Absolutely Unputdownable Books

[spacemonkey]

Just interested to know what books mumsnetters found absolutely impossible to put down ...

Here are some of mine:

• Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
• anything by Jane Austen
• Villette - Charlotte Bronte
• Diary of a Nobody - George & Weedon Grossmith
• If This Is A Man - Primo Levi
• His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman
• The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell
• Moab is my Washpot - Stephen Fry
• Things Can Only Get Better - John O'Farrell
• The Consolations of Philosophy - Alain de Botton

and (ahem) all the Harry Potters

What are yours?

Hi marthamoo - yes first baby and very nervous I am too!

What a great thread. Agree with all Wilkie Collins fans - there are lots of them and all good reads. Anyone else for Updike (Rabbit books best)?

And some more (just because more fun than working)
Rosamund Lehmann
Marghanita Laski
Anything by Jane Smiley but especially Duplicate Keys and Horse Heaven
I Capture the Castle
Franny and Zooey, Salinger
The older Paul Austers
The new Siri Husvedt, can't remember what it's called
Elizabeth Jane Howard
Robertson Davies - all of them
Elizabeth Gaskell
Child in Time: the only really great McEwen - controversial
Middlemarch
The Patricia Highsmith Ripley books
Richard ford: The Sportswriter, Independence Day
Hmm, still thinking...

You've reminded me natt - I couldn't put Catcher in the Rye down

ks, I've started The Quincunx now and am really enjoying it so far. It's gonna take me a while to get through tho as I only get to read in bed last thing at night Thanks for putting me onto it

Oh I just remembered I liked The Corrections so much actually went to watch Franzen do a reading which was oddly thrilling...

The Chronicles of Narnia - children's books, I know, but I'd only read The Lion etc ... as a child and recently got the set in a book sale. I just love the allegory, and the best book has to be the final one, The Last Battle.

Oh yes, what about the 'Over Sea, Under Stone' books! I loved those as a child, and re-read them as an adult. I love mystical King Arthur tyoe things.

I have taken a plunge downmarket, & am now reading Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann - totally gripping. Oh yes, & I should probably admit my sneaky Jilly Cooper addiction too. But I mostly don't read trash, honest!

Have just finished The Little Friend by Donna Tartt and found it unputdownable, like her first one, The Secret History. Other unputdownables:
Bridget Jones (both) by Helen Fielding
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Anything by Iain Banks
The Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

And, oh yes, the Corrections, brilliant!

Hoxtonchick, next stop Grace Metalious and Peyton Place, surely! And then how about Kathleen Winsor's Forever Amber?
These things are long-standing best-sellers for a reason...
Mammya, glad someone else enjoyed Donna Tartt's second as much as her first, it took some getting into but I loved The Little Friend.
Must go and suggest another category to Freddiecat for the Book Club...Southern Gothic. Or maybe problematic second novels?

I Claudius, Robert Graves. I literally did not leave my bedroom save to attend to bodily functions from start to finish (was long before kids!)

Hoxtonchick, I love Valley Of The Dolls - especially Neeley O'Hara. Fabulous.

OK, so I have ordered The Quincunx from Amazon. It was £0.99, & £2.75 p&p. It is a bit creased, but for 99p, who cares! If I don't like it, I haven't lost anything have I?!

The Shining, Stephen King
Absolutely terrifying, the only one of his worth reading IMHO.

I've just bought Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor (my book club's book of the month) and just wondered if anyone here had read it?

Richard and Judy were terribley keen on it
Isn't he Sinead's brother

ooh dinny & hoxtonchick I loved Valley of the Dolls too. I had completely forgotton about it till you mentioned it. Brings back memories as I can remember reading it at around the age of 12 or 13, probably long before I should have . It must be one of the few books I have read more than once.
Also loved The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon.

oh god, sw, that's really put me off
the cover looks so old fogeyish...but says it's a page turner..

Suzy - I liked The Shining too, but I find SK's style not to my taste. Love his ideas though. Have you read Rose Madder? That is the best SK IMO.

I know Bundle.
Chinchilla, no I havne't read that one. Tried 'Gerald's Game' and it was awful. Incidentally he wrote a short story based around the Police Station in Crouch End

Try Rose Madder then Suzy. It has a very supernatural theme.

I will add more later, but, just to second what many of you have said-

His Dark Materials Trilogy-
Possession
Middlesex- (Genious, I especially appreciated as I am originally from Detroit and it is sooooo accurate. Eugenides is genious!)
Jane Eyre
Music & Silence
The Way I Found Her
The Cazalet chronicle by Elizabeth Jane Howard
The Bridget Jones Diary (laughed my arse off)

I could go on and on...
Fabulous idea this thread!

This is a fantastic thread. I have skimmed most but got so carried away went straight to Amazon to order some. I love
Anita Shreve
Christopher Brookmyre
Janet Evanovich
most victorians
ben richards
deborah moggach
john o farrell
kate atkinson

for starters. John Grisham was great for breast feeding and I read a new one every time I had a new baby at night with chocolate!

Chinchilla - I did my dissertation on SK for my English degree (20 years ago now - good grief!!) - so I'd be the one to definately sing his praises to you all! 'The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordan' is brilliant too.