What is your favourite novel, and why?

Hellogirl1

As a child I loved Little Women. As an adult I can`t pick out a favourite, but A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini would be up there on the list.

Hellogirl1 we must have gone to the same library both are my favorites too!

So many, so many.
I don’t seem to have read a lot of recent novels but l re-read these often,

Rebecca,
September,
Winter Solstice, both the last two by Rosamunde Pilcher
Marjorie Morningstar, Herman Wouk
Cider with Rosie
Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
The Wind in the Willows
National Velvet, Enid Bagnold
The Sea, the Sea, Iris Murdoch

I will never stop buying books!

pensionpat

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.

Thank you pensionpat. Just to say that your recommendation for John Irving has set me reading a new author. I have read A Prayer For Owen Meany and loved it. I have just finished The Cider House Rules and as you can imagine it will stay with me for a long time. In case anyone is interested in watching or rewatching the film, it is on itvX for free. Just started Thw World According to Garp. So thank you so much it is great to have found such a fantastic author.

pensionpat

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.

Am half way through A Prayer for Owen Meany and have just ordered The World according to Garp and Cider House Rules. It was great to find a writer who is so different. Thank you so much. Enjoying the way that characters are fully explored and this is what leads the story. Owen Meany as baby Jesus is priceless and so on.

Wolf Hall, Bring Up The Bodies and The Mirror and the Light
By Hilary Mantel.Have read them twice so far.
I also read an old copy of The SecretGarden every now and again, it was my Mum’s book.Just lovely.

grannydarkhair

DonnaB5859

The Midnight Library.
Give it a read. You won’t be disappointed

Want a bet? 😁 After reading glowing reviews I expected to read something special. I didn’t hate it but it went in the “going to the charity shop” pile. It’s definitely not a re-reader for me.

Yeah, me too, read it then it went to my local charity shop, def not one to re-read.

gardenoma

The Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwell. It puts flesh on the bones of a century in the history of england i knew very little about. Loved it, all those battles not so much but even those are told from a very personal and human perspective .

Mr Dog and I both read and enjoyed his Arthurian trilogy. It's not often that we both like the same books so much, but these were as you describe, gardenoma - putting flesh on the bones of mythical characters. The story of Arthur's rise and fall is told from the perspective of a shield bearer in his army, so they are very different from the usual tales.

The Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwell. It puts flesh on the bones of a century in the history of england i knew very little about. Loved it, all those battles not so much but even those are told from a very personal and human perspective .

I was delighted to find 'Mothering Sunday' at the library today, as so many of you had it on your favourite list. So that will be my next read later in the week.

*MaizieD: At your own risk!!

I've never read that, MOnica. Do you think I should, just for the sheer awfulness of the experience?

MaizieD How about 'The Constant Nymph' Like Precious Bane, both published in 1924. I put there popularity down to the country, as a whole still being mentally deranged after WW1.

M0nica

'Precious Bane' is best forgotten it is an absolutely dreadful book which is hysterically funny because it takes itself so seriously and is the original of the genre that Cold Comfort Farm sends up..

It is one of my great accomplishments that I managed to read that book from start to finish, thinking with each chapter thta it couldn't get any worse - and it always did.

That is absolutely my recollection of it, MOnica

I don't think the other one was quite as bad...

I wish I had them both to reread, just to see if my younger me was right... but I think my sister has them, (or has thrown them out...)

'Precious Bane' is best forgotten it is an absolutely dreadful book which is hysterically funny because it takes itself so seriously and is the original of the genre that Cold Comfort Farm sends up..

It is one of my great accomplishments that I managed to read that book from start to finish, thinking with each chapter thta it couldn't get any worse - and it always did.

I forgot ‘Precious Bane’.

Dear fellow booklovers, thank you for a wonderful thread. Many of the books I know but some are new to me which means more wonderful worlds and writers to explore. Books often resonate with us at a particular time in our life and when re-read years later we wonder why we liked them so much. Often, it's a special combination of time and place. I once read that having someone peruse your bookshelves was like someone reading your diary. A very personal history. Humankind will always need storytellers.

Glorianny

Doodledog

Oh yes - Cold Comfort Farm! That is laugh out loud funny, specially the Quivering Brethren and all the mollicking

I love Cold Comfort Farm, my aunty introduced me to it. We used to use the phrase "There's something nasty in the woodshed" whenever we could and burst out laughing.

It's even funnier if you've read the sort of popular books it was sending up. My mum had a couple by Mary Webb, Precious Bane and The Golden Arrow; models for Cold Comfort Farm

Doodledog

Oh yes - Cold Comfort Farm! That is laugh out loud funny, specially the Quivering Brethren and all the mollicking

I love Cold Comfort Farm, my aunty introduced me to it. We used to use the phrase "There's something nasty in the woodshed" whenever we could and burst out laughing.

Oh yes - Cold Comfort Farm! That is laugh out loud funny, specially the Quivering Brethren and all the mollicking

Lovely thread.
I've always been a bookworm and have read so many brilliant books, so I find it very hard to choose a favourite. At the moment I'm reading I Capture the Castle, which is absolutely brilliant and highly recommended.
I used to be a massive Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine fan but I have read all her books now, some of them twice. I also loved Cider with Rosie and Lark Rise to Candleford. Jenny Eclair has written some funny books which I enjoyed, ditto Nina Stibbe. The Goldfinch was another book I liked although reading this thread many others did not. Other favourites of mine are Diary of a Nobody (hilarious), Cold Comfort Farm and all the Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend.
And there are so many others...........thank goodness for reading.

How can I have forgotten the West Country trilogy by Tim Pears.
Such a moving, beautiful saga, lovely characters, and his descriptive writing of the West Country is perfect.
Unbearably sad in parts, very harsh at times, but ultimately beautiful.

I haven't trawled through all the pages so these may have been mentioned already.

Katherine
The Green Darkness

both by Anya Seton

My most recent fab book has to be ''The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.'. Truly talented writing

I really couldn't cut it down to just one book - there are so many I have enjoyed.

My absolute favourites are:

Secret History - Donna Tartt
Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler
Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

I generally only read fiction but I really enjoyed

The Road to Little Dribbling, Notes on a Small Island and Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

and

And When Did You Last See Your Father - Blake Morrison

It is Black Beauty I remember from when I was young.

It’s a toss up between Rebecca and Persuasion but there are so many others I love although the only Austen I don’t like is Emma. I hate Wuthering Heights but love the books by Charlotte and Ann Brontë. I nearly always have at least three books on the go which is a habit I’ve had since a small child when I first learnt to read at four years old. I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread to learn what others love.