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 :)

Have you read any Lucinda Riley, namely her Seven Sisters series? I've just read the first and second. Never going to win a Booker prize but great holiday reading.

I like Ghosh - but prefer the Sea of Poppies trilogy

Also think the following meet your brief:

Love in the time of Cholera

The Bad Girl

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Also ‘Black Diamonds’ - not a novel but the actual story of an English dynasty

A history of seven killings is an amazing book - but no love story but historically accurate!

I don't think anyone else had mentioned Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. I think you'd love this OP!

Also The Poisonwood Bible as already recommended above.

If you're thinking American, I'd suggest Mary McCarthy's The Group. Written in the 60's but follows a group of college friends (women) as they make their way in work and life in the 1930s. It inspired writers as diverse as Candace Bushnell ('Sex and the City') and Hilary Mantel ('Wolf Hall'), which is quite something.

More up-to-date (and about a family): Meg Wolitzer's The Position. Often very funny and beautifully written.

Right. I spent the morning googling and browsing and I have quite an extensive wish list now. I did go for the 'suitable boy' as I had to pop into town early and its very long so should get my moneys worth :) can't wait to read the rest. Thank you all so much. I'm up to about comment 94 so will Google the others tomorrow. I'm surprised, thankful and overwhelmed by the response and feel really touched that so many were able to offer ideas. I'm not alone in my tastes :) thank you!! I would like to read the long song too inspired by some of the suggestions on this thread. Loved the miniseries.

Isabel Allende!

Daughter of Fortune
Portrait in Sepia
The House of the Spirits

In that order - about the same family over many years, set in Chile.

Another vote for Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides

The Secret River

A fascinating historical book about a convict who goes to Australia in the 1800s. It tells you a lot about both London, the life of settlers in Australia and the terrible treatment of the native people.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Brilliant!

Well, A Suitable Boy is certainly long!

Have you read Small Island by Andrea Levy? A beautifully written novel, multiple narrators, fascinating in terms of the way it depicts the Windrush generation. Very very readable.

Ooh secret river looks good!! (quick scan!)

All the light we cannot see, Anthony Doerr. Set in France and Germany over Ww2.

My fave ever is A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth but it is lonnnnnnng. Defo one for the kindle rather than a hard copy.

Also love Ken Follett books

Vanity Fair ticks all your boxes apart from the space/dystopia angle.

It’s also funny.

So good that last year I read it twice.

Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozie Adichie.

Set between Nigeria and the US. Fulfils all your criteria and is heart-stoppingly brilliant.

Ah, I see you picked A Suitable Boy. Yes that is good, but Vanity Fair is better

Not read the whole thread but going by your op, you might enjoy Wild Swans by Jung Chan. It's non fiction and tells the story of her family through 3 women. Begins with her great grandma I think, in China at the end of the nineteenth century, with foot-binding etc, then looks at the wars and the Revolution, then Maos China and the deprivation they suffered. Brilliantly told and tragic but also about human resilience.

Between the Regions of Kindness by Alice Jolly is wonderful. It's set in contemporary times and also in the Blitz. In my opinion she evokes the war far better than Kate Atkinson does in all the Teddy novels. It's a big family saga with complicated love interest - just what you're asking for. And beautifully written - very detailed and evocative, if you like I Capture the Castle.

Love interest which is deep and complicated:
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (with a fabulous twist)

Other 'lose yourself in a world' novels
Definitely Kite Runner and any other Hosseini novels.
Kate Atkinson Life After Life and A God in Ruins.
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

Some great suggestions here.
The Red Tent- Old Testament fictionalised.
Giants In The Earth - pioneer life in America- like Laura Ingalls Wilder but bleaker.

@ScribblyGum - I feel slightly offended OP didn't pick my suggestion, Middlesex.

Great thread though, it's turned up more suggestions than usual.

Wild swans was my suggestion too.

Middlesex is a great read. I lent my copy to someone and never got it back. Grr. Wild Swans also. How about The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen?

Have you read The poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver?

Alternatively if you like classics you might like Circe by Madeline Miller or The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker.

The Island and The Return - both by Victoria Hislop, for culture/family
Leviathan Wakes - James S A Corey, for sci-if/space
Wool, Shift and Dust - series by Hugh Howey, for dystopian future

:)

The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook, a story of a family posted in post-WWII Germany. It was a really brilliant read.

I have the perfect book for you - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Meets several of your criteria and is a masterpiece.

Maria McCann - As meat loves salt and the wildling. She’s brilliant, don’t understand why she’s not rated more!