What are your 5 favourite books of all time?

[sarah00001]

Hi, I haven't read a book for ages and really want to start getting into reading again. I'd love to know what your 5 favourite books are, those that you just can't put down! Thank you.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Unreliable Memoirs - Clive James

Love many others

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Real Charlotte - Somerville & Ross
Notes on a Scandal & The Believers - Zoe Heller
The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen
Le Grand Meaulnes - Alain Fournier
The Curse of the Wise Woman - Edwin Dunsany

The secret history
Bonjour tristesse
Anna karenina
The Scotland st books
Anne of green gables series

These are the ones I re read anyway

Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

I love Wilkie Collins' books too, but the above are my abiding favourites.

Where's all the jolly cooper

Too many beloved books to mention but a few that are especially amazing:

Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
LA Confidential by James Ellroy
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Here be Dragons by Sharon Penman
Poisonwood Bibles by Barbara Kingsolver

Jilly!!

Well in the last few months I have enjoyed immensely

The girl on the train
Blackwater lightship
I am pilgrim
A man called ove
That sequel to the shining but can't remember the name

A Suitable Boy
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Pride & Prejudice (just as witty and erudite as it should be)
Grapes of Wrath
Ballet Shoes
And plenty others can't recall right now.

I love a thread like this. Gives me lots of ideas.

Mine are:

Catch 22
The Hobbit
The Farseer books (Robin Hobb - a cheat here because there are a few of them but if I had to choose I think I'd say the last two)
The Witches books by Terry Pratchett - so hard to choose from any of them but I guess Wyrd Sisters (although the last TP book was brilliant)

I've got so many others that I think I'll leave it there.

The Stand
The Cider House Rules
Rebecca
The Thorn Birds
A Fine Balance

There are many more, and these can change. However, I can't see anything taking over The Stand.

The books I think I've gone back to most are:

Johnny Got His Gun
The Three Musketeers
Shogun
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Legion

The Red Tent - Anita
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
Angela's Ashes - Frank MCourt

Anything by James Herriot. I really do think all his work is a brilliant example of how good, well written simple prose can be so enjoyable to read.

Once DS is old enough to sit still for two minutes i intend to read him a mixture of James Herriot, Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton

Not sure of a fifth. Will come back to you.

Would love to put Dickens/Austen/Shakespeare but honestly reading for pleasure for me is more lighthearted.

I'm sure I'm like a lot of people when I say that this thread makes me realise how little I read anymore and how i need to get back into reading! I used to read loads!

I have the time to read whilst I am on the train to and from work - I really need to just start doing it, instead of wasting time online.

Impossible to choose 5 that I would stick to but the following come to mind:

Notes on a scandal
The handmaid's tale
A midsummer night's dream
Lord of the Rings
Pride and Predjudice

Also, loved the Wool trilogy recently and Persepolis

Csardas by Diane Pearson
September by Rosamunde Pilcher
Absolutely anything and everything by James Herriot, wonderful stories.
The Dalbeattie Street stories by Robert Douglas. About the families living in a Glasgow tenement after the Second World War.
The Harry Potter series, I read them from beginning to end three times in a row a couple of years ago.
The Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeath series by M C Beaton, quick reads, I can do a book a day.

Really hard to decide!

Martin Millars 'Lonely Werewolf Girl' (series, I am cheating a bit)
Steven Kings 'IT' (terrifying)
Eva Rice 'The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets' (utterly charming)
Jane Austens 'Pride and Prejudice'
All the Harry Potters!

lurkingfromhome, Bad Blood would be on my top 5 list, too. Preciousbane, I'd go East of Eden over The Grapes of Wrath. And Stratters5, I'd have Rivals too! Also, Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers and World's Fair by EL Doctorow. Oh, and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively, if we're allowed bonus children's books

Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
La Bete Humaine - Emile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky's

I'd argue Austen and dickens are lighter than Margaret Atwood! Dickens books mostly started out serialised (Victorian soaps ).

If I'd been allowed 10

Wuthering heights
Behind the scenes at the museum
The great gatsby
Color purple
The white queen

To Kill A Mockingbird
The Blind Assassin
Strangers on a Train
Rebecca

And probably something by Marian Keyes but I can't make up my mind which one.

The Children of Green Knowe

Thank you for the reminder.

For me
The Cryptonomicon
Iain M Banks anything from the Culture series
The Golden Apples of the Sun Bradbury
Valis by P.K. Dick
And Snowcrash.

Although now I feel bad missing out William Gibson.

Katedotness, I loved Csardas.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Nine Tailors - Dorothy L. Sayers
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

That was SO hard... and I keep thinking I've missed something out, which I will (of course) remember as soon as I hit "post".

Rivals
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
The Secret History
Life after Life
All the Susan Howatch books, particularly the Starbridge series
The Night Circus
Frenchman's Creek

I'm going to stop there.