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 :)

My favourite book is Woman Of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford. Hold The Dream and To be The Best are the sequels which follow on through the generations

Twopence To Cross The Mersey by Helen Forrester is also a great read as is The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher which I notice someone has already suggested.

The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears.

www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/1028/the-dream-of-scipio

Quoting from the bookbrowse.com summary as I’m too lazy to write my own:

‘Three narratives, set in the fifth, fourteenth, and twentieth centuries, all revolving around an ancient text and each with a love story at its centre’

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga meets all your criteria - set in the future but not dystopian, with some fascinating relationships across two and a bit generations and a lot of really intriguing exploration of the impact of technology on women, and mothers in particular. Strongly recommended.

Seconding Bujold's Vorkosigan saga - love stories, alien cultures (descended from Americans/Russians of the 80s but thousands of years in the future, and others), disabled protagonist, and probably the only book I've read where a female main character has to arrange childcare in order to progress the plot. And some humour. Highly recommended.

Also seconding Amitav Ghosh and the Glass Palace - over 100 years in Burma and SE Asia.

Also Barry Usworth - Sacred Hunger deals with a family and shipbuilding and ending up in the slave trade as the least worst option.

I think you'd enjoy The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Or for something more current Normal People by Sally Rooney.

Oh also, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is great and covers several generations and cultures.

@charmers2501 - Loved the first ones in Scotland and France. I found the Fiery Cross so dry - too many battles!

The Lost Man by Jane Harper.

Set in the Australian outback, focusing on one family history and a mystery. Talks about the outback farming culture. I really loved it, as I have Jane Harper's other books.

I came to suggest Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I think you’d love it. @Charley50 has mentioned it upthread, so I’m just seconding. Massive family saga, incredible characters, love story...and more

Silence of the Girls. It's about Troy but entirely from a female point of view. Absolutely excellent.

The great alone by Kristin Hannah

Oh and I agree about any of the Ken Follet books mentioned. I love them

Circe by Madeline miller is really good too.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.
Learn about other cultures, spans several generations. Has a very complex love thread through the centre of it. Lots of different perspectives, but all told third person. No space or fantasy though.

Life after life - Kate Atkinson
The pursuit of love - Nancy Mitford
The versions of us - Laura Barnett

@WeShouldBeFriends - I actually saw that book in someone's house last week and wrote the title down. Is it a good read?

Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine

Moondancer73 it was a very good read yes but then that sort of thing is right up my street

There were a lot of battles yes but then the other books I found really good. Waiting for number 9 at the moment.

The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
by Robert A. Heinlein, Stephen Hickman
www.goodreads.com/book/show/352.The_Notebooks_of_Lazarus_Long?from_search=true

Try Circe by Madeline Miller
Was gifted by a friend - not into fantasy-type books as such by really loved it. Ticks boxes for an individual/family over many decades, deep & complicated love interest, cultural & works around Greek mythology.
Have read it 3 times.

Another great one to try is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - follows 3/4 generations of a family from the early 1900s to present, lots of complicated love interests, very dystopian and lots of characters viewpoints.

Just realised that @Benes has recommended Circe & @hallamoo Life After Life too 🙂

The Poldark series by Winston Graham or any of Kate Morton’s books which tend to be family type sagas - The House at Riverton is my favourite, but they’re all good.

Gone girl is really good. Just read it.
A thousand splendid suns.
Gone with the wind.
The great gatsby.

Havd you trued the masters of rome series by colleen mccullough