What is your favourite novel, and why?

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 !

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

Oh yes Evelyn Waugh!

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.

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.

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

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 .

Dune, Frank Herbert's SF masterpiece which deals with many themes such as conservation, religious intollerance, manipulation of populations enc so on back in the 1970s. I could not put this book down when I read it. Its been filmed several times but none have touched the power and grandeur of the book.

As a girl Little Women
As a teenager The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger) and The Age of Reason (Jean Paul Sartre)
In my twenties- Alexandrian Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
As I've got older
Cat's Eye Margaret Atwood(great descriptions of childhood and bullying)
Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane ( the complications of life in N. Ireland)
A Thousand Splendid Suns (but it is heartbreaking)
Miss Garnet's Angel by Sally Vickers (better than a guide book for Venice)
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes- she retells Medusa I love the way she makes Perseus an unthinking little thug
If it was short stories any by Alice Munro.

This is so interesting.
I just have to add Doris Lessing, Margaret Forster, Margaret Drabble and Anita Brookner, all favourites of mine.

TerriBull
I wasn’t a fan of The Goldfinch, I read it, and I liked some sections of it, but overall, not a favourite.
I think I realised very early on, as the beginning seemed to drag on for much too long.
I ‘m happy you enjoyed it though.

Terribull- you are spot on as to " why" some books resonate with us so much. I feel a book gives you the experience of a walk in someone else's shoes, however strange or difficult that journey may be. Hopefully, this makes the reader a more empathic person.

My best friend is a big reader, but if I read a book she recommends, I usually tell her it was a load of trashy rubbish, and if I recommend one to her, she usually says she’s had more fun watching paint dry
Just a matter of taste.

Sara1954

TerriBull
I wasn’t a fan of The Goldfinch, I read it, and I liked some sections of it, but overall, not a favourite.
I think I realised very early on, as the beginning seemed to drag on for much too long.
I ‘m happy you enjoyed it though.

Yes lots of people said that about The Goldfinch, including my husband who thought it needed some editing, fair enough!

I knew I'd forget some well loved authors such as Margaret Forster, Anita Brookner and William Boyd. Haven't read any Margaret Drabble but did read her sister, AS Byatt, Possession which was a wonderful book, albeit a bit heavy going at times.

Also forgot to add a favourite of the past couple of years, American Dirt, riveting.

Thanks Chocolatelovinggran

So many wonderful replies - thanks everyone who's told me your favourites so far.

I agree with so many of your choices that could so easily have been on my list. My mind always goes blank when I'm asked this sort of thing for some reason, even when (as with Saturday) it's a question I'm sure to be asked and I've rehearsed an answer beforehand.

I'm starting a list of the ones I haven't read that sound good. I've been sorting my bookshelves and have come across a few unread paperbacks that were the third one chosen on a 3 for 2 deal, and forgotten about, so I want to work through those first, before buying any new ones, though. Top of the list is going to be Two Weeks in September, as I looked at it on Amazon and it sounds a delight.

TerriBull
Possession, I remember starting it, and finding it a bit heavy going, I asked my daughter if she had read it, and she had, and said it was really worth persevering with.
It is actually a really wonderful book, she’s a great writer

Glorianny Natalie Haynes is a wonderful writer. I haven’t read “Stone Blind” but “A Thousand Ships” was a terrific book.

And “Children of Jocasta”.

Greyduster

And “Children of Jocasta”.

A agree she's wonderful. Have you listened to her podcast on BBC sounds "Natalie Haynes stands up for"
Apparently she was also a stand up comedian and did the Edinburgh festival

Any Human Heart by William Boyd it is long and engrossing...encompassing London. New York and France with the life story and loves of the male protagonist

The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - the book I try to persuade everyone I know to read. It is perfect.
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - I love this book. It is so sad and the reader understands by the end of the book that Stevens’s life has probably been wasted
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen -
I have lost count of how many times I’ve read this. My daughter gave me a beautifully bound copy for my 60th.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - A wonderful book even though as a previous poster suggests, we aren’t sure what it is about!

I do apologise for continuing to come back with and here's another one but did love this, We Had It So Good - Linda Grant, she's written some great books but this was my favourite of hers.

I did really like A Thousand Splendid Suns, but just found it so, so utterly heartbreaking, I didn't include it.

With A Thousand Splendid Suns, I kept forgetting I was reading a book set in the present, until someone mentioned a phone or a television, I would feel I was in biblical times.

This has been an interesting thread. So many of the books mentioned I have also read. I don't often read books twice, so the characters really have to stick with me to be remembered as favourites.
Some of my top picks;
As a child - horse stories! My Friend Flicka, and Misty of Chincoteague, and of course Black Beauty
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. This really should be school reading; it is a WWI story of two Cree brothers that become snipers in the war.
A Light Between Oceans
All the Light We Cannot See

I have a tendency towards historical novels, especially during wartime.