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Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Recommend your favourite book of all time

23 replies

PigInADuvet · 22/11/2024 18:23

Please share your book joy... You can only pick one though!

Title:
Author:
Genre:
Overview (no spoilers!):
Why you love it:

OP posts:
CaveMum · 22/11/2024 18:30

My go to comfort blanket

Title: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
Genre: Comedy/Sci Fi
Overview: Arthur Dent wakes up one morning to find the council wish to demolish his house to make way for a bypass. That same morning he discovers that his best friend is an alien and that Earth has also been scheduled for demolition. The book follows his adventures across the Universe.
Why: It’s just so damn clever, funny and eminently quotable

App13 · 22/11/2024 18:31

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

App13 · 22/11/2024 18:33

Oops, sorry

So set in India about 4 characters who end up in the most unforseen situations

I love it because I was left in disbelief until the end. You would never expect such an ending

IceIceBabyBump · 22/11/2024 18:35

@App13 I love "A Fine Balance"

Mine would be "The Luminaries" by Eleanor Catton

Set in colonial New Zealand, focusing on a cast of weird and wonderful characters and the links between them. The story is centred on a mystery of how a woman came to be alone on a road at night but it's about so much more than that.

I love it because it's massive, the characters are well-developed and it's beautifully written. Ideal to read over long winter nights.

Lolopolo · 22/11/2024 18:38

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

labtest57 · 22/11/2024 18:40

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. No description will do it justice.

PigInADuvet · 22/11/2024 18:42

My contribution!

Fairy Tale - Stephen King
Horror/dark fantasy
A teenager unexpectedly befriends a reclusive old man and his dog, taking him on a journey to another world where he leads a fight between good and evil.

As a dog lover, the writing around the relationships between dog and human characters is impeccable. I've never cried at a book before (I'm fairly stoney hearted!) but this one got me 🥹

OP posts:
MounjaroUser1233 · 22/11/2024 18:43

Seconding Donna Tartt

PyreneanAubrie · 22/11/2024 18:53

Title: The Silver Dark Sea
Author: Susan Fletcher
Genre: Contemporary/Celtic myth.
Overview: A mystery man is washed up (alive) on a Scottish Beach close to where an Islander had been lost.
Why I love it: It's beautifully written. The remote island setting, the relationships of the islanders, the story interwoven with mythical Scottish tales... It's just magical.

SmugglersHaunt · 22/11/2024 19:06

Title: A month in the country
Author: JL Carr
Genre: historical fiction (I guess?!)
Overview (no spoilers!): A WWI veteran goes to restore a painting in a church in the country
Why you love it: the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. So short (almost a short story), but packs so much in. I think about the protagonist a lot. I may be in love with him

StormingNorman · 22/11/2024 19:07

Title: Out of Africa
Author: Karen Blixen
Genre: Travel/ Autbiographical
Overview: A Danish aristocrat follows her husband to colonial Kenya to start a new life as a farmer. While there she falls in love with the country and a famous big-game hunter. It’s the story of a small community of aristocrats living in the “Happy Valley”.

Thewolvesarerunningagain · 22/11/2024 19:16

Title: The Quincunx
Author: Charles Palliser
Genre: Fiction
Overview: A young boy grows up in a small village in the nineteenth century with his mother. He is aware that there is a dark secret, but how dark, and how far the conspiracy against his family is, he has yet to discover. But he will! Originally published as a pastiche of the nineteenth century sensation novels, the story of John Huffam and his attempts to regain his inheritance is utterly gripping. The perfect book for a quiet Christmas.

DareDevil223 · 22/11/2024 19:18

Title: Bleak House
Author: Charles Dickens
Genre: Classic/mystery/family saga - you name it!
Overview (no spoilers!): The story of the Jarndyce family and the progress of a lawsuit about a disputed inheritance through the labyrinthine processes of chancery . Secrets, lies, murder and, nefarious plots ensue.
Why you love it: It's beautifully written with London as a main character, the opening description of the London fog is justly famous. It's sinister, mysterious and hilarious, packed to the gunnels with memorable characters. It's incredible.

DareDevil223 · 22/11/2024 19:19

Thewolvesarerunningagain · 22/11/2024 19:16

Title: The Quincunx
Author: Charles Palliser
Genre: Fiction
Overview: A young boy grows up in a small village in the nineteenth century with his mother. He is aware that there is a dark secret, but how dark, and how far the conspiracy against his family is, he has yet to discover. But he will! Originally published as a pastiche of the nineteenth century sensation novels, the story of John Huffam and his attempts to regain his inheritance is utterly gripping. The perfect book for a quiet Christmas.

A wonderful book, great choice.

Soubriquet · 22/11/2024 19:24

I have tooooo many and they all vary

at the moment…it’s probably

Fourth Wing
Rebecca Yarros
Fiction
About a girl and her dragon/s!
I love the suspense, I love the writing, I love the story line and it has that good kind of smut too. The new book is out in January and I just can’t wait!

MaggieBsBoat · 22/11/2024 19:33

SmugglersHaunt · 22/11/2024 19:06

Title: A month in the country
Author: JL Carr
Genre: historical fiction (I guess?!)
Overview (no spoilers!): A WWI veteran goes to restore a painting in a church in the country
Why you love it: the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. So short (almost a short story), but packs so much in. I think about the protagonist a lot. I may be in love with him

Oh I love this one too! So nice to see this one mentioned.

mine is
Title: Lord of the Rings
Author: JRR Tolkein
Genre: Fantasy
Overview (no spoilers!): Group of Hobbits and their friends go off to save their world from evil.
Why you love it: This. Ales it not because it’s my favourite book or because it’s beautiful/genius. It isn’t. It is just that it has saved me both as a child and adult from being in a world that is awful and i had no control over. It helped me escape. And I am eternally grateful for it.

BeforetheDawn · 22/11/2024 19:49

I love this thread and the simple format. Thanks OP! Mine is

Title: Night Shall Overtake Us
Author: Kate Saunders
Genre: Historical
Overview (no spoilers!): Begins with a group of friends at boarding school in the early 1900s and follows them through the years of the suffragettes and WW1, and their loves and losses.
Why you love it: You come to know and care deeply about them all. I think of those characters in the 2 minute silence on remembrance day, that's how real they are.

AgentProvocateur · 22/11/2024 19:54

Another vote for A Fine Balance. I’m so envious of people who have yet to read it for the first time.

JimPanzee · 22/11/2024 20:04

Title: Pride and Prejudice
Author: Jane Austen
Genre: Fiction
Overview (no spoilers!): She has too much Pride, he has too much Prejudice
Why you love it: a book of its time that still holds true - families, relationships, love, romance, drama... The first line is one of my favourite opening lines of all time... "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife".

Hellohah · 22/11/2024 20:11

How hard is it to pick just one argh!
So I'm cheating a little bit but I did read as one book.

Title: The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Detective Fiction
Overview (no spoilers!): Sherlock Holmes and his trusted friend Watson solve peculiar crimes.
Why you love it: It's wonderfully written, atmospheric, gothic and descriptive. It's exciting yet feels like home. There's a reason he's the world's most famous fictional detective, but the books give you so much more than you could possibly imagine from just watching adaptations.

slippersandfleece · 22/11/2024 23:20

labtest57 · 22/11/2024 18:40

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. No description will do it justice.

This

Slavetomycat · 22/11/2024 23:45

Title: The Camerons
Author: Robert Crichton
Genre: Domestic Fiction

Stories of a woman from a mining village with a fierce need to better herself. The hard choices and sacrifices she makes over her life resonate, no matter the place or time.

PigInADuvet · 23/11/2024 18:08

Thank you for the recommendations so far!

I've just bought 3 of them... I'm trying to exercise some self control and limit myself to 10 book purchases a month and already bought 7, so thats my full quota until 1st Dec 😆

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