What is the best book you have ever read?

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I think mine has to be (at least at the moment) The House at the End of Hope Street because I grew up not far from there.

Which is your favourite book and why?

Have not read the whole thread, sorry. But Rebecca! I re-read it last week and still love it.

Just off to buy Zemindar though, thank you. I have never heard of it. Agree with loads on this thread.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
A Suitable Boy
A Secret History
Middlemarch
The Wasp Factory
The Poisonwood Bible
The Portrait of a Lady
A Passage to India
I Capture the Castle

Lots of John Irving, toss up between A Widow for One Year and World According to Garp.
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
I remember reading The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks when I was younger and living in a bed sit and it really resonated.
Non fiction is News from Tartary by Peter Fleming (brother of Ian) and auto biography would have to be Anger is an Energy by John Lydon.

I love Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. I think I just read it at the right time. I've never met anyone who thinks it as good as I do.

curly thank you! The Sea, The Sea -fabulous!

the Prodigy (very sad though).
Invitation to the Waltz and the prequel The Weather in the Streets

Alias Grace
the Handmaids Tale

the Life of a Nobody (absolute classic)

lobster I also love Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Thank you superflyhigh. Love these threads.

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. I read it about 6 years ago but still think about it all the time.

lobster I keep reading through the thread and seeing ones I like and loved (Goodnight Mister Tom, The Bullerby Children etc).

Marquez is an absolute master though, I love all his books really, his prose is something else.

Ps must finish The Poisonwood Bible too saw someone reading it on a train abroad last summer and bought it immediately when I returned.

Can this be moved to What We're Reading, please?

My vote goes to The Goldfinch.

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
His Dark Materials trilogy, Phillip Pullman
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
I Am Pilgrim, Terry Hayes
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
Jamaica Inn, Daphne Du Maurier
A Short History Of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

I only bought The Poisonwood Bible after a thread like this, where a poster pretty much listed all my favourite books, SuperFlyHigh. I also love Monica Dickens, especially No More Meadows.

Goodnight Mr Tom - Michelle Migorian
Katherine - Anya Seton

As a teen the ones the ones that floored me were The Stand -S King and A Time to Kill - Jonathan Grisham. I think they were the first 'grown-up' books I ever read.

Taking notes for my summer reading.

Too difficult to choose one but the ones that have left their mark

The Stand
Captain Corelli
Roots (which haunted me for years)
Shantaram
Wilds Swans
A Thousand Splendid Suns

I read about 300 books a year, so difficult....The Kite Runner springs to mind.

Sophies World by Jostein Gaarder- ok probably more a teen classic, but very enjoyable for adults as well.

At times in my life I have loved different books for different reasons. But overall I am not a "classics" person. I love contemporary fiction. Favorites off the top of my head are:

Infinite Jest (how has this not been mentioned already?? I know it's not for everyone but the people who love it really LOVE it, if you know what I mean)
Atonement
The Corrections
A Little Life
The Goldfinch
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
A Prayer for Owen Meany -- and lots of others by John Irving

Anything by Rohinton Mistry.

My absolute favourite, which I've not seen mentioned here, is Into The Wild, by Jon Krakeur. I saw the film and fell in love with it, then read the book and fell in love with that too.....so my favourite film and book! A quote from it, which stays with me forever is....."Happiness...only real when shared".

Other favourites include Captain Corelli and 1984, but I've just downloaded Owen Meany as a result of this thread!

@watchingitallagain I started Shades of Grey the other month but abandoned it after the first chapter. Is it worth persevering or do you need to love it from the get go?

Little Women
The Hobbit
Watership Down
1984
Brave New World
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Hard Times
Diary of a Nobody

The Stand
The Girl who loved Tom Gordon
The Green Mile

The Road - love/hate it in equal measure! Such hard work to read