The best book ever written? You decide!

What IS the best book ever written? We’re on a mission to find out.

We want you to tell us your favourites – and why you think they are a contender for the top spot.

But to start the ball rolling, here are some of the Echo team’s top choices.

Daily Echo columnist Faith Eckersall starts us off: "‘Rebecca. Always Rebecca,’ to quote the unnamed heroine of Daphne Du Maurier’s classic gothic tale.

"Penned during the 1930s in the heat of the Middle East, it perfectly evokes the life of an English country house set in damp, mossy woods beside a restless sea.

"The story is about what happens to a young woman when she marries an older man whose beautiful wife apparently drowned in a boating accident.

Rebecca was loved by all who knew her, that’s what her terrifying housekeeper Mrs Danvers says.

"But according to at least one person she had the feeling of a snake…Don’t be fooled, though, the real star of this tale isn’t our heroine or her love-rival. It is Manderlay, the house in which it all takes place, and that is du Maurier’s masterstroke.

"'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again' is one of the most famous openers in British literature. I don’t think I’ll ever stop going."

Bob Jolliffe, New Forest reporter chose Hemmingway's masterpiece: "Ernest Hemingway's 1940 epic novel For Whom the Bells Tolls has everything.

"American International Brigade explosive's expert Robert Jordan is sent to blow up an important bridge in the high sierras to stop the Falangists' advance in the Spanish Civil War.

"In an ever-fresh tale of treachery and deceit he is assisted by a band of gypsies. And he falls in love with a woman his "Little Rabbit" who had suffered much at the hands of the Falangists.

"It all draws to a noble, not to mention sad, conclusion. Fantastic characters, brilliantly drawn by a literary master."

Daily Echo editor Neal Butterworth chose The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger: "I suppose I was a bit of a goody two shoes at school (head boy of my primary, prefect at the grammar school) and I was attracted to the fact that Holden Caulfield was everything I was not - a rebel, an outsider, someone who just didn't fit in with the normalcy around him.

"I read the book at least three times and found myself starting to relish the slightly naughtier side of life and, like Holden, started to view the world without a rather more jaundiced eye.

"Perhaps that's the reason I became a journalist!"

And sub-editor Helen Stanley picked The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: "A gripping story set in India inhabited by wonderful characters, I found this book breathtaking and heart-breaking.

"It starts off innocuously with young brother and sister twins eagerly anticipating, and at the same dreading, the arrival of visitors from England, their pretty, fair-haired cousin of the same age and her mother.

"Hope and excitement are replaced by confusion and misery and innocence is lost several times. And when you think it couldn't get any worse towards the end, it does.

"As the author cleverly allows the plot involving several key players to unfold, her vivid discriptions allow you to feel the heat of the Indian sun on your skin and appreciate the power of the great river which flows close to where the children play.

"Although it is a modern story, you also learn something about Indian society over the last 100 years or so. A masterpiece."

So - there are our choices, now let's have yours. Add your favourites or have your say on our nominations below.