Favorite books of all time

[Nanda Devi]

I've been enjoying the film threads so much, I wanted to start another thread on books because I love good books even more than I love good films. (English major)

List some of your favorites. I'll start the ball rolling with my following top picks:

To Kill a Mocking Bird (Harper Lee; film w/ Gregory Peck also excellent)
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck... all of his books are among my favorites)
One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)
Native Son (Richard Wright)
Sexus (and the Tropics, Henry Miller)
Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs)
Population 1280 (Jim Thompson)
A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess)

Ok, better stop now.... but I know I'll be back with more. :)

[janey]

too many books to name, so i'll just name some authors.
Some of my favorite authors are Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Ayn Rand, Michael Moore, Jean-Paul Sartre, Frank Herbert, Philip Dick, JRR Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut, Maya Angelou, CS Lewis, Richard Wright, John Irving, Douglas Coupland, Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Graham Greene and Soren Kierkegaard.

I love to read, so yeah :p

[richland]

List some of your favorites.


One Book:

1984 by George Orwell

Hate reading. Love movies and writing my own.

[RandomDeadHead]

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Nuf said ;)

[Powerbook G5]

1984
Dracula
Inferno
Sherlock Holmes

[themadchemist]

My hands down favorite? Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. It is brilliant.

Other great books? In no particular order:
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, of course.
Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
Brönte's Wuthering Heights. (not QUITE as great)
Knowles' A Separate Peace.
Shakespeare's Hamlet. (I don't quite know if it counts)
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (also don't know)
Wiesel's Night. (great book, but I don't think I appreciated it as much as I ought to have--I was only 13 when I read it)

...and the last page or so of Dante's Commedia. It's really all that's worth in that book, although you might have to read the rest of the crap in order to appreciate the one kernel of beauty that is the conclusion of this work.

I'm sure I'll think of more.

[jefhatfield]

almanacs of all sorts
best 300+ colleges
bible
guinness book of world records
henry and june
how the west was won
illustrated man
mistral's daughter
mueller's pc repair book
the play romeo and juliet

or at least that's what i have read more than once which is a lot for me since it's hard to read most stuff just once with all the reading out there

and the ibook

[themadchemist]

Deviating from the classics, I'll throw in Guy Kawasaki's The Macintosh Way and thau!'s Javascript Guide.

[Dros]

A Confederacy of Dunces
Oscar and Lucinda
U and I
Gold Bug Variations
All the Pretty Horses
Atonement
Speak, Memory
Sometimes a Great Notion
Portnoy's Complaint

[sparkleytone]

1) 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Márquez

2) 1984 - George Orwell

3) Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

[tpjunkie]

several of the previously mentioned, also Dan Simmon's Hyperion saga.

[Opteron]

Heir to the Empire - Timothy Zahn (Star Wars)
Dark Force Rising - " " "
The Last Command- " " "

I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole (Star Wars)

Dune - Fank Herbert, plus follow up's
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R Tolken


Worst book of all time
Lilian's Story - Can't remember the author, but was a Year 12 text and was dreadful.

[Inspector Lee]

A Confederacy of Dunces


If you haven't read this book do so immediately before it is butchered in Hollywood. The author is John Kennedy Toole. Good stick Dros...

Post Office (Bukowski)
Women (Bukowski)
Lonesome Traveler (Kerouac)
Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Fountainhead (Rand)
Hell's Angels (HS Thompson)
Papillon (Charriere)
Native Son (Richard Wright)
The Magic Christian (Southern)
All Philip K. Dick
All William S. Burroughs

And the worst book of all time has to be something they try to jam down your throat in college - Habits of the Heart.

[Mav451]

Haha man, three of you guys mentioned my 10th grade required reading...ugh 1984. I don't know if i like or hate it, as it was shoved down my throat for about 3 weeks of my life :(

Maybe i will enjoy it more now that I'm in college? I dunno. I remember watching the movie--if you've seen it, I'll just say green meadows. You can finish the rest haha.

[Thanatoast]

Farenheit 451 - tells how ignorance became institutionalized and welcomed

Stranger in a Strange Land - looks at the world from a different perspective, asks why we are the way we are

Autobiography of Malcolm X - didn't know how much i didn't know until i read this book. great life story - i have to wonder how the world would be different were he still alive

Speaker for the Dead (sequel to Ender's Game, which is also a good book) - another one on looking at the world from someone else's point of view

Red/Green/Blue Mars - story of colonization, and revolution in thought and politics on mars. very grounded in today's science

Honor Harrington series by David Weber, beginning with On Basilisk Station - pure epic space opera, very in depth writing, lots of talk on strategy and tactics, tons of character and story development

[topicolo]

Fifth Business - Great story of a kid's coming of age and well, aging. It's filled with cultural metaphors and some of the most lucid and flowing writing I've ever read.

[Interiority]

Microserfs - Douglas Coupland. That and a penchant for Steinbeck...

[janey]

Microserfs - Douglas Coupland. That and a penchant for Steinbeck...
MICROSERFS!!! awesome book :D

[Savage Henry]

Some good shouts going on here, the vote for Crime and Punishment particularly pleased me.

And as much as I too would like to say To Kill A Mockingbird, I am only halfway through it (should be done come the weekend) so it would be unfair of me to say that one.

Therefore, I would have to stand alone and go for the rich sumptuous political metaphor of Orwell's Animal Farm.

[bont]

'The Quantity Theory of Insanity' by Will Self :)

[MongoTheGeek]

Catch 22, The Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison), Atlas Shrugged, Faith of the Fallen(Terry Goodkind), Executive Orders(Tom Clancy) Physics (Kernigan & Ritchie) Art of Computer Programming, The Bible(especially John, Job, and 1/2 Samuel)

[scem0]

The Shannara Series by Terry Brooks.

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.

Wraeththu (I'm going off of memory so don't take that spelling too seriously) by Storm Constantine - Awesome but weird book.

Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody series.

Melanie Rawn's Dragon books. They are all 1 series that are put into seperate trilogies for some reason. I started with 'The Dragon Prince'.

I'd also read The Da Vinci Code, it was an excellent book IMO.

scem0

[MongoTheGeek]

The Shannara Series by Terry Brooks.

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.

Wraeththu (I'm going off of memory so don't take that spelling too seriously) by Storm Constantine - Awesome but weird book.

Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody series.

Melanie Rawn's Dragon books. They are all 1 series that are put into seperate trilogies for some reason. I started with 'The Dragon Prince'.

I'd also read The Da Vinci Code, it was an excellent book IMO.

scem0

I didn't like the DaVinci code. I had issues with it. Let me explain it by saying that I like the Wheel of Time series until I read the Sword of Truth. Read "Foucault's Pendulum"

[bont]

Forgot to add...I like out-of-date A-Z street atlases too ;)

[Kwyjibo]

I love TKAM and Julius Caesar as were mentioned above

my favorite had to be the Great Gatsby

books I didn't like that were mentioned are
Farenheit 451 and Native Son and 1984, i'll defend these opinions at another point ...

[MorganX]

A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony

[evoluzione]

Mr Nice - Howard Marks
Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
500 Mile Walkies - Mark Wallington
The Gov'ner - Lenny McLean

[evil]

fiction-the count of monte cristo

non-fiction--communist manifesto and the peoples history of the united states by howard zinn

[PlaceofDis]

as and english major ive had to read so many crappy books but

anything by Chuck Palahniuk is awesome, Clockwork Orange is great, T.S. Elliot is an awesome poet, Kafka's Metamorphosis is wierd but pleasing and Alice in Wonderland is trippy.....just mention a few of a LOOONG list LoL :D

[themadchemist]

2) 1984 - George Orwell



good book...the commercial was better. :p

But honestly, I haven't read it yet. Hopefully, I'll get around to it. Animal Farm was fun, but nothing too special.

[agreenster]

1984, Farenheit 451, Animal Farm, and The Great Gatsby were great books, but kinda 10th grade reading material, isnt it? As is The Jungle (Upton Sinclair), Red Badge of Courage, Last of the Mohecians, etc etc. All books I remember from High School.

[virividox]

a lot good books have been mentioned

pride and prejudice
the solitaire mystery

[Bartholomew]

Sometimes A Great Notion, by Ken Kesey, is a favorite. I really enjoyed Notes From Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as well. Alternately funny and sad. Naked Lunch probably made me laugh more than any other book. . . I think that style is the thing that William Burroughs best has going for him, and a lot of his books can, I think, get a little similar, but Naked Lunch was very funny. Worth reading.

[wordmunger]

I'm surprised Huckleberry Finn hasn't been mentioned. That book is truly brilliant. I am also a huge Douglas Coupland fan. I bet Mark Twain would have been, too.

[Don't panic]

this has to be up there in my top 10:

the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy (a trilogy of five) - douglas adams

and in no particular order:

the master and margarita- mikhail bulgkov
the tartar steppe - dino buzzati
guns, germs and steel - jared diamond
one hundred years of solitude - gabriel garcia marquez
perfume - patrick suskind
the name of the rose - umberto eco
the lord of the ring - JRR tolkien
the old man who read love stories - luis sepulveda
one flew over the cuckoo's nest - ken kesey

it's actually hard: there are SOOO many good books.

[themadchemist]

Number the Stars and the Giver are also excellent. Lowrie does a good job. However, my brother was reading a different book she wrote and I scanned a bit: It was so incredibly juvenile and so excrutiatingly bad.

I mean, I read Number the Stars and the Giver a LONG time ago, but I remember them being very good.

[Nanda Devi]

Sometimes A Great Notion, by Ken Kesey, is a favorite. I really enjoyed Notes From Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as well. Alternately funny and sad. Naked Lunch probably made me laugh more than any other book. . . I think that style is the thing that William Burroughs best has going for him, and a lot of his books can, I think, get a little similar, but Naked Lunch was very funny. Worth reading.

By any chance have you read Burrough's Cities of the Red Night trilogy? It's some of his best writing in my opinion. He steps away from his usual cut-up technique and it's a lot more accessible yet no less bizarre than books like Nova Express, Soft Machine, Ticket that Exploded, etc.

I liked Sometimes A Great Notion as well. Kesey's a great writer. Another good writer to check out from the same "school" is Tom Wolfe, author of the Electric Koolaid Acid Test, which is about Kesey and the "Merry Pranksters." Acid Test isn't even his best though... check out Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flack Catchers and Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine... (Are those not just about the slickest titles you've ever heard?!?)

Oh, someone mentioned Bukowski, too... one of my all-time favorite writers who I completely forgot to mention.

ND

[Apmonia]

I can't believe that J.G. Ballard has not been mentioned already. Crash is a fanastic novel. Also, anything by Steven Bernstein.

[JamesDPS]

I know we've already mentioned "Hitchhikers Guide" (presumably including entire series) -- btw check out at iTunes Store you can get "Life, The Universe, and Everything" mp4 as read by the author!

Anything by Neal Stephenson, but especially Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash (of course), Diamond Age, and Zodiac. I'm battling my way through Quicksilver right now but it's not quite as addictive as the others. Anyone posting here who hasn't read all of these is obviously an anomoly, though, and if you're a computer geek and you haven't heard of Stephenson you need to do yourself a favor and read Snow Crash immediately!

I enjoy the sci fi, so I have to mention James Morrow's "The Continent of Lies", anything by Asimov but especially "The Gods Themselves", and Vernor Vinge "A Fire Upon the Deep". I'll check my shelf when I get back to see if I missed any crucial ones. If you've noticed that I said the same thing about the movies thread and failed to post again, you're spending far too much time and energy on these forums ;)

[Thomas Veil]

"Profiles of the Future" by Arthur C. Clarke. A study of various science fictional concepts such as invisibility and faster-than-light travel, and discussion about whether they will ever really be possible, based on known science.

"Murder on the Orient Express"/"And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie. Despite the fact that I already know the endings, these are such great reads that it's fun to go back over them and watch these complicated mysteries untangle.

"Harlan Ellison's Watching" by Harlan Ellison. Essays (not reviews) on movies, with a lot of personal anecdotes from the author's life.

"The Night Stalker" by Jeff Rice. The novel on which the movie and TV series were based.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Of the top three classic horror novels (the other two being "Dracula" and "Frankenstein"), this is the best.

[zamyatin]

In addition to many already mentioned, let me add:

Bomb the Suburbs, by William Upski Wimsatt

We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin (note: this is the precursor and probably the inspiration for 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, etc.)

Kon-Tiki and many others by Thor Heyerdahl

all of Edgar Allan Poe's writings

what I have read of Herman Melville, Emerson, Lincoln, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Larry Niven, Hemingway, Vonnegut, Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, Kerouac...

[Opteron]

How could I forget
"The hunt for, Red October"

[Flowbee]

A little late to the game... in no particular order:

Wind-up Bird Chronicle -- Haruki Murakami

From Hell -- Alan Moore

Gone With the Wind -- Margaret Mitchell

Mr. Lunch Takes a Plane Ride -- J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh

Candide -- Voltaire

The Sweet Hereafter -- Russell Banks

Flim-Flam -- James Randi

Confessions of a Mask -- Yukio Mishima

Anything by Stephen Jay Gould, Raymond Chandler, David Sedaris, or Osamu Tezuka

Many more...

[tersono]

Ulysses: James Joyce
The Gormenghast Trilogy: Mervyn Peake
Memoir from antproof case: Mark Helprin
New York Trilogy: Paul Auster
Don Quixote: Cervantes
Houses without doors (short stories): Peter Straub
The Stoner Eagles: William Horwood

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

1. Douglas Adams' Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy triology (the first four parts)
2. JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit
3. JRR Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings trilogy
4. William Gibson's Newromancer triology
5. Timothy Zahn's Thrawn triology (Star Wars)
6. Timothy Zahn's Conquerers triology
7. Patrick Süskind's Perfume: The story of a murderer
8. Frank Herbert's Dune saga
9. JK Rowling's Harry Potter series
10. Isaac Asimov's Foundations series
...I apparently like series... :D

[Lacero]

Any book by Roald Dahl I love, but mainly James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[iSaint]

Anyone read "Lamb" by Christopher Moore? Brilliant writing, very entertaining (funny) and thought provoking...as are all his books.

[miloblithe]

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Dostoevsky is great, although that ending to Crime and Punishment is a big let down.

Anything by Bill Bryson is lots of fun.

[Nickygoat]

I didn't like the DaVinci code. I had issues with it. Let me explain it by saying that I like the Wheel of Time series until I read the Sword of Truth. Read "Foucault's Pendulum"
The best choice of all. Foucault's Pendulum is by far the best at debunking stuff like The Da Vinci Code. Absolutely hilarious. Or is The Plan real? ;)

[BakedBeans]

I didn't like the DaVinci code. I had issues with it. Let me explain it by saying that I like the Wheel of Time series until I read the Sword of Truth. Read "Foucault's Pendulum"

hi mongo,

what issues?

as for my favorite books, oh thats a hard one

i liked bravo two zero by mcnab
as a kid i liked the last of the really great whangdoodles (i would be realy surprised if anyone has read that)
and harry potter series is pretty good also

[zelmo]

In no particular order, and with the understanding that I am certainly forgetting some vital titles:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The White Plague by Frank Herbert
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Stand by Stephen King
Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
The Gaean trilogy (Titan, Demon, Wizard) by John Varley
both Thomas Covenant trilogy's by Stephen Donaldson
Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy by Douglas Adams
the Gap series by Stephen Donaldson
the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov
DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

[Bibulous]

The Good Earth

[redeye be]

mentioned before:
Stephen Donaldson : the Thomas Covenant chronicles
Roald Dahl : grew up reading them all

new:
José Saramago : Memorial Del Convento, Blindness, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (just to name the absolute favorites)
Paulo Coelho : The Alchemist

[dotdotdot]

Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
Al Capone Does My Shirts

some others but those are my favorites

[Nanda Devi]

Wow, I started this thread way back about a year ago... funny to see that it got resurrected.

I've discovered a new favorite writer during the past year: Edward Abbey. His stuff is great. A few titles are Desert Solitaire (his most famous), Slickrock, The Brave Cowboy, Good News and Fire on the Mountain. I'd describe his style as a mix of Bukowski, Hunter Thompson and a little John Muir thrown in (Abbey writes a great deal about nature, although I think it's a common mistake to label him as a "nature writer").

Anyway, if you're into the outdoors at all, you should really check him out.

ND

[Space Cadet]

If you like Abbey you should try John McPhee — terrific environment writer. Also "The Botany Of Desire" by Michael Pollan.

The best fiction book I've read in a long while has been "Life of Pi," I also loved "Pride and Prejudice," mentioned above."Empire Falls" by Russo was terrific, and "The Big If" by Costello.

I'll read anything by Bill Bryson and Sarah Vowell and Lynda Berry. Okay, "Cruddy" was kind of cruddy, but "100 Demons" was great. For more graphic reads, try "Persepolis" and its sequel.

[feyd_ehway]

animal farm - orwell
picture of dorian gray - wilde
doubtful guest - gorey
touching from a distance - curtis
its okay to be neurotic - bruno
exposure - harrison
cut - mccormick
worst-case scenario survival handbook: work - piven & borgenicht
utopia parkway - solomon
how to win friends and influence people - carnegie

[mad jew]

Has anyone read the Grug series? I can't remember the author and I'm having quite a bit of trouble finding anything on the 'net about them. Maybe they're uniquely Australian...

[ham_man]

JD Salinger - Catcher In The Rye
JR Tolkein - The Lord Of The Rings

All of my papers are modeled after Salinger's no BS writing style and Tolkein was just a master. Best. Books. Ever. :)

[John Jacob]

One Book:
1984 by George Orwell


Hey, me too!

Others (fiction):
The Foundation Series by Asimov
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons (I'm trying to get the rest of the series, but they're not available where I live).
Many, many others (and not just science fiction - in fact, that's a minority of what I read), but I can't remember 'em when I need to :eek:

Non-fiction:
Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

[HiRez]

Tolkien - LOTR
George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire series
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials series
Robert Jordan - The Eye of the World series (only the first 5 books, before the suckage)
Richard Rhodes - The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child - The Relic (scariest book I ever read); Thunderhead; Riptide; The Ice Limit
T. H. White - The Once and Future King
Scott Turow - Presumed Innocent
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
Terry Brooks - The Sword of Shannara
George Gamow - One, Two, Three...Infinity
Tom Clancy - The Hunt for Red October
Dave Barry - Claw Your Way to The Top; Babies, and Other Hazards of Sex
Yann Martel - The Life of Pi
Michael Chrichton - Jurassic Park; Congo; Timeline
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter series
Greg Bear - Eon
Bram Stoker - Dracula (except for the lame ending)
Tad Williams - Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series
Nick Hornby - High Fidelity
Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker
Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones's Diary
Walter Tevis - The Queen's Gambit

[Bartholomew]

By any chance have you read Burrough's Cities of the Red Night trilogy? It's some of his best writing in my opinion. He steps away from his usual cut-up technique and it's a lot more accessible yet no less bizarre than books like Nova Express, Soft Machine, Ticket that Exploded, etc.

I liked Sometimes A Great Notion as well. Kesey's a great writer. Another good writer to check out from the same "school" is Tom Wolfe, author of the Electric Koolaid Acid Test, which is about Kesey and the "Merry Pranksters." Acid Test isn't even his best though... check out Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flack Catchers and Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine... (Are those not just about the slickest titles you've ever heard?!?)

Wow! I just suddenly remembered that this site exists. Seeing as how the topic's been resurrected once already, I'll go ahead and reply over a year late. Uh. . . sorry about the delay.

Anyway, yeah, I've read a bit of Cities of the Red Night, but I don't have that one on me yet and I've not read it all, or much else from those books. I've been meaning to get around to them, though. And I read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test some time ago, but no other Tom Wolfe yet. There's simply too much stuff that needs reading.

I've only just gotten back to reading fiction, after nothing but politics and philosophy for a couple years. It was beginning to drive me crazy, so I decided to get around to a couple other books I'd been wanting to read: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Good stuff.

[Nanda Devi]

Wow! I just suddenly remembered that this site exists. Seeing as how the topic's been resurrected once already, I'll go ahead and reply over a year late. Uh. . . sorry about the delay.

Anyway, yeah, I've read a bit of Cities of the Red Night, but I don't have that one on me yet and I've not read it all, or much else from those books. I've been meaning to get around to them, though. And I read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test some time ago, but no other Tom Wolfe yet. There's simply too much stuff that needs reading.

I've only just gotten back to reading fiction, after nothing but politics and philosophy for a couple years. It was beginning to drive me crazy, so I decided to get around to a couple other books I'd been wanting to read: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Good stuff.


Hey man, thanks for resurrecting my thread again! And hats off to you for mentioning Pynchon. I haven't read Crying of Lot 49 either, but I have a very slick vintage paperback of it and my significant other read it long ago... he says it's pretty out there.

Pynchon also wrote a massive, incredibly complex novel called Gravity's Rainbow. It's about 1200 pages long and so full of obscure reference and allusion that there's another book about it that's nearly as long as the actual novel. This book about the book is essentially a series of footnotes explaning all of the allusions in Pynchon's novel.

It would be quite an undertaking to read, that's for sure!

ND

[puckhead193]

Great Gatsby :cool:

[killuminati]

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

[StarbucksSam]

PowerBook. ;)

[devman]

Here's a sampling - in no order (and no technical books).

Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein
Eon, The Forge of God - Greg Bear
Enders Game - Orson Scott Card
Hitchhiker's Guide - Douglas Adams
The Crystal Singer - Anne McCaffrey
The Cluster Series - Piers Anthony
Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
The Mote in Gods Eye - Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Ringworld - Larry Niven

no doubt I've missed several others...

[absolut_mac]

A few books that I have not only thoroughly enjoyed, but have also left a lasting impression on me - in the order that they come to mind. Keeping in mind, of course, that all books are equal, just that some are a little more equal than others ;)

* Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck
* The Moon is Down - Steinbeck
* The Idiot - Dostoevsky
* One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsyn
* The Andomeda Strain - Crichton
* Animal Farm - Orwell
* 1984 - Orwell
* The Prophet - Gibran

A few favorite poems...

* The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Coleridge
* The Tyger - Blake
* Poems and stories of Poe

After all these years Ludlum is still my favorite spy/espionage author, although I am one of the few on this board that also enjoys Brown, even although there really is no compariosn between the two.

[jalagl]

Too many to remember, but here are the ones that REALLY stand out:

Dune series by Frank Herbert (my all-time favorite... I've read it more times than I can recall)
Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Hammer of God and Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Foundation series by Isaac Asimov

I read mostly Sci Fi, so there's no surprises there :D

[devman]

Hammer of God and Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Foundation series by Isaac Asimov


Oooh yeah - these are great reads.

[Bartholomew]

Hey man, thanks for resurrecting my thread again! And hats off to you for mentioning Pynchon. I haven't read Crying of Lot 49 either, but I have a very slick vintage paperback of it and my significant other read it long ago... he says it's pretty out there.

Pynchon also wrote a massive, incredibly complex novel called Gravity's Rainbow. It's about 1200 pages long and so full of obscure reference and allusion that there's another book about it that's nearly as long as the actual novel. This book about the book is essentially a series of footnotes explaning all of the allusions in Pynchon's novel.

It would be quite an undertaking to read, that's for sure!

ND
Hah. . . I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow right now, actually. Well, attempting. I quickly discovered that I shouldn't even bother with it when I'm tired, as I often am when I read.

I haven't gotten through much yet, but so far I've been impressed with the way that little details that seem random and unimportant actually aren't random or unimportant. I may have to look into that footnote-type book.

[Sharewaredemon]

Watership Down - Richard Adams

My absolute favourite.

[jelloshotsrule]

agreenster- at least some of the books you read as a kid are great... so not a reason to rule them out. you didn't offer any non high school books as an alternative...

animal farm is great.

affluenza and fast food nation are eye opening and disturbing.

chronicles of narnia rule too

[faintember]

The Dark Tower Series- Stephen King
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
Getting Used to Dying- Zhang Xianliang
The Divine Comedy- Dante
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
Trainspotting- Irving Welsh

Poetry Collections:
Anything T.S. Eliot
Pictures of the Gone World- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Howl and other Selected Poems- Allen Ginsberg
City of Webs- Michael Basinski

[XIII]

Lord of the rings has to be my favorite book, in my short life.. :)

[Stampyhead]

PowerBook. ;)
LOL You're a dork, Sam

[WithTea]

LOL You're a dork, Sam

But a funny one.

Agree on
Foundation - this has got to contain the best foreshadowing in the entire universe. It's like - bang! - all over the place. It's a cool example of society affecting science fiction (which is always a bit odd) with the "atomic" stuff (no one says atomic anymore, its nucleus) and his treatment of women as the series progresses (or regressess - the prequel was neat to examine in that social context).
Harry Potter. *sigh, geek*
Hitchhiker's guide. Got to be the funniest book/series ever/
Red Mars - I haven't had time to read the rest, but for an epic with dozens of characters and plot twists, it's surprisingly intense.

I'm surprised by the number of 1984 this year. I read it one for pleasure, once for school this year, and while it was a good book and had a very interesting message, it wasn't very literary. A lot of science fiction isn't literary (though it's more social commentary than science fiction), but I found it deadly so. Preachy. Rightfully so, perhaps, but more of a textbook than a novel. Perhaps that's just me, though.

Other loves that have not been mentioned:

The Last Samurai - Helen Dewitt: NOTHING to do with the Hollywood film. Brilliant post-modern piece of art. Cute genius boy stars, along with somewhat nutty single mother. Beautiful ideas on art, music, and most importantly, language.

Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder: Manages to be a textbook and a novel all at once. (Subtitled "A Novel About the History of Philosophy) Suspenseful, informative, and has an awesome ending.

For non fiction, Measuring Eternity by Martin Gorst is fabulous. I never thought I'd be so geared up for the ending of a work of non-fiction, but I couldn't put it down!

[Deefuzz]

wow, can't believe I missed this thread before. Here are some of mine off of the top of my head (in no particular order), most have probably been mentioned before though:

Survivor and Lullaby by Chuck Palanhiuk
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Thief of Always , The Great and Secret Show , and Everville by Clive Barker
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
American Gods and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

thats all I can think of for now

[Leeloo the 5th]

They've been mentioned a couple of times, but I'm a huuuuge fan of the Harry Potter books! Since book 6 will soon be released, I plan to re-read them all between now and 16th of July. Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to attend a one o'clock release party (we have to wait till midnight in the UK) as I'll be in a place far away from any decent bookstore. I guess I can wait until Monday 18th... ;)
The one I like best is "Prisoner of Azkaban", and "Chamber of Secrets" is the one I enjoyed the least (although it's rumoured to be a very important book in the series, even more so than we can understand right now).

[MacRy]

Too many books to pick a favourite so a few loved authors instead:

Douglas Adams
Terry Pratchett
Grant Naylor (ok so that's actually two authors pretending to be one :))
Ben Elton
Will Self
Charles Dickens

[MacDawg]

A veritable potpourri for those who like to read...

Frankenstein is a great book, and only remotely like the movies. If all you know is the movies, you owe it to yourself to read the book. Really makes you think in light of today's bioengineering.

The Count of Monte Cristo Again, very different from the recent movie and as always the book is better than the movie.

The Noonday Demon - Andrew Solomon - A detailed and semi-autobiographical look at depression. Made more of an impression on me than almost any other book. If you suffer depression, read it... also Darkness Visible - William Styron, The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath, Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen, Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel, Unholy Ghost - Nell Casy.

Endurance - Alfred Lansing - The story of Shackleton's journey. Amazing.

Flags of our Fathers - James Bradley - the story of Iwo Jima and the flag raising. Awesome.

The Whole Shebang - Timothy Ferris - A look at the universe that opens your eyes.

In the Heart of the Sea - The story of the whale ship Essex. A great read and reminiscent of Shackleton's journey.

Black Hawk Down - The story of Mogadishu.

Angela's Ashes and 'Tis - Frank McCourt - Didn't think I would like it, but loved it.

Blind Man's Bluff - the true(?) story of submarine espionage

Plus many of those already mentioned by Clancy, Crichton, etc. I thought Hunt for Red October was awesome as well as Red Storm Rising and Cardinal of the Kremlin. Lost interest in Clancy's others. The book Jurassic Park is so much better than the movie. Andromeda Strain was brilliant in its day, and still awesome.

I'll think of more later I'm sure
BTW - Thought that Catcher in the Rye sucked.

Enjoy!

Woof, Woof - Dawg

[njmac]

Eugene Onegin by Aleksandr Pushkin

I loved this book so much that I took Russian in college to read it untranslated.

[WinterMute]

There was another books thread a couple of years ago, I thought it was this one, but I'm not in it...yet...

Books waiting to be read:

The System of the World - Neal Stephenson
The Algebraist - Iain M banks
The Runes of the Earth - Stephen Donaldson
The Dark Tower - Stephen King
The Iron Council - China Mieville

Favourites:

LOTR - Tolkien
Count Zero Trilogy - William Gibson
The Bridge Trilogy - William Gibson
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
The Diamond Age -Neal Stephenson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Iain M Banks work generally
The Star Faction - Ken Macleod
John Irving's work
Peter Sraub's Work (particularly the Koko trilogy)
Bruce Stirling's work
Stephen King's work

I used to read Heinlien, Niven, Pournell, Herbert etc, still got them all, but not enough time to go back through them again.

[dubbz]

Not a big book reader. The only one I can remember reading and enjoying is HHGTG.

While technically not a book, I also enjoyed a story put in the D&D universe. It was supposed to come out in book form. I don't remember why this never happened, but it's a shame because it was good... and this ment that I never got to read the next parts... and just when it were getting interesting.
Don't remember the name... "Fire", "Dust", something. Contained portals, planetravel, dustmen and a main character that liked to draw pictures.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Umberto Eco - The Name of the RoseI forgot that one... that might have gotten on to my list if I'd remembered it... I definitively will have to re-read it and a couple of Eco's other books... ;)

[garybUK]

I'm quite into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books at the moment, just ordered his hardback book set featuring a certain famous detective.

[Kushiro]

Anything by Murakami Haruki--he reads better in Japanese, but the transation of "A Wild Sheep Chase" is well done.

Kush