Recommend your best book (fiction) ever

[Anonymous]

Cloud Cuckoo Land is my favorite book in recent years. I still think about it all the time.

For vacation reads, I like the Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) detective series. Some of those are bit gory, so if you like mysteries that are lighter, the Thursday Murder Club series is great.

[Anonymous]

I also vote for Prayer for Owen Meany and The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts.

Really, almost anything Louis de Bernieres.

I would also throw out Possession. Warning though, many, many people do not like it.

[Anonymous]

Agree Galbraith's Cormoran Strike novels are great for vacation.

[Anonymous]

Not "funny" but "The Red Tent". Stuck with me more than any book other than "Pride and Prejudice."

[Anonymous]

If you loved/liked Jane Eyre, then look at Jasper Fforde The Eyre Affair. Absolutely, great book especially for vacation.

[Anonymous]

The Trees by Percival Everett is funny and serious. Everett is the same author that wrote American Fiction. Dr. No by Everett is also very funny if you like James Bond or like to make fun of James Bond.

The Trees is literally laugh out loud funny. But, it is NOT for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Our Mutual Friend (Dickens)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stumbled on Kent Haruf's books a few years ago, loved them. They are all set in a small town on the eastern plains of Colorado. One, I forget which, was made into a movie (Jane Fonda and Robert Redford)--a widow visits her widower neighbor and says she misses having a companion to sleep with and proposes they do this--not for sex, but because of loneliness. Also, the characters reappear (kind of like Elizabeth Strout's books).

But I don't think I could pick a "best" work of fiction.

Another recommendation is anything by Alice McDermott. Irish people in New York, books span the 1950s to the present time, kind of playing off the histories of one generation and the current experience of their children or grandchildren. Another writer with lovely, simple, clear, yet vivid writing.

I went through a bunch of Edith Wharton's books years ago. Utterly depressing though.


I absolutely loved the Kent Haruf trilogy. Well, mostly the first 2 but they were so beautiful they make up for a slightly lackluster 3rd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My favorite novel is A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. I've reread it several times. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson are up there, too.

These are right up my alley. What else are on your list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Richard Russo’s Straight Man is excellent and unexpectedly funny.

Such an excellent book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not "funny" but "The Red Tent". Stuck with me more than any book other than "Pride and Prejudice."

I love The Red Tent as well, and I'm not even religious.

[Anonymous]

Circe by Madeline Miller. I feel sad that I can't discover it for the first time again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I loved the great believers by Rebecca Makai and the Overstory by Richard Powers

The Overstory is decidedly unfunny

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My favorite novel is A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. I've reread it several times. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson are up there, too.

I hated Prayer for Owen Meany.

OMG, thank you! I am reading A Prayer for Owen Meany now, and I am hating it. I cannot see what there is to like! There are some nice turns of phrase, but those glimmers of graceful prose are not enough to carry me through the tedious and slogging plot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For funny, Liane Moriarty! If you haven’t read “The Husbands Secret” that’s a great funny page turner beach read. “Maybe Where’d You Go Bernadette” if you like quirky. “Lake Success” if you like social commentary or are interested in ASD. “Nothing to See Here” was very funny and poignant.

For serious books, “Wolf Hall”, “Never Let Me Go,” “pachinko.”

Tried wolf hall twice but couldn’t get passed the first few chapters. What am I missing?

Me too. I disliked all the characters.