What is the best book you have ever read?

[KatyDidItAgain]

What was it, and why was it so good?

Mine is Nevil Shute's Trustee from the toolroom for his wonderful portrayal of the main character, Keith.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

One of the few books I have read more than once.

Hasn't everyone read To Kill A Mockingbird at school?

Wuthering Heights
Brave New World
The Mill On The Floss
All by Austen

Under Milk Wood

To Kill a Mocckingbird is not that great because the narrative voice is not believable. IMO.
Probably something by Evelyn Waugh

Ooh Over I LOVE Brave New World. It's ace. Also Wuthering Heights. And Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel. And Red Or Dead, David Peace's new one about Bill Shankly. So many books...

We didn't read To Kill A Mockingbird . We read Dickens and Austin .

I only read To Kill a Mockingbird a couple of years ago, not at school. I don't recall reading any fiction books at secondary school, I didn't take English Lit O level, but I guess we must have done, they just haven't stuck with me.

Guilty pleasure reads are;

Erra
Erra More & The Sibitti
Shah ( Gods & Thurs)
The Neuri Series
The Pravus Series

All the above by the most brilliant POPPET

So tough, I can't pick one so a list (in no particular order):

Rebecca
Midnight's Childen
A Tale of Two Cities
Lolita
The Lovely Bones
The Remains of the Day
Tristram Shandy
Wild Swans

Also really enjoyed Uncle Tom's Cabin (only after I'd read it though - not whilst ploughing through).

Plus I love 'bilge' like Jilly Cooper, Twilight, Hunger Games, Girl Who trilogy... and Harry Potter, of course. Fuck being intellectual, I read for pure enjoyment these days.

No night is too long - Barbara Vine

Its probably not the greatest book ever written but it has been my favourite book for 15 years and I re read it constantly.

As far as 'best' is concerned, The Mayor of Casterbridge is probably one of the best-written novels out there. And very, very moving.

I enjoyed reading A Fine Balance but found it as a novel rather flawed. Far too much misery and not enough redemption or hope.

"Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Or

"The Lathe of Heaven" or "The Left Hand Of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin.

And for poetry, for me it has always been W.B Yeats.

Though Christmas:1924 by Thomas Hardy is my favourite poem.

I've always loved Auden and also the metaphysical poets but for favorite its a tough call between Thom Gunn, Adrienne Rich and Sylvia Plath

The most beautifully written IMO is In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje

My absolute favourite is Weaveworld by Clive Barker

Poem? A Prayer Before Birth by Louis MacNeice

Norwegian Wood. Still can't get it out of my head a year later.

Mama Mary - Totally agree. The unrelenting misery actually made me lose sympathy/patience in the end.

Blimey.
So many.
The code of the woosters
Jane eyre
To kill a mockingbird
The godfather
It
The god of small things
Great expectations
The thorn birds
An instance of the fingerpost
....

One that sticks in my mind is The Summer of the Barshinskeys by Diane Pearson, its so descriptive you actually think you're in it!

Reading 'Mister Pip' to my Yr 11 GCSE class last year I got to a section just before the end when the least engaged pupil in the class, possibly the year, stood up and said " No that's shit, no, I can't read that" and left the room. I went out after him and he was crying! The power of a great novel.

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates.

Also love The Secret History (Tartt), The Corrections (Franzen), The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck).

Agree impossible but Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris is just one of many.
You can just smell the herbs, I love her.Along with Chocolat
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Jane Eyre
Angela's Ashes
The Hand That Held Mine

I just adored Memoirs of a Geisha. Have never found a book to match it

In my all time faves collection are

Pride & Prejudice and Emma
The Handmaids Tale and almost anything by Atwood
Never let me go
Middlemarch
Couple of Sarah Waters' novels

Most enjoyed recent reads are
Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (Jk Rowling)
Gone girl
Hunger Games(!!)