Moden classic recommendations

[JenniferAlisonPhilipaSue]

Please recommend me a modern classic to read on my holidays please.

I really loved Memoirs of a Geisha when that came out and haven't really found a book I liked as much.The Help was also good.

I prefer books that are set in the past and educate me on what life was like (like the ones above). but I did like (not love) Eleanor Oliphant though.

Echo to The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Another great one of hers in The Lacuna. Set in both Mexico and the States, mostly in the 1930s, the narrator gets entangled in the lives of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and even Leon Trotsky. I also thought A Book of American Martyrs was riveting. By Joyce Carol Oates, it looks at the abortion issue in the States from both sides. It's not light reading, of course. Maybe one best left for long winter nights rather than holidays.

The Midnight Library is good. I also enjoy anything by Curtis Sittenfeld - Rodham by her is good but a bit clunky in places.

Purple Hibiscus and Americanah, both by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. What a wonderful writer she is.

The Secret History and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

Music and Silence by Rose Tremain.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.