Life changing book

[HandbagsnGladrags]

OK maybe not life changing but am looking for one of those books which stays with you for a long time for an upcoming holiday. I read lots of run of the mill books but like to have a 'special' one for a holiday that I can look forward to reading. Here are some of the ones I've read and loved so far which I would define as 'special':

Lessons in Chemistry
Where the Crawdads Sing
And The Mountains Echoed
The Kite Runner
A Terrible Kindness
The Paper Palace

Would love to hear your favourites?

Two come immediately to mind:

All The Light We Cannot See
Apeirogon

Thankyou!

A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khalid Hosseini)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)
The Girls (Emma Cline)
The Psychology of Time Travel (Kate Mascarenhas)
The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)

The Midnight Library
The Five People You Meet In Heaven

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

Henry James - The Portrait of a Lady.

Didn’t read it until I was in my thirties and, (even though already traumatised by Iris Murdoch!) I don’t think I’d ever seen the sheer iniquity of human beings set out so piercingly. I was really, really shocked and don’t think I’ve ever truly trusted anyone since.

But the ultimate ‘stays with you forever’ novel has to be The Golden Bowl (same writer). It is beyond immersive - years after reading it I sometimes find myself standing at the kitchen sink still grappling with the world and psyche of its characters.

Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
Silence (Shusaku Endo)
Man's search for meaning (Viktor Frankl)

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

East of Eden
1Q84

Love these suggestions - thankyou.

Just realised I still have The Testaments by Margaret Atwood still to read on my kindle, might have to tackle that one as well.

I second The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
Burial Rites - Hannah Kent. I bang on about this whenever I can and not enough people pick it up!! Please do

Seasons of Death and Life, by Martha Reeves

Yes to A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Girls. I also loved Memoirs of a Geisha.

Another vote for A Fine Balance.

Forgot I'd read A Thousand Splendid Suns but thanks.

So far I've downloaded The Midnight Library and The Five People You Meet In Heaven.

The Giver of Stars is awesome.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulkes

Shuggy Bain

I second the suggestion of Burial Rites by Hannah Kent - an amazing read.

I'll add:

Alias Grace and The Robber Bride- Margaret Atwood
The Mercies - Kiran Hargrave Milwood
The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
Vox - Christina Dalcher
Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
Confession of Frannie Langton - Sara Collins

This for me

I have always been a very keen reader but i have never read any of the books mentioned above .
When i was a young woman I read The handmaid's Tale when it came out and it has stayed with me, even though it devastated me at the same time. (Much more so than the TV series, which i enjoyed but felt it sacrificed some of its essence for the drama. But that'sTV. )
Orwell's 1984 also made an impact I can still recall, as did Huxley's Brave New World.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Birdsong is a great shout
My dear I wanted to tell you is brilliant

The Rice Mother - Rani Manicka

I read it when it first came out 20 years ago and bits and pieces of it still come back to me. I’ve read it again a couple of times since and I still enjoy it.