My favourite books ever

Abarbanell, Stephan "Displaced" (Morgenland)
Abdolah, Kader "The House of the Mosque"

Abulhawa, Susan "Mornings in Jenin", "The Blue Between Sky and Water"
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "Americanah", "Half of a Yellow Sun"
Aitmatov, Chingiz "Jamilia" (classic)

Alcott, Louisa May "Little Women" Series (classic)

Aleichem, Sholem "Tevye the Dairyman" (classic)
Allende, Isabel "Island Beneath the Sea", "Maya's Notebook", The House of the Spirits trilogy: "House of the Spirits", "Daughter of Fortune", "Portrait in Sepia"

Atwood, Margaret "The Blind Assassin" "The Handmaid’s Tale"

Austen, Jane "Emma", "Lady Susan", "Mansfield Park,"Northanger Abbey" "Persuasion", "Pride & Prejudice" "Sense & Sensibility" (classic)
Bánk, Zsuzsa "Schlafen werden wir später" [We will sleep later] 
Becker, Jurek "Jacob the Liar"(Jakob der Lügner)

Bernières, Louis de "Birds Without Wings"  
Borchert, Wolfgang "Das Gesamtwerk" (complete works) (classic)
Borrmann, Mechthild "Grenzgänger. Die Geschichte einer verlorenen deutschen Kindheit" [Cross-border commuters. The story of a lost German childhood] - 2018
Bradbury, Ray "Fahrenheit 451", "The Martian Chronicles"
Bristow, Gwen "Plantation Trilogy" (classic)

Brontë, Anne "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (classic)
Brontë, Charlotte "Jane Eyre", "Villette" (classic)
Brooks, Geraldine "Caleb's Crossing", "Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over", "People of the Book"
Brumbeau, Jeff/de Marcken, Gail "The Quiltmaker’s Gift"
Buck, Pearl S. "The Good Earth", "The Mother",  "Peony" (classic)

Burton, Jessie "The Miniaturist" 
Bush, Catherine "Claire's Head"(about migraine)

Byatt, A.S. "Possession"

Camus, Albert "The Plague" (La Peste)
Chevalier, Tracy "Falling Angels", "The Virgin Blue" 

Clarke, Marcus "For the Term of His Natural Life" 

Coelho, Paulo "The Alchemist"

Collins, Wilkie "Armadale", "The Moonstone", "The Woman in White" (classic)

Dai, Sijie "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress", "Once on a Moonless Night"

Dickens, Charles "Bleak House", "David Copperfield" "Great Expectations" (classic)

Dinesen, Isak/Blixen, Karen "Out of Africa"
Doerr, Anthony "All the Light We Cannot See"   

Dostoevsky, Fyodor "Crime and Punishment" "The Brothers Karamazov" (classic)
Du Maurier, Daphne "Rebecca" (classic)
Ephron, Nora "When Harry Met Sally ..."

Eliot, George "Daniel Deronda", "Middlemarch"

Falcones, Ildefonso "Cathedral of the Sea", "The Hand of Fatima", "The Barefoot Queen" , "The Heirs of the Earth"

Faulks, Sebastian "Birdsong. A Novel of Love and War"
Follett, Ken "The Pillars of the Earth", "World Without End", "Fall of Giants", "Winter of the World", "Edge of Eternity"

Forster, E.M. "A Passage to India" (classic)

Frazier, Charles "Cold Mountain" "Nightwoods", "Thirteen Moons", "Varina"

Fredriksson, Marianne "Hanna's Daughters" 

García Marquez, Gabriel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (Nobel Prize 1982)

Gaskell, Elizabeth "North and South"
Ghosh, Amitav "The Glass Palace", "River of Smoke", "Sea of Poppies", "Flood of Fire" 

Green, Hannah "I Never Promised you a Rose Garden" 

Grenville, Kate "The Secret River" (about the first "settlers" in Australia)

Guterson, David "East of the Mountains", "Snow Falling on Cedars", "The Other", "Our Lady of the Forest"

Hagena, Katharina "The Taste of Apple Seeds" (Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen)
Hajaj, Claire "Ishmael's Oranges"
Hamill, Pete "Snow in August"
Hamilton, Jane "A Map of the World"

Hansen, Dörte "This House is Mine" (Altes Land), "Mittagsstunde" [Lunchtime]
Hesse, Hermann "Siddhartha" (Siddhartha) (German Classic, Nobel Prize 1964)
Hislop, Victoria "Cartes Postales from Greece", "The Island", "The Last Dance", "One August Night" "The Return",  "The Sunrise", "The Thread", "Those Who Are Loved"
Hornby, Nick "About a Boy"

Hosseini, Khaled "And the Mountains Echoed", "A Thousand Splendid Suns"

Ingalls Wilder, Laura "Little House Books"

Ivey, Eowyn "To The Bright Edge of the World"
Kalisa, Karin "Sungs Laden" [Sung's Shop]
Karystiani, Ionna (Ιωάννα Καρυστιάνη) "The Jasmine Isle"
Kennedy, Emma "Shoes for Anthony"
Kennel, Odile "Was Ida sagt" [What Ida says] - 2011
Kertész, Imre "Fateless/Fatelessness" (Nobel Prize 2002)

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Bean Trees", "Demon Copperhead", "Flight Behaviour", "The Lacuna", "The Poisonwood Bible", "Prodigal Summer"

Kulin, Ayşe "Rose of Sarajevo"
Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies", "The Namesake"
Lamb, Wally "The Hour I First Believed", "I know this much is true", "She's Come Undone", "We are Water"  

Lawson, Mary "Crow Lake", "The Other Side of the Bridge", "Road Ends"

Le Clézio, Jean-Marie Gustave "The African" (Nobel Prize 2008)
Lee, Min Jin "Pachinko"
Lenz, Siegfried "Deutschstunde" (The German Lesson)
Lee, Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Leky, Mariana "What You Can See From Here" (GE: Was man von hier aus sehen kann) - 2017
Lippi, Rosina "Homestead"

Löwenstein, Anna "The Stone City"

Machfus, Nagib/Mahfouz, Naguib "Palace Walk", "Palace of Desire", "Sugar Street" (Nobel Prize 1988)
Mann, Thomas "Buddenbrooks" (Buddenbrooks), "The Magic Mountain" (Der Zauberberg) (German classic, Nobel Prize 1929)

McLain, Paula "The Paris Wife"
Mercier, Pascal "Das Gewicht der Worte" [The Weight of the Words], "Lea" (Lea), "Night Train to Lisbon" (Nachtzug nach Lissabon), "Perlmann's Silence" (Perlmanns Schweigen)

Metalious Grace "Peyton Place"
Mistry, Rohinton "A Fine Balance", "Family Matters"   

Morrison, Toni "Beloved", "Love", "Home" (Nobel Prize 1993)

Morton, Kate "The Clockmaker's Daughter"
Myers, Benjamin "The Offing"

Nadolny, Sten "The Discovery of Slowness"(Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit)

Naipaul, V.S. "A House for Mr. Biswas", "A Bend in the River" (Nobel Prize 2001)

Palacio, R.J. "Wonder" 
Oates, Joyce Carol "A Widow's Story", "Black Girl/White Girl", "Carthage", "Dear Husband, stories", "The Falls", "The Gravedigger's Daughter", "The Man Without a Shadow", "Middle Age", "Mudwoman", "The Sacrifice", "We Were the Mulvaneys"

Obama, Barack "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters"
Orth, Stephan "Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World" (GE: Couchsurfing im Iran - Meine Reise hinter verschlossene Türen) - 2015
- "Couchsurfing in Russland. Wie ich fast zum Putin-Versteher wurde" (Couchsurfing in Russia: Friendships and Misadventures Behind Putin’s Curtain) - 2017
Owens, Delia "Where the Crawdads Sing" 
Palma, Félix J. "The Map of Time", "The Map of the Sky", "The Map of Chaos" 
Pamuk, Orhan "A Strangeness in my Mind", "The Black Book", "The Museum of Innocence", "My Name is Red", "Snow", "The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist", "The New Life", "The Red-Haired Woman", "The White Castle" (Nobel Prize 2006)
Patchett, Ann "The Patron Saint of Liars" 

Paton, Alan "Cry, the Beloved Country" (novel about South Africa)

Powers, Charles T. "In the Memory of the Forest"
Powers, Richard "The Overstory"

Proulx, Annie "The Shipping News"

Rand, Ayn "We the Living"  
Rhue, Morton "The Wave"

Roberts, Gregory David "Shantaram"
Rosner, Elizabeth "The Speed of Light"

Roth, Philip "The Ghost Writer"
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Shadow of the Wind", "The Angel's Game", " The Prisoner of Heaven", "The Labyrinth of the Spirits", "Marina", "The Midnight Palace", "The Prince of Mist", "The Prisoner of Heaven", "The Watcher in the Shadows"

Rutherfurd, Edward "Awakening", "Dublin", "The Forest", "London", "Paris", "Russka", "Sarum"

Sackville, Amy "The Still Point"
Şafak, Elif "10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World", "The Island of Missing Trees"
Sansom, C.J. (Christopher John) "Dominion"
Scott, Mary - anything

See, Lisa "Peony in Love"
- "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan"
Sendker, Jan-Philipp "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" (Das Herzenhören), "The Far Side of the Night" (Am anderen Ende der Nacht), "The Language of Solitude/Dragon Games" (Drachenspiele), "Whispering Shadows" (Das Flüstern der Schatten)
Seth, Vikram "A Suitable Boy", "Two Lives"

Shaffer, Mary Ann & Barrows, Annie "The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society"

Shakib, Siba "Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep", "Eskandar" "Samira and Samir" (women's life in Afghanistan, first book more non-fiction)

Schami, Rafik "A Hand Full of Stars" (Eine Hand voller Sterne), "The Calligrapher's Secret" (Das Geheimnis des Kalligraphen), "The Dark Side of Love" (Die dunkle Seite der Liebe)
Shields, Carol "The Stone Diaries"
Shriver, Lionel "We need to talk about Kevin"
Shute, Nevil "A Town Like Alice"

Smiley, Jane "A Thousand Acres", "The All-true Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton"

Smith, Betty "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (classic)
Smith, Zadie "On Beauty"

Soueif, Ahdaf "The Map of Love"

Spyri, Johanna "Heidi" (GE: Heidi)
Stachniak, Eva "The Winter Palace. A Novel of Catherine the Great"
Steinbeck, John "East of Eden", "The Grapes of Wrath", "Of Mice and Men" (Nobel Prize 1962)

Stewart, Sheila "Ramlin Rose", "Lifting the Latch"

Stockett, Kathryn "The Help"

Stroyar, J.N. "The Children's War" and "A Change of Regime"

Stowe, Harriet Beecher "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" (classic)
Tademy, Lalita "Cane River", "Red River"

Talshir, Anat "If I Forget Thee" 
Tartt, Donna "The Goldfinch"
Taylor, Andrew "The Ashes of London"
Tellkamp, Uwe "The Tower" (Der Turm) (about living in GDR)

Tolstoy, Leonid "Anna Karenina", "War and Peace"
Towles, Amor "A Gentleman in Moscow"

Trojanow, Ilija "The Collector of Worlds"

Trollope, Anthony "Barchester Chronicles" (6 novels), "The Way We Live Now" (classic)

Turner, Nancy E. "These is my words", "Sarah's Quilt", "The Star Garden", "The Water and the Blood"

Tyler, Anne "A Spool of Blue Thread" 
Vargas Llosa, Mario "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" (Nobel Prize 2010)

Walker, Alice "The Color Purple"

Waltari, Mika "The Egyptian", "The Dark Angel" (Finnish author)
Weiler, Jan "Teenosaurus Rex" [Wordplay: The Puberty-Animal] (GE: Das Pubertier) - 2014
- "In the realm of the puberty animal" (GE: Im Reich der Pubertiere) (Pubertiere #2) - 2016
- "And the puberty animal sleeps forever" (GE: Und ewig schläft das Pubertier) (Pubertiere #3) - 2017
- "The Awning Man" (GE: Der Markisenmann) [The Awning Man] - 2022
Whitehead, Colson "The Nickel Boys", "Underground Railroad"
Wilde, Oscar "The Importance of Being Earnest", "A Woman of No Importance", "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Wodehouse, P. G. "Right Ho, Jeeves", "Ring for Jeeves" 
Young, William Paul "The Shack"

Xu, Ruiyan "The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai" 

Zusak, Markus "The Book Thief"
- "The Messenger"
Zweig, Stefanie "Nowhere in Africa" (Nirgendwo in Afrika), "Somewhere in Germany" (Irgendwo in Deutschland), "Nirgendwo war Heimat"

Non-fiction:
Ackroyd, Peter "Thames. Sacred River"
Ahmad, Aeham "The Pianist from Syria" (aka The Pianist of Yarmouk) (Und die Vögel werden singen)
Aitken, Ben "Dear Bill Bryson: Footnotes from a Small Island"
Alexijewitsch, Swetlana (Alexievich, Svetlana) "Second Hand Time. The Last of the Sovjets"
Barnes, Valerie "A Foreign Affair. A Passionate Life in Four Languages"
Bryson, Bill (any) (travel and other non-fiction)
Bythell, Shaun "The Diary of a Bookseller" 
Chang, Jung "Wild Swans" (auto/biography)
Dallaire, Roméo "Shake Hands with the Devil" (genocide in Rwanda)

Du Bois, W.E.B. "The Souls of Black Folk" (Life of African Americans in the early 1900s)
Elliot, Jason "An Unexpected Light. Travels in Afghanistan" - 1999
Emcke, Carolin "Von den Kriegen. Briefe an Freunde" (Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter) 

Garfield, Simon "On the Map. Why the World Looks the Way it Does" (aka: "On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks")
Griffin, John Howard "Black like me" (white guy disguising as a black in the Southern US during the 50s)
Hanff, Helene "84 Charing Cross Road" and "The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street" 
Harari, Yuval Noah "Sapiens", "Homo Deus. A Brief History of Tomorrow"
Harris, Kamala "The Truths We Hold. An American Journey"
Ilibagiza, Immaculée with Erwin, Steve "Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust"

Jason, David "Only Fools and Stories: From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost"
Kerkeling, Hape "Der Junge muss an die frische Luft. Meine Kindheit und ich" [The boy needs some fresh air] 
Khorsandi, Shappi "A Beginner's Guide to Acting English"
Kristof, Nicholas D. & Wudunn, Sheryl "Half the Sky. How to Change the World"
Krug, Nora "Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home" (Heimat. Ein deutsches Familienalbum) - 2018
Lamb, Christina "The Sewing Circles of Heart: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan"

- "The Africa House: The True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream"
LeBor, Adam "City of Oranges" (story of Jaffa before and after WWII)

Levy, Andrew "A Brain Wider Than The Sky: A Migraine Diary" (about migraine)

Logue, Mark & Conradi, Peter "The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy"
MacGregor, Neil "Germany. Memories of a Nation" (Deutschland. Erinnerungen einer Nation)
Mandela, Nelson "Long Walk to Freedom" (auto/biography)

Massaquoi, Hans J. "Destined to Witness" (Biography, WWII)

Mortenson, Greg; Bryan, Mike "Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan"

Mortenson, Greg; Relin, David Oliver "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission To Promote Peace...One School At A Time." (American builds schools in Pakistan)

Obama, Michelle "Becoming" 
Obama, Barack "A Promised Land" - 2020
Moyle, Franny "Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde"
O’Farrell, John "An Utterly Impartial History of Britain or 2,000 Years of Upper Calls Idiots in Charge"
Orth, Stephan "Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World" (GE: Couchsurfing im Iran - Meine Reise hinter verschlossene Türen) - 2015
- "Couchsurfing in Russland. Wie ich fast zum Putin-Versteher wurde" (Couchsurfing in Russia: Friendships and Misadventures Behind Putin’s Curtain)
Pamuk, Orhan "Istanbul - Memories of a City", "My Father's Suitcase", "The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist" (Nobel Prize 2006)
Perkins, Sue "Spectacles"
Precht, Richard David "Who Am I and If So How Many?: A Journey Through Your Mind" (Wer bin ich und wenn ja, wie viele?)

Russell, Helen "The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country"  
Seth, Vikram "Two Lives" (biography)
Stewart, Chris "Driving Over Lemons" (An expat in Spain)

Taylor, Helen "Why Women Read Fiction. The Stories of Our Lives" 
Tolan, Sandy "The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East" (about a Palestinian house in Israel)
Weir, Alison "Six Tudor Queens. Katherine of Aragon. The True Queen"  
- "Six Tudor Queens. Anne Boleyn. A King's Obsession" 
- "Six Tudor Queens: Jane Seymour. The Haunted Queen"
- "Six Tudor Queens: Anna of Kleve. Queen of Secrets" 

- "The Six Wives of Henry VIII"
Wiesel, Eli "Night" (biography, WWII, Nobel Peace Prize 1986)

If you are interested in the German titles of "my" books, find a list here.

My favourite books 2011 and 2012
My favourite books 2013 
My favourite books 2014
My favourite books 2015 
My favourite books 2016 
My favourite books 2017  
My favourite books 2018 
My favourite books 2019 

My favourite books 2020  

My favourite books 2021   
My favourite books 2022
My favourite books 2023