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 Psychology of Time Travel. Totally not what you’d think from the title. Best. Book. Ever.

You might enjoy one of the various House books by Norah Lofts. If you can stretch to three I'd recommend the Suffolk trilogy.

I think the Suffolk Trilogy has been published in one omnibus edition.

Try Russian literature, OP. Anna Karenina or War & Peace.

I see someone suggested A Hundred Years of Solitude near the beginning. I was going to suggest another Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera. Both beautiful books. Anna Karenina by pp too is fabulous.

I see someone suggested A Hundred Years of Solitude near the beginning. I was going to suggest another Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera. Both beautiful books. Anna Karenina by pp too is fabulous.

I see someone suggested A Hundred Years of Solitude near the beginning. I was going to suggest another Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera. Both beautiful books. Anna Karenina by pp too is fabulous.

I see someone suggested A Hundred Years of Solitude near the beginning. I was going to suggest another Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera. Both beautiful books. Anna Karenina by pp too is fabulous.

Body of Glass Marge Piercy - willing to bet it will be like nothing else you have read!

Hello, I'd recommend Anne Tyler - loved A Spool of Blue Thread.

if you haven't read A Little Life by Haniya Yanighara then that also fufills your criteria but may make you cry!!

I echo @RageAgainstTheVendingMachine The Immortalists was wonderful!

I just read the immortalists and loved it!

Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond series - starts with The Game Of Thrones. Brilliant historical series.

I would recommend River God by Wilbur Smith.

It is one of my absolute favourites.

You might like to try Gormanghast by Mervyn Peake

www.mervynpeake.org/gormenghast/

It is a trilogy. Titus is the youngest and the heir to the castle. it was inspired by Peake's time in China. It has bits of Distopia I think and lots and lots of tradition. The traditions mostly seem quite pointless such as the commoners all making carvings and the best one is kept in a room of carvings and the others I think were put on the fire. I like the characters a lot.

I watched it on TV, have the books , audio book and had the video. Nanny Slagg was played by June Brown (Dot Cotton). Richard Griffiths played the cook I think. John Sessions was the doctor and had a most peculiar laugh. Worth getting the audio if you can. Unfortunately, in the radio 4 audio, Steerpike was played by Sting. Still you can't have everything!

@Greyworm I've mentioned these on another thread, but both books fit your criteria in your OP.

"Days without End" by Sebastian Barry and "No Angel" by Penny Vincenzi. Both well written but easy to read and unputdownable.

Oh and the only remotely 'space' book I ever read is "The Martian" by Andy Weir and I absolutely loved it! It was like 24, set on Mars!

I vote for
A god of small things
The red tent
The signature of all things
The poisonwood bible
A suitable boy
House of Spirits
Love in the time of cholera
The goldfinch

I'm keen to read the Martian! I'm about 1/3 was through a suitable boy now. I may be a bit dim but finding the politics hard to follow. Need a spark notes to guide me through it!! It's on the Khan family now. Want it to switch back to the main family.

Patrick Gale