"The one"

[AnonymousBird]

The book that stopped you in your tracks, that you will never forget.

What was it?

Mine is The Way We Live Now by Trollope. And I am not a classics person! Which is why it surprised and delighted me so much. Breathtaking in its perception and a simply astounding story.

The only others that have come near are The Remains of The Day (on audiobook, I was actually standing still holding my breath for the finish) and The Goldfinch which I could not put down and really did make me stop to draw breath in its wonder and be slightly depressed about what on earth I could read after it.

Love to hear from others of their heartstopping reads.

Middlemarch. The sheer scope of it, the characterisation, the way everything intertwines. And George Eliot is just so wise about people and their motivations. I think this line from Middlemarch is the best in English literature:

'If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.'

I love The Way We Live Now too. Trollope is great. As is Dickens. But Middlemarch is 'the one'.

I think To Kill A Mockingbird - I read it many years ago at school and it left a lasting impression. Alternatively Schindler' s Ark by Thomas Kenneally. Horrifying and heartbreaking in equal measure.Or Diary of Anne Frank. Or Persuasion by Jane Austen. I can't narrow it down to just one!

.,

To Kill a Mockingbird is right up there, and I am soon to re-read.

Llama, love the sound of Middlemarch. I think I need to give it a try.

Just thought of another one. Yes it is impossible to limit to one!

Anna Karenina, when I was 21, I simply couldn't believe it!

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is probably the book I am most likely to give to people. I found it profoundly moving.

But the book I remember most is Dr. Thorne by Anthony Trollope. I was reading it when dh and I fell in love and it is inextricably bound up with my memories of that time.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. A-Level English many, many years ago. Changed my life in so many ways. Order out of chaos. I must re-read it...

Like so many others it was To Kill a Mocking a Bird. Read in school at age 13 and it's never left me.

I'm half way into the Goldfinch and I already know it's going to be a contender.

the others (can I have a few? I'm very old ) are: I Capture the Castle (that stopped me dead in my teens) Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban (my 20s) Anna Karenina (my 30s) and Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety for my 40s.

So far.

These are the books I have read and reread (and usually rereread-if I was kept in solitary confinement for a couple of years with pen and paper I could probably reproduce I Capture the Castle with not too many chunks missing)

poor, poor Anna Karenina, though

I actually reread it with something in me hoping it would turn out differently for her

if I ever hear small c conservatives talking about life being better in the Good Old Days- before divorce was easy to come by, gay rights etc- I always think of AK

I read Anna Karenina for the first time in my 40s and was surprised to see that Anna's plight was but a very small part of the story. I loved the book, it was brilliant, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was not the banal, heartstring-tugging love story that I was told about. It is about life, work, being a better human being, politics, suffering of vast groups of people, justice, etc. Anna and whatshisname are clearly shown to be a vacuous and unworthy pair. The real protagonists of the book are Levin and Kitty.

Re To Kill A Mockingbird - I read this in my teens at school and thought it was dull and superficial. Not a reaction to literature class at all, as I loved almost all the other books we read, such as Lord Of The Flies and Macbeth. I'm finding it quite curious to see that more than a few people count it as one of the best they have ever read. Wonder if I have missed something (while reading it in Lit class?)

Not one book as such, but discovering South American literature like Isabelle Allende, Garcia Marquez, Laura Esquivel.

Was going to say Anna Karenina, and don't really need to say why as cote has thoroughly covered my feelings in her post. I would have read it much sooner had I realised what a book it was, had not been in a hurry to read it.

Reading some passages where Levin is musing on life and faith, hard to describe how they made me feel when I looked up from the book. Elevated somehow, I've never forgotten it.

Middlemarch, the last lines about unhistoric acts and living faithfully a hidden life, are also very lifting. I read it when pregnant with, and then while nursing, my first born. Cannot separate my feelings for the book, with my general sense of wonder at that time

On TKAMB, cote, I think because a lot of people read it when they are early teens and on the cusp of some awareness of the world, it seems to have a huge impact. I kind of see it as a bridge between children's and adult literature in some ways. I think it is well written, covers many issues, the child's perspective is charming and glosses over some of its inadequacies, but the substance of it is lacking. I have a different view of the way the issues in it are presented now as an adult. For that reason I will probably not reread it, as I want to keep the memory of enjoying it as a teen, and racing through to the end.

*from my general sense of wonder

with AK I think it depends at what stage in your life you read it

I read it, single, in my late 20s- it was about Anna

at 31, with my new baby in hospital, it was Kitty and Levin

at 35, after xp and I had split up, and I was falling in love with OH- Anna and Vronsky again

...daren't read it again

it would probably be the ??Oblonskies

The women's room by Marilyn French when I was about 20 - passed it on to lots of female friends.

I read AK when I was single and mid-twenties and Levin and his endeavour to live a meaningful life was the focal point for me. I never really saw Anna and Vronsky as an affecting love story; it was a blind alley in Anna's own failed attempt at self-determination.

I need to read it again though, I knew I would go back to it before I'd even finished it the first time. It was a revelation to me after how I had always seen it pitched.

The Corrections by Jonathon Franzen. Blew my mind that people could write so well!

Tuesdays with Morrie

The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin - made me see the world in a whole new way. The way that she portrays a would-be utopian society and makes it so real and convincing is what really makes it special for me.

londonzoo is that Knausgaard. I'm intrigued by this.

I love Dance to the Music of Time. Needed to get past the absolute poshness of it but as I get through my forties I love it even more. Its beautifully observed. There have been quite a few Widmerpools in my life. Also remember being amazed by Anna Karenina.

Another book that I love is the Quiet American. In fact if I could only read Graham Greene for the rest of my life that might be okay