Favourite Books
 

I'm wondering if fellow boardmembers have some favourite books.

Here's my top 10 (in no particular order)

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Perhaps the world's best anti-war novel. Breath-taking, hilarious, yet full of pathos. This book changed the way I look at life.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes
Truly amazing book on the science, people and events that led to the creation of the most powerful weapon the world had seen. This book is breath taking in scope, extremely well written, covers military history, science, biography and is written in a lucid and very engaging prose.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

The Scramble for Africa - Thomas Pakenham
Another excellent book of great scope. Very much an eye-opener. The way the Europeans "raped" Africa is enough to make the blood boil. Who would have thought, for example, that the Belgians were so rapacious?

Stalingrad - Anthony Beevor
Deservedly a best seller. If this doesn't bring home to you the horrors of war, then you have no soul. :) Well researched, well written and well deserved of its fame and popularity

An Anatomy of Thought - Ian Glynn
The best, single volume, introduction on how the mind works (with apologies to Steven Pinker!) available. Your brain is a wonderful thing. Do yourself a favour, and feed it by reading this book.

In Search of Schrodinger's Cat - John Gribban
Over 10 years old, but still the standard by which all introductions to Quantum Physics are measured. Gribban offers a great history of this amazing area of physics and explains extremely complicated concepts in (usually) an easy to understand manner.

The Civil War Trilogy - Shelby Foote
Magesterial 3 volume history in that most important of America's wars. These books will open a whole new world to you; that of the early Americans and their struggles that nearly resulted in the fall of the US. Perhaps the best written book I've ever read

Cicero - Anthony Everitt
Besides Robert Massie's biography of Peter the Great, this is probably the best study of a famous historical character in print (my opinion of course). Brings the Roman Late Republic truly to life. An amazing man and an amazing life...

Citizens - Simon Schama
Quite astounding revisionist history of the French Revolution. From its first paragraph to the epilogue 800 pages later, this book grabs you and doesn't let go. The quote from Chinese Premier Zhou En-lai, where he was asked "What was the significance of the French Revolution" and he answered after a moments thought "It's too soon to tell" is the kind of scene or anecdote that really makes this book a must read.

Origins Reconsidered - Richard Leakey & Roger Lewin
A superb summary of the evolution of human kind, that starts with Leakey's discovery of the now famous "Turkana Boy" remains in Africa.




Now you may notice a preponderance of non-fiction. I have to admit I prefer factual works, but if I was to add any more fiction books The Life of Pi by Yann Martel and perhaps A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth would have to be included.

I used to read a lot of SF, but to be honest, that's 99.9% crap, with the notable exception of anything by Iain M Banks.


Hope you share with me some of your favourites and the reasons you love them.


Mr Mephisto

The Count Of Monte Cristo
Probably the best book I have ever read. It is just a great story, and it keeps moving. Edmund Dantes is an incredible protagonist, and I never once got bored throughout the whole 1000 page book. Definitely deserves to be considered a classic.

The great gatsby- F Scott Fiztgerald
I love the idea. The parties are so amazing and decident. It makes you think which I love in a book.

I'm just going to list off the obvious, because I'm lazy:

1984.
A Clockwork Orange.
Catch 22.
Dune.
To Kill a Mockingbird.

A Confederacy of Dunces

Maybe the fact that I'm a New Orleanian has something to do with it, but I just love this book. It does not get any funnier. It's set in the N.O. of the Sixties, and centers around Ignatius J. Reilly, a 300-pound legend in his own mind, as he tries to incite a worker's revolution, sells hot dogs from a giant weenie-shaped cart, and gets beaten up by lesbians. There is absolutely no way I can describe this in a way that will do justice to it.

Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton

The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara

Big Trouble and Tricky Business - Dave Barry

RedCometChar,

I actually have that on my bookshelf ready to read. Did you know that the guy who wrote this could not get it published? He died and years later his mother sent it to an agent.

Apparently, it's one of those great literary "might have beens" had he been discovered (or accepted) during his lifetime.

Mr Mephisto

Yeah, John Kennedy Toole had a real tragic life. It's hard to believe that he was unable to get it published during his lifetime.

So, Confederacy of Dunces is a favorite...

Anything that Murakami's written, but notably Wind-up Bird Cronicle
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
The Stranger by Camus
No Exit by Satre
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
Dead Souls by Gogol
Fathers and Sons by Turgenev
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Kesey
Invisible Man by Ellison
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez
The Joke by Kundera

And to round things off, anything by Joyce (Portrait of the Artist especially) or Pynchon (V, cause it's much easier than Gravity's Rainbow).

0) Basically any stephen king book - the Dark Tower series and The Stand (uncut version) being my favourites by far
1) The complete Sherlock Holmes stories
2) the works of G.K. Chesteron

Let's see here...

Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Death Gate Cycle (7 book series)
Dragonlance Chronicles (3 books)
Dragonlance Legends (3 books)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever (3 books)
The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (3 books)
Running with the Demon
A Knight of the Word
Angel Fire East
The Sword of Truth (several books in the series)

Those are my favorites... there are many many more I enjoyed.

The Phantom Tollbooth. Just as fun to read now as it was when I was a kid.

A Song of Ice and Fire series - George RR Martin
Stephen King books
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Sleep No More - Greg Iles

Trainspotting- Irvine Welsh
Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad
The Education of Little Tree- Forrest Carter
The Lord of the Rings- Tolkien

There's an awful lot of fantasy fans out there!..

Mr Mephisto

Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell
Brave New World - Huxley
Utopia - More
A Clockwork Orange
the Hobbit & LOTR books
Archie Comic Digests

Hot saturday morning edit:
yeah, hitchhikers guide was good too
and there's this series of books, Lensmen or something, that was off the chain.

LotR - J.R.R. Tolkien
Song of Ice & Fire - George R.R. Martin
Snow Crash & Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson

Microserfs- Douglas Coupland (of Generation X fame)

1984- Goerge Orwell

Dracula- Bram Stoker

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men- David Foster Wallace

Enders Game- Orson Scott Card

The UNIX Administrators Handbook- Evi Nemeth, et. al. (pretty interesting/funny reading for a tech manual HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)

Blue Highways- William Least Heat-Moon



Is there a maximum post length?

Brave New World- Huxley
A Clockwork Orange- Burgess
Lotr
Salem's Lot- King
Harry Potter books :)

Personally, I can't see the attraction of the Harry Potter books.

But I LOVE the fact that they've made reading so popular amongst young people again.

For that alone, Rowland deserves the millions she's making.

I'm reminded of that famous story when Theodure Sturgeon was asked why 99% of Science Fiction was crap. He retorted "Yes, but 99% of EVERYTHING is crap!"

Hahaha

True...

We live in a world of mediocrity and apathetic acceptance...

Mr Mephisto (a bit hung-over this morning!)

big To Kill a Mockingbird fan

also

The Divine Comedy, animal farm, The great Gatsby, Hiroshima, Catch 22, so many great ones!

Anything by Stephen King, i'm lucky enough to have met him, since he does live in the same city(Bangor, Maine) as I do.

what
where is fight club?

All of the Lord of the Rings Books- J.R.R Tolkein
Dune - Frank Herbert (I just finished this book yesterday and it ruled so I had to add it to my list)
Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Le Morte D'Arthur - Sir Thomas Mallory

Something from the Nightside-Simon R Green ("He was scared now, really scared. I smiled at him, and blood ran down his cheeks from his staring eyes. He was whining, a thin, trapped, animal sound, and then his eyes rolled up in his head.)


The Glass Teat-Harlan Ellison

War Music-Chrisotpher Lougue (an 'interpretation of parts of the illiad, home to what might very well be the most powerful 3 pages in modern poetry)

Revelation Space-Aeister Reynolds

Preacher-Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon

Enders Game-Orson Scott Card

any salinger book
basketball diaries by jim carroll
on the road by kerouac
the stranger by camus
any dostoevsky

WiseGuy and Friday Night Lights are my 2 fav. books

The
Hitch-
Hiker's
Guide to the
Galaxy

HHGG -> H2G2

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

East of Eden - Steinbeck (note: Favorite bokk YEARS before Oprah got around to it - but glad to see it getting a push these days)

All 6 books of the Dune saga written by Frank Herbert.

Jane Yolen's dragon trilogy: Dragon's Blood, Heart's Blood, An Ascending of Dragons

To Kill A Mocking Bird

The Lord Of The Rings

My top five:

• Yuko Mishima | Spring Snow
  This alone justifies those years of Japanese lessons. I have yet to witness prose this breathtaking, or such unfettered melancholy.
• James Joyce | Ulysses
  Perversely decadent, aesthetically sublime, this love song to the English language is quite possibly the perfect Homeric ballad.
• William S. Burroughs | Naked Lunch
  If Mishima is the first to successfully stretch a fleeting moment infinitely and Joyce one of the few to nihilate such in a dream, Burroughs provides for an amalgam of the two. Here I find everything I love from Kesey, Heller, and Kerouac as well as all the worthwhile writers of the tumultuous century.
• Erwin Schrödinger | What is Life?
  Though it was his cat that made me fall in love with physics, it was this ditty that awoke me to the greater universal problem.
• Ovid | The Metamorphoses
  The fifth choice fell to this, <i>Hamlet</i>, or <i>King Solomon's Mines</i>. This once, I suppose, the Bard and H. Rider Haggard can step aside in reverence to their muse, and I'll just ignore Virgil.
  
  ..and a special sixth selection:
• J.K. Rowling | The Harry Potter series
  Devouring and regurgitating these novels, I will always be reminded of an exchange from the film <i>Finding Forrester</i> in which the reclusive author defends his literary and reportorial palettes. Asked why he wastes time reading the National Enquirer, when a guy like him "should be reading The New York Times or something like that," Forrester retorts that he does "read the the Times for dinner, but this, this is my dessert." So be it with Potter.

In no particular order:

Farrenheit 451 -Ray Bradbury (and other works of his)
Dragon Prince (series)-Melanie Rawn
Ender's Game -Orson Scott Card
Wreathu -Storm Constantine
Kushiel's Dart (series)- Jacqueline Carey

Definitely agree with you there.

In addition, I'd add:
A Clockwork Orange
The Demon Haunted World
Dragonlance (chronicles and legends)
Ender's Game
Guns of the South
and
Bill the intergalatic hero (I think that's what it's called-it's been awhile).

My favorite book is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, about a girl's coming of age in pre-WWII New York. While the book has no plot, it has some of the most amazing characters and insights into humanity I've ever seen, and the simple writing style really fits the setting. Other favorites:

1) The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. Most anything by Neil Gaiman, really. His author's voice is so wise, so elegant, yet never pretentious, and this graphic novel series really changed the way a lot of people view the comics format.

2) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Dark and complex, written by one of the most culturally literate women in the world.

3) Anything by the brilliant, unparalleled Toni Morrison.

4) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. That man could not write a plot to save his life, but his characters! Oh, his characters!

5) I'm a short story fan, and I love stories by Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery"), Ambrose Bierce ("An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge"), Ray Bradbury "All Summer in a Day"), J.D. Salinger ("To Esme, With Love and Squalor")

Here are a couple of my favorites...


The Catcher In the Rye - I first read this book when I was in 7th grade and didn't understand it very well. I read it again my sophomore year in high school and it was outstanding.

A Journey To The Centre of the Earth - Also first read it when I was a kid, but I've read a few times again since then. Jules Verne is a fabulous author.

The Lord of the Flies - I actually saw the movie before I read the book, but nonetheless, it was a great read.

Crime and Punishment - One of the greatest Novels ever written. I read it last year and really enjoyed it.

A "top" list is impossible for me, there are so many, buy a few that come to mind...

Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons
Mystery - Peter Straub
The Beach - Alex Garland
Finishing Touches - Thomas Tessier
The Cipher - Kathe Koja
Blackburn - Bradley Denton
The Other - Thomas Tryon
The Ceremonies - T.E.D Klein
The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams
Watership Down - Richard Adams

Anna Karenina, Nineteen Eighty Four, Lolita, The Metamorphosis, Ender's Game, Hitchhiker's Guide, The World According to Garp, Dune, Catch 22, Lord of the Flies, Crime and Punishment, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Farewell to Arms.

the catcher in the rye is one of my all time favorite books... i think it always will be... most likely because i can relate to holden caufield a lot... jd salinger's characters are amazing...

another favorite of mine is called the perks of being a wallflower... not mentioned here yet.. but another amazing book...

A Clockwork Orange
American Psycho
The Divine Comedy