Our very own top 10 novels

I can’t think of 10, but two of my favourite books that I have read time and again are….

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Nice Work by David Lodge.

I nearly included Gone with the Wind I know I loved it, I read it Mid teens ....a long time ago. Also loved The Thorne Birds a decade or so later.

Terribull -
A brilliant list .
You are very well read .
I've loved some of these books ,but have yet to read Kingsolver and Tartt .
I've got two of them lined up ready for my next read .
In the past I've read a lot of French and Russian classics and thoroughly enjoyed all of them.
These days I read more Art and Histiry books .

I think we must have the same sagging bookshelves, TB.

Contemporary novels. All of those. I would find it very hard to condense to a top ten but ,off the top of my head, memorable books include:

Kate Atkinson’s a God In Ruins, the companion novel to Life after Life
Carols Shields’ Stone Diaries
Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet
Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life
Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries
E Annie Proulx’s Barkskins
Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Cannot See
Marilynne Robinson's Gilead

plus anything by Margaret Atwood but a special mention for The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and the MaddAddam trilogy.

Three cheers for any book written by Margaret Atwood ,Edith Wharton and for Carson McCullers .

Graphite -
Thank you for your list -these are new for me .

I did love Alias Grace, wonderful book

I’d go along with Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre in the original list, and Demon Copperhead in TerriBull’s. I love Kate Atkinson, but my favourite of hers is still Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

For the other six I’ll have to look through my reading lists and see which ones I gave a 10 to. 😂 There’ll definitely be an Anne Tyler in there, and a Dickens.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
Once UponA River by Dianne Setterfield
Soot by Andrew Martin
The Somme Stations by Andrew Martin
The Baghdad Railway Club by Andrew Martin
The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Missing by Tim Gautreux

I haven’t included any of the classics as there are too many.

Oreo, agree absolutely with Wolf Hall, and everyone who nominated A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Both of these books are " a walk in someone else's shoes".
Donna Tartt is a no from me.
My classic would be Jane Eyre: controversially, I prefer Ms Brontë to Ms Austen.

I’m glad you’ve started this terri I was thinking of trying to incorporate it into the existing thread but then thought better of it.

My problem is that I’m sure the list will change every time I compile it.

But off the top of my head - these are books that contributed to my life outlook, and had real influence on me.

Not in any particular order.

Cry the beloved country - Alan Paton
I know why caged birds sing - Maya Angelou - the first of her biography’s - but they are all good
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
The ragged trouser philanthropist - Robert Tressel
The colour Purple - Alice Walker
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - “Morning Song” is also my most favourite poem.
A thousand splendid Suns - Khaled Hossieni - which in my view is so utterly harrowing it can only be read once.
The woman’s Room - Marylyn French
The Good Earth - Pearl Buck.

I could however compile a completely different list, depending on why I like them.

Oh yes and The Lemon Tree - Sandy Tolan
House of Glass - Hadley Freeman

It’s a tough list to compile I think, but these are my all time favourites.
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne
The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
The Machine Stops - EM Forster
Pincher Martin - William Golding
Candide - Voltaire
Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
I’m another Jane Austen fan too, I love P&P in particular.

Oh my goodness, so many to choose from. Just thought I decided and someone mentions another author.
In my ( endless) list would be any thing by Kate Atkinson and Anne Tyler. Also many of the already mentioned ones.
I tend to think if a book sticks in my memory, I must have enjoyed it. Rosie Thomas’s books The Kashmir Shawl, White and Iris and Ruby stick in my memory. Kate Mosse is another author, too many to name just 10.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, another!

Pride and Prejudice
Moby Dick
Dune
Wind in the Willows
The Road
Jane Eyre
The Wolf Hall trilogy
War and Peace
The War of the End of the
World
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch

I’m looking at this as a Desert Island Books and realising how little modern fiction I read. At this moment my 10 would be, in random order

Gone with the wind
Howard’s End
Emma
The Pursuit of love
The Old Wives tale (mentioned on previous thread)
Trollope, The Duke’s children
Barbara Pym, Excellent women
Ivy Compton Burnet, Brothers and sisters
L. P. Hartley, The Shrimp and the anemone
P. G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

Where I’ve put the author’s name cld substitute with other titles by same person

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Lord of the Rings by JRRTolkrin
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Post-mortem by Patricia Cornwell
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Shipping Forecast by Annie Proulx
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Poison wood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

These are all books which I have read and reread over and over. They aren't all classics or particularly good literature but I love them

*Tolkien

Whoever mentioned Barbara Pym, I love most of hers, especially Crampton Hodnet and Some Tame Gazelle, which has IMO one of the absolute best opening lines:

(IIRC), ‘The new curate was quite a nice young man, but what a pity it was that his combinations showed, tucked carelessly into his socks, when he sat down.’ 😂

Except for the Booker shortlisted Quartet in Autumn (excellent) I wasn’t keen on her later works, when she was trying to be more modern and IMO not really succeeding, but the ‘period pieces’ are IMO a joy.

Others I have thoroughly enjoyed and re-read,

Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K Jerome.
The Way We Live Now (Anthony Trollope)
Plus his Palliser and Barchester series.

Ditto to Behind The Scenes At The Museum.

And The Story of San Michele (Axel Munthe)

It is hard to remember isn't it. A few excluding the classics:
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
Apple Tree Yard - Louise Doughty
Notes on a Scandal - Zoe Heller
Interview With The Vampire - Anne Rice
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
One True Thing. - Anna Quindlen

Who else liked Norah Lofts books.

Many of the books already mentioned would be on my list but also The Regeneration Trilogy and The Silence of the Girls both by Pat Barker.

David Lodge is good . Anne Tyler .Paul Gallico very good writers. I will look out for Barbara Pym been recommended recently I think

Can I do favourite children’s books?
The Borrowers, 4 books
Beatrix Potter, lots but The Tailor of Gloucester is the best
Laura Ingalls Wilder, lots but The Long Winter is the best
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
The Flower Fairies, Cicely M. Barker
Father Christmas, Raymond Briggs
Stick Man, Julia Donaldson
All the Mog books, Judith Kerr
Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfield
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham
As for Enid Blyton, I read one when I was nine and threw it aside in disgust.

watermeadow

Can I do favourite children’s books?
The Borrowers, 4 books
Beatrix Potter, lots but The Tailor of Gloucester is the best
Laura Ingalls Wilder, lots but The Long Winter is the best
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
The Flower Fairies, Cicely M. Barker
Father Christmas, Raymond Briggs
Stick Man, Julia Donaldson
All the Mog books, Judith Kerr
Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfield
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham
As for Enid Blyton, I read one when I was nine and threw it aside in disgust.

There is a lovely podcast on Backlisted about Ballet Shoes, a book I’ve never read. Seems there’s a lot more to it than just a book about dancing. I bought several Katherine Atkinson books after watching Life After Life ( which didn’t get the accolades it deserved imo) on BBC but never got round to reading them. I also listened to an interview with her and thought ‘you’re my kind of person’. Must get my mojo back re reading.