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 Trees Percival Everett
Once a Monster Robert Dinsdale

I agree with lots of these (Demon Copperhead, Poisonwood Bible, All The Colours Of The Dark, Kite Runner, Thousand Splendid Suns, The Goldfinch).

I'd be hard pushed to choose one favourite book. "Best" is so subjective anyway. Best written or best story? I think the best story I've ever read is I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. I daresay it's not the best written book ever but I've never been so gripped by a story.

Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin
funny with characters you want to spend time with.

Oh All The Light We Cannot See!

I agree I really enjoyed all of Khaled hosseini .
Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling - I couldn’t put them down!
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris, amazing
I’ve really enjoyed the Kingsbridge novels by Ken Follet.
Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
12 years a Slave was really good too.

I am about a quarter through this and as a die hard King fan this is leaving me cold - is it worth perservering?

Perfume by Patrick Suskind
A rogue choice but I love the Hannibal Lecter trilogy by Thomas Harris

Naomi's room

The Nightingale by Keaton Hannah
Fury
the Shadowman
castmes Burning - Magda Denes

Castles

The Hand that First held mine. M O Farrel.

The Stand - Stephen King
Level 7 - Mordecai Roshwald

The book i enjoyed most when I first read it was Gone With The Wind. Super problematic in so many ways but I liked it most of anything on first reading.

Or, The Dark Is Rising.

I am choosing to interpret that as the meaning of "best".

Dragon Rider - Cornelia Funke (kids book but read as an adult and I loved it)
Little Women - my copy fell apart, loved the following books too but the first was always my favourite.
Anything Dorothy Koomson, her characters feel so real, I feel like I'm in their heads.

The Green Mile.

Agree with Pat Barker books.. also Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

I suppose books I read over and over...
The Foundling - Georgette Heyer
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever - Stephen R. Donaldson

and I still read books I loved as a child, especially the William books by Richmal Crompton and E Nesbit's Bastable series.

David Nicholls’ Sweet Sorrow is my favourite ever book - much better than One Day, which was too high concept for me to be completely immersed in.

Every so often I read the last two chapters again - nothing seismic happens, but it’s just such a poetic description of what could happen to anyone.

'How High We Go in the Dark' by Sequoia Nagamatsu

"the remains of the day" was my fav book for so long, until i read "an artist of the floating world" by the same author. They are two gorgeous books, real companion pieces that enrich each other. i hugely recommend both!

I can’t say which is the best, but books I loved include:

Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel.
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel.
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie.
Beloved by Toni Morrison.

I’ve just noticed they’re all by women. Hmm. Interesting!

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - it took me a while to get into it but then I became consumed by it and bereft when it had finished.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Medieval Woman by Ann Baer

I love all novels by Graham Greene
Winter in Madrid. CJ Sansom
Birdsong. Sebastian Faulks
Star of the Sea. Joseph O’Connor

Books that can place you at the scene because the authors as so good at description.

Fav writers

Daphne du Maurier

Neville Shute

John Wyndham

Somerset Maugham

Margaret Atwood

Totally agree. I really liked Sweet Sorrow but can’t stand One Day. I can hardly believe they are the same author.