What is your favourite novel, and why?

I remember the book , which began my love affair with reading and writing - it was Great Expectations .

I couldn't get over
" five little stone lozenges "
being the pathetic remnants of the existence of Pip's siblings .

To me , lozenges were those hard medicinal pastilles that Grandma had on her bedside table or in her enormous handbag .

After that , I couldn't get enough books .
I managed to get adult tickets and extra ones from the kindly indulgent librarian at the local library .

I could hardly carry them home and found my father very obliging at transporting them .

I've loved many books -
after all the classics I can add -
Anything by Isobel Allende and The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz come to mind .

Since I began watching The Sky Arts Book Club I've bought many more books .
I've filled up the book shelves , my art "shed " and two wardrobes .

My parents both read lots of Dickens and stuff like Middlemarch I think they thought there was some sort of merit in reading literature form a bygone age as if modern authors couldn't create anything quite as good. I'm not sure I'd agree with them, maybe I should read some more 19th century authors, but when I read them through choice it just felt like homework. My son had to read Mill on The Floss for A level, I was thinking of picking it up too at the time, but he kept telling me "I hate this sodding book I'm being forced to read"

My dad read a lot of Evelyn Waugh in his youth, I remember being down somewhere in the west country when he was trying to find his house and he asked a local person to which they replied "she don't live round these parts" he drove off spitting feathers about the misgendering of one of his favourite authors, which I thought was dead funny at the time

luluaugust

Looking for a bit of comfort reading I took Shadow of the Sun by MM Kaye off the shelf I see I bought it in 1980, having been unable to concentrate with reading lately I find I am well into it now.

I still have that book on my bookshelves, and looking back I think it was probably in 1980 that I read it. Hope you enjoy.

Another vote for Oliphant, although I would not call her my favourite, I do like the comedic content of her writing particularly Miss Marjoribanks - interesting town Carlingford🙂.

I like to read 19th and 20th century literature of all types, but I do read a lot of non-fiction and modern novels.

One book I recently read was “All the light we cannot see” by Anthony Doerr. A beautifully written book, with a heartbreaking story.

“The Lemon Tree” by Sandy Tolan which contrary to its title is not a novel, but a good historical account of the formation of Israel and its impact from a human perspective. Excellent.

Yes a vote for Splendid Suns - but a book you can only read once I think.

Really there are so many outstanding reads that it is difficult to list and choose a favourite.

Oh yes Evelyn Waugh!

With your user name Dickens, it had to be Dickens.

Grantanow

Most novels by Graham Greene with Evelyn Waugh a close second.

I'm with you on Waugh.

If I want to be 'spooked' - early Dean Koontz.

But if I need to curl up in an armchair with a mug of hot chocolate beside a roaring fire - Charles Dickens or the Brontës.

But there are so many good contemporary authors - I'm going to look at what other posters have recommended - most grans have impeccable taste !

It’s got to be ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles.’ I’ve read it several times after I first studied it for A level. Also seen it in film and play. Never fails to make me sad and amazed.

Sara1954

Maizie
I re read Wuthering Heights a few years, and I’d forgotten how horrible Kathy was, but I still enjoyed it.

😂

We did Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders at school I quite enjoyed it and then I read Tess of The d'Urbervilles at a later stage, which I found really depressing, so many of his books were. I believe he was haunted by a public hanging he once saw. I enjoyed visiting his home when we were down in Dorset.

I read both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre in my teens they aren't the sort of books I would want to return to, although I am very interested in the 19th century. Like visiting Hardy's home I also enjoyed a trip to The Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, both well worth a visit if ever in those respective parts of the world. .

Maizie
I re read Wuthering Heights a few years, and I’d forgotten how horrible Kathy was, but I still enjoyed it.

Not a novel, but “Sight Lines” by Kathleen Jamie is a collection of essays about the natural world and our connection with it physically and emotionally. Insightful and very readable.

As a child : What Katy Did, Little Women, Ann of Greengables and books by Cynthia Harnett.
As an adult: Middlemarch by George Elliott, Most of Jane Austin, Anthony Trollopes Barchester series. Memoires of a Highland Lady by Elizabeth Grant, The Diary of a Country Parson by James Woodforde.

I like Hardy's poetry but find his books unreadable.

I thought they were unreadable, too, MOnica. We 'did' Under the Greenwood Tree' and 'Far From the Madding Crowd' at school and I loathed them. I've never re-read them. But much later I was reintroduced to him by a relative and found that I did enjoy some. Being interested in 19thC social history helps.

'Doing' classics at school has a lot to answer for. Despite liking George Eliot I will never read 'The Mill on the Floss' again... It also engendered my deep dislike of Wuthering Heights... Kathy and Heathcliffe are such a cruel pair.

I have never enjoyed books so much as when I was a child: I never enjoyed a story more than Dragon Island by Violet M. Methley.

Maizie we share so much. I too loathe Wuthering Heights. However I like and appreciate (words chosen advisedly) Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, It is a warts and all story of what being a governess in the mid 19th cenury could involve. It has a very thin romance cast over it, but most of all it shows how nasty the life of a governess could be. Far more realistic than Jane Eyre.

I like Hardy's poetry but find his books unreadable. Mrs Gaskell, I love North & South^ George Elliott, after 60 years I have at last cracked Middlemarch.

Anthony Trollope and Mrs Oliphant are, probably favourites. Both were very prolific and as a result the quality of their output is very variable. But I think The Belton Estate is superb. The study of a woman, the daughter of a landowner, left virtually penniless on her father's death and navigating between a perverted belief that she must marry the man she 'ought' to marry and the late comer on the scene, her cousin, who has inherited her father's estate. For Mrs Oliphant Hester stands out head and shoulders, but also Phoebe Junior in the Carlingford series. But both of them wrote some dreadful books, best forgotten.

Maizie
I really enjoy George Eliot, and I too love Cranford, but I also love Wuthering Heights!

Looking for a bit of comfort reading I took Shadow of the Sun by MM Kaye off the shelf I see I bought it in 1980, having been unable to concentrate with reading lately I find I am well into it now.

Loved the Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns.
Loved Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun but…
Cutting for Stone is the one that always does it for me. Nobody else seems to know it, but it’s my weakness.

M0nica

^I don't read much fiction and I'm hopeless at modern novels, but I think my all time favourite is Jane Austen's Persuasion. Her portrayal of Anne Elliot's emotional reactions to the reappearance of her former lover and having to endure close proximity when no-one knows their past history is absolutely perfect. Happy ending too.^

MaizieD Me too, on novels in general and Persuasion in particular.

Have your read the alternative ending, that JA rejected? You can find it here www.mollands.net/etexts/persuasion/prscancel.html. It pulses with a sexual tension, lacking in the final version. I think I prefer it.

More generally, when I do read novels they tend to be 19th century. In recent years I have discovered the author Mrs Oliphant. Her novel Hester is about the power and ability of women, in the first half of the 19th century, with a woman who rescues the family bank when her cousin ruins it and her relationship 20 years later with her cousins 14 year old daughter and over the next 10 years.

I read it again and again over about a year. I cannot understand why it has never made it to television.

Just for once we agree on something, MOnica.

I must revisit Mrs Oliphant; I read some of her books a long, long time ago and did enjoy them.

I like 19th C novels, too, and found myself drawn more and more towards the women authors, particularly George Eliot and Mrs Gaskell. Not the Brontes, though. I positively loathe Wuthering Heights..

But I missed Cranford in my favourite novels list. Wonderful book (loss and reconciliation again..)

My exception to 19thC male authors...After being put off Thomas Hardy by 'doing' a couple at school I've enjoyed him as I get older. The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Trumpet Major are particular favourites.

The Penguin copy of Persuasion I bought in the 1960s has the alternative ending. I'll have to re-read it...

This is a lovely thread and it's inspiring me to be a bit more adventurous.

My favourite novels are an eclectic mix.

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, I can return to this one time after time. It's a thumping good murder mystery.
Going Postal, another Terry Pratchett novel.
The Secret Life of Bees.
Pride and Prejudice
David Copperfield
The Flight of the Heron, The Gleam in the North, The Dark Mile.
(A Jacobite trilogy by D K Broster)

As a quiet, timid teenager I loved Jane Eyre because the heroine said something along the lines of, "Do you think that because I am small, plain and poor that I am an automaton?" which resonated with me. She triumphed over her life experiences.

Also, Coming Up for Air by George Orwell. The main character is disappointed with his life, wins some money on a horse and decides to revisit his childhood haunts, only to find that they've changed. and of course he must return to his usual routine. It sounds a bit depressing, doesn't it? But it isn't, the chap had an interesting 'inner life' and the descriptions are beautifully written.

I return to both of these fairly regularly.

Gone with the Wind,Margaret Mitchell
The Nuns story, Katherine Hulme
Far from the Madding Crowd/Return of the native, Thomas Hardy
Vanity Fair,Trollope
My favourite recently was Cecily about Cecily Neville

Monica - I have just downloaded Hester on Kindle for 99p. Looking forward to reading it.

Sparklefizz

As a child I loved Heidi, the Katy books, Little Women and Black Beauty.

The first adult book I read when I was about 13 (it was Mum's copy) was Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, and I have loved it ever since.

Since then ... well, so many books and so little time.

Oh yes I loved the Katy books, I read What Katy Did over and over and Little Women passed to me by my mother, favourites of hers when she was young. . Heidi was another well loved childhood book, along with both the Alices and Wind in the Willows.