Most favourite books/authors

[spearly]

I'm looking for a bit of inspiration to really get back in to reading and wondered what people would list as their top five or so books of all time. It will be interesting to see if there are a lot of titles in common!

Kate Atkinson - Life After Life
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
John Updike - Brazil
John Fowler - The Magus
Margaret Forster - Diary of an Ordinary Woman

The Sunne in Splendour or Here be Dragons - Sharon Kay
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
Gone with The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Goodnight Mr.Tom
The Rules of Seeing
Life After You
And any Jodi Picoult

Had to think about that because you can never choose your favourite 5. There are so many wonderful books out there!

Dorothy Dunnett, Checkmate (but you have to start with The Game Of Kings)
A S Byatt, Possession
Catherine Fox, Angels and Men
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign (again need to start with first in series, Shards Of Honour)

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
John Boyne - The Heart’s Invisible Furies
Winston Graham - The whole Poldark series (cheating, I know)
Daphne DuMaurier - Frenchman’s Creek
Thomas Hardy - Under the Greenwood Tree

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeymoon

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo

Cannery Row - John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mocking Bird Harper Lee
The Siege Helen Dunmore
I Don't Know How She Does it Allison Pearson
The Sealwoman's Gift Sally Magnusson

Becoming Michelle Obama

My favourite book is blood sugar by suzannah Dunn other favourites are....
Adrian mole (any of them)
Life after life
The future homemakers of America
Normal people

Oh blackcountryexile I love I don't know how she does it too- I've bought so many copies as I always pass it on to friends

Kate Atkinson..Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
Human Croquet Started Early took my Dog,When will there be Good News, Case Histories,Life after Life.
All of Marian Keyes.
Jane Eyre.
Rebecca .Daphne Du Maurier
My Cousin Rachel..Daphne Du Maurier
We need to talk about Kevin..Lionel Shriver
Digging to America Anne Tyler
Revolutionary Road
Gone with the Wind
More than 5! Could go on!

Margaret Forster..all of them

Top 5 ( the ones happily read over and over and bought for friends.)

Ferney - James Long
Precious Bane - Mary Webb
A Perfectly Good Man - Patrick Gale
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

Have been thinking about this and have decided that I’m updating my list (above) to include The Lord of the Rings. All of them, really, but, at a push, I’d choose The Return of the King. I’m not a fan of fantasy books really but I just love Tolkien’s characterisation and the incredible world which he created. Rivendell would definitely be my choice of place to quarantine, given half a chance...

I also forgot to include Of Mice and Men - another absolute favourite.

Got to have a Wilkie Collins in my list, but not as you might expect The Woman in White. Probably Armadale because Lydia Gwilt is such a fab character.
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, my grandmother was an ambulance driver during the war and it was an insight into her life I hadn't had before.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was probably my favourite book as a teenager.
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. I'm a bit of a sucker for novels based on true events.
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. Because it's magical and wonderful and life enhancing.

Vanity Fair
Memoirs of a Geisha
1984
A Pocketful of Rye
The Handmaid's Tale

I could go on, but those are my real favourites

The Sword of Honour Trilogy - Evelyn Waugh

Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens

Regeneration Trilogy- Pat Barker

The Paying Guests - Sarah Walters

Good Morning Midnight - Jean Rhys

A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens

Lollipop Shoes - Joanne Harris

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

I can't resist anything by Anita Shreve

Ouch, difficult as I have loved one (or more) from almost every top five...

I adore Pride and Prejudice, but it gets edged out by Persuasion, just.

My favourite Daphne du Maurier is House on the Strand.

Robertson Davies would be up there, but not sure which one novel I'd pick...possibly A Cunning Man.

John le Carre... probably The Little Drummer Girl

From my childhood favourites, the first time-slip novel I loved would be A Traveller in Time, by Alison Uttley, which was 50 years old when I read it and still comes up fresh as new paint. Very pleased to see James Long's Ferney on this selection: I enjoyed that, and thought I was the only person to have read it.

This is the most impossible of short list tasks... tomorrow's list would be quite different.

Out of all the books I've read, I've only given 8 of the 5 stars (so can I have 8 favourite books?)

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Stoner - John Williams
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Of those I've read, all deserve 5 stars. They just aren't my favourites.

That was to Hellohah BTW.

@XingMing... I don't understand your point?

I love Elif Shafak books. Her characters are all unique and familiar all that the same time, as if she captures humanity in each book. I live a bit of people watching so they really appeal to me.

David Sadaris makes me snort with laughter for a similar reason.