Our very own top 10 novels

Tenko I also read anything by Elizabeth Strout, I think she's a brilliant writer but she's not everyone's cup of tea as she writes extremely profoundly about the lives of very ordinary people. I love her books but friends have found her boring!

These are mine, but I’ve really struggled to whittle the list down to ten!

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch
I am Pilgrim, Terry Hayes
Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo
The Miniaturist Jessie Burton
The Accidental Tourist, Anne Tyler

This is more up my street .
Lord of the rings trilogy
A little life
A hand maids tale and the testaments
Demon copperhead
The beekeeper of Aleppo
Clan of the cave bear series
More recent reads
The Names
The crimson Petal
Anything by Elizabeth Strout
A place called Winter by Patrick Gale.

Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Kate Atkinson, Behind the scenes at the museum
Khaled Hosseini, A thousand splendid suns
Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
Hanya Yanagihara, A little life
Barbara Strout, Olive Kitteridge
Mikhail Sholokov, Quiet flows the Don
Lionel Shriver, We need to talk about Kevin
Margaret Attwood, The Handmaids tale or Cat's Eye
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half a yellow sun

A quick list of books that left a mark but tbh there are so many others and most of the above authors have written other books that I love and there are so many other authors that I always read. I keep thinking of other books but I'll stick to just ten

Mine are :-

Post Mortem
I know why the caged bird sings
Jane Eyre
The Hunger Games
Gone with the wind
Miss Benson’s Beetle
Three men in a boat
And lots more that have just vanished from memory

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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)

*Tolkien

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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

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’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.

I did love Alias Grace, wonderful book

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

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