Brilliant books?

[NewSidOnTheBlock]

I'm looking for inspiration.

Please can you name a book you loved?
Especially if you read it in the past few years.

As the result of a disability, all of the books that I 'read' I don't read, I listen to them.
That aside, I'm still after good books, it doesn't matter how you accessed it.

Genre doesn't matter to me.

Just a brilliant book(s) please.

@Rebelmcstreettuff

Just started Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart Booker prize winner so expecting good things.

It's really good, sad and sweet.

The Shock of the Fall, Nathan Filer

I just finished Crippen by John Boyne and i loved it. Anything by John Boyne is worth a read imo.

Yes yes yes to A Gentleman in Moscow!

I also enjoyed Night Circus and The Starless Sea (by the same author).

Loved The Salt Path, and currently engrossed in On Chapel Sands.

Good Omens has just been released on audiobook with David Tenant and Michael Sheen narrating, which my daughter highly recommends. Also if you’re a Stanley Tucci fan, I recently read and loved Taste - he narrates the audio book and I’m sorely tempted to get that too

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Educated
The Kite Runner

All this year

I think I got some of these as recommendations from MN anyway, all wonderful imo.

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Hearts Invisible Furies - John Boyne
The Goldfinch (divided opinions, but I loved it) Donna Tart
The Crimson Petal and The White Michel Faber
The Quincunx (really, really long) Charles Palliser
Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
Star of The Sea - Joseph O'Connor
The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennet
Where The Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
American Dirt Jeanine Cummins
The Blind Assassin, Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
Our House Louise Candlish (on the telly tonight)
The House We Grew Up In Lisa Jewell
Ordinary Thunderstorms - William Boyd

Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver (she's v prolific but IMO this is her best)
Rose Tremain is good too. And John Banville (for 'literary' novels) and his alter ego Benjamin Black (the Quirke crime series).
Sarah Waters. Personally I love Fingersmith the best, but there are lots, so you'll find your own favourites.

Individual novels: Apeirogon by Colum McCann. A tough, harrowing read, but a masterpiece.
All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr. Wonderful sense of time and place; a hugely touching father/daughter relationship. It's desperately sad, but beautiful.

Individual non-fiction: Written in Bone, Sue Black, who is a forensic anthropologist. Examines what bones can tell us about people's lives and deaths (much of her work is with the police, trying to solve crimes). Fascinating and clearly and accessibly written.
Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald. Essays on various aspects of wildlife/the natural world. Thoughtful and original.
I Wanna Be Yours, John Cooper Clarke. His memoir/autobiog. A hoot.

I've just finished The last house on needless street and it was like nothing I had ever read before and brilliant.

I love C J Tudor books and Will Dean

All of these are slightly dark, gritty books.

On Audible my stand out choices would be

The Hearts Invisible Furies
A Prayer For Owen Meany
Americanah
Shuggie Bain
American Dirt
The Color Purple

I love A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra and anything by Barbara Kingsolver or Ann Patchett.

Highly recommend:
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

It’s feminist (suffrage) combined with POC/queer representation and witchcraft. Brilliant writing style too. Can see why it’s won awards!

Shuggie Bain is far and away the book I've enjoyed the most in the last two years. Desperate, grim and funny in equal measure.

I read a lot and books that have stood out for me in the last few years (all already mentioned) were Shuggie Bain, Circe, Educated and American Dirt.

Really enjoyed Identity Crisis by Ben Elton. Was so enjoyable listening to it on Audible as he reads it himself. Highly entertaining!

Also loved Circe, so beautifully written.

The time traveller's wife
The chaos walking trilogy by Patrick Ness is brilliant on audiobook

Agree Piranesi is really good, also Station Eleven.

Matt Haigs fiction is v good.
Also really recommend Patrick Gale, he's written quite a few books and all are v good.
Kate Atkinson as pp said.
Jonathan Coe, The Rotters Club , Middle England, Mr Wilder and Me.

A Thousand acres by Jane Smiley
A Town calld Solace by Mary Lawson
An American Wife by Curtis Sittenfield

Lots of books I have loved have already been mentioned.

I read 90% and listen to audible occasionally. The Girl with the louding voice was narrated so beautifully, I can still hear her voice in my head when I think about the book. Also listened to Shuggie Bain which I thought was very well narrated.

Forgot to mention Tales of the city by Armistead Maupin - I've spent the last year reading all nine books, finished the last recently and feel like I'm missing a good friend!

I've listened to quite a few of these. Others I have started and hated .
To each their own.

If you think of any more, please add them to this thread.

My favourite book I've read this year has been American Dirt.

Favourite audiobook has been The Maid

Wolf hall trilogy
Hamnet
All the light we cannot see
Rebecca
About grace

11.22.63 by Stephen King. It’s not horror and such an amazing book.

I don't know if it's available as an audiobook but I recently enjoyed The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean.

Currently listening to The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman which I'm also enjoying. It's the second in the series and I think it's better than the first one.

overstory by Richard Powers, unusual, intertwined totally absorbing.

The Promise by Damon Galgut story of generations, easier listen than the above

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishigaru (and anything else he has written!!)

The cellist of Sarajevo by ??Galloway

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

The last by hannah jameson

I also second On Chapel Sands...loved it and moved by it.

Anything by Lisa Jewell or Shari Lapena are always a 10/10 but I’m currently reading The Last House on Needless Street and I’ve never read anything like it before. It’s BRILLIANT!!