mmmmmm, Barry Lyndon.

Watership Down ends very well.

I'm gonna be all obvious and say I love the ending of The Lord of the Rings almost beyond the telling of it. How the story is wrapped up for all the characters, and how the ending is both happy and melancholy, how the loss they've all suffered is so real and takes such a toll, and yet there's also a real joy at the glory of the days to come.

For bad endings to good books... I really loved Zadie Smith's White Teeth up until the FutureMouse bit. Actually, that was even okay until it became clear that the culmination of the whole story was going to center around it; suddenly, what had seemed a relatively uninteresting subplot became The Whole Point. And I didn't get enough of a sense of resolution for any of the characters.

Also, have any of you read Norman Rush's Mating? It's a fascinating story, but the ending just trails off, IMO. Still very much worth reading, though.

My most memorable ending is the ending of Jack McDevitt's "A Talent for War," a book I pimp at every opportunity. His other books are well done, but this one is remarkable. It's an "oh shit" ending, but one that, when you look back, you can see all these bits of evidence. It's a puzzle on a grand scale that's being put together by the protagonists.

I also love the ending of Moby Dick: "It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan." In that case, I think it's because we start with Ishmael, alone, and end with him, alone, saved by mystical means to tell the tale.

In general, I like a book that takes a little time in wrapping up the ending. I've been irritated with many a mystery novel that basically ended with "Bob did it. The End."

Bob did it?! Jeez, ruin the ending for me, why don'tcha.

I like long wrapups too. Basically, I'm unsatisfied if I feel that the characters haven't gotten enough resolution. I don't need complete resolution, but I need to feel, in some way, that the story is over for the characters as well as for me.

Edit: uh, I guess that's stating the obvious. I like character arcs! Yay, character arcs!

Are we talking about Molly Bloom now?

Speaking of great endings....

One of the best ever. And what Teppy said, about Kavalier and Klay.

More specific endings? Rebecca, with an ending that I remember as well as the one-of-a-kind beginning. The Haunting of Hill House, which is exactly the same paragraph as the opening, but which now hits entirely different synapses.

Reading or writing, I like endings that are logical and a result of the situation and characters, but which aren't necessarily the ending I expected as a reader.

Just wanted to 'Word" every single word in Katerina's post.

Wrod, with Hec, on O'Connor. I'm ashamed to admit how few of these works I've either read or retained the endings of...sigh. Guess I should read something not Leonard, yeah? But he's a good choice for a Dialogue's Bitch like me. Good books are often ruined by too-happy, too-perfect endings. Portnoy's Complaint had a good ending...he finally hears from the shrink he's been spilling to. "Now we begin, yes?"

Part of the problem is that most of the time I don't think of a book as having a good ending -- I think of it as a good book, with the ending a seamless part. The ending stands out only if it's a trick in some way, or if it's as lyrical as The Dead or Gatsby. Like, for instance, Being Dead is a wonderful book, one of the best I've read in years, but I can't remember the ending specifically.

Seconding The Great Gatsby. Also suggesting John Crowley's Little, Big. A.S. Byatt's Possession.

I had more, but they've flown out of my head.

I love the ending of Possession. It makes me cry and cry. But I am a sap like that.