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!!!📚

Recent highlights would be The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Don't know if I'd say they were light summer holiday reading though!

I went to Oxford in half term and read a couple of books set in Oxford so if you're going away there might be some location based books that look interesting. There are a few websites with suggestions for different locations although you've got to look hard if you're after something other than crime novels or rom coms!

Mines a strange one, I’ve read a lot of the modern classic fiction listed here, but I’m going for a book that literally changed my life. Well, I changed my life but it empowered me to do so!

Within three years of reading it, I’d had a baby, changed jobs and got promoted twice doubling my salary. I dared to do things I would have run away from before. Most importantly I’m more happy now.

The books called ‘You are a Badass: how to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life’ by Jen Sincero.

Judging by the reviews on Amazon I’m not alone in the impact it had. I suppose I could have achieved the same through therapy, but this book was only £7.99! Best money I’ve ever spent.

I read non-fiction rather than fiction, which I find can be a bit too formulaic, and you 'see' what's coming. However, I recently tried Bernardine Evaristo's "Girl, Woman, Other". Wow! So different. Generally, I pass books onto a book bank or charity. But this one is starting to do the rounds amongst my friends as I loved it so much.
Re: Audiobooks. I love them. They have saved me from many a sleepless night. And I can 'read' them whilst gardening or doing DIY. As a woman, I am always multi-tasking.....

Lots of my favourites have been mentioned, including A Suitable Boy, Shuggie Bain, and American Dirt. I'd add:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Secret History by Donna Tart

Possession by A.S. Byatt

All of Barbara Pym's books, but especially Excellent Women.

The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

Oh I also meant to say The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I read it when I was about 19, and for some reason it made a huge impression on me. My username may or may not be a reflection of that!

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Much lighter than a lot of the classics mentioned here but I much prefer an easy read at bedtime these days.

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver.
The Secret History, Donna Tartt.
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens.
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier.

@colouringindoors I just finished The Enchanted April! I really enjoyed it though I thought the end could have been a bit more finished/wrapped up. I'll definitely revisit it in future.

@purpleme12 so glad The Storyteller has been recommended ! Such a moving story and so unexpected of Picoult. I regularly think about that book.

[quote NoProblem123]@purpleme12 so glad The Storyteller has been recommended ! Such a moving story and so unexpected of Picoult. I regularly think about that book.[/quote]
Yes! I mean she's my favourite author anyway but that book.... It was just another level!

Best ever, probably 1984, Atonement or The Handmaids Tale.
Best recent ones - The Testaments, Shuggie Bain and American Dirt

Swan song
The passage trilogy
The Langoliers (a Stephen king novella in “four past midnight)
Station Eleven

Hi, can you recommend a non fiction/autobiography book you enjoyed? (Not a self help type book, I’m too old for those 😄)

I am finding it hard to think of just one best book ever too - sorry.
I enjoyed American dirt and where the crawdads sing recently. I am reading Snuggie Bairn atm and it is really good.
Totally agree about the hand maids take and also loved room if you haven’t read it yet.

Just finished Broken Greek by Pete Paphides - I’m a similar age to him and I found it astonishingly good. Also Nomadland (after seeing the film - much more detailed and totally fascinating) and along similar lines, but in the U.K., I just read Hired by James Bloodworth which is a sort of Down and Out in Paris and London for our times.

Sorry those were non-fiction for @von1471. My fiction pic would be My Cousin Rachel.

I love The Wizard of Oz.
Loved as a child. Re read it when I was older and it’s so good.
I love a crime novel. PD James, Ruth Rendell, and Robert Galbraith.
All the usual suspects. Oliver Twist, Tale of Two Cities, Scrooge, Jane Austen.
Can’t stand Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre.

I love audio books, (if they're well narrated, bonus being they have cured my insomnia!)
Where the crawdads sing was beautifully narrated, one of my favourites, as is The hearts invisible furies. Absolutely brilliant & really stuck with me.
Lisa Jewell has a few good ones, I'm rubbish at remembering titles but the family upstairs was good.
I've not landed on a decent one in a while, so now I've got plenty to discover.

For a non-fiction recommendation I have recently really enjoyed the biography of Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne.

@shinyblackdog

Any Human Heart

Yes, yes, yes.

Chronicles of St Marys, Jodi Taylor. Wonderfully entertaining, and a history lesson?

1984

Fatal Inversion, House of Stairs and King Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine.

Rebecca.
Motherland by Paul Theroux.
Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'brien.
Anything by Alison Weir.
Little Friend by Donna Tartt.
How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn.
Old Devils by Kingsley Amis.
Anything by Jane Austen.

A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard by James Frey. Adore them both and have read them countless times.

@AdaColeman

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, without doubt one of the great books of recent times.

I second this! The best book I've ever ever read, it's so beautifully written, literary perfection. Don't be put off by the terrible BBC adaptation from last summer, which was truly awful, read the book instead.