It's been done on the BBC, and was great, but I was wondering if it would be different on here (probably less votes for JK Rowling). So, what are your favourite books. I'm talking about the books you've enjoyed the most, not those with the most literary merit - unless they were that good )

What do you reckon? A list of 5 each?

I should start the ball rolling, but I need time to think, as at the moment, one of mine is a picture book!

Colin M

Ooh, ok, I'm game...though I find it really difficult to stick to just 5 so I'll have to put "subject to change as the mood takes me" on this, being a fickle gal.

"After You'd Gone" Maggie O'Farrell
"Fugitive Pieces" Anne Michaels
"A Prayer For Owen Meany" John Irving
"The Idea of Perfection" Kate Grenville
"Feeling Sorry for Celia" Jaclyn Moriarty

Oh god, that's 5 already!

I bought "A Prayer for Owen Meany" twice because I hated it first time round but decided I must have missed something, so read it again. That one was really high on the BBC top 100. (hated it second time too.)

Colin

Yes, I've met a few people who hated it, so I'm surprised to hear it rated highly on the BBC thingy.

<Added>

Now I can't stop thinking about all the books I didn't put in that list! I might join WW under a different name just so I can do 5 more.

Ooh, this is hard...

The Lying Days, by Nadine Gordimer
Music and Silence, by Rose Tremain
I, Claudius, by Robert Graves
Atonement, by Ian McEwan
The Paris Review Interviews


I'm not including favourite children's books (The Balloon Tree, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase...) which warrant a thread all of their own!

Atonement was the next one that popped into my head! Oh, and I, Claudius! Loved that as a teenager. And Trilby you were the one who put me onto those brilliant Paris Review Interviews.

I can't really do this. I've read too many books. And my favourite is always the book I've just read. And a book I enjoyed when I was 25, say, I might think is pants at 55. But I'll have a think.

<Added>

Ooh, yes, after this can we have a thread on top 100 children's books, please!!!!

Gosh, this is hard!

"Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
"A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
"Nineteen Eighty Four" by George Orwell
"Notes From a Small Island" by Bill Bryson
"Father Christmas" by Raymond Briggs

Jem, I tried to choose books that were important to me at a particular time - I, Claudius when I was a young teenager, The Lying Days when I was just heading off to uni, Atonement when I was getting inspired to write my first adult novel, etc. I agree that they might not have quite the same effect on me now (children's books similarly, although there's the nostalgic element...)

The Great Gatsby - Scott Fitzgerald
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Villette - Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro - (not saying it's great but it's one of my favourites - vivid medieval Japan) - Alison Fell
Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

This is hard. I'd find it much easier to put together 100 favourite short stories.

It's okay, cherys, you can stop now. Colin asked for five votes, not the full 100. This isn't the US elections.

Did you really *enjoy* Villette, cherys? I'm not quibbling, just intrigued that you'd include it alongside Jane Eyre...

Ulysses by James Joyce
Murphy by Samuel Beckett
Leviathan by Paul Auster
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

It is bloody hard to limit it to five.

Cherys!! Not fair!! You take that list back down to 5 right this minute!

The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Road - Cormack McCarthy
Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Mine aren't terribly literary, but then again neither am I.
I love story, and these are among my faves (it is so difficult to only choose five).