What are your top 10 favourite books of all time?

[ChocolateConnoisseur]

Here are mine:
10. The Outsiders
9: Heidi
8: Northern Lights
7: Matilda
6: Anne of Green Gables
5: The Queen of Dirt Island- Donal Ryan
4: The Thursday Murder Club
3: Bridget Jones
2: Foster Claire Keegan
1: Small things like these Claire Keegan

A lot of comfort reads in there from when I was a child

Glad to see someone above mentioned A Town Like Alice. The prose is a bit clunky and the novel convoluted, but Jean Padgett is one of my favourite ever literary heroines: an ordinary, unprepossessing woman who on five separate occasions in her life does truly extraordinary things. The context is fascinating and the story compelling. Jean is fantastic!

The Shack - Wm Paul Young

Jane Eyre - CB

The five people you meet in Heaven - Mitch Alborn

Atlas - Lucinda Riley

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak

Agnes Grey - Anne Bronte
.
The diary of Anne Frank

Vox - Ben Elton

Life after Life - Kate Atkinson.

I could list hundreds more that I love!

Glad to see someone above mentioned A Town Like Alice. The prose is a bit clunky and the novel convoluted, but Jean Padgett is one of my favourite ever literary heroines: an ordinary, unprepossessing woman who on five separate occasions in her life does truly extraordinary things.

I also like Trustee from the Toolroom - an ordinary, unassuming man who takes on an exceptional challenge because he sees it as his duty, without seeming to realise he has done anything extraordinary.

Persuasion before Pride and Prejudice.

And Yes to Gaudy Night.

I couldn't pick ten. LOTR and Lymond would have been on my list at different points in my life, not sure if they would be now.

Pride and Prejudice
Day of the Triffids
Trainspotting
Reaper Man
The Plague Dogs
Jurassic Park
Eaters of the Dead
Fatal Shore (non fiction)
Moll Flanders
The Portrait of Dorian Gray

The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Human Croquet - Kate Atkinson
The God of Small Things - Arundati Roy
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis (I find it a bit problematic now but loved it so much as a child)
A Man Called Ove - Frederik Backmann
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseni
The Book Thief - Marcus zusak
Empire of the Sun - JG Ballard

In no particular order, and if you asked me tomorrow I could very well have a completely different 10.

Ha! I've just realised this is an old thread that I replied to in May 2023, and only 5 of the 10 are the same. I also said then that if you asked tomorrow the list would be different!

I know this thread dates back to 2023, but I just wanted to give a shout out to @StColumbofNavron - you have great taste! Frenchman's Creek and Adam Bede are also in my top 10. 🙌

Mine change all the time too, but off the top of my head I'd say:

The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Stoner – John Williams
Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne Du Maurier
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Adam Bede – George Eliot
An Evil Cradling – Brian Keenan
Rachel’s Holiday – Marian Keyes
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
After You'd Gone - Maggie O'Farrell
The Diary of St Faustina – St Faustina

I'm getting back into reading at the minute and this thread has inspired me to go off and rediscover so many great books I'd forgotten about.

Stoner is one of my favourites, and I love anything by Daphne Du Maurier. After You'd Gone is also the only Maggie O'Farrell book I've enjoyed. I have been putting off The Secret History because I was very underwhelmed with The Goldfinch but you've inspired me to pick it up now :)

Carries War (Nina Baldwin)
Handmaids Tale (Margaret Atwood)
Hamnett (just read) Maggie O’Farrell
Choclat (Joanne Harris)
A Kind of Loving (Stan Barstow)
A sense of Guilt (Andrea Newman)
Rosemary’s Baby - the first ‘adult’ book I ever read
I don’t know how she does it - Alison Pearson
Rivals (Jilly Cooper) - got to have one ‘bonkbuster’ on the list!

Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - all time favourite.

1. The Nation's Favourite Simon Garfield
2. Bad Show: the quiz, the cough, the millionaire major Bob Woffinden and James Plaskett
3. Special topics in calamity physics Marisha Pessl
4. The three Sarah Lotz
5. Hey Nostradamus! Douglas Copeland
6. An invisible sign of my own Aimee Bender
7. The girls' guide to hunting and fishing Melissa Bank
8. Prep Curtis Sittenfeld
9. A boy of good breeding Miriam Toews
10. Where'd you go, Bernadette? Maria Semple

I also liked Jon Ronson's books, the Bridget Jones series and Marina Lewycka's work. Oh, and After Birth by Elisa Albert was excellent.

Damn.
I forgot to include The accidental Ali Smith
and The house of sleep Jonathan Coe
I'll take away my top 2 which are non-fiction, add these two, and the non-fiction list can then include Jon Ronson and a bit of a cheat I am, I am, I am Maggie O'Farrell (it is autobiography even if told in her beautiful prose) <gavel>