A book that has made you think long after you have finished reading it

So many, but the following spring to mind immediately:

Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns (both by Khaled Hosseini)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

Books with the Holocaust, world wars, slavery and women’s situation throughout history as themes tend to stay with me if they’re well written.

I read the Women's Room in thr early 80s when I was a student and I loved it. When I read it again a few years ago I really did not enjoy it.
I loved Lord of the Rings as a teenager - so magical.
Also loved Schindler's Ark which I read a few years before the film Schindler's List came out. A brilliant book.

Sara those kitchen sink novels & dramas were ground-breaking at the time. I’ve recently watched the film versions of Saturday Night & Sunday Morning and Room at the Top.
I think both the films very accurately portrayed the mores of the time, the class differences & the power balance between men & women.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler.
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. I read it many times when I was young.
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grasse
Possession by A. S. Byatt.

Lord of the Rings, imo the best book ever with a brilliantly sad ending. Also, Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, about the Black Death in England in the 1340s. Beautifully described and so sad.
I hated Never Let Me Go, such a ridiculous and unbelievable storyline. I had to read it for my book club, but it was so awful I will never read anything else by that author.

* Who Owns England - How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land by Guy Shrubsole
* The Trespass Book - Crossing the Lines that Divide Us by
Nick Hayes

Both books opened my eyes to the access that we think and actually have to our countryside, moorland, rivers, etc and why this is the case.

I posted earlier and forgot to mention the one book that I do always recommend and in particular to those who like a bit of an epic. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese.
It stays with you ......

The Beekeeper of Aleppo. Enabled me to ‘walk’ in the shoes of a refugee family from Syria. To survive they had no choice about entering the UK illegally. It really made me question what I felt about asylum seekers and economic migrants.

Janeainsworth
I love all of those, Saturday night and Sunday Morning is a great book, I’ll have to look out for the film.
I suppose they were the Coronation Street of the book world, I also remember reading Billy Liar at school, which was full of bad language, things were changing, exiting times.

The tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey- true stories highlighting man’s inhumanity to man and the determination of the human spirit against all adversity

Goodbye to All That and the Pat Barker Trilogy for me. A real insight into a way of life long gone, similar times, different approaches. And I love Eleanor Brent-Dyer children’s series, the Chalet School books, especially the republished ones by Girls Gone By, again insights into a different way of life.

Oofy
I was thinking about Pat Barkers Regeneration Trilogy, if anyone hasn’t read them they are really worth it.

I know why the caged bird sings -Maya Angelou. When I finished it I had to immediately order the sequels. It is her autobiography describing her early years and shows how strength of character can overcome racism

The girl with seven names. Spellbinding real life story of a girl who defected from North Korea, went back again to get her parents out. Edge of the seat stuff. Real life thriller! Food for thought.

StephLP if u like Mitch Albom read ‘The First Phone Call from Heaven’ it’s wonderful. The first book I read by him and loved it x

The one that stayed with me and the only book I’ve read twice and I’ve read thousands lol was The Shack by William P Young an amazing book x

There are many, some mentioned on here already such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I read as a primary school aged child and still love to this day, but the one book which made the biggest impression on me was Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. I absolutely loved it - and her poetry too. It just spoke to me. I could relate to so much of it - and of course, her writing is simply beautiful too.

Animal Farm by George Orwell and Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey.
Also a lot of books about people's live like
Lemn Sissay My Name Is Why.

kathw12

StephLP if u like Mitch Albom read ‘The First Phone Call from Heaven’ it’s wonderful. The first book I read by him and loved it x

Thanks for the recommendation!

Many books mentioned I have loved reading. My favourite books as a child were Little Women, Tom Sawyer and A Tale of Two Cities. I don't read much now but must get back into the habit.

A friend has just told me that BBC sounds have a series called Hardys women which includes Tess if the d’Urbevilles and The Woodlanders.

- Anything by Thomas Hardy, particularly Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
- Just working my way through Charles Dickens beginning at Christmas with A Christmas Carol, Little Dorritt (such a brilliant description of the Circumlocution Office), and currently The Old Curiosity Shop. The humour makes me laugh out loud - I read chunks aloud to OH - and those things I think have changed so much over time are so very much outweighed by how much things have stayed the same. He is so sympathetic to his characters but has some really frighteningly evil ones too.
- The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns although I did find something eventually positive and powerful about Miriam's fate, such an insight into a country I knew nothing about.
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
And Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey and Still Alice by Lisa Genova made me so much more aware of the effects of dementia on my relative. Similarly about being a carer - Hugh Marriot's The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring.

Jeanio.I’m the same. Never went anywhere without a book when I was younger. I must get back into reading again. I blame the internet.

I really like so many of the books already mentioned. In particular though, memorable for me, are Wild Swans, The Book thief, The Night Circus, Tess of the D’urbervilles and Hamnet ?

Another lover of A Little Life. I have bought it for others. I was so moved. I also really liked the Jalna series, and was so disappointed in the the TV series. I'm sure I could have made a better job of the screenplay!! ( perhaps I'm flattering myself!)