Please help me find some literary(ish) page turners!

[FatCatSkinnyRat]

Dear readers,

In the next month I will be spending 70+ hours on planes as I jet around the world for a couple of family events.

I am loading up my kindle with some novels I have not read - so far I have Frankenstein and Half of a Yellow Sun waiting to go. Am considering Lessons in Chemistry but can see it divides the masses...... I think I need at least five more.

Can anyone recommend some more page turners please - quality fiction that you can't put down? I will definitely make good progress with the two above but might need to switch to something different at some stage - esp on the 13 hour flights!

Not really into thrillers unless it's something like A Secret History (part thriller).

Thanks everyone! Dreading the flights but looking forward to reading time.....

'Brooklyn' by Colm Toibin - deceptively simple prose
The Quiet Girl and Small Things like These by Claire Keegan

I've just finished Birds without wings by Louis de Bernieres and its really got to me, to the extent I can't settle to my current (admittedly chick lit) book. His writing style isn't for everyone but it was a book full of characters and history. Not to be read if you are feeling sad though.

Another vote for Rose Tremain, especially Restoration.

I second the CJ Sansom books. Made me interested in the era in a way that I hadn't been before. Definitely page turners, and I miss them now I've finished them.

I'd add The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
"This story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959.
They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it – from garden seeds to Scripture – is calamitously transformed on African soil."

F

Demon Copperhead is excellent
The Goldfinch is another good one

The Shardlake series of novels by C J Sansom.
Intelligent without being too heavyweight, and most definitely page turners.

Just realised other people have said the same.
Also highly recommend the BBC adaptations of them on Audible - you can get the whole lot apart from Tombland with one credit.
Fabulous. Brilliantly acted and very atmospheric.

Has anyone suggested Gillespie and I by Jane Harris? I chose it for book club, and everyone enjoyed it, though people had different opinions on a crucial part of it. It’s well written and very readable.

If you like Audrey Niffeneger , Her Fearful Symmetry'

It gets a mixed reaction on this board, but I really enjoyed Piranesi. Very unlike anything I'd read before.

F

Many if those I was going to suggest have already been recommended.
Not sure how you define 'literary' so not sure if these fit the bill (sorry if they have been mentioned and I didn't notice).

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernières . took me a while to get into it but loved it. The film was rubbish by comparison.

Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy

Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Noble House - James Clavell

The Red Tent - Anita Diamant

My favourite Brontë book (and I try to visit the medium museum at Haworth every year) is Anne's Tennant of Wildfell Hall - a feminist text ahead of its time IMHO.

The edible woman - Margaret Atwood
The age of reason - Jean Paul Satre
I who have never known men - Jacqueline Harpman
Milkman - Anna Burns
Hot milk - Deborah Levy

My feelings exactly, one of favourites, very underrated