've just read Harvest by Jim Crace and found that very good.

Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy.

Touching the Voidy: Into the wild, Jon Krakauer bio of hapless boy in Alaska. He's also got a mountainering book, forget the title though.
Werner Herzog's Annapurna ascent is historically not very accurate but a gripping read!

[DuchessofMalfi]

Another couple of Daphne Du Maurier's novels - Jamaica Inn, and My Cousin Rachel. Both great reads.

[LadyFlumpalot]

Alias Grace by Margaret Attwood. Brilliant!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Other than obvious classics such as Austen and Waugh and a couple of others already mentioned, the books I most like to recommend are:

This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson
A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
The Worst Journey In The World by Aspley Cherry Garrard
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Stand by Stephen King and also King's Dark Tower series

You might also really like Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane.

[raisah]

I have just finished Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn which is dark, twisted & brilliant. Nit ptedictable at all, I was kept guessing until the end.

I also read The Innocents by Francesca Segal which I enjoyed because there were a lot of similarities with my own upbringing I could recognise in the book.

I would recommend both books for a holiday read.

[Thewhingingdefective]

She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb
I Heard The Owl Call My Name - Margaret Craven
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
The Pearl - John Steinbeck
The Summer Book - Tove Jansson

[BrokenBananaTantrum]

I heard the owl call my name by Margaret Craven is brilliant. My favourite book of the last 20 years.

[Floralnomad]

My favourite book ever is A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh .

[maxpower]

Shantaram
A thousand splendid suns

[mrspaddy]

My favourite books are true stories or true to life stories.

A Light in the Window
Forget you had a daughter
An Evil Cradling
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Help

[Branleuse]

Kafka on the shore - haruki murakami

[PacificDogwood]

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - amazing and stayed with me for a long time. Well, still staying with me...

Or Ghostwritten by the same author.

I am just rereading PD James - love her way with words.

[SlightlyJaded]

The Poisinwood Bible
The Blind Assassin
The Secret History
Year of Wonder
House of Spirits
Behind the Scenes at the Museum

All great reads

[Rhienne]

If you like Jane Green, you might like the one I'm reading. Rosie Hopkins Sweet Shop of Dreams, by Jenny Colgan. Never going to win any prizes for fabulous writing, but a nice, feel good, chiclit.

[smugmumofboys]

For a holiday I'd go for the Millennium Trilogy by Stig Larsson. I thoroughly enjoyed them and devoured them one after the other.

For something completely different, I love Wilkie Collins' Woman in White.

[MorvahRising]

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is brilliant.

The Autobiography of Henry Vlll by Margaret George is one I read over and over again.

Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome always cracks me up too.

[wiltingfast]

Would second the Daphne du Maurier books

Also The Secret History by Donna Tartt

And The Stand

Also Day of the Jackel is an excellent read.

I personally love Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten but they are not everyone's cup of tea.

[SorrelForbes]

We Speak No Treason
Requiem For A Wren
On Green Dolphin Street
That Summer

[VivMac]

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is my most recent favourite read to be shared, it is a little whimsical but once you've been there in your head you will always be wondering when the circus might come to your town...

[ClartyCarol]

So pleased to see other people mention The Crow Road, a fabulous book. Also The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe, or What A Carve Up. Have bought Gone Girl but I'm saving it for a weekend away coming soon.

I would also thoroughly recommend One Day by David Nicholls - not going to win the Booker but such a good read. I cried buckets. Same with Birdsong.

You should also try the Jackson Brodie books by Kate Atkinson, or indeed any of her novels.

[ClartyCarol]

Also Going Gently by David Nobbs; have read and re-read this many times. It's really very good.

[HoveringKestrel]

LOVE this thred. I've waited for ages to discuss books.

The best book I have read recently is 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time', about a guy, who narrates, who is autistic, and the way he thinks about things.

But the build up is good.....then the ending is rushed.


I would also say 'A Long Way Down' by Nick Hornby, its SOOO good, about four strangers who want to commit suicide on the same night and find sollace in each other. A lot more entertaining and deep than it sounds.