Please recommend me a book. I have a criteria :)

[Greyworm]

Title says it all. I'd really appreciate any suggestions as I love reading but struggle to choose as I don't want to waste a read. I'd like to read a book over the next few weeks and I have been given a voucher for waterstones so I'm really excited.

I like books that have had the below features but not completely nessesary

• a focus on an individual /family that span over many years/decades
• a love interest which is very deep and complicated
• cultural - so I may learn about another culture/time in history
• I LOVE dystopia films and TV programmes but find some books are a it depressing as I want a sort of holdiay/light read. So I really enjoyed 1984 and a handmaid tale but don't fancy one of those.
• I love space films but not tried to read nay spacey books yet.

I like books where a story is told by many different characters too.

Books I have read again and again, so some old favourites:
Memoirs of a geisha
The horse whisperer
The thornbirds
Fear and loathing in Las vagas
I capture the castle
The rum diary (loved this)
I liked 'one day' but couldn't get into his other books.

I can't think of many more off the top of my head but I've always loved reading. I also read a story like biography of egon schiele which I really enjoyed too. So I'm pretty open. I love art and I have an interest in classics (Greek mythology) I don't fancy reading the odyssey again though.

I'll be really grateful if anyone has any suggestions :)

Or for something quite grueling at times but an incredible story - exodus by Leon Uris

“Both by”, not “bits by”.

Classics - The song of Achilles and Circe, both by Madeline Miller, are very readable and absolutely fascinating.

Revolutionary Road is a great novel set in 1950s America but possibly a bit bleak for a holiday read.

I was going to suggest Ken Follett too... The Century Trilogy is good. But I would also try The Pillars of the Earth and its follow up, World Without End.

The Goldfinch maybe? But it doesn't tick off all that many on your list.

White Teeth has multiple characters over a few decades.

Wuthering heights

Or

Non fiction but ticks all the boxes - Mitford Girls biography by Mary Lovell

Also The Good Earth triology by Pearl S Buck. about epic family struggles and fortunes in China

The Rougon Maquart saga by Emile Zola?

I loved A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. It starts in the !920s and comes almost up to date. Learning about Russia was very interesting, but it's not a heavy-going book; there's a lot of gentle humour and I absolutely loved being in the gent's company.

G

Having reread your OP, The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Try 'Master Of The Game' by Sidney Sheldon. It spans four generations of a wealthy, powerful family.

"The Hearts Invisible Furies" by John Boyne.

It is addictive from the first page. If you decide to read it, you will NOT be disappointed. I guarantee it. And it is not often I say that either.

East of Eden by Steinbeck

The Glass Palace, Amitav Ghosh

There is Jane Smiley's trilogy about an Iowa farming family, the first one is Some Luck. They start in 1920 and then there is a chapter for each year down to the present day.

There's also Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Morland Dynasty, 35 books to date covering the history of a fictional English family from 1434 onwards.

The Silence Of The Girls by Pat Barker (re-telling of the Iliad from a female perspective)

The Jewel in the Crown (Book 1 of the Raj Quartet) followed by the other 3 books!

Seconding ‘A suitable boy’ by Vikram Seth. Whilst not a dystopian story it hits all of your other criteria and I really enjoyed it.

Also, Gone with the wind

Came on to say 'the hearts invisible furies' like Outsomnia- it's fantastic. By John Boyne.

For Dystopia, read ‘A brave new world’

Any Human Heart
Love Is Blind - both by William Boyd

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

The Thread by Victoria Hislop
Wasn't really my kind of book but it fits most of your criteria.

Middlesex by Jeffry Eugenides - fits all criteria apart from space / sci-fi.

A family saga that starts in Greece after an event in WW1 or WW2.. (or before but based on real historical events - have a poor memory ), and has a strange love story in the two Greek characters who move to the US, and set up a life there. Has a twist or two, but isn't a thriller. Has multiple characters but not too many that you can't follow. Is very funny and very well-written, is a multi-generational family saga, and explores social history and politics etc. Ooh I've sold it to myself.. gonna re-read this summer!