Best novel that you have ever read (manuscripts, Follett, tom clancy)

[Mayvenne]

Just browsing this thread curious for what people answer........so Rebecca and Life of Pi are getting added to my tbr list for real. One of these days.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by irootoo

The book I go back to over and over again throughout the years is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

I love that book! I just read it for the second time.

[jay5835]

I have several favorites, mostly by writers whose sentences I like as much as their stories:

Dancer from the Dance - Andrew Holleran

Early from the Dance - David Payne

Ruin Creek - David Payne

Letting Go - Philip Roth

Goodbye, Columbus - Philip Roth

The Assistant - Bernard Malamud

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

Ladies' Man- Richard Price

Bloodbrothers - Richard Price

Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series. Connelly never seems to get bored writing these books, the way Jonathan Kellerman did in his Alex Delaware series.

I used to like Anna Quindlen, but have ultimately realized I prefer her non-fiction to her novels. Her (fictional) storytelling is not a match for her sentence writing. I have most of her books in hardcover, some signed.

[nmnita]

Man, at 80 years old, I can't hardly remember what I read this morning how can I remember my favorite novels, but I can think of a few that stick in my mind: The first I read in college in the mid 1950s. it was Not as a Stranger: I think it sticks in my mind because it may have been the first real novel I read that was not required reading for some class I was taking.Also anything written by Sidney Sheldon in the 60s to 90s, followed by John Jakes and Grisham until the last few years. I can't stand him anymore, but I do still love Greg Iles but his books have gotten a little to long.

I guess another one or two I loved were: Rosmary's baby and Payon place.

Here is one that was not a novel, but based on true fact and I will always remember is: It had to do wiht the Watts riots: Title: River of Blood and days of Darkness.

[TheCityTheBridge]

For style: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

For invention: The Trial by Franz Kafka

For strangeness: Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville

For grit: 2666 by Roberto Bolano

For comedy: Candide by Voltaire

For sadness: L'age de Raison by Jean-Paul Sartre

For characters: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

[Labonte18]

I still love to just turn to a random page in Stephen King's The Stand and start reading.. So.. I'll give the nod to it.

[Listener2307]

East of Eden is my very favorite. John Steinbeck.

2nd place....... The Remains of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

[suzy_q2010]

Right now Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series is at the top of my list.

I read Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October when it first came out and loved it for the technical detail. Some of the later books were not as good.

There are other authors that I pretty much will read anything they write, but I get most of them from the library. Gabaldon, Koontz, and John Sanford I still buy.

[LittleDolphin]

To Kill a Mockingbird

[DawnMTL]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

East of Eden is my very favorite. John Steinbeck.

2nd place....... The Remains of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I loved both of these too.