What is your favourite novel, and why?

I really couldn't choose, it would change with each remembered book, but ones that made a big impact on me at various times would be Little Women, A Town Like Alice, The Diary of a Young Girl, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and finally a play that was intended initially to be a book so I'm including it A Taste of Honey.

As a child "Black Beauty" was a book I read and re-read, and always cried at poor Ginger's fate.

As an adult a favourite has been "The Island" by Victoria Hislop.
We went to Spinalonga on a day trip one summer.
I read the book after I came home and could picture exactly the locations in the book. Very moving.

Mervyn Peake's 'Mr Pye.' I simply love the style of writing, eg someone is described as having a facial expression 'like the top of a mushroom'. I love 'Gormenghast' too, by the same author.

“A Lost Lady” Willa Cather, “Ethan Frome” Edith Wharton and all Colette’s novels.

Hard to pick a favourite, but I’ve read and re-read Rebecca so many times - definitely on my shortlist.

Jane Eyre. I did it for GCE and then again for my degree. Loved it always.

Glammagran
Your choice of ‘Lessons’ surprised me, I am about half way through, and I’m not particularly enjoying it, but I’ve still got a way to go.

I don’t think I have ever reread a book but Jane Eyre or Rebecca would be mine I think.

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.

Oh dear, where to start?
Little Women, I Capture the Castle, My Family and Other Animals, To Kill a Mockingbird, Never Let me go - Ishiguro, most recently, “Lessons in Chemistry”. The Time Traveller’s Wife! Most of Margaret Atwood, ditto William Boyd, Paul Torbay…
I could go on. The books that make me think without being preachy…

Another vote for the golden triof Little Women as a girl, and A Thousand Splendid Suns as a woman. I would add a mention for a book which was made into a film - The Caine Mutiny. It's a fascinating study of people in war and of (maybe?) manipulation.

duo of !

I read the sequel dotpocka, but still not really how I envisaged it!

As a child I loved *Wind in the Willows’ - still do.

I too loved "Wind in the Willows" - I remember it being read to us when I was in primary school.
As an adult there are so many. I love "Mariana" by Monica Dickens - "A Town Like Alice" by Nevil Shute - most of Rosamunde Pilcher's books, especially "The Shell Seekers" - "Coming Home" and "Winter Solstice" and most books by Elizabeth Elgin.

Black Beauty as a child, but my all-time favourite is Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. No other book has ever spoken to me in the way it did. I could relate to it in so many ways.

Really, really hard, but if I were to choose an absolute number 1 I think I'd opt for Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Conner but all of these would be hot on the heels of that for me and in no particular order, Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides, The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace Margaret Atwood, The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver, The Crimson Petal and The White - Michel Faber, Life after Life - Kate Atkinson, The Quincunx - Charles Palliser, Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt, The Goldfinch - Donna Tart, The Heart's Invisible Furies - John Boyne, Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Asta's Book, Barbara Vine, The American Boy Andrew Taylor. I'probably read these in the past 20 years or so but to go back further, I can remember my mother passing me a tome of hers when I was aged around 15 moaning about being bored, that tome was Gone with the Wind. I remember feeling pretty bereft when I finished it. In my 20s, maybe when I wasn't reading quite as much, on holiday I read The Thorn Birds and that also stayed with me long after I'd finished it.

So to answer the question of "why" it's that, books that stay with you long after finishing , feeling so immersed and lost in them that you never want the book to end and then feeling bereft when inevitably it does and knowing possibly it will be a long time before finding anything as good again. I always have a book on the go some will be great, many forgettable but that extra special quality only comes along infrequently there's a kind of deep satisfaction when it hits you at some stage into it knowing this is going to be a special one and afterwards you want to tell others about it.

Favourite childhood book The Water Babies Charles Kingsley.

I'll kick myself if I've forgotten anything.

The Ring of Bright Water Trilogy by Gavin Maxwell and film and song of the same. Elizabeth Goudge books. I love anything to do with nature, wildness and atmospheric descriptions so I am transported to that spot.

My favourite author is John Irving. The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules have both been made into pretty decent films, although his books are so complex that a film makes a poor second. But the book that stands out is A prayer for Owen Meany. I re-read it regularly. It is so satisfying. All the ends are sewn up, and all questions answered. The theme of the book is Love, Loss and faith, with a mixture of tragedy and comedy.

TerriBull
Lots of my favourites in there, and a couple I haven’t read, but will add to my list.

Pensionpat
I love John Irving as well, Owen Meany is a really clever book, but I’ve enjoyed them all.

Yes, impossible, as it depends on mood, I've read so much, but if it has to be one, its The Secret Garden.

It's like trying to name your favourite grandchild! I love so many of those already mentioned but for now I'm going with Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.

Sara you are the person I’ve “met” who has read any John Irving. Kindred spirits!

I too loved A Prayer For Owen Meany.

I can hear that high-pitched voice - so very cleverly written!