What’s the best book you’ve ever read?

[lostinthoughts]

Holidays coming up and I’m fed up of starting books and not finishing them as they just don’t grip me. Give me your best ever books that have had you hooked….

The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly.

Some of my favourites...

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
The Magician's Assistant and State of Wonder both by Ann Patchett
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

Anything written by Joseph O'Connor, Hilary Mantel or C J Sansom

Anything by Liane Moriarty or Taylor Jenkins Reid or Curtis Sittenfeld would be a great light holiday read. I've just read the first two Threadneedle books and loved them, I love a bit of magical realism! Demon Copperhead if you haven't already. Anything by Kate Atkinson or Elizabeth Strout ... I could go on but I won't!!

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

He really is a pita 🤣 Very self centered! But she just writes the story so beautifully that you just step into the world and get carried along and ignore Achilles being a twat 🤣

Lincoln In The Bardo - George Saunders. Most of my book group didn't like it- I loved it.

The Kite Runner
Novel by Khaled Hosseini
Made me sob!
Then had to read everything he’s ever written.

When I was a child it was Sword in the Stone by TH White. I read it so many times it fell apart and I still remember the excitement I felt reading it.
More recently I really loved Diane Setterfield’s
The Thirteenth Tale and also Nell Gavin’s Threads. The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn, which has stayed with me.

Recently, I’d say:
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (also Kite Runner)
Demon Copperhead
All My Mothers, Joanna Glen
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

'The Luminaries' by Eleanor Catton

'A Little Life' by Hanya Yanagihara

'A Pale View of Hills' by Kazuo Ishiguro

'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry

One of my all time favorite books!

Middlemarch by George Eliot

A man called Ove is my absolute favourite.

Pat Barker's Trojan trilogy. I swear that woman can't write an ugly sentence.

Claire North - pretty much everything, including the Ithaca trilogy.

Hamnet, which had such a strong sense of place I could smell the grasses and the crowds. It was astonishing.

Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver
Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Temeraire series by Naomi Novak
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson
The Wofl Hall trilogy.

The usual collections of Austen, Heyer, Pratchett and Wodehouse.

Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. Every time I read it I understand more of the literary,film,and TV references.
The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaranovich. Foxglove Summer is my favourite although Stone and Sky is a close second.
All of Jodi Taylor's books.
The Tiffany Aching books by Sir Terry Pratchett.
She's a proper unit that girl.
Love all of Sir Terry's books but Tiff and the Nac Mac Feegles are a joy.

Mary Raleigh Richardson. It's the biography of a famous suffragette.

All the colours of the dark by Chris Whitaker. One of the best books I’ve ever read.

New York by Edward Rutherford - eternal favourite that I won’t ever dare reread in case it doesn’t live up to the memory. I was bereft when I finished it.

I love lots of the books mentioned here but my all-time favourite is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My husband bought me a beautiful illustrated Folio Society edition last Christmas.

We need to talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver

The last one at the party was also excellent as others have said.

Authors rather than books, but Barbara Kingsolver can do no wrong
Also Curtis Sittenfield for a lighter read but not too light!

I know it’s all personal taste but some of these are baffling. A book you enjoyed absolutely , best book you ever read?! (Not mentioning specifics as people should read what they love)

Oh and Demon Copperhead

I absolutely agree. I re-read them every few years and always find something new. I love Rivers, really love him.

Any Human Heart by William Boyd
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks spring to mind

A Thousand Splendid Suns