What book have you enjoyed reading the most?

[mm22bys]

Hi,

I am looking for a good book to read that is also enjoyable! There are so many "must reads" out there, but I am looking for some that is also pleasurable to read (I am thinking along the lines of something like A Fine Balance, everyone says you must read it, which I have, but I found it very harrowing).

Any ideas greatly appreciated!

Am watching with interest. I have The Book Theif sitting next to my bed, but am not up for a holocaust novel just at the mo.
Prince of Tides is a fabulous read, but there is a rather dark part.

The Blind Assassin (M. Atwood)? Atonement (I McEwan)? Both wonderful, but Margaret Atwood can't put a foot wrong, IMHO.

A Fine Balance was great too, though agree about it being harrowing. How about some Rushdie (Midnight's Children is amazing), or Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy or An Equal Music)?

I thought The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen was enjoyable. Some of it was sad but lots of it made me really laugh out loud.

I loved The Woman in White and Cold Comfort Farm Very different but immensely enjoyable. They're not modern though. The Prince of Tides is a really good read too.

To Kill A Mocking Bird

Also, I really enjoyed The Historian. It's a bit long but a gripping story.

The Book Thief is a fantastic book, beautifully written. You must read it Bubbaluv. It's not all that harrowing really, not in the way you would expect of a holocaust-based book. Can't really explain but I really, really loved reading it and thoroughly recommend it.

I absolutely adored Lisa Unger's Beautiful Lies.

An Instant in the Wind, Andre Brink

Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro - not really my sort of thing (usually I run a mile from 'literary' books) but I flicked through it at the library & was totally hooked. My mum also picked it up to look at & then stayed up til 1am to finish it.

i loved the time travellers wife - and one of my all time favourites is a prayer for owen meany

Takver, I found this one in the spare room on the bookshelves. I thought I must have read it, or why would it be there, but have no memory of actually reading it at all....So I will be giving it a go (or it was really crap the last time and never made an impression).

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson was a recentish one that still stands out.

Oooh a Prayer for Owen Meany - fantastic! I still love the Godfather and the Thorn Birds for non-put downable stuff that you don't want to end.

Lovely, but madly difficult, question.
The very most of all ...

maybe a Trollope
perhaps Geoffrey Trease's Crown of Violet, when I was about 10
or The Phantom Tolbooth
or Once on a Winter's Night a Traveller, I did enjoy that
TH White's The Once and Future King
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

Remains of the Day by Ishiguro, even better than Never let me go

Dan Brown, Angels And Demons.

Obviously The Thornbirds, i loved Trinity by Leon Uris and Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Another vote for Remains of the Day - it's beautiful.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I can read this over and over happily.

Waiting by Hai Jin. This had me absolutely hooked.

Oh - and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Kept me up all night.

Will have to ask at the library for the Remains of the Day.
One of my all time favourite novels is The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin. But then I like utopia novels, they cheer me up . . .

Madame Bovary.

A.M. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life

(sorry, that's my standard "enjoyable read" recommendation!)

Just finished an absolutely FANTASTIC book - The Wasted Vigil - but it is pretty gruesome and ultimately very sad. Just one of those books that you don't really notice as much the gruesome sadness because the writing is so beautiful. So I recommend it highly, but perhaps not as a specific response to the OP...

What were the last 3/4 books you read and liked, OP? Because book tastes are so diverse - no good recommending you a misery memoir or Jordan's autobiography if the last thing you enjoyed was by Naomi Wolf, no good recommending you Dostoeyevsky if you last enjoyed Terry Pratchett.

The last book I really enjoyed (ie yesterday) was Christopher Brookmyre's Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks. WHich I would recommend to everybody - but I could never choose just one book as my favourite, it would always be a shortlist of about 20 valued for different reasons.

At the moment I'm really enjoying, The Letters Of Ted Hughes.