What are the best books you've ever read?
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For me it has to be:
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Emma - Jane Austen
The Dead Zone - Stephen King
Dead famous - Ben Elton
The earliest of Patricia Cornwell (hated it when she started writing in the present tense).
Latest favourite Gods Inc - Sarah King
Most of the early James Patterson
Currently reading The Lie of you by Jane Lythell and thoroughly enjoying it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lie-You-Will-Have-ebook/dp/B00DTWHTPA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1401014213&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lie+of+you
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Emma - Jane Austen
The Dead Zone - Stephen King
Dead famous - Ben Elton
The earliest of Patricia Cornwell (hated it when she started writing in the present tense).
Latest favourite Gods Inc - Sarah King
Most of the early James Patterson
Currently reading The Lie of you by Jane Lythell and thoroughly enjoying it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lie-You-Will-Have-ebook/dp/B00DTWHTPA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1401014213&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lie+of+you
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DH Lawrence's three novel arc: Sons and Lovers/The Rainbow/Women In Love
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
Daphne Du Maurier - Rebecca
Joseph Heller - Catch 22
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls
Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth
John Kennedy Toole - Confederacy of Dunces
Ooh, the Phantom Tollbooth sounds interesting. Will go and look that one up. Thanks
Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell (a book that wonderfully captures life in a provincial town in Victorian times)
Atonement - Ian McEwan (so well-written and compelling - a twist I didn't see coming)
Matilda - Roald Dahl (I read this when I was 10 and became a reader for life)
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (A book with so many layers - romance, horror, thriller and mystery - it's brilliant!)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Crime and Punishment.
The count of Monte Cristo
Down and out in Paris and London
Portrait of a Lady
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides(sp?)
I know I'm missing loads, A Tale Of Two Cities, an Outcast Of the Islands, the name of the rose, the general in his labyrinth, Germinal, euganie grandet...
I'll stop now.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Game of Thrones series by George R R Martin
The Lord of the Rings J R R Tolkein
The Inheritors by William Golding
"Jamaica Inn" by Daphne Du Maurier
"Chase The Wind" by E.V Thompson
"Demelza" by Winston Graham
"Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons
"Rosemary's Baby" by Ira Levin
"The L Shaped Room" by Lynne Reid Banks
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
"Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton
"Larkrise To Candleford- a trilogy" by Flora Thompson
"Pussy's Bow" by Neal Drinnan
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell
"Tropic Of Cancer" by Henry Miller
Oh yes, me too. I studied Wuthering Heights for A level.
Lucky you. They wouldn't let me do lit A-level. There was no dyslexia back then, you sat at the back with raffia.
I have a son with dyslexia. It's still very hard.:(
Junky
In Cold Blood
The Count Of Monte Cristo
On The Road
In Cold Blood - that's another of my favourites I missed.
I just finished Neverwhere, it was great.
I need to think my list through for definitiveness
Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
A handful of dust Evelyn Waugh
oh and Catcher in the Rye
The film version was a joke. Some books just shouldn't be adapted to the screen.
Definitely agree about all these! Cold Comfort Farm is a masterpiece (and Flora Poste is my favourite character in fiction ever, I think.) Persuasion is one of the most perfect books ever.
I'd add:
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy. I love how beautiful the language is, the words are just stunningly beautiful, and the plot flashes backwards and forwards, gradually leading to a horrible tragedy that creeps up ominously and painfully.
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje.
Slaughterhouse V - Kurt Vonnegut.
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Never let me go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Atomised - Michel Houllebec
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
Other favourites are The Book Thief and Karen Marie Monings Fever series.
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Jude the Obscure - Hardy
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
Stick it Up Your Punter - Chippendale and Horrie
Gladstone -Roy Roy Jenkins
Seasons in the Sun - Dominic Sandbrook
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The 100 yr old Man who Climbed Out of The Window and Dissapeared
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
1984 - George Orwell
Brixton Beach - Roma Tearne
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood.
Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El Saadawi
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke
The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair Joel Dicker (a very recent read but it's the best crime novel I've read, a real page-turner)
[IThe Lord of the Rings][/I] J.R.Tolkein
There are many more but have tried to put a few ones down here that I haven't seen in other lists so far.
Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
American Tabloid James Ellroy
The Kool Aid Acid Trip Tom Wolfe
I'm With The Band Pamela des Barres
A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy
1984 George Orwell
Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes
Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
100 Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov