Best book you’ve ever read...

[Beautyschooldropin]

Wanting ideas for summer reading really. What’s the best book you’ve ever read? Do you have a book that you go back to and read again and again? Do you listen to audiobooks? Would you recommend them?
TIA!!!📚

A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell
Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

I liked shadow in the wind and life after life

My favourite books are the heart’s invisible furies and a Thousand splendid suns.
Love Maggie O Farrell
Shirley Jackson books are a good read.
I’m reading Graham Norton at the moment- his books are great.

Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor
Pride and Prejudice

Another vote for Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Bell Jar
Dracula
The Book Thief
The Time Traveller’s Wife
Most of Jane Austen
Where the Crawdad’s Sing - oh, how I wept

I’ve just finished Shuggy Bain and that has certainly made my top 10 books of all time. It was breathtaking.

Books really are different for different people though as I agree that Hamnet was very good but I thought, a tad overrated. I didn’t get the hype.

Oh fgs, sorry I forgot you asked for just one.

Educated by Tara Westover is one I loved in recent years.

I read so many books and often don’t even n is the title / author because I pick them in the kindle store.

However, some have stood out of the years.

I love Rebecca - I’ve read it many times over the years. My mum loved it too.

The Dwelling Place by Catherine Cookson is also a brilliant book.

More recently I’ve really enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

Life After Life. Such a clever book.
And The Goldfinch.
I loved the Book Thief years ago but recently tried to reread it and totally couldn't engage with it for some reason.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
Back to Black by Hillary Mantel although it's extremely dark as the title would suggest.
Just started Hamnet and really drawn in although I'm not generally a fan of the author.

Sorry so many typos! I really need to preview 🙄

If really choosing just one, it would be Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson.

Shantaram by Gregory Roberts
The Snow Child
Tiger Hills
Water for Elephants

Any Human Heart

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. Pure sunshine and friendship in an Italian Spring.

A book that opened my eyes to the subject of family dynamics was Jonathan Frantzen's The Corrections. Really good read. I still think about that family! crazy. Also found Wild Swans very memorable.

The Outlander series series
Game of thrones series
Wayward pines series
Comoran strikes series
Shugie Bain
The eagle of spinalonga
The island
The children of men
The Road
Rachel's holiday
American Dirt
The thirteenth tale
The woman he loved before
Area 187
Anne Frank
The kitchen house
The Help
Inside the o'Brien's
Big little lies

NO WAIT.

Robertson Davies books. He had a few trilogies. They were amazing. Before the internet, in my 20s, I devoured them.

I am pilgrim
Where the crawdads sing
Hearts invisible furies

Are my current top 3

Loved American Dirt this year...which is my new fave

Before that probably Memoirs of a Geisha or the Sunne in Splendour

I think there's a big difference between best book and re-readable books. My best books still generally be classics - The Count Of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre being my particular favourites. But my go-to holiday re-reads are Harry Potter, trashy chick-lit like the Bagshawe sisters and the Chalet School.

None of the re-reads are big or clever, but they're a comfort zone which is great for holidays.

That said, if you've got a long plane journey - either Wild Swans or A Suitable Boy - both great books, but needed some uninterrupted reading time to get going.

Last year while on holiday in Spain (never thought we'd make it) I read Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift. It blew me away and has now been made into a film with Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth and Olivia Coleman (now showing at Cannes).

Straight after I read his latest, Here We Are, which affected me in a way no other book has done since Atonement, and maybe more so. Just thinking about it makes me actually well up sometimes.

A suitable boy by Vikram Seth. Wonderful story and characters to lose yourself in.

Anne Frank

Favourite books ever are easily the Elenium series by David Eddings. I've read them so many times now the pages are falling out!