Favorite Books

[chopianist123]

What are your favorite books of all time?

[burstroman]

Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan
Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol
The Bible
Magister Ludi - Hermann Hesse

[sharon_f]

Love in the Time of Cholera
To Kill a Mockingbird
Monsignor Quixote
Crime and Punishment
Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man
End of the Affair
Great Expectations
100 Years of Solitude
The Great Gatsby
The Dubliners
Gravity's Rainbow
The Movie-Goer
Ulysses
A Confederacy of Dunces
Of Mice and Men
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Those are just a few off the top of my head, I'm sure I'll think of others later.

[nanabush]

To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
Catcher in the Rye
Eragon and Eldest (fantasy books by contemporary author)
and a book which I honestly didn't mind too much that I had to read for english last year.... Anna "the brick" Karenina.... I call it the brick cuz it's 900 pages of translated romance

[jas]

I have literally hundreds... but I'll pick a cross-section.

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austin
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
The Vesuvius Club - Mark Gatiss
Harry Potter - JK Rowling
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Girl with the Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier
Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
Hannibal Lecter series - Thomas Harris
Bag of Bones - Stephen King
The Queen's Fool - Philippa Gregory

All of these books are beyond brilliant, for various different reasons. I can't recommend them too highly.

Oh, and the only two I read after seeing the big screen version were Pride & Prejudice and Dracula. With the rest it was the other way around.

Jas

[pianowolfi]

J.W.Goethe: "Faust"
Hermann Hesse: "Der Steppenwolf", "Klingsors letzter Sommer"

[thalbergmad]

The Longbow - Robert Hardy

[elspeth]

All the Sherlock Holmes stories, but particularly Sign of Four
All the Discworld set, but particularly Carpe Jugulum, Maskerade and the Night Watch books
All the Flashman books
Lucy Boston's 'Green Knowe' books
The Famous Five books
Dracula
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
Pride and Prejudice
The Woman in Black
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank
Notes From A Small Island

[musik_man]

In no particular order

War and Peace Tolstoy
David Copperfield Dickens
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky
Notes from the Underground Dostoevsky
The Idiot Dostoevsky
First Love Turgenev
The Magic Mountain Mann
Doctor Faustus Mann (BTW lots of music in this one)
Pride and Prejudice Austen
Lolita Nabokov
A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Twain
Vanity Fair Thackery

Sci-fi/Fantasy
Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson
The Baroque Cycle Neal Stephenson
The Foundation Trilogy Isaac Asimov
A Song of Ice and Fire George R.R. Martin
Everything by J.R.R. Tolkein

[johnny-boy]

"Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" - Ayn Rand

John

[Mozartian]

Here's a few of my favorites-

everything by Tolkien
everything by Jane Austen (particularly Pride and Prejudice & Northanger Abbey)
Dickens- The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield
Charlotte Bronte- Jane Eyre
Homer- The Odyssey
Shakespeare- A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Julius Caesar
Cervantes- Don Quixote
Agatha Christie- the Hercule Poirot mysteries
Dante- the Divine Comedy
Margaret Mitchell- Gone with the Wind
Rafael Sabatini- Captain Blood
Maria Augusta Trapp- The Story of the Trapp Family Singers
Tolstoy- Anna Karenina

[pianistimo]

my reading had been textbooks last year.  i have not had time to seriously read a novel in a long time.  and, when i buy romance novels - i find they have seriously degenerated from some kind of plot - to absolutely no plot at all.  i am bored of 'save me' plots.  i want something sort of sci-fi i guess.  a sci-fi romance novel.  something mysterious to start out.  maybe even a little bit of bible in it?  i know - my kind of novel would never sell.  i should write my own. 

[gilad]

Many of the above and

My choices:
Just William - Richmal Crompton 
 entire autobio of Roal dahl - called boy and then there is a second part... fun fun fun fun, lovely stories, a must read in my opinion
The power of one - Bryce Courtenay 
The long walk to freedom - Nelson Mandela   
The Nazis - A Warning From History - Laurence Rees
Liars Poker- by some former stock trader

[Mozartian]

my reading had been textbooks last year.  i have not had time to seriously read a novel in a long time.  and, when i buy romance novels - i find they have seriously degenerated from some kind of plot - to absolutely no plot at all.  i am bored of 'save me' plots.  i want something sort of sci-fi i guess.  a sci-fi romance novel.  something mysterious to start out.  maybe even a little bit of bible in it?  i know - my kind of novel would never sell.  i should write my own. 

Romance novels used to have plots?

Read some real books, lol.

[pianistimo]

take 'the tales of the arabian nights, 1001 arabian nights.'  now as it was originally written it was a masterpiece.  you have this plot that thickens with each page.  and, yet, it mysteriously gets lighter, too.  that is a good romance novel to me.  you have the 'veil' (the softest touches) and then the jaw dropping parts.

now, what american romance novelist can beat the original romance tale that that one started?  what i like is that a woman can be so creative that a man wants to hear 1001 tales and then forget that she was trouble in the first place.

[ramseytheii]

I've read a lot of German literature, and some Russian, and English, and recently got more involved with American.  I discovered that I really like the book, "I am Charlotte Simmons," by Tom Wolfe; I read with absolute joy and wonder "Huckleberry Finn" for the first time in decades; I discovered Henry James with "Turn of the Screw," "Wings of the Dove," and "The Ambassadors;" read more the hypnotic poems of Poe; and am about to open my doors to include Faulkner.  What a treasure trove!  There is no longer room on my bookshelf from my recent additions.
Oh, and I recommend everyone to read the great American author, Charles Rosen.   

Walter Ramsey

[rc]

my reading had been textbooks last year.  i have not had time to seriously read a novel in a long time.  and, when i buy romance novels - i find they have seriously degenerated from some kind of plot - to absolutely no plot at all.  i am bored of 'save me' plots.  i want something sort of sci-fi i guess.  a sci-fi romance novel.  something mysterious to start out.  maybe even a little bit of bible in it?  i know - my kind of novel would never sell.  i should write my own. 

Try Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.  It's something of a romance story.

Really, you'd probably like it, Tolstoy is awesome!

[pianistimo]

something of a sex goddess is she?  yes.  secretly (don't tell prometheus) i get all my information from novels.  my mother never told me anything.

charles rosen is interesting, too.  so many ponderous thoughts. 

[ted]

Finnegans Wake (Joyce)
Island (Huxley)

[netzow]

War and Peace Tolstoy
The Lord Of The Rings J.R.R. Tolkien
Pretty much anything by Jeff Sharaa i.e. Gone For Solders, To The Last Man, The Glorious Cause ect.....

[pita bread]

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Until I Find You by John Irving
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

[ada]

In no particular order:

Classics:

The Histories - Herodotus
Oedipus Rex - Sophocles
Catch 22 - Heller
Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
1984, Down and out in Paris and London, Animal Farm - Orwell
120 Days of Sodom - De Sade
Story of the Eye - Bataille
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
On the Road - Kerouac
Brave New World - Huxley
The Myth of Sisyphus - Camus
Metamorphosis, The Trial - Kafka

Contemporary:

The Hotel New Hampshire - John Irving
American Psycho - Bret Eaton Ellis
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
How to be Good, About a Boy - Nick Hornby
This Other Eden - Ben Elton
Hannibal - Thomas Harris
The Bone People - Keri Hulme

Great Aussie Authors:

For the Term of His Natural Life - Marcus Clarke
Cloud Street, The Riders, The Turning - Tim Winton
Monkey Grip - Helen Garner
The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
Bliss - Peter Carey
Praise, 1988 - Andrew McGahan

Popular:

The Shining  - Stephen King

Non-fiction:

The New Journalism - ed Tom Wolfe
Totem and Taboo, The Interpretation of Dreams - Freud
Origin of the Species - Darwin
Das Kapital - Marx

Most over-rated books:

Harry Potter
Bridget Jones
Lord of the Rings
The Bible

[arensky]

Probably leaving some out but here's the ones that immediately come to mind.

Novels

A Tale of Two Cities   Charles Dickens

Fathers and Sons   Ivan Turgenev

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter   Carson McCullers

The Brothers Karamazov   Feodor Dostoyevsky

Miss Lonelyhearts   Nathaniel West

Day of the Locust   Nathaniel West

Hard Times   Charles Dickens

Slaughterhouse Five    Kurt Vonnegut

God Bless You Mr. Rosewater   Kurt Vonnegut

Top Dog    Jerry Jay Carroll

The Crying of Lot 49   Thomas Pynchon

Breakfast of Champions   Kurt Vonnegut

The Dead Zone   Stephen King

The Shining   Stephen King

The Stranger   Albert Camus

The Ark   Margot Benary-Isbert

Rowan Farm   Margot Benary-Isbert

Snow in August   Pete Hamill

The Bounty Trilogy   Nordhoff & Hall

The Rainbow   D.H. Lawrence

The House at Pooh Corner   A.A. Milne

Now We Are Six    A.A. Milne

The Coup   John Updike

The Scarlet Letter   Nathaniel Hawthorne

Catch-22   Joseph Heller

The Mysterious Stranger   Mark Twain

Kane and Abel   Jeffrey Archer

Turn of the Screw   Henry James

We the Living   Ayn Rand

I Robot   Issac Asimov

Foundation Trilogy   Issac Asimov

Enchantment   Orson Scott Card

Wyrms   Orson Scott Card

Guns of the South   Harry Turtledove

Darkness Trilogy   Harry Turtledove

The Last Raider   Douglas Reeman

and many more...

I mainly read non-fiction. I will list those later, perhaps.

[rc]

something of a sex goddess is she? 

She gets around.

[Waldszenen]

- The King James Bible

- Les Miserables

- The Brothers Karamazov

- Bleak House

- The Lord of the Rings

- The Divine Comedy


And heaps more.

[prometheus]

Here's a few of my favorites-

Lord of the Rings has no plot either.

Love can be an important subject in a novel.

[ada]

- The King James Bible

- Les Miserables

- The Brothers Karamazov

- Bleak House

- The Lord of the Rings

- The Divine Comedy


And heaps more.

Geez remind me not to join a book club with you. Hated the Bible (especially the middle bit. The first part of Genesis and all of Revelations is great), hated Lord of the Rings, hated Bleak House. However, we could talk about Les Mis. Loved that.

And an addition to my earlier list:

Great literary works that I am ashamed to admit bored me to death:

Anything by Jane Austen
Most things by Charles Dickens
The Hours, the Lighthouse  - Virginia Wolfe
Ulysses - James Joyce
Riders in the Chariot - Patrick White

[brewtality]

Cloud Street - Tim Winton

now that brings back bad memories...

mine:

The Bible
Amongst the Barbarians - Paul Sheehan
mein kampf
Anything by David Irving
Battlefield Earth

[ada]

The Bible
Amongst the Barbarians - Paul Sheehan
mein kampf
Anything by David Irving
Battlefield Earth

trumofo selection but i think you is haffin us on broda 

[ramseytheii]

Have been trouble reading two books in the past couple of years, I start them but have a difficult time following the action, and have to put them down.  The first is "The Wings of the Dove" by Henry James.  I love his books, and have read others, including "The Ambassadors" three times; it was hard the first time but keeps getting beter and better.  But somehow in "Wings," I just cannot folllow all his catalogue of allusions to abstract things.  He is always introducing some important idea with a nickname, and then alluding to it by varying the nickname somehow.  It is very difficult to know what he is really talking about, and it seems a lot is deliberately left to the raeder's imagination?  Would anyone say this is a good way to approach this book?

The second is Vineland by Thomas Pynchon.  Gravity's Rainbow of course gave me a lot of trouble, but many passages I enjoyed immensely.  This one is not as hard, but the sentences and images move so fast, it is hard to keep up.  How does he pack so much in?  It is the opposite of Henry James, which moves at a glacial pace.

I hope someone hear has read these books and contribute their experiences with them.

Walter Ramsey

[Waldszenen]

Geez remind me not to join a book club with you. Hated the Bible (especially the middle bit. The first part of Genesis and all of Revelations is great), hated Lord of the Rings, hated Bleak House. However, we could talk about Les Mis. Loved that.

Good for you.

[pianoplayersite.com]

Wow, some really great books here.

But I have to say, my favorite book is always going to be Terry Pratchett's next release. I love the discworld books and anything else he puts out.

But my top 5 (off the top of my head) not by pratchett would be:

- High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
- The Sharpe Series, Bernard Cornwell
- The Flashman Papers, George MacDonald Fraser
- Enders Game, Orson Card
- Pillars of Earth, Ken Follett

[pianowolfi]

Geez remind me not to join a book club with you. Hated the Bible (especially the middle bit. The first part of Genesis and all of Revelations is great)

Just curious, ada: Why do you like Revelations?

[jas]

Lord of the Rings has no plot either.

I'm going to assume you're kidding. I can think of few books with more of a plot.

[Mozartian]

Lord of the Rings has no plot either.

That statement of yours is possibly the single most idiotic thing I've ever read in my entire life; and considering the amount of your posts that I've read through, that's saying a lot.

[Mozartian]

- The King James Bible

- Les Miserables

- The Brothers Karamazov

- Bleak House

- The Lord of the Rings

- The Divine Comedy


And heaps more.

Bleak House is awesome! Good taste. 

[musik_man]

Lord of the Rings has no plot either.

 

On the other hand, Tolkein needed two other books to hold LOTR's back story.

Ramseytheii, how much did you like The Ambassadors?  I tried it a couple months ago and literally could barely understand James's prose.  I'd have to read some paragraphs three times.  Do you get used to that sort of writing?

[ada]

Just curious, ada: Why do you like Revelations?

It's colourful and trippy and dramatic. I love the language and the imagery. I find it enigmatic and evocative and powerfully ambiguous.

It's also an absolute classic; it's the text you can trace the whole tradition of the apocalyptic genre back to. Think of On the Beach or a pile of dystopian science fiction.

It's had a huge resonance in contempory writing and culture and the popular imagination, look at the power of "666" even today.

Neuroscientists say the writing has a very schizophrenic quality and people with schizophrenia often invoke the imagery and themes in Revelation, although it's not known whether the supposed author John of Patmos had schizophrenia himself or wrote it in the throes of a delusional episode. (Or indeed a very strong hallocinogen).

People write Revelation off because it's been hijacked by the christian discourse but it's a very powerful and important text in western literary traditions. Anyone who hasn't read it certainly wouldn't be wasting their time in having a look.

[ramseytheii]

On the other hand, Tolkein needed two other books to hold LOTR's back story.

Ramseytheii, how much did you like The Ambassadors?  I tried it a couple months ago and literally could barely understand James's prose.  I'd have to read some paragraphs three times.  Do you get used to that sort of writing?

I got used to it.  I loved the Ambassadors when I first read it, though honestly I only could really follow a small percentage of scenes.  But I;ve read it twice since and love it even more now!  I can remember passages with such vividness it is like they are happening before my eyes, such as Strether meeting Maria in the hotel garden, and pretending to search for something in his pocket to buy only a second in order to observe her from a greater distance... or him seeing a person in Chad's balcony from below and wodnering what to do... at the party of the scultpure... running away from paris for solitude only to run into Chad and his illicit lover... and many more scenes!  I got used to the prose to answer your question, but still Wings of the Dove has proved too difficult for me.  Perhaps the mood is the most important thing, you have to be in the mood to not focus so much on every word, but have the atmosphere sweep over you like a dream from the past.  Perhaps trying to read Wings of the Dove I was in too analytical a mood, but when I read the Ambassadors, I wanted something romantic and diverting.

Walter Ramsey