TOP 5 BOOKS EVER.............?

[enprovence]

Desperate for some new reading matter, what are you TOP 5 BOOKS EVER?

Will rack my brains and add mine too..........

Prejudice - sorry

Damn, I forgot Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

And I spelt catcher wrong.

Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
Little Boy Lost - Marghanita Laski

catch 22
provincial lady

too many classics to mention

ttw

really interesting choices from everyone though - so many different tastes! (charlotte gray better than birdsong? really? i got the impression it was something he scribbled off quick to maximise sales! did like engleby though, although took me two attempts...)

i have such a lousy memory so here goes me

Rebecca (my definate favourite)

Johnathan strange and mr morrel (im not sure if i have that right) long long book but brilliant.

Life of pi

Alias Grace

The fingersmith

1. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
2. Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
3. Fairy stories by George Macdonald
4. Emma by Jane Austen
5. Any of the "Jennings" series by Anthony Buckeridge

Oh, forgot Madame Bovary by Flaubert. I will replace Emma with that, please

Persuasion
Middlemarch
William Trevor's collected short stories
As Music and Splendour (Kate O'Brien)
The Alexander trilogy - Mary Renault (OK I know it's three books, but you can get one volume editions)

The Cleft by Doris Lessing. Blew me away. I read it having had a very difficult DS and a new born DD that was at one with the world.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Memoirs of a Geisha
Lovely Bones
The Book Theif
To Kill a Mockingbird

Birds Without Wings
Memoirs of a Geisha
Wild Swans
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Book Thief

I have only just developed my love of Jane Austen but for me goes without saying that I love her books so thats why I left them off.

And, Time Travellers Wife... I want to put it on my list I really do but then it will be six

Oh my goodness.... Goodnight Mr Tom... makes me cry every single time.... I have easily read it 100 times.

Hawkesmoor by Peter Ackroyd
The Van by Roddy Doyle
Restoration by Rose Tremain
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
The Return Of The Native by Thomas Hardy

Love in the time of Cholera
The Time Traveller's Wife
The Mother's Tale
The World According to Garp
Atonement

Five is not enough!! But my top list would definitely include:

Beloved - Toni Morrison
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Falling Angels - Tracey Chevalier
I know this much is true - Wally Lamb
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

...but there are lots more that I would want to include! MPD

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchel

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

All the Persephone books - hard to pick one. If I had to, Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd.

Gah

Now I've read the whole thread I want to add

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Secret History
Brave New World and
The Amber Spyglass

to my list

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is the most gutting read, just when you think it can't go worse for the poor girl, it does.

5 off the top of my head

To Kill a Mockingbird
Catcher in the Rye
The Kite Runner
A Christmas Carol
The Thorn Birds

Sure I can think of many more..........

Lots of "Catcher" fans here .. cant believe J D Salinger is dead!

i cant believe A Fine Balance has been mentioned several times. its probably one of my least favourite books of all time.

some right ole shite mentioned here.we so disagree...

jodi picoult isnt for arse wiping

Prayer for Owen Meany
Poisonwood Bible
The Corrections
The Gift of Rain
Behind the Scenes at the Museum

1984
Frankenstein
rebecca
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
the divine comedy