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The best book you've ever read...

Damned thread! Off to the library tomorrow and the next couple weeks spent glued to that chair under the lamp!
 
If you want nearly perfect storytelling, plotting, wordsmithery and insight (authors who write with English edition): Joe Abercrombie, Miles Cameron, Seth Dickinson, Mark Lawrence, Dorothy Dunnett, Sheri Tepper, China Mieville, KJ Parker aka Tom Holt, Guy Gavriel Kay, M. John Harrison, Jesse Bullington
 
Fearandloathing said:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vega - the Search for the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson.
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Hells Angels was good, too. I think that's where he first used the phrase, fear and loathing, describing how ordinary Americans felt about the HA.
 
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Grand Mal said:
Coin toss which was duller and more yawn-onducing, Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead.
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Well, Atlas shrugged did have a cool cover.

Neither however can be considered actual published works. Ayn Rand not only couldn't spell or write cohesive sentences but she was a drug addict
 
Grand Mal said:
Hells Angels was good, too. I think that's were he first used the phrase, fear and loathing, describing how ordinary Americans felt about the HA.
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I consider it a prequal to the masterpiece, a warm up while developing the true art. He identified the issue but failed to truly capture the looming result
 
Fearandloathing said:
Well, Atlas shrugged did have a cool cover.

Neither however can be considered actual published works. Ayn Rand not only couldn't spell or write cohesive sentences but she was a drug addict
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Her first two novellas were okay, especially as she hadn't yet become a mere Russian radical, if you let it slide that she stole the better of the two from Zamiatin.
 
My first novel (not counting Nancy Drew) was Gone with the Wind, read it over and over again.

I really enjoyed the Tolkien Trilogy.

Funniest novel ever was A Confederacy of Dunces.

Most recent great story....West With Giraffes.
 
JMR said:
My first novel (not counting Nancy Drew) was Gone with the Wind, read it over and over again.

I really enjoyed the Tolkien Trilogy.

Funniest novel ever was A Confederacy of Dunces.
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That was brilliant, wasn't it!
JMR said:
Most recent great story....West With Giraffes.
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Grand Mal said:
'Nobody here gets out alive!'
-Jim Morrison-

I thought it was a nice contrast, the faith of a Christian clergyman poet, Donne, and the nihilism of a rock poet, Morrison
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My doctor told me that once...I called him a quack.
 
There are far too many books for me to limit it to one. It would be difficult for me to limit it to even ten.

Walden/A week on the Concord and merrimack- H.D. Thoreau
Sex Death and Fly fishing- John Gierach
Neversink- Leo Wright
Skystone- Jack Whyte
Candide - Rousseau
My Story-Caroline Cossey
 
Kelby said:
My doctor told me that once...I called him a quack.
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When my hips were getting badly arthritic I told my doctor that if I had to run to save my life, I couldn't do it.
He told me to stay out of bear country!
 
Grand Mal said:
Hells Angels was good, too. I think that's were he first used the phrase, fear and loathing, describing how ordinary Americans felt about the HA.
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Interesting fact.

Ken keasey, who wrote One flew over the kukoos nest, was sort of the leader of a band of San Francisco hippies at the time. He had a party at his house in LA Honda. The author Tom Wolf who was writing a book about Keasey and his band of hippies called "The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test" was at the party. Hunter S Thompson, who was writing Hells Angel's at the time, showed up at the party with a bunch of hells angels.

It was kind of a disaster.

But you can read about the same party from Tom Wolf's point of view in Electric Coolaide Acid test, and also from Hunter Thompson's point of view in Hells Angel's.

Two totally different takes on the same party from two totally different points of view
 
Grand Mal said:
When my hips were getting badly arthritic I told my doctor that if I had to run to save my life, I couldn't do it.
He told me to stay out of bear country!
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You know the old joke...just go with someone not as fast as you.
 
NolanVoyd said:
Interesting fact.

Ken keasey, who wrote One flew over the kukoos nest, was sort of the leader of a band of San Francisco hippies at the time. He had a party at his house in LA Honda. The author Tom Wolf who was writing a book about Keasey and his band of hippies called "The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test" was at the party. Hunter S Thompson, who was writing Hells Angel's at the time, showed up at the party with a bunch of hells angels.

It was kind of a disaster.

But you can read about the same party from Tom Wolf's point of view in Electric Coolaide Acid test, and also from Hunter Thompson's point of view in Hells Angel's.

Two totally different takes on the same party from two totally different points of view
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I think I tried reading that in junior high, but had no frame of reference for it as a 12-year-old.
 
Allan said:
...in your life.

What's that one page-turner we should all read?
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Anything by Isaac Asimov.

‘Merle’s Door’ by Ted Kerasote. Not a novel, but an awesome read.

More recently, ‘Wool’, ‘Shift’ and ‘Dust’ by Hugh Howey. The stories that make up the Silo series.
 
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