I'm amazed that no one has mentioned Animal Farm by George Orwell. After the talk of 1984 I thought this book would be a shoe in. Also I have to add my $.02 for Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It was a great read.

"The Hot Rock" by Donald E. Westlake

:thumbsup: Cannery Row is a great book. The sequel, Sweet Thursday, is just as good.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold

A few selections that I didn't see that I think are truely great books:

War Music (poetry) a jazz poetry rendition of several chapters from the Illiad, simply amazing.

The Living End (fiction) The book by stanely elkins, not the other that floats around. 4 tales about the afterlife. Think Dogma with dead people and fewer dick and fart jokes.

Preacher (graphic novel/comic book) More enjoyable than Sandman, if not as intelligent, imo. A story of love and friendship at it's heart.

Revelation Space (hard sci-fi) Three of probably the 10 best scifi novels I've read in recent years are from the series starting with this book.

Something from the Nightside (horror) A truely wonderful detective noir story. Easily readable on a Sunday afternoon, and so enjoyable you'll be flipping through immediately after to read specific lines again.

Wraeththu (post-apocalyptic fantasy) Wonderful book, humanity is evolving into something different here.

Battle Cirlce (p-a fantasy) One of the most often over looked books by Peirs Anthony, but one of his best

Ok I'm surprised that I haven't seen <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Dick%2C%20Philip%20K./104-2787779-7686303">Phillip K. Dick</a> mentioned along with some of the other authors here.

I recently read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0020315902/ref=pd_sbs_b_4/104-2787779-7686303?v=glance&s=books">"The Eye in the Sky"</a> just as a one-off, "hey it's only $3 used" impulse buy and I enjoyed it immensely. I plan to read his other works as well. For those of you not familiar with his books, the films "Blade Runner" and "Minority Report" were based off of a book(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345404475/qid=1058383993/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2787779-7686303?v=glance&s=books">"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"</a>) and short story(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0806523794/qid=1058384098/sr=1-14/ref=sr_1_14/104-2787779-7686303?v=glance&s=books">"The Minority Report"</a>) written by him. Notice I said "based off of", the actual stories are very different from the movies.

A great non-technical technical book (what?!) is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735611319/qid=1058384152/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/104-2787779-7686303">"Code: The hidden language of computer hardware and software"</a>. Charles Petzold starts with Morse code and Braile, moves forward to explain other base number systems and binary, moves into Boolean algenbra, switches, Processors, memory, and ends up at Machine Language. Explaining how a computer works and how programs are interpreted in a way that is engaging and not difficult to follow.

A demon haunted world by Carl Sagen

Here we go.

-Life of Pi- Yann Martel. I cant believe that it was a true story. I could try, but I'd die on the first day.
-Moneyball is pretty good for all the baseball fans.
-Someone already said the Preacher so I'll second it. It was awesome.
-Anything by Gaiman (American Gods, got my gf to read it)
-The SNL book is good if youve been watching it for a while.
-LOTR, of course
- Harry potter series
I'm presently reading Bill Brysons new book "A short history on nearly everything" Its pretty good.

Locke, Life of Pi was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. Are you sure it really is a true story?

I was pretty sure it was ( I think it says on the cover or something). It's my girlfriends book, so I'll take a look. Amazing story either way, huh?

Nevermind, It's not a true story. Dag nab it. I must have heard wrong or it just was written really well. Probably both. Sorry bout that.

Most of the best books I have ever read have already been listed with one noteworthy exception. It seems that no one has ever read "A Deepness In the Sky" by Vernor Vinge, and everyone I convince to read it ends up *really* loving it. (they usually end up putting it above snow crash, right below 1984) So now I am trying to add power to my lungs and scream to the heavens with a voice louder than my own....

Read "A Deepness in the Sky"

Really people, I wouldn't try to draw attention to it if I wasn't sure it would blow your mind.

Has anyone said Captain Correlli's Mandolin yet?

Or, as long as I'm talking books that got ruined in the movie adaption, Alex Garland's The Beach?

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. It is a great anti-war novel.

Modern Fiction:

I saw Infinte Jest mentioned, but all the titles by the author David Foster Wallace are amazing. Some are even less than 500 pages! :p

also, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Classics:
I'm in love with Stranger in a Strange Land by Camus

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sarte

The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffery Chaucer

all I can think of that haven't been mentioned

Anything by John Steinbeck, but especially "Travels With Charley", and "Of Mice and Men"

the icarus hunt by timothy zhan

So I just finished Road Fever by Tim Cahill. Laugh out loud, get stared at on the subway, funny! For those of you that have read his articles in Outside, or Adventure, you know what I'm talking about. This is a fast read, and did I mention funny!

I'll agree with anything by Steinbeck, but let's not forget "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. Not that latest piece of crap by her, though.

I'd have to say cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Not quite for the lightweight reader, and quite a bit more technically oriented, but awesome after that!

It looks like Sci-Fi has been well covered, so I'm going to steer clear of that. I love Confederacy of Dunces, and I think that it's probably the best first novel ever. Definitely one that you should put on your summer reading list.

Best sports novel - Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. The first book that I ever looked up from and said "this guy understands what it's like!" If you are or ever had been a runner, it's a must.

One of the greatest books ever - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It won him the Nobel Prize for Literature (OK, the Gulag Archipelago helped, but it's non-fiction). If you ever want to get a feeling for what being in a Soviet political prison camp was like while Stalin was alive, this is for you. It's not as shocking as it once was, but it's one that you'll have trouble putting down.

American Crime - Anything by James Ellroy. White Jazz is one of his best, and even if you've seen LA Confidential, you should pick up the book since it ends very differently, and they left out about 20 major characters in the movie.

Just finished "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown, and now am reading his "The Da Vinci Code". Good books.
Good conspiricy theory stuff about the Catholic church, Illuminiti and such.

And I am listiing to The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum.

The Cheese Monkeys by chip Kidd.

Very good book about a guys first year at college..

I really like all of Roger Zelazny's books as well as Asimov's robot series. Also recently read Catch-22 does anyone know if the sequel is any good?

Neuromancer, by william gibson. There'a full trilogy, but i can't remember the others. Absoultely fantastic .

Angels and Demons, by dan brown is great. There's a new sequel out, but i heven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Don Quixote (read it in spanish if you can)

The complete mysteries of Sherlock Holmes

White noise, by don delillo, it's a strange but interesting commentary on society

My personal favourites include:

The Dune Saga by Frank Herbert (read all 6 in order)
if you want, read his son Brian's stuff do it after

Jane Yolen's Dragon's Blood trilogy
- Dragon's Blood
- Heart's Blood
- An Ascending of Dragons

Ursula LeGuin (spelling?) Earthsea series

Most important book ever written.....
Hero of a Thousand Faces
by Joseph Campbell

He writes about what makes a good story, why some stories seem to rest within our collective conciousness forever, that everything is a metaphor for the inner struggle. He also taught George Lucas how to make star wars into a memorable saga.

Personally, fatasy-genre books are my favorites. ANd I prefer series to single books, simply because if it is good I am loathe to see it end. Now let's see here, what are some of the best I've read:

Just about Anything by Margaret Weis, including: Death Gate Cycle; Dragonlance Chronicles, Legends and War of Souls; Darksword series; Rose of the Prophet series; Dark Heart (a shame this series never got completed!).

As for other authors, Terry Brooks Running with the Demon series; Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series; Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant as well as his Sci-Fi Gap series are all incredibly wonderful reads!

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. It's a 20th century classic with everything:)

Enders Game by Orsin Scott Card is a great one for sci-fi fans and non sci-fi fans alike.

I know it's nonfiction, and that might not count, but I just read
Guns, Germs, and Steel, and it had a completely different approach to history that made it interesting and timely. I think everyone should have to read this book at some point in their education, but I'm sure that won't happen.
Might be too boring in part for some, but I highly recommend it.

Several people have mentioned books by Ayn Rand. I personally think you can get the same amount of understanding from reading some of her essays, and not have to wade through incredibly dull novels. There's a little paperback I have of her philosophy that has an address of hers to the graduating class at the US Naval academy that is absolutely incredible. Just my 2 cents

-The Teseract, by Alex Garland

-The Beach, by Alex Garland

He also wrote the screenplay for the current movie "28 Days Later".

This was going to be my suggestion, so go read this series, now! :) It starts with Guilty Pleasures.

Several of my favorite books.

Exodus-Leon Uris
Trinity-Leon Uris
Mila 18-Leon Uris

Tropic of Cancer-Henry Miller

Papillion-Henri Charrier (sp?)

Cold Mountain-Charles Frazier ( I read this before the movie came out, while the movie is good, it doesn't compare to the book.)

Shameful, took till page 4 for someone to mention Faulkner, the greastest american writer in my opinion. I heartily recommend "Light in August" by him, a fantastic read.

As far as things in a fantasy vien, I didn't see anyone mention Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series, while it has slacked in the last two books, the first four or so are fantastic; great characters and good twists.

In the non-fiction arena, I'd recommend "Naked Economics" by Charles Wheelan, a layman's guide to economics without math and that is constanly funny, I laughed out loud too many times to count. And also "The Metaphysical Club", its not light reading by any means and i'm only halfway through but it's a great look at some of the defining thinkers of the civil war and post civil war era.

And my random book of the night Job by Stephen Heilein, too funny for words.

A really neat, though challenging book, is Jose Saramago's Blindness. Its the story of what happens when the whole world goes blind simultaneously. Pretty neat story, though its in a format with little punctuation.

just finished a really great book and recommend it to everyone:
100 years of solitude, by Gabrial Garcia Marquez

another good book is The House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

If it's by Robert Heinlein you should be reading it.
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Awesomely awesome)
Job: A Divine Comedy
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Waldo & the Magic, Inc.
Time Enough For Love
Methuselah's Children
Starship Troopers

Woah, just finished Michael Crichton's "State of Fear".

What a great book. I highly recommend it.