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?

Little Women . I cry every time!!!

I loved the Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris.

My username is one of my favourite books. By Ernest Cline if you want to look it up

The Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan. Subtitled 'Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence'. Sagan emphasises that he's writing as a layman not an expert in the field although he can't hide the fact that he was a biologist by training. It's wonderfully well written, with wit and humour, very accessible, engaging and utterly fascinating. I read it right through from time to time and often dip into it when the world seems to be going crazy, it restores my sanity. It also contains a greeting: When you read a book the author speaks to you in your head. Hello!

Vernon God Little. Absolutely brilliant book. It's set in America and is a dark comedy about Things that happen there like high school shootings, gun culture, racism...fast food...so many things. When reading you automatically put on the Texan accent. It's a bit sweary and crass in places but I've read it loads of times 😆.

Its almost impossible to pick just one book but amongst my favourites are:

A Prayer for Owen Meaney
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Possession
Life After Life
Of Human Bondage
The Ragged Trousers Philanthropists - not because it's particularly well written but I read it when I was about 14 and it woke my political consciousness.

I'm sure there are others but these are the ones that spring to mind.

I'd say "A Handmaids Tale" by Atwood....but if I was being truthful I'd admit to the Harry Potters being my absolute favourite reading experience.

All Quiet On The Western Front

This will out me if anyone I know is reading but Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco is a book I rave about and have read over and over. It is a brilliantly written spoof/critique of conspiracy theorists and confirmation bias. You can almost feel yourself descending into madness while reading it. It's hard going at the start but becomes so worth it.

Jane Eyre, ever since I first read it at 11 years old.

Also Pride and Prejudice because it's perfect.

• Wild Swans
• Pride and Prejudice
• Gone with the Wind
• Heart of Darkness (no. 1). This goes everywhere with me. I love its turn of phrase, themes, development, imagery, everything. It inspires and calms me.

Kill your friends. Brilliant

So many it's hard to choose! I guess the ones that had the most influence/stayed with me are:

Woman on the Edge of time by Marge Piercy (read as an impressionable 18yr old)
Child in Time by Ian Mcewan (absolutely devastating)
The Stand by Stephen King (read when I was 10 and sparked off a life long interest in utopian/dystopian/apocalyptic literature!)

Oh and definitely Harry Potter

Station Eleven

Middlemarch for me.

Beloved by Toni Morrison.
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
1984 by George Orwell.
Middlemarch by George Eliot.
Hard Times by Charles Dickens.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozie Adichie.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Road Dahl.

For starters!

The God of Small Things, Arundati Roy.

If it's a case of books I go back and back to rather than "classics" then:
Little Women
The weirdstone of Brisengamen -Alan Garner
His Dark Materials trilogy - Phillip Pullman
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Possession - AS Byatt
Cold comfort farm - Stella Gibbons
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The end of the affair- Graham Greene
No Name - Wilkie Collins
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurty
The Quincunx - Charles Palliser

Yes Disgrace is brilliant, and I also loved Richard Ford's The Sportswriter.

I think it also depends when you read a book, some books have really resonated with me at a particular stage in my life.

My favourite books of all time are A Suitable Boy and Middlemarch.

Yika

Sportswriter is SO good.

I re read middlemarch again and fell in love - still like Lolita more.

A suitable boy and God of Small things I read around the same time, need to re-read to remember them.

Mumbod just rereading The Handmaid's Tale in light of current political changes in the US - the restrictions on abortion, defunding of birth control services, and the planned changes in the approach to environmental protection. Margaret Atwood is a writer of genius.

Depressingly prescient, wasn't it, minifingerz?

The ones I couldn't put down and still remember:
The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
A Secret History - Donna Tart
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Middlemarch - George Eliot
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

I remember loving John Irving as a teenager but not much about the books. Think I might need to reread!

On The Road - Jack Kerouac

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes