Ten Favorite Books of All Time (any category)

[1069]

4. 1984
5. Watership Down

Yeah.

:2wave:

 

[roguenuke]

I love to read, but mostly series of books. But some of my favorite books are:

Starship Troopers
The Three Musketeers
The Postman
Brave New World
Night
The God Project

A Song of Fire and Ice (series)
Anita Blake Vampire Hunter (series)
Stephanie Plum Bounty Hunter (series)
Sisterhood (series)

There are so many more that I like. I actually own quite a lot of Nancy Drew books (all the different series). Between my husband and I we probably have around a thousand books. Both of us are addicted to the scifi/fantasy genre.

 

[Richard Nixon]

Well, if someone put a gun to my head:

The Dark Tower
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Clockwork Orange
Odd Thomas
Catcher in the Rye
The Emperor series
The Face
Great Expectations
The Hobbit
The Silmarillion

And I know they aren't books, but, you know they kinda are:

The Watchmen graphic novel.
The Preacher comics.

 

[1069]

The Dark Tower
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Clockwork Orange
Odd Thomas
Catcher in the Rye
The Emperor series
The Face
Great Expectations
The Hobbit
The Silmarillion

I've read the ones highlighted in dark red.
Eclectic choices; you do realize Odd Thomas is a Dean R Koontz book, I guess. I always assumed Dean R Koontz was sort of the "Kraft Macaroni and Cheese" of the literary world. Cheap, bland, and inoffensive, and nobody's favorite, although we are all reduced to eating it sometimes.

Guess you proved me wrong about the "nobody's favorite" part.

I like Clockwork Orange, but I once read an interview with Anthony Burgess where he said he wished he'd never written it. It is what he's recognized and remembered for, and he felt it caused people to overlook his "serious" work.

I tried to read another book by him one time, it was called "One Hand Clapping".
It sucked so bad, I can't even describe it.

I don't think I've submitted a "Top Ten" list yet.
I don't think I can.
But if I had a Top Ten list, The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux would be on it.
Other than that, I don't know that I really have any "all-time favorite" books.
My favorites change at least every few years, not because I read other, better books, but because I age and my perspective changes.

The Mosquito Coast has been my one enduring throughout-the-ages favorite.
When I first read it, I was young enough to relate to it from the perspective of the narrator- the kid with the crazy dad.
Now I'm old enough to relate to it from the perspective of the crazy dad.
But it's still such a good book.
It's somehow so perfect, so complete, so self-contained.
It's got everything one could want in a book.
I hope someday I'll write something half as good.
Coincidentally, everything else Theroux ever wrote was a piece of shite.
That was his one good book.

 

[tryreading]

Well, if someone put a gun to my head:

The Dark Tower
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Clockwork Orange
Odd Thomas
Catcher in the Rye
The Emperor series
The Face
Great Expectations
The Hobbit
The Silmarillion

And I know they aren't books, but, you know they kinda are:

The Watchmen graphic novel.
The Preacher comics.

I should have read it 30 years ago, but just bought a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and started on it last week. I am having trouble with it because I know when I finish the last page I'm going to really miss the Finches.

I need to read Great Expectations again, its been maybe 5 years. Loved that book. Did you see the movie made recently (Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert De Niro)? They turned the book into a chick flick, but it was very, very good. The kiss at the water fountain, the restaurant scene. Hot stuff. Well done.

 

[Richard Nixon]

I've read the ones highlighted in dark red.
Eclectic choices; you do realize Odd Thomas is a Dean R Koontz book, I guess. I always assumed Dean R Koontz was sort of the "Kraft Macaroni and Cheese" of the literary world. Cheap, bland, and inoffensive, and nobody's favorite, although we are all reduced to eating it sometimes.

Guess you proved me wrong about the "nobody's favorite" part.

I like Clockwork Orange, but I once read an interview with Anthony Burgess where he said he wished he'd never written it. It is what he's recognized and remembered for, and he felt it caused people to overlook his "serious" work.

I tried to read another book by him one time, it was called "One Hand Clapping".
It sucked so bad, I can't even describe it.

I'm usually not a fan of Koontz at all. He uses the same rehashed, morality-based crap every time he writes...but Odd Thomas just got me. It's really quite a well-written book and the ending almost made me well up. He's definitely not someone I'd go out of my way to read, but he does have SOME talent hidden under that annoying money-making hairstyle.

I don't know about inoffensive, either, he has a lot of subliminal 'you should believe this or you're evil' crap in his books.

Ahhh, I loved Clockwork Orange. I'd consider it one of the finest literary pieces of the last century in its grouping. Not the best book in the world by any means, but I'd still kiss it goodnight. Then again, Burgess strikes me as a 'one hit wonder' type novelists and I can't for the life of me think why. Best read some of his other stuff and confirm.

Oh, I'm about to read War and Peace. Have you read that? It's terrifyingly long and I think I may need some safety equipment to get through it alive.

I should have read it 30 years ago, but just bought a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and started on it last week. I am having trouble with it because I know when I finish the last page I'm going to really miss the Finches.

I need to read Great Expectations again, its been maybe 5 years. Loved that book. Did you see the movie made recently (Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert De Niro)? They turned the book into a chick flick, but it was very, very good. The kiss at the water fountain, the restaurant scene. Hot stuff. Well done.

Haha - too true, man. It's really one of those rare books that you just don't want to end. The characters are just so...nice. It's hard to describe.

I didn't, no, but I think I'll give it a peep. Dickens' best novel, I'd say.

 

[Billo_Really]

1. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
2. In the Abscence of the Sacred (the failure of technology and the survival of the Indian nations)
3. Getting the Love you Want
4. Legacy of the Heart (the spriritual significance of a painful childhood)
5. Stickman
6. The Road Less Traveled
7. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
8. The Adventures of Don Juan
9. The Metaphysic of Morals
10. No one hear gets out alive

 

[1069]

I'm usually not a fan of Koontz at all. He uses the same rehashed, morality-based crap every time he writes...but Odd Thomas just got me.

It was alright. He's getting better.
I was in the bookstore today and saw that there's a sequel out: Forever Odd.
So apparently the book "got to" a lot of readers.
That's the first sequel Koontz has ever written, as far as I know.

Oh, I'm about to read War and Peace. Have you read that?

Nuh-uh. I've heard of it, though. Let me know how it turns out.

 

[aegyptos]

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

I have all the Civil War books you mention in my collection. A lot of great reading there. I would add Shelby Foote's three volumes.

 

[FluffyNinja]

Ringworld by Larry Niven
We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
The Inferno by Dante
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

 

[Bodi]

I don't think that I can put an order to these, nor can I limit it to Ten, but here it goes:

Novels

A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll
The Call of the Wild - Jack London
White Fang - Jack London
The Pearl - John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austin
Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls

More Recent Stuff

The Firm - John Grisham
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Sphere - Michael Crichton


Series

The Lord of the Rings Series - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Dark Tower Series - Stephen King
The Chronicles of Narnia Series - C. S. Lewis
Jack Ryan Series (Early Ones) - Tom Clancy
The Sword of Truth - Terry Goodkind
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow Series - Orson Scott Card
The Homecoming Saga - Orson Scott Card
The Wheel of Time Series - Robert Jordan
The Clan of the Cave Bear Series - Jean M. Auel


Of course there is Dickens, Poe, Homer, Shakespeare, Twain, etc... but the above are probably the best minus one here or there since Ifeel like I am missing some major works that I read a long time ago though...

 

[FluffyNinja]

I don't think that I can put an order to these, nor can I limit it to Ten, but here it goes:

Novels

A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll
The Call of the Wild - Jack London
White Fang - Jack London
The Pearl - John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austin
Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls

More Recent Stuff

The Firm - John Grisham
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Sphere - Michael Crichton


Series

The Lord of the Rings Series - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Dark Tower Series - Stephen King
The Chronicles of Narnia Series - C. S. Lewis
Jack Ryan Series (Early Ones) - Tom Clancy
The Sword of Truth - Terry Goodkind
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow Series - Orson Scott Card
The Homecoming Saga - Orson Scott Card
The Wheel of Time Series - Robert Jordan
The Clan of the Cave Bear Series - Jean M. Auel


Of course there is Dickens, Poe, Homer, Shakespeare, Twain, etc... but the above are probably the best minus one here or there since Ifeel like I am missing some major works that I read a long time ago though...

You know, I'm glad you posted this list - you've mentioned some good reads here - especially Bradbury. I can't believe I'd forgotten all about Ray Bradbury, it's been so long since I've read anything by him. I remember now, one of my all time favorites would have to be The Illustrated Man. Did you happen to read that one? I must admit though, Farenheit 451 was pretty good too.

 

[1069]

Ringworld by Larry Niven
We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
The Inferno by Dante
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

You actually enjoyed "The Tao of Pooh"? :lol:
My aunt, who's a kind of dippy new-ager, made me read that when I was a kid. So I could "discuss" it with her.
I remember it sucking big donkey schlongs.
Maybe I ought to read it again from the vantage point of a thirty-plus year old. Maybe i'd get something more out of it.

I do like a.a. milne.
I like all the Pooh books pretty well, and even more, I like the books that don't involve Pooh et al. Now We Are Six, etc.

I like that poem "James-James Morrison-Morrison Weatherby George Dupree."
About the mom putting on her finest gown and going to the end of town, and never being seen or heard from again.
It's pretty evil. A lot of his stuff- children's stuff- is pretty dark, once you get away from the happy little hundred acre wood.

 

[Richard Nixon]

Man, I despise Dan Brown. That guy can't write. I mean, his flow is terrible, his use of tools to make his work come alive is minimal and his story-telling is awful. That and he ripped off his famous idea.

I'm about to start reading The Wheel of Time. Looking forward to it.

It was alright. He's getting better.
I was in the bookstore today and saw that there's a sequel out: Forever Odd.
So apparently the book "got to" a lot of readers.
That's the first sequel Koontz has ever written, as far as I know.

There's three, I believe, although I've only read the first. The other two just come as money-spinners to me. Odd Thomas isn't the type of novel you can keep going.

 

[1069]

Anyone else ever read this?

This is one of my favorite books; I first read it when i was a kid, and i've reread it dozens of times since, always getting something different out of it.
I mean, literally. The story involves numerous generations of a weird family that lives in this huge creepy house that's always changing, looks different depending upon the angle from which you approach it, always developing new rooms that one never noticed before, etc.
And that house seems to me to be a metaphor for this story, which seems to expand outward like some kind of puzzle box and change slightly each time one reads it.
It's a magic story, i think.

 

[Bodi]

You know, I'm glad you posted this list - you've mentioned some good reads here - especially Bradbury. I can't believe I'd forgotten all about Ray Bradbury, it's been so long since I've read anything by him. I remember now, one of my all time favorites would have to be The Illustrated Man. Did you happen to read that one? I must admit though, Farenheit 451 was pretty good too.

I almost included the Illustrated Man.
8 short and rockin stories...
Great idea.

 

[FluffyNinja]

You actually enjoyed "The Tao of Pooh"? :lol:
My aunt, who's a kind of dippy new-ager, made me read that when I was a kid. So I could "discuss" it with her.
I remember it sucking big donkey schlongs.
Maybe I ought to read it again from the vantage point of a thirty-plus year old. Maybe i'd get something more out of it.

Well, actually, I read it as a kid as part of a requirement for a 7th Grade Enrichment Class project. I absolutely hated it at the time. However; I read it again a few years back and actually found it enlightening. I'm no Daoist, but as my understanding of this "belief system" has grown over time, I was able to see the parallels between the Daoist classification of personalities to those of Milne's characters. This explanation of Daoist belief is, strangely, both simple, and yet quite deep. Pooh's approach to Life's situations now seem both practical and comical to me. Taking Pooh's approach to Life's many obstacles could actually bring someone a long way toward leading a less stressful existence.:2razz:

 

[FluffyNinja]

I almost included the Illustrated Man.
8 short and rockin stories...
Great idea.

Yes. Bradbury gave us Science Fiction in it's purest form. Every time I read one of those stories, it was like being teleported to the Twilight Zone. He had some very unique ideas. Whoever claims Stephen King is "an original" should go back and read some Bradbury! I was kind of disheartened with the old Ray Bradbury Theater television adaptations though. I don't know if you remember those, but they were pretty lame.

 

[Bodi]

Yes. Bradbury gave us Science Fiction in it's purest form. Every time I read one of those stories, it was like being teleported to the Twilight Zone. He had some very unique ideas. Whoever claims Stephen King is "an original" should go back and read some Bradbury! I was kind of disheartened with the old Ray Bradbury Theater television adaptations though. I don't know if you remember those, but they were pretty lame.

Another favorite is obviously the Martian Chronicles...

 

[Bodi]

The Talisman - Peter Straub

 

[1069]

The Talisman - Peter Straub

Stephen King and Peter Straub, you mean?
It's a collaborative effort.
I like Straub's earlier work: Shadowland. Julia. If you could see me now.
And the anthology, Houses Without Doors.

The Talisman was corrupted by too much Stephen King.
And then King turned around and reused a lot of the material, I think, in the Gunslinger series and other books.

 

[tryreading]

Stephen King and Peter Straub, you mean?
It's a collaborative effort.
I like Straub's earlier work: Shadowland. Julia. If you could see me now.
And the anthology, Houses Without Doors.

The Talisman was corrupted by too much Stephen King.
And then King turned around and reused a lot of the material, I think, in the Gunslinger series and other books.

Read a book called Magic Terror by Straub a couple of years ago. It is 7 excellent short stories, more psychological horror than the boogie man type. Its a book I'll read again at some point.

 

[Bodi]

Stephen King and Peter Straub, you mean?
It's a collaborative effort.
I like Straub's earlier work: Shadowland. Julia. If you could see me now.
And the anthology, Houses Without Doors.

The Talisman was corrupted by too much Stephen King.
And then King turned around and reused a lot of the material, I think, in the Gunslinger series and other books.

No. I meant Peter Straub.

 

[1069]

No. I meant Peter Straub.

The Talisman is by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
And it's obvious, when you've read the entire body of work of both authors, that Stephen King had a much greater part in it than Straub.

link

What The Talisman reminds me of more than anything is a French fairy tale I used to like when I was a kid, called Little Henri.
Ah... it's similar; Little Henri, like Jack Sawyer, is a boy whose mother is dying, and he has to go on a journey and endure a bunch of trials and tribulations in order to obtain a magic something (can't remember if it was a potion or an object or what) that would save her life.
Except the story of Little Henri is probably four centuries old, or more.
Obviously, King and Straub are Johnny-come-latelys when it comes to this subject matter.
Of course, the Blasted Lands- the entire Territories- from The Talisman later appeared in- if not actually became the basis of- King's Gunslinger series.

 

[Bodi]

The Talisman is by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
And it's obvious, when you've read the entire body of work of both authors, that Stephen King had a much greater part in it than Straub.

link

What The Talisman reminds me of more than anything is a French fairy tale I used to like when I was a kid, called Little Henri.
Ah... it's similar; Little Henri, like Jack Sawyer, is a boy whose mother is dying, and he has to go on a journey and endure a bunch of trials and tribulations in order to obtain a magic something (can't remember if it was a potion or an object or what) that would save her life.
Except the story of Little Henri is probably four centuries old, or more.
Obviously, King and Straub are Johnny-come-latelys when it comes to this subject matter.
Of course, the Blasted Lands- the entire Territories- from The Talisman later appeared in- if not actually became the basis of- King's Gunslinger series.

I know that it was written by both...
The book sitting just over there on the shelf and in full view.