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 :)

The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose or the Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly - they all follow on from each other but can be read out of order. Fairly long but easy reads with great characters and settings.

How about The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood?

Just replying so I don’t lose this thread but I second under a thousand splendid suns, kite runner and time travellers wife

I second The Good Earth, loved it. Also Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi.

Thank you thank you everyone!! I'm going to get up early tomorrow and go on the pc and get googling. I'm overwhelmed by the response!! I'll feedback on which one I get. (might have to try a few!!)

Another vote for Ken Follet (particularly 'World Without End') and Edward Rutherford

Hard acres and there's a follow up one, starts with a man who works on the Yorkshire coast as some one who guts the fish as they come ashore and obviously the story follows the family from there.
Jeffrey Archer has done a few like this, some just one book As the crow flies and other stories over 3 or more books.

I'd recommend Hearts Invisible Furies - on focussing on an ind over decades..

The Cazalets - on focussing on a family over decades.

The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger - for complicated love and different cultures.

American Wife by Curtis Sitenfield - for complicated love and/over many decades/american.

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

the immortalists - Chloe Benjamin

Jewish Family - 4 siblings - 4 stories (life of each) after they are told which day they will die.

1 - Dancer - San Fran at time of AIDS epidemic
2 - Magician - Las Vegas
3 - Army medic
4 - Medical researcher - longevity/animal research

Interesting premise, fits the following -
a focus on an individual /family that span over many years/decades
cultural - so I may learn about another culture/time in history
holiday/light read
I like books where a story is told by many different characters too - in this it's 3rd person narration but four stories

If you fancied sci fi then Ian McEwan - Machines like me looks interesting (clones) If you fancied something light/funny/space then K-Pax by Gene Brewer is great (made into a film with Spacey/Bridges)

Thirding Edward Rutherford. Sarum might be my favourite ever book.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. If you have seen the film don't let that put you off!
Six interconnected stories spanning 18th century to dystopian future.
Beautifully written and so absorbing. I think it is a love/hate book though!!

The Seven Sisters series - Lucinda Riley

@PixieLumos - I don't think I knew about Wild Rose! I ready the first two years ago!!

State of the Union and The Pursuit of Happiness, both by Douglas Kennedy.

Definitely A Suitable Boy!

I also came on to say Ken Follett or A Suitable Boy.
Ken Follett is good holiday reading. There's something about his writing style which is both compelling and a little detached. So you keep reading but when misfortune befalls the characters, it doesn't get you down personally.

Ah - see someone has also recommended the same as me! Also To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield.

@Pepperstripe definitely read if you liked the first two

Following GretaBritain I'd suggest any and all David Mitchell, if you've seen the Cloud Atlas film and it is putting you off. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is amazing, as is Bone Clocks which you should definitely read second.

You might also enjoy The Luminaries, which has a complicated romance, lots of characters, and interesting history (it's set in a 19th century New Zealand gold rush town). I loved it.

Vanity Fair by Thackeray. Gives a good insight into early 1800s English culture and has really good characters and more than one love story, centring around 2 friends.

Oh, and I meant to say Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford and Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, which are very readable and (inadvertently) historical.

The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo and daisy jones and the six both by Taylor Jenkins Reid fit some of your criteria and I loved them both.

Both revolve around the titular character, have a love story and are set in recent history, not too heavy a read either. I didn't want to put them down.

The Alice Network is also really good - it's about a female spy ring in WWII.

This is maybe a bit left field but maybe e. Annie proulx's Accordian Crimes. It's the story of immigrant America told over a huge time span via what happens to an old button Accordian. Not a love story, but bloody awesome.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, you will want to read the other 7 that come after it 😁