Recommend your best book (fiction) ever

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with a lot of the previous recommendations.

Here are mine:

A prayer for Owen Meany
Cutting for Stone
Sophie's Choice
A Fine Balance
Pachinco
Ana Karenina

Yes, forgot Pachinko. Great book.

[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.

The World According to Garp is funnier.

Les Miserables is the best fiction book ever.

My favorite book of all time. May be a bit much for OP's purposes this week.

OP, I recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw Rebecca recommended- most people who read at all have read that but if you have not (or not for years) that’s a good classic that I would enjoy on vacation.

I also enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea, which is a re-telling of Jane Erye from another perspective.

I also loved I know why the caged bird sings (and think it would be ok for vacation) but I guess that’s not really fiction

+1. It's actually a prequel from Mr. Rochester's wife's perspective about how they met/married, which is a fascinating take on the story. They made a good movie it back in the 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw Rebecca recommended- most people who read at all have read that but if you have not (or not for years) that’s a good classic that I would enjoy on vacation.

I also enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea, which is a re-telling of Jane Erye from another perspective.

I also loved I know why the caged bird sings (and think it would be ok for vacation) but I guess that’s not really fiction

+1. It's actually a prequel from Mr. Rochester's wife's perspective about how they met/married, which is a fascinating take on the story. They made a good movie it back in the 90s.

PP who you are responding to and I did not know there was a movie!!!!! I am going to re-read then watch the movie

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since you added funny, Carl Hiassen is hilarious, quality writing. I can't pick one. Maybe the others can. Bonus if you like to chuckle at "Florida man"

In the same genre of absurdity, try TC Boyle's collection of short stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My “best” books are not the ones I’d choose on vacation.

This is impressively uninformative. You’ve turned OP’s original question into 2 questions with one sentence.

What are your “best” books? What books would you choose for vacation?

Do you consider the “best” books to be dry, ponderous classics and you prefer something entertaining on vacation?

Are your “best” books porn, but you can’t read them on vacation because it’s harder to keep the kids out of your stuff?

Do you get lost in a good book and are too busy on vacation to give the “best” books your full attention and prefer something mediocre that you can easily set down?

Please let us know what your “best” books are, what you read on vacation, and why the lists differ.

What are you -- a high school English teacher on spring break?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best fiction EVER?? Ok:

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is top of my list

Yes!!! Superb!!!

Finally, a good rec for OP!

I loved a Fine Balance but it is also the grimmest, most depressing book I have ever read. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for vacation reading.

+1 to whomever recommended The Heart's Invisible Furies, that book is fabulous. Also The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

[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.

I love Elizabeth Strout’s books. PP, if you haven’t read Olive, Again, I highly recommend it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

+1,000 - this book is fantastic!

[Anonymous]

You’re probably back from your trip now. What did you end up reading?

For future people looking for ideas - these are a few of my fave books that I think would make fine vacation reads: What Alice Forgot, City of Girls, Circe.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re probably back from your trip now. What did you end up reading?

For future people looking for ideas - these are a few of my fave books that I think would make fine vacation reads: What Alice Forgot, City of Girls, Circe.

I want to know too! So many recommendations that were not funny. Which was an op request.

[Anonymous]

Anne Tyler. Funny, but also insightful about family life. Especially The Accidental Tourist, and Breathing Lessons (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

[Anonymous]

It’s easy, but I just reread The Witch of Blackbird Pond (this time to my tween) which I loved reading and rereading as a child and, along with Anne of Green Gables, and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, are all favorites from my youth that I’d happily read as an adult.

Now Totova’s The Historian, The Golum and the Jinni, and The Daevabad Trilogy all come to mind when I’m asked for favorites.

More recently I read and loved The Count of Monte Cristo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s easy, but I just reread The Witch of Blackbird Pond (this time to my tween) which I loved reading and rereading as a child and, along with Anne of Green Gables, and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, are all favorites from my youth that I’d happily read as an adult.

Now Totova’s The Historian, The Golum and the Jinni, and The Daevabad Trilogy all come to mind when I’m asked for favorites.

More recently I read and loved The Count of Monte Cristo.

I also recently re-read the Witch of Blackbird Pond as an adult and still loved it!