Recommend a book to me

 

I've got a little list. When I knew that I would be retiring and then found out I'd have quite a few hours waiting around in chemo departments, I felt that books were now something I needed to seriously get acquainted with. The internet and blogs are fine, but there's so much good stuff on paper that I felt it was time to claim my share. And books have all the stuff that predated and eventually enabled our current information glut. 

So I asked people to recommend books that they'd really enjoyed, and I've made a list, and have even finished some of them. 

I still also read books that I just come across, but I'd like to see how it goes to try other people's favourites as well. I've tried this at other times in life, and had mixed success. Wolf Hall was wonderful, but the Wasp Factory left me cold, recommended by the same person. So clearly you can't have identical reactions in all cases. 

One prominent science fiction book I read had come highly recommended by several people but annoyed me intensely all the way through, even though I finished it. 

Our Mutual Friend and Huckleberry Finn had been recommended by Cro years ago and when I finally read them I loved them. So you can't give up, even if it takes you ages to get started. 

Genres are another sticking point. I've always veered away from Fantasy and Whodunnit because they just seemed too predictable. Even though I know that the predictability and the characters are what make it work for the aficionados. I'm otherwise pretty agnostic about whether I choose fiction or non-fiction 

I would say that one thing that scuppers a book for me in all cases, fiction or non-fiction, is if I think the author can't really write well, whatever the topic. Some authors such as Mantel, Wodehouse and Orwell seem like they could write a shopping list with style, as can many others. And by 'write well' I mean I shouldn't be able to see the machinery moving under your text, it should just sound like an interesting person talking to me, not sound like a huge effort of will to achieve.

So if I rephrase my title a bit, I should say: "Please recommend a book to me that you finished, loved and still think about now. And which was really well-written too."

Not a lot to ask. I don't even need to know why you enjoyed it, just that you did. And even though I can't promise to even start never mind finish them all, I will put all your suggestions in the blog comments or FB comments onto my list. 

I await your suggestions with enthusiasm!