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Just thought I would start (hopefully) a fun thread. What's your favourite book of all time and what is your favourite book that you've read in the last year? I'll start. My favourite of all time is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I came upon it by accident and it just grabbed my heart, I tell everyone I meet about it. It's the one book that I will always have to have on my bookshelf, I've had to buy quite a few as I keep lending it out and not getting it back. My favourite book I've read in the last year was The Son by Jo Nesbo. I can't explain what it was about the characters, but they just drew me in, this book actually made me cry, several times! I loved it so much that I've actually just bought it again to reread, which is unknown for me. So now over to you, what are your choices?

Favourite book of all time

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Favourite book this year

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

Eeeh, that's like asking me which is my favourite child! How do I decide? Maybe if I hadn't read so many books it wouldn't be as difficult.

My favourite of all time is probably still 1984 .

My favourite for this year: The Girl with All the Gifts

Some great choices so far. Just One Damned Thing After Another sounds really interesting think that will be going on my "to read" list. The Girl with All The Gifts I can't wait to read, and 1984 was one of my favourite books I read at school. I should probably read it again since it's been 20 years to see how I find from an adults perspective. Thanks to everyone who has replied so far

Being an oldie I loved The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart, closely followed by Touch Not The Cat, also by her. Then Anne McCaffrey's series

I love Mary Stewart's Merlin books. And I agree, The Girl with all the Gifts is excellent.

Gone With the Wind was my favourite for a long time but The Stand tops my list.

Not sure about my favourite this year. I'll have to look through what I've read and have a ponder.

I did really like The Girl with All the Gifts.

Very, very difficult to come up with just one all-time favourite. My instinct is to go for The Lord of the Rings, but I suspect that the book I've enjoyed most, to the extent that I have read it many times, is The Pickwick Papers. Favourite for this year is easier to pick - The Nightingale.

It's hard to say. I've only awarded 5 stars three times this year and they're all very different. I don't know that I could choose one over another:

Escape from B-Movie Hell
Lies, Damned Lies, and History
Signal Failure


For an all-time favourite it's even harder. I could go right back to my childhood and pick (or indeed any of the Pooh books). They're certainly the books I've owned longest and read the most - and still read occasionally.

or there's the sci-fi I loved as a teenager - E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman books or Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat. Then there's the classic Dresden Files series from Jim Butcher, or who could forget Pratchett? Small Gods is my all-time favourite (I have a hardback edition signed by both TP and cover artist Josh Kirby). Hitchhiker's was of course "the thing" in the 80s, and I never missed an episode on the radio, or the album, CD, books, TV, movie... I can still quote most of it off pat. There have been other series and authors I've enjoyed over the years -- Ben Aaronovitch, Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon, Frank Herbert, Robert Rankin, Neil Gaiman, Toby Frost God Emperor of Didcot is kinda cheesy, but hey, I live in Didcot!

So, an all-time favourite? Umm . . . Winnie-the-Pooh

The Girl With All the Gifts is on my to read list - I loved the film!

Some great very varied answers, love it. Looks like The Girl With All The Gifts was really well received, I'm currently reading 4 books at so want to finish at least one before I start another, but definitely the next one will be The Girl. Some of my earliest "favourite" books were in Polish as I'm from Poland, but from what I can remember I really enjoyed the Anne of Green Gables series when I was a child. Cheesy I know, but I loved it

Agnes wrote: "Some great very varied answers, love it. Looks like The Girl With All The Gifts was really well received, I'm currently reading 4 books at so want to finish at least one before I start another, but..."

Not cheesy at all Agnes - I only read The Secret Garden for the first time at the age of 64 and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Anne of Green Gables is lovely. So is the Little House on the Prairie series.

We all need gentle uplifting stories in our lives sometimes.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Anne of Green Gables is lovely. So is the Little House on the Prairie series.

We all need gentle uplifting stories in our lives sometimes."

Uplifting of a peculiar depth which has lasted my whole life is my childhood favorite, The Other Side of the Moon, by Meriol Trevor. Yes, the science has moved past it. I don't care. I reread it every year because of the amazing story and characters and worldview. It is VERY hard to find.

Wow, that's great praise coming from a scientist, Alicia.

The Other Side of the Moon

Have the book link.