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Ten Favorite Books of All Time (any category)

There's a new author named Sarah Langan whom I've got my eye on.
She's barely more than a college student at this point, but she's published three big epic horror novels in the past two years; she's certainly prolific, and she's got a spark of real talent, a way of writing which transcends genre.
King had it too, as a young man just beginning to publish, and so did Straub (who, coincidentally, apparently sees the same thing in Sarah Langan that I do, and writes all the cover blurbs for her novels; at first I wondered if perhaps he was her dad, but apparently he's unrelated).

I believe, if she maintains this seemingly impossible momentum, that Langan will be the horror writer for the new millenium- Stephen King and Peter Straub rolled into one.
She's better than either of them were in their earliest novels, which is not very surprising; a lot of writers are better than King is. But few are as prolific as he is, while still maintaining any semblance of quality and avoiding formulaic- as distinct from genre- writing.
Sarah Langlan is.
And if she can continue to produce high quality horror novels at the incredible rate of one to two per year (or even if she slacks off and produces one every two years) she will certainly be the next big thing.
A talented writer writing that many novels can hardly help but hit the jackpot and write a singularly spectacular story every decade or so. Law of averages. King manages it; he's consistently produced one remarkable novel for every three or four clunkers. But when one is producing seven or eight novels per decade, that's a lot of remarkable novels.
Straub is a better writer than King, but he is not nearly as prolific and also not as dedicated to the horror genre; he frequently digresses from it, and even in his purest horror novels, the horror is merely psychological, and one never knows, really, whether the horror was real and the character was legitimately menaced by supernatural forces, or whether he or she was merely insane the whole time.

Anyway, keep your eyes on the little Langan chick.
I predict she's the future of horror.
 
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In no particular order

Richard III - Shakespeare (and probably my favorite character)
Goodbye, Columbus - Philip Roth
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
Rabbit, Run - John Updike
The Centaur - John Updike
Play It As It Lays - Joan Didion
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

HAHA

After looking at this list is pretty easy to tell what kind of novels I dig :)
 
Art of War - Sun Tzu
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Carnegie
The Art of the Deal - Trump

Then any random 7 books written by Tom Clancy. Cardinal of the Kremlin probably being the first of the seven.
 
Just your average 7 foot black millionaire who lives next door

by Wilt Chamberlain
 
My favorites in no particular order:

1. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

2. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler

3. The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth by E.O. Wilson

4. The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dali Lama and Howard Cutler

5. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

6. The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings

7. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (always wondered why they went South rather than North)

8. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

9. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

10. World Book Encyclopedias (I have not touched one in years but really liked reading them when I was a kid).

I don't know if there is some kind of theme or pattern in my choices or not. Numbers 6 and 7 were books I read when I was a kid and really liked so I figured I would include them here.
 
Cause the river only flows south.

I know, but you can go up a river. Lewis and Clark did. I just always wondered when I was a kid why a runaway slave would head deeper into the south.

Of course, then again, I have not read the book since I was 9 or so.
 
I know, but you can go up a river. Lewis and Clark did. I just always wondered when I was a kid why a runaway slave would head deeper into the south.

Of course, then again, I have not read the book since I was 9 or so.

They only had a raft, and you can pole a raft up river, but only if you are in the shallow areas.
 
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
- by Carlos Castenada
 
1) Ender's Game- Orson Scott Card
2) Catch-22- Joseph Heller
3) The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series- collection of the works of Douglas Adams
4) The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
5) The Amber Spyglass- Philip Pullman
6) Shadow of the Hegemon- Orson Scott Card
7) Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs- Dave Barry (short, but can't get through it without collapsing- laughter also burns calories)
8) Atlas Shrugged- Ann Rand (hate to put it so low, since it changed the way I think- but I wouldn't want to have to get through it again)
9) Stranger In a Strange Land- Robert Heinlen
10) Jennifer Government- Max Barry (I'm reminded of it every time I see a corporate logo)
 
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I know, but you can go up a river. Lewis and Clark did. I just always wondered when I was a kid why a runaway slave would head deeper into the south.

Of course, then again, I have not read the book since I was 9 or so.

You can't pole your way up the Mississippi River. That's why before the days of steamboats the pioneers rafted down the Ohio and Mississippi to sell their goods in New Orleans and came back via the Natchez Trace.
 
Helter Skelter by Vince Bugliosi
 
I only get time to read books on the karsey. These are the top 10 karsey offerings (assuming of course you do not have a bible handy)

1. Imajica - Clive Barker
2. Psychoville – Christopher Fowler
3. Weeping Women Hotel - Alexei Sayle
4. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
5. Armageddon: The Musical – Robert Rankin
6. Exquisite Corpse – Poppy Brite
7. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
8. The Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake
9. Blood Crazy - Simon Clark
10. Filth - Irvine Welsh
 
I read (past tense) it for the philosophy, not the lousy character development and glorification of the CEO.

I think he was referring to the misspelling of Rand's name (it's Ayn, rhymes with "mine").
 
Yeah, 10's right. I love the book and give you a thumbs-up on the choice. I just have too much respect for Rand to have you grossly misspell her name. :mrgreen:
 
I'd just like to interject that it is a shitty awkward name, and thus I blame no-one who pronounces it whichever way.
 
Gosh.

What a hard question.

I guess

(in no particular order...)

Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition
Psyonetiks: 10th Anniversary Edition

&

Sweet Merciful Feck Quadrilaterals, by Dr. J R R Heartly
 
"Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe {must be first}

"A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens

The "Waverley" novels by Sir Walter Scott or "Ivanhoe." {over ten right there}

"I, Claudius" by Robert Graves

"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon {I like Romans}

"Moving Mars" by Greg Bear

"Red Mars," "Green Mars," and "Blue Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson

"The Time Machine" by H. G. Wells
 
I just read Watchmen, the graphic novel by Alan Moore- and it kicked *** (don't remember if I can curse here). Great story and characters, and I read certain parts again. It definitely makes my top 10.
 
1) The Bible
2) Animal Farm/1984 - George Orwell
3) The Shining/Danse Macabre/The Stand - Stephen King
4) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
5) No One Here Gets Out Alive - Danny Sugarman
6) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
7) Future Shock - Alvin Toffler
8) Common Sense - Thomas Paine
9) Cat's Cradle/Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
10) DeadBase (The Complete Guide To Grateful Dead Song Lists) - John W. Scott
 
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