I have read this book many times and it is in my top five books ever. This isn’t because of the film, tho I have seen that too and loved it, which is rare, because film adaptions are usually awful....The book is the same story but told from such a different perspective to be only barely recognisable really.

Within the book the English patient says to read a certain book slowly and this is how this book needs to be read too...it has no huge plot, ( tho it does more towards the end) it meanders and goes off on tangents. It goes back and forth in time. It is a book of place more than plot or characters. BUT I LOVE IT. It is my comfort read in difficult times because it transcends time.

I love how it deals with the end of war and the tatty ends of those sort of days..how things that were important somehow cease to be so...I love how it describes the relationships that are so profound but so fleeting in those situations and how people come together but are really so apart. But also the characters in the book are written as if they are beyond touch...you don’t really know them. I think this fits with the fleeting time of the end of a war. I don’t need the characters to be the story...or plot either...I like how it is all about place and the mists of memory.
I love the passion that is so raw and the quiet love of later scenes.
I love Maddox and would happily read a whole book about him too

Books are such personal things and I struggle to say exactly why this one touches such a chord with me but it does and each re reading makes me love it more.