What is the best book you have ever read?

[damnedgrubble]

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?

@roselover
AM Holmes - This Book Will Change Your Life - anything by AM Holmes is fabulous -
Brother of The More famous Jack - Barbara Trapido - actually my fav book
The Shipping News Annie Proulx - has saved my life.....(read while recovering from cancer)
Collected work of Dorothy Parker - like a Bible - by my bed at all times for the last 30 years
Brightness Falls Jay McInnerny - LOVE THIS BOOK ......why has it not been made into a film!!!!!!!!!!!!
Poison Wood Diary......Barbra Kinsolver (is that her name?)

we have the same favourite books - Brother of the more famous Jack and any Jay McInnerney - we must be the same age?

Loving this thread so much (and have bought a stack of books based on your recommendations!).

Mine:
All quiet on the Western Front

The Godfather

The Bronze Horseman- Paulina Simons - just a great read, sheer escapism

The Princess Bride (read to my son as he was growing up)

The Book Thief. Realise it's a marmite book but randomly selected from a bookshop in Australia, read it with no expectations when it was first published and loved it so much that I cried when I finished it.

Love this thread - it's great to get recommendations. For me, there are few books I want to read more than once but among the best fiction have to be 1984, P&P, Handmaid's Tale, Huckleberry Finn and Never Let Me Go.
Alongside those will go my current favourites - The Chronicles of St. Mary's Series (book 1 - Just One Damned Thing After Another) by Jodi Taylor. Very clever - although it is so easy to read that I didn't realise until my second reading. She combines science fiction with history and gets me laughing one minute and on the edge of my seat the next. Brilliant.

Cheesy but has to be Lord of The Rings.

Our house is called Rivendell and we had the entwife passage read at our wedding.

If I have a daughter she will most probably be called Arwen or Éowyn.

The Red Tent.
Lovely Bones.
The death and life of Charlie St Cloud.
The green mile.

East of Eden! How did I forget. Tha j you.

Thank ... too excited.

I loved A Place Called Winter

Ooh, I do love a good book list!

Longtime favourites of my own include:

Shadow of the Wind
Memoirs of a Geisha
Frankenstein
Bel Canto
Chocolat

More recently, I've thoroughly enjoyed:
The President's Hat
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Gentlemen and Players (Joanne Harris)
One of us is Lying (which hasn't been released yet, but is AMAZING!)
He Said She Said (Ditto)
The Housekeeper and the Professor

Plan to read The Goldfinch and The Secret History soon after recommendations on this thread. Can anyone explain why they are so good, or which I should try first?

All the Sue Grafton ABC series, the main charactor Kinsey Millhone is so "normal" and believable, down to earth, its the only series where I have kept every single book.

ENko
Gosh yes forgot about Jean Auel
Loved her books,still got them all!

The goldfinch too for boris
The secret history

Also the secret life of bees and a thousand splendid sons, the help. Anything that taught me something.

Wolf Hall, a proper book with depth of characters and gaps that make you think.

Great thread - I'm looking for a book to download and may try Owen Meany based on all the recommendations. I also downloaded a few Bronte books after the drama at Christmas, but hadn't gotten round to reading them yet - I will soon.

The one I go back to all the time is Pride & Prejudice (of course) - I read it with my DCs a couple of years ago and am re-watching the BBC series with DD.

Most of my reading lately is non-fiction/history, so I don't otherwise have much fiction in my repertoire, but A Suitable Boy really blew me away when I read it on my honeymoon in India 13 years ago. It actually taught me a lot about Indian history and made me see cultural differences in a whole new (I like to think better-informed) way - for example, that not all arranged marriage is necessarily evil interference by grasping parents.

It was hinted in the thread that if you liked A Suitable Boy you'd like The God of Small Things - I didn't find that was the case.

I also loved the Wolf Hall books, once I got past the confusion with the constant use of "he".

Thanks OP!

Redbullblood Yes! The Road and Blood Meridian. He's dark but he writes like poetry or scripture. Stunning.
My favourite book though, I did my MA thesis on: Norman Maclean's 'A River Runs Through It'. Written by a hugely successful English teacher when he was in his 70s, a lifetime of skill went into it.

Can anyone explain why they are so good, or which I should try first?

One of the many remarkable things about The Goldfinch is that Donna Tartt elicits huge amounts of compassion and empathy for a very flawed protagonist (he's almost an anti-hero). And I mean to the extent that I was almost crying when reading this book. In general the writing is exquisite, and the character's superbly well-drawn. It's also one hell of a page-turner.

Her writing in The Secret History isn't quite as deep but she still draws you into the main character's journey and psyche, and the story is suspenseful and absorbing. I found this book pretty thought-provoking in that the certain awful acts some characters commit feel somehow logical and necessary.

roselover I love Brother of the More Famous Jack too (and most of her other work as well) I was working through this thread and was thinking noone has yet mentioned Barbara Trapido Also really loved the Cazalet chronicles and have re read several times. Have read most of what is on this thread but need to try A Suitable Boy again. Guilty pleasure is rereading Georgette Heyer

TheNiffler Onions in the stew has left me with a lifelong desire to visit Seattle - I'll be retiring in 5 years so I think I'll treat myself then. DH doesn't want to go!!

I went to Seattle last summer and I did see Vashon Island from a boat! I also met a local lady and had a good discussion about what it was like, especially in the 40s when Betty Macdonald was there. Haven't read the thread yet, but The Plague and I is a favourite of mine, too. Such good observations about the selfishness of illness...

Yes I've recently re read all Betty's books and also read her biography. I will get to Vashon Island one day

Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingslover
The House of Spirits - Isabelle Allende
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood - love her but this one stays with me and unsettles and fascinates me long after reading or rereading
And Hilary Mantel's writing in general - I'm in awe of her. L

I'm sure there are more but the above are all ones I love like they're part of me!

Another Betty Macdonald fan here, the one I loved first was The Plague and I, but I've probably read Anybody can do Anything most often. Didn't know there was a biography! [googles]

Impossible to choose one...lots that others have mentioned are on my list:

• The Handmaids Tale
• the God of Small Things
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• A Thousand Splendid Suns

but also Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games

southeastdweller
One of the many remarkable things about The Goldfinch is that Donna Tartt elicits huge amounts of compassion and empathy for a very flawed protagonist (he's almost an anti-hero). And I mean to the extent that I was almost crying when reading this book. In general the writing is exquisite, and the character's superbly well-drawn. It's also one hell of a page-turner.

I'd like to borrow your comments and apply them to George Eliot's Middlemarch.

(possible spoiler ahead...)

Middlemarch is beautifully written and observed, with well developed characters whose stories intertwine, and a marvellous, measured, incredibly perceptive and humane commentary from the author, who shows great empathy for and understanding of her flawed characters and the inner workings of their minds. Lots of themes are done justice in this book and although it's a work of fiction I thought the story of Lydgate offered a fascinating insight into some rather entrenched opinions and practices from medical professionals at the time. Drama wise, I loved the chapters leading up to and following the death of Featherstone, his funeral and the matter of his will(s). George Eliot is spot on in her assessment of human nature.