Mind-blowing books.....?

[CakeBeTheFoodOfLove]

I'm looking for a book that will grip me from the start, be hard to put down and when I've finished I want to think....... 'wow!' I know this is a big ask but I'm bored of reading books that are just ok. Any ideas?

Cake it's a tall order without knowing what kind of books you like? What are the ones you thought were really good?

I pretty much enjoy anything other than horror and thrillers/crime.....

I really enjoyed The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne, recently.

Might not be what you’re looking for, but maybe James A Michener. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Michener

His novels can seem a bit slow-burn until you get used to his writing style. They are more like historical fiction, and most were written decades ago. The characters are fictional, but he was well known for doing a lot of research. The first of his books that I read was The Source, which I wouldn’t recommend unless you like very long books – that one is around a thousand pages! It tells the story of the history of a particular place in the Holy Land, and the people who had lived there. By coincidence, I’ve just started reading Caravans, which is about Afghanistan. And next up for me will be Poland.

They’re not “happy” stories, nor are they history books as such. But if you want a challenging book you can get your teeth into, and are prepared for some very sad stories that will also give a glimpse of life in those parts of the world, then Michener might be worth adding to your list.

www.amazon.co.uk/James-A.-Michener/e/B000APVC66/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1?tag=mumsnetforum-21

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The World According to Garp by John Irving

The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

The Perfume by Patrick Süskind

All of them mind blowing books that you can read and read again.

Clara by Janice Galloway

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

One of my favourite books ever is Keri Hulme's The Bone People. It is an amazing book which will break your heart, but there's so much deep truth to it, that you keep reading anyway. It won a Booker Prize if that's any recommendation. :-)

Thank you for these excellent recommendations. I'm so excited to read something decent!

Moving - Jenny Eclair
The People at Number 9 - Felicity Everett
Dangerous Crossing - Rachel Rhys

Bloody hell Acopyofacopy I've read all of those books, (years ago), I usually have to look up books that people recommend on here. Blasts from the past.

I'm about 100 pages into The Underground Railroad and can hardly breath I'm so gripped

"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak.
"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini.

Both probably written 10-15 years ago now, but when I read them, they had me gripped. I am not a bookworm by any stretch of the imagination and I could never understand how anyone could get emotionally involved in a book - be it laughing or crying - but these... wow. Heartstrings well and truly tugged!

I read and re read Joan Didions Year of Magic Thinking. Every time I read it i'm still stunned by the series of events and in awe of how she coped.

Loved both of these .

English Passengers by Matthew Neale.

I second An Instance of the Fingerpost, great book. I haven't liked anything else by this writer, however.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, although my son hated it. I was blown away!

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.

The Help
Longbourn

Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore fits this category I think. It was a book that I kept going over in my mind long after I had finished it. I'd read a couple of Murakami's before reading it and so had a bit of an insight into his writing brain but neither book had quite prepared me for how thought provoking Kafka on the Shore turned out to be.

Under the Skin. Michael Faber,

My recommendation would be anything by Terry Pratchett or dick Francis, I can read those time and time again, completely opposite genres but all good reads. Another favorite is Katherine Kerr, she wrote 4 sets of 4 interlinked Celtic fantasy style books that gripped me for years and years. My family always knew what to buy me for Christmas lol. They centre around a man who turned his back on magic and made a terrible mistake. He then compounded it by swearing be wouldn't rest until he put things right... The books deal with all sorts of things including reincarnation, the world they live in is well written and you really feel for the interlinked characters...

The Deverry Series
Book 1: Daggerspell
Book 2: Darkspell
Book 3: Dawnspell - The Bristling Wood
Book 4: Dragonspell - The Southern Sea

These are brilliant recommendations! Thank just so much! I've just started hagseed which was just sitting on the library shelf and is on my TBR list. After tat I'm going to get cracking on the books named here - they all sound so good.

'The Gods of Eden' William Bramley... it's not fiction, though described by a reviewer as 'Dan Brown on acid' I'm still reading it, but so far it's turned my view of our world upside down!!

I'd second the novel Perfume. Captivating

I second "The Heart's Invisible Furies"

The hearts invisible furies is wonderful, I definitely third it!