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Ten Favorite Books of All Time (any category)

Leftist Protozoa

Leftist Protozoa

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Ten favorite books of all time. I know there have been threads specifically for history or politics books or what you're reading now, but I didn’t see one covering favorites of any category. It would be a shame to not include all that great fiction out there.

1. Jupiters Travels, Ted Simon (man and motorcycle travel around the world; but much more than a book about a motorcyclist)

2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S Thompson

3. Planet of the Apes, Pierre Boulle

4. Citizen Soldiers, Stephen E. Ambrose (I’m a big fan of his “conversational” style of writing)

5. anything by Clive Cussler (a guilty pleasure)

6. Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed

7. Jean Paul Pallud’s “Then and Now” series about World War II

8. Shelby Foote’s three-book set on the Civil War

9. Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, Scott Cunningham (I don’t practice this religion, but the book provided some interesting relaxation techniques)

10. The Last Open Road, Burt Levy
 
Any book by Pauline Gedge (ancient Egypt - fiction). That's about ten titles. Nobody does it better.
 
Fredrick Forsythe's The Day of the Jackal & The Odessa File
Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America
Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Clear and Present Danger & The Sum of All Fears
Stephen Coonts Flight Of The Intruder
Doris Kearns Goodwin's Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Marianne Williamson's Introduction to A Course in Miracles & A Return to Love : Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles
Robert J. Donovan's PT 109: John F. Kennedy in WWII
John F. Kennedy's Why England Slept & Profiles in Courage
T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Hal Lindsey's The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad
Robert Pape's Dying to Win
Walid Phares Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
Jose Torres' Sting Like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story
Alex Haley's The Autobiography Of Malcolm X
Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five & Breakfast of Champions
Joseph Wambaugh's The New Centurions, The Blue Knight, The Onion Field & The Choirboys
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice

Those are the ones that immediately come to mind without regard to favorites. I was just trying to remember any of the books I've read. I've forgotten many more than I could possibly recall.
 
Here are mine

My Top Ten (in order)
Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead- Ayn Rand *have a 1st edition of Fountainhead*
Demon Haunted World & Contact - Carl Sagan *made me love science*
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris
The God Delusion & The Selfish Gene- Richard Dawkins
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
1984 - George Orwell
Hitchhiker's Guide Series - Douglass Adams :lol:
Slaughterhouse Five & Cats Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Moby Dick - Melville

Honorable Mention:
Why I am Not a Christian - Bertrand Russell
Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
A Briefer History of Time - Stephen Hawking
*Anything* - Terry Pratchett
Angel's And Demons / Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

Currently Reading:
The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials #1 of 3)
 
Re: Here are mine

Lachean said:
Currently Reading:
The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials #1 of 3)
Click to expand...
This is a really, really, really, really good book.

I tried writing my top ten, and then I realized I could never name 10 books I like the most. It's like choosing.. I dunno. Something impossible. XD
 
Have you read the other ones?

Gunface said:
This is a really, really, really, really good book.

I tried writing my top ten, and then I realized I could never name 10 books I like the most. It's like choosing.. I dunno. Something impossible. XD
Click to expand...

I like it so far, a much more clever Universe (or should I say set of Universes) than the Narnia books. I even got the audio book from Audible (free audiobook promo) so I can keep up with it in the car since I don't have much free time to read these days.

Have you read the other ones? Because I bought them as well...
 
bhkad said:
Fredrick Forsythe's The Day of the Jackal & The Odessa File
Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America
Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Clear and Present Danger & The Sum of All Fears
Stephen Coonts Flight Of The Intruder
Doris Kearns Goodwin's Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Marianne Williamson's Introduction to A Course in Miracles & A Return to Love : Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles
Robert J. Donovan's PT 109: John F. Kennedy in WWII
John F. Kennedy's Why England Slept & Profiles in Courage
T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Hal Lindsey's The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad
Robert Pape's Dying to Win
Walid Phares Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
Jose Torres' Sting Like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story
Alex Haley's The Autobiography Of Malcolm X
Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five & Breakfast of Champions
Joseph Wambaugh's The New Centurions, The Blue Knight, The Onion Field & The Choirboys
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice

Those are the ones that immediately come to mind without regard to favorites. I was just trying to remember any of the books I've read. I've forgotten many more than I could possibly recall.
Click to expand...

The Constant Gardener (no, I haven't seen the movie yet), and several others by John LeCarre (David Cornwell) including The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Absolute Friends, The Tailor of Panama (did see that movie) and a few others
Watership Down (don't tell anybody, but I weep like a little girl every time I read it)
Ringworld, and anything else by Larry Niven
The Grapes of Wrath (you and Bhkad already mentioned), and almost anything else by Steinbeck including Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, Tortilla Flats, In Dubious Battle, etc.
A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Bleak House, The Olde Curiousity Shoppe, etc., by you know who.
The Sea Wolf-London
Manifold Origin-Baxter

Off the top of my head. Too hard to limit to 10.
 
Ten Favorite Books of All Time (any category)
Click to expand...

I couldn't possibly narrow it down to ten.
I have mentioned many of my favorite books and authors, though, in the Book Thread.
As well as some that I've been less than impressed with.
 
You could have at least quoted your lists from that thread!

1069 said:
I couldn't possibly narrow it down to ten.
I have mentioned many of my favorite books and authors, though, in the Book Thread.
As well as some that I've been less than impressed with.
Click to expand...

Lazy ***! I simply broke the rules and:
  • Listed a few pairs of books for an author
  • Listed some of my *must mention* runner ups
  • Named the book that I'm currently reading
 
bhkad said:
Fredrick Forsythe's The Day of the Jackal
Click to expand...
This is an "illiterate" comment, but the movie was also excellent.
(In no particular order).
1. Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
2. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
3. The Stranger by Albert Camus
4. The Immoralist by Andre Gide
5. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
6. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
7. The Oxford Dictionary of Economics by John Black
8. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
9. Principles of Microeconomics by Greggory Mankiw
10. Confessions of a Street Addict by James Cramer
 
Re: Have you read the other ones?

Lachean said:
I like it so far, a much more clever Universe (or should I say set of Universes) than the Narnia books. I even got the audio book from Audible (free audiobook promo) so I can keep up with it in the car since I don't have much free time to read these days.

Have you read the other ones? Because I bought them as well...
Click to expand...

Yes I've read the whole series. Many, many times. The first has always been my favorite though, and not really for the story (which is incredibly good, obviously). I liked the first one because of the way it was written, the descriptions of people and places.. The way the room in Lyra's Oxford was, or the Gyptians, or all of that stuff. The style he writes in with that book is awesome.
 
1. The Art of War
2. The Prince
3. The Tunnel (Spanish)
4. Joe Bonano a Man of Honor
5. The Godfather Returns
6. The Age of Gold (Spanish)
7. The Rose that Grew From Concrete(2pac)
8. Afro-Cuban Myths
9. Race After Hitler
10. America The Book
 
1) The Prince by Machiavelli
2) The Art of War by Sun Tzu
3) Wicked by Gregory MacGuire
4) The Anaeid
5) Paradise Lost by John Milton
6) Walden by Henry David Thoreau
7) Pride and Prejudice by Austen
8) Homeland by R.A. Salvatore
9) On Being and Essence by St. Thomas Aquinas
10) Don Quixote by Cervantes
 
tryreading said:
The Constant Gardener (no, I haven't seen the movie yet), and several others by John LeCarre (David Cornwell) including The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Absolute Friends, The Tailor of Panama (did see that movie) and a few others
Watership Down (don't tell anybody, but I weep like a little girl every time I read it)
Ringworld, and anything else by Larry Niven
The Grapes of Wrath (you and Bhkad already mentioned), and almost anything else by Steinbeck including Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, Tortilla Flats, In Dubious Battle, etc.
A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Bleak House, The Olde Curiousity Shoppe, etc., by you know who.
The Sea Wolf-London
Manifold Origin-Baxter

Off the top of my head. Too hard to limit to 10.
Click to expand...


The ones in blue are the ones I like. Not sure I've read the others. I have read another book by Steinbeck, I think it was called East of Eden, but it wasn't as good.
I also like a lot of stuff by London: White Fang, Sea Wolf, Call of the Wild, some short stories.

Richard Adams is one of my favorite writers; I loved Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, Shardik, Girl in a Swing, etc.
He recently wrote a new one- well, actually, not that recently; it might've been ten years ago.
It was called Tales from Watership Down. It's all stories about that legendary hero rabbit, El-ahrairah. Remember how they tell a lot of stories about him in the first book?
I didn't like this collection as much as the original Watership Down, though.
 
1069 said:
The ones in blue are the ones I like. Not sure I've read the others. I have read another book by Steinbeck, I think it was called East of Eden, but it wasn't as good.
I also like a lot of stuff by London: White Fang, Sea Wolf, Call of the Wild, some short stories.

Richard Adams is one of my favorite writers; I loved Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, Shardik, Girl in a Swing, etc.
He recently wrote a new one- well, actually, not that recently; it might've been ten years ago.
It was called Tales from Watership Down. It's all stories about that legendary hero rabbit, El-ahrairah. Remember how they tell a lot of stories about him in the first book?
I didn't like this collection as much as the original Watership Down, though.
Click to expand...

I can think of at least one 'bad book' each of my favorite authors has written, except for Jack London. He never wrote a bad (in my opinion) book or short story, and I've read most of what he wrote.

Since you liked The Grapes Of Wrath, read Cannery Row and Tortilla Flats when you can. They are not epic books like TGOW, but are excellent reading that also happen to tell stories about poor people.
 
It's kind of hard to pick just 10 favorites but I went with the comfort books. The ones that are always good for a rainy day. The macaroni and cheese of my book collections. You know when you have 5 new books you're waiting to get to but you're not sure what you're in the mood for? When you're not sure you want to waste your time curling up with something new that might not please. These are the ones I've read over and over again. I know just what I'm getting, I know the stories by heart, and I still enjoy curling up with them again and again over a cup of tea.


I am Legend Richard Matheson
To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
Cujo Stephen King
Ender's Game Orson Scott Card
The Lottery Shirley Jackson
Communion Whitley Striber
The Land of Laughs Jonathan Carroll
The Lord of The Flies William Golding
The Little Prince Antoine de Saint Exupery
Dracula Bram Stoker
 
talloulou said:
It's kind of hard to pick just 10 favorites but I went with the comfort books. The ones that are always good for a rainy day. The macaroni and cheese of my book collections. You know when you have 5 new books you're waiting to get to but you're not sure what you're in the mood for? When you're not sure you want to waste your time curling up with something new that might not please. These are the ones I've read over and over again. I know just what I'm getting, I know the stories by heart, and I still enjoy curling up with them again and again over a cup of tea.


I am Legend Richard Matheson
To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
Cujo Stephen King
Ender's Game Orson Scott Card
The Lottery Shirley Jackson
Communion Whitley Striber
The Land of Laughs Jonathan Carroll
The Lord of The Flies William Golding
The Little Prince Antoine de Saint Exupery
Dracula Bram Stoker
Click to expand...

You and a couple of other people mentioned Ender's Game, and I'm not sure if you're talking about the book, or the short story which was written first.

I read the short story, and it is excellent. Haven't read the books about Ender, though. Figured there was no way to improve on the original.
 
tryreading said:
You and a couple of other people mentioned Ender's Game, and I'm not sure if you're talking about the book, or the short story which was written first.

I read the short story, and it is excellent. Haven't read the books about Ender, though. Figured there was no way to improve on the original.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about the book. I never read the short story.
 
1. Frank Herbert-- Dune series
2. LOTR/Hobbit
3. Battle Cry of Freedom
4. Steven Sears Gettysburg/Antietam/Chancellorsville/Richmond books
5. Alastair Reynolds- Revelation Space/Redemption Ark/ Absolution Gap/ Chasm City
6. Holy Blood Holy Grail
7. Philip Gourevitch-- We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families
8. Andrew Jackson
9. Lee's Lieutenants
10. In an antique land
 
1. 1984 - George Orwell.
2. Catcher In the Rye - J.D. Salinger.
3. Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Toilken.
4. Farhenheit 451 - Ray Bradberry.
5. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dosteyevsky.
6. A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle.
7. All Quiet On the Western Front - Erich Remarque.
8. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas.
9. Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield.
10. Animal Farm - George Orwell.
 
1. A Canticle for Leibowitz
2. The City and the Stars
3. The Neverending Story (the movie sucks, but the book was wonderful)
4. 1984
5. Watership Down
6. The Thomas Covenant Series
7. Still Life With Woodpecker
8. Contact
9. The Sword of Truth Series
10. Speaker for the Dead
 
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