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?

Shuggy Bain for me too, I loved it and the deep love by the son for his mother has really stayed with me.

The Road Cormac McCarthy

i really didn’t like the midnight library. It felt a bit cheesy to me.

Shuggie Bain
All The Light We Cannot See
Sorrow And Bliss
To Kill A Mocking Bird
Animal Farm
1984
My Dark Vanessa
A Man Called Ove
The House In The Cerulean Sea

Agree about Midnight Library, it was as subtle as a sledge hammer and repetitive.

A little Life and Shantaram. And the Nightingale by Kirsten Hannah

In recent years

All the light we cannot see
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrel
Still life Sarah Winman
Great circle Maggie shipsted
The whalebone theatre Joanna Quinn

Life after Life and A God in Ruins Kate Atkinson

Everything Dianne Setterfield has ever written

One hundred years of Margot and Lenni

The Road
The Secret Life of Bees
A Thousand Splendid Suns
An Evil Cradling

Hawaii - James A Michener

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne is just wonderful. We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker is also v good and stayed with me for a long time. I would also recommend Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Also loved Hamnet, All The Light We Can't See, The Book Thief, Crawdads and A Little Life.

Love this thread 💜

American dirt

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne is just wonderful. We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker is also v good and stayed with me for a long time.

Agree with both of these too

The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)

I meant Snuggie Bain 🙄

Arrrghhh Shuggie!

The Sealwoman's Gift Sally Magnusson

Also, we need to talk about kevin by Lionel Schriver

Rachel's holiday - Marion Keyes

Yes to `We Need To Talk About Kevin '.

Oscar Wilde: Dorian Grey, because I longed to talk like the characters in the novel. In fact, I wanted to live in their world.

Aldous Huxley: Point Counter Point, because it made me realise how exciting literature could be, how fizzing with wit and ideas.

P G Wodehouse: Right Ho Jeeves, because it’s a perfect work of art.

Stephen Fry: Moab is my Washtub, because it’s probably the best thing he ever did.

Bill Bryson: Notes from a Small Island, because it made me grateful to live here.

Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse, because it made me love books.

I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait.
Ladder Of Years by Ann Tyler.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.
Sula by Toni Morrison.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain.

The Night Circus
My Dark Vanessa
Tin Man
Shuggie Bain
Three Women
The Mermaids Chair

And non fiction
Entangled Lives - Merlin Sheldrake
Burning the Books - Richard Ovenden

Well, Marilyn French’s The Womens’ Room actually literally changed my life but it’s a feminist novel so.

Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr. Just breathtaking - everyone I have urged to read it has agreed. It really stays with you.