your fave ten ever books
 

mine

1 - Das Kapital - Karl Marx
2 - Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
3 - Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes
4 - The Quantity Theory of Insanity - Will Self
5 - The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
6 - Success - Martin Amis
7 - The Nature of the Offense (Time's Arrow) - Martin Amis
8 - Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien
9 - The Order of Terror - Wolfgang Sofsky
10 - Transparent Things - Vladimir Nabakov

Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolken
Anything by Tom Clancy

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. Middlemarch - Georg Eliot
3. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
4. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
5. The Conservative Mind - Russell Kirk
6. War and Peace - Tolstoy
7. A Fire Upon The Deep - Verner Vinge
8. Time Enough For Love - Robert A. Heinlein
9. The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. The Tale of Murasaki - Liza Dolby

Ah, where to begin...

1) The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

2) The Idle Warriors, by Kerry Thornley
This is a really rare one, but it's interesting from a historical perspective. You see, the author was friends with Lee Harvey Oswald, and the book was written about him. In 1962. It was published six years before Kennedy was shot.

3) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

4) Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

5) In Our Time - Hemingway

6) The Way Things Work - David Macaulay
This is a huge, illustrated guide to just about every machine you can think of. I'll never again have to wonder about how a pocket watch works, because it's been explained to me in detail by cartoon mammoths.

7) Abel's Island - William Stieg
My first favorite book :) It's one of those books that's "meant" for kids, but the older you get the deeper you realize the book is. It's by the same guy that wrote Shreck.

8) Saint Jack - Paul Theroux
I just really identified with the main character... dunno if anyone else would like this one

9) DK Pocket World Atlas
A few years ago, I just carried this thing around with me for a week or so, and I'd just whip it out whenever I had a few minutes, waiting in line, waiting for the bus, etc. After just a few days I was able to bring up a world map in my mind, just from memory. To this day, when I read the news I never have to stop and wonder "Hey, I wonder where Liberia is, exactly?"

10) English as she is Spoke, by José Fonseca and Pedro Carolino
Once upon a time, these two publishers in Portugal set out to make an English-Portugese phrasebook. All they had was a Portugese-French dictionary and a French-English dictionary. The result is "English as she is Spoke". It reads like an experiment in surrealist free-writing; "The noise run that is to him not the a thing by man"...
Now, I'd never make fun of someone for not speaking English (their English is still waaaay better than my Portugese) but I like to keep the book on my shelf to remind me of things like cultural relativity and the danger of direct translation... so it's a book with an unintentional moral :)

fernweh - your #6 is a favorite of mine also. I purchased a copy after I read Niven & Pournelle's "Lucifer's Hammer", which scared the bejeebus out of me.

That's hard. Here's some in no particular order:

- LOTR
- Lord of the Flies
- The Stand
- It
- Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
- 1984
- The Dark Tower books

Ummmm in no order:

- Ender's game
- Lord of the Rings
- Battlefield Earth
- The Count of Monte Cristo
- Starship Troopers
- Legend of Bagger Vance
- The Iliad
- Snow Crash
- Neuromancer
- The Hobbit

Oooh! I love Ender's Game and Snow Crash. I also really enjoyed Stephenson's Diamond Age.

-The Great Hunt
-Enders Game
-Revelation Space
-Chasm City
-The Glass Teat
-Paridise Lost
-The Dragons of Eden
-The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
-Battle Circle
-Preacher

Not all encompassing by any means, and if you asked me tomorow, it would certainly be different.

In no order:

Catch 22 by Heller
The Stranger by Camus
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit- Tolkein
Fear and Loathing In Los Vegas- Thomson
Catcher In The Rye- Salinger
The Little Prince- don't know how to spell the authors name
No Logo- Klein
Sirens of Titan- Vonnegut
Brothers Karamazov-
Breakfast of Champions- Vonnegut again

Like everyone else...in no particular order:

Jurassic Park
Eaters of the Dead
Timeline - Michael Crichton
Benjamin Franklin - Walter Issacson
Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
Rise to Revolution
Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara
Chesapeake - James Michner
Forrest Gump - Winston Groom
Big Trouble - Dave Barry

Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
The Hobbit
Dragons of a Fallen Sun
Dragons of a Lost Star
Dragons of a Vanished Moon
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
The Thousand Orcs

My favorites (meaning books I would consider re-reading the most number of times), in no particular order:

- Focault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
- The Hobbit by Tolkien
- Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
- Mort by Terry Pratchett (heck, the entire Death Trilogy omnibus)
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- Neuromancer by William Gibson
- Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
- Harry Potter... the whole friggin series, by JK Rowling

The movies of those books, sucked, the books were brilliant, I also loved The Last Full Measure, because the story of Joshua Chamberlain absolutely fascinated me.

My books - no order

1. The Last Full Measure - Jeff Shaara
2. For Love of the Game - Michael Shaara
3. The Traveller's Gift - -Andy Andrews (I have bought more copies of this book as gifts for people - it's such a wonderful book)4, Watership Down - -Richard Andrews
5. The Stand - -Stephen King
6. Parliament of Whores or Holidays in Hell by P. J. O'Rourke (or really anything by him)
7. Anything by Dean Koontz
8. The Five People You Meet in Heaven -- Mitch Albom
9. the Handmaids Tale - margaret Atwood
10. Suzannes Diary for Nicholas -- James patterson (pure cheese, but I loved it)

Next week I would probably come up with a different list.
7.

a heart breaking work of staggering genius -- dave eggers
the demon haunted world -- carl sagan
the handmaid's tale -- margaret atwood
a short history of nearly everything -- bill bryson
middlesex - jeffrey eugenides
revolution from within -- gloria steinam
the corrections -- johnathan franzen
food in history -- reah tannahill
endless love -- scott spencer
the fermata -- nicholson baker
hope - glen duncan

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Child of Fortune, Norman Spinrad
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Cat Who Walked Through Walls, Robert Heinlein
Metamagical Themas, Douglas R. Hofstadter
Psychology and Alchemy, C.G. Jung
Today and Tomorrow and..., Isaac Asimov
The Golden Dawn, Israel Regardie
The Witching Hour, Anne Rice
Where the Wasteland Ends, Theodore Roszak

in no particular order:

Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
1984 - George Orwell
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Paradise Lost - John Milton
Inferno - Dante (see signature)
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (PURE UTTER FUCKING BRILLIANCE)
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass - Phillip Pullman

In no particular order (picking only 10 is almost impossible)

Finishing Touches - Thomas Tessier
Mystery - Peter Straub
Salem's Lot - Stephen King
The Other - Thomas Tryon
Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons
The Descent - Jeff Long
Beauty - Brian D'Amato
Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk
The Beach - Alex Garland
The Cipher - Kathe Koja

i'm shocked to see someone pick this -- i gave it a thoguth when making my own list.

Wow, only 10 huh?

1. Magics Price - Mercedes Lackey

2. The Oath of Swords - David Weber
I really don't like anything else he writes. The two books currently in this series are fantasy and far diffrent from his usual stuff. So even if you don't like other David Weber books you might want to give it a try.
3. Star Voyager Academy - Willian R. Forstchen
Has nothing to do with Star Trek...
4. Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind
5. Lord of the Isles - David Drake
6. Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
7. Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
9. Lucky Starr - Isaac Asimov
10. Ender's Game - Orsen Scott Card

The Handmaid's tale - Margaret Atwood
The Crystal Cave - Mary Stewart
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Moon is A Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein
Nine Coaches Waiting - Mary Stewart
1984 - George Orwell
Anthem - Ayn Rand
Bourne Identity- Robert Ludlum
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

These are the ones that came to mind first hand, all my books have been boxed due to moving, so if I saw more titles, this list would probably change! :)

Hmm, I tend to authors and series more than individual books but i'll give it a no-particular-order shot.

---Frank Herbert - Children of Dune (and rest of 1-4, haven't read others yet)
---Tom Clancy - Red Storm Rising (& all of Jack Ryan series)
---Michael Crighton - Sphere (& most of his)
---Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
---Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation (& rest of Robots/Foundation series, just now starting on Empire novels, also Nightfall)
---Rand Miller - Myst: The Book of Ti'ana (& rest of Myst novels)
---Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughter-house Five
---Shakespeare - Hamlet (close enough to a book)
---Douglas Adams - The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchhiker's Trilogy
---Alan Lightman - Einstein's Dreams

That covers it from the top of my head.

maleficent, I've been wanting to read The Stand ever since the miniseries of it came out several years back. Loved the miniseries, think i'd like the book? Also, aren't there two versions of the book?

I loved the miniseries because it was one of the few King movies that really stuck with what the book was about -- a few liberties were taken, but not many.
There are two different versions, I've only read the uncut version which is several hundred pages longer but it's got a lot more character development.
If you enjoyed the miniseries, you'll enjoy the book, probably even like the book moreso
(the version of the book I have, has some notes from King at the back, where he talks about what he would think of the book being a movie... and he talks about casting - i read that after I read the book, and I completely envisioned who he had in mind when I was reading the book.)

LOVED snow crash... but my dad stole back his copy years ago, so I need to go buy my own.

maleficent - I pondered long and hard on putting Watership Down on my list... i guess I could revise and put Lord of the Rings/Hobbit as one, and then add it...

BAH, only 10 books is tough!

1. Dune - Frank Herbert. I've read this over 20 times and I keep finding different things in it.
2. Snow Crash - A Pizza delivery man for the Mob, named Hiro Protgonist? I was a Deliverator hen my buddy Neal turned me on to this book. Anyone who can mix samurai and Aleut and Babylonian Myth and the viral nature of language in one book is OK in my book.
3. Watership Down - I have read this so often that I have worn out three paperback copies. (Finally bought a hardback). The cartoon is one of the first movies I can remember seeing in the theatre. I always cry when I finish.
4. Lord of Light - "His followers called him Mahatsamatman and claimed he was a god. He prefered to drop the maha- and the -atman and call himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. Then again, he never claimed not to be. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit to him. Therefore there was a mystery about him..." And that is all I have to say about that.

I have to run. I'll edit in comments on the rest later (I hope.)

5. Small Gods
6. Red Storm Rising
7. A Game of Thrones
8. Ender's Game
9. The Jungle Book
0

In no particular order:

The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
The Hobbit
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell
1984
Catcher in the Rye
The Killer Angels

And of course: Go Dog, Go

1) The Prophet -- Kahlil Gibran
2) Still Life with Woodpecker --Tom Robbins
3) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -- Hunter S. Thompson
4) Please Kill Me –- The Oral History of Punk -- Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
5) Written on the Body -- Jeanette Winterson
6) Stone Butch Blues – Leslie Feinberg
7) Waking the Dead – John Eldridge
8) Boundaries – Tounsend & Cloud
9) Uncle Shelby’s ABZ’s – Shel Silverstein
10) The Snow Queen -- by H. C. Andersen

Someone on another site told me that my profile screamed this novel and asked me if I was sure I'm not a redhead. :lol:

I haven't read it, but maybe I ought to. :)

In no particular order, except for #1 & #2

- The Prophet - Kahlil Ghibran
- The Art of War - Sun-Tsu
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
- The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
- Siddartha - Hermann Hesse
- The Hagakure - Yamamoto Tsunetomo
- The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
- Walden - Henry Thoreau
- One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

a few off the top of my head

0) The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1) The full uncut version of The Stand by Stephen King
2) The orginal literary version of The Running man; an incredible book that was fucked up something fierce on the big screen
3) Foxe's Book of Martyrs - first read this when I was a young kid and it left quite an impression

Awesome book. I love Tom Robbins, but in my opinion, this is his best. I laughed, I cried, I got horny.

Good stuff.

in no particular order...

Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut
Kitchen Confidential - Tony Bourdain
Fight Club - Palahniuk
Survivor - Palaniuk
1984 - Orwell
A Clockwork Orange - Burgess
Without Remorse - Clancy
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Thompson
Aliens vs. Predator: Prey - S.D. Perry (nostalgia)

Stephen King - The Talisman
Stephen King - The Stand
Stephen King - It
George Orwell - 1984
Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus
Dostoevsky - Crime & Punishment
Stephen King - The Wastelands
Stephen King - Wolves of the Calla
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
Stephen King - The Shining

Yeah...I don't read often enough, I'm a slow reader, and I've been on a King kick for years. Pretty much ever since a friend saw me reading the uncut version of The Stand and recommended a little book called The Gunslinger.

Also INPO

The Dark Tower series - Steve King
The Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien
Angry Candy - Harlan Ellison
Doorways in the Sand - Roger Zelazny
Hichhiker's Guide, et. al - Douglas Adams
4 Past Midnight - Sy Safransky
Night Shift - King
All Creatures Great & Small, etc. - James Herriot
The World According to Garp - John Irving
Ghost Rider - Neil Peart

Wow, 10 books. I'll offer the ten I think I have read most often, because I enjoy going back to them again and again. In no particular order:

A Good Walk Spoiled - John Feinstein
The Discovers - Daniel Boorstein
Flu - Gina Kolata
Into Thin Air - John Krakauer
Muscle - Sam Fussell
The Sweet Science - A.J. Liebling
The Fourth Horseman - Andrew Nikiforuk
Champion - Chris Mead
The Guiness Book of Records - Guinness
The Birds of North America - National Geographic

I read a lot of fiction too, but I come back to the non-fiction stuff much more often.

i havn't read this but i get his magazine "the sun" which i love -- what's the book like?

Crap, I have to think of 10 books I have read. I am about 1/2 way through Catch-22 which is incredibly good and outright hilarious, but as I am not actually done, I won't include it.

Here are my top ten, in a VERY particular order, just not one pertaining to favoritism:

1. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
2. LOTR: Return of the King (Tolkien)
3. The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (translated by Pevear, Volokhonsky)
4. Moby Dick (Melville) And yes, I read every single one of the 603 unabridged pages!
5. Redwall (Jacques)
6. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Michael Hague)
7. Guns, Germs and Steel (Diamond)
8. Macbeth (Shakespeare)
9. The Princess Bride (Goldman)
10. Notes from the Underground (Dostoevsky)

This means of course that I will wake up at 4 in the morning thinking Damn why didn't I think of -----?

My faves...
 

I can't say that I can just pick 10 favorite books, but I have about 10 favorite authors that I will read anything and everything from them many times over. Of course there are particular favorites from each author, but anyway...

I went ahead and took the time to link them all to pages at Buy.com for the heck of it and to get a feel for posting URLs...

All the books by Stephen R. Lawhead, he's my favorite:
Byzantium
The entire Pendragon Cycle:
Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, Grail, (Avalon: The Return of King Arthur)
The entire Song of Albion trilogy:
The Paradise War, Silver Hand, The Endless Knot
Emperion Saga:Empyrion: The Search for Fierra and the Siege of Dome

Frank Peretti:
The Oath

J. R. R. Tolkien:
The entire Lord of The Rings 'Trilogy' (Including The Hobbit)

Orson Scott Card:
Ender's Game(And the others in the series)
Enchantment (Cool twist on Russian fairy tales)

Frank Herbert:
All the Dune books

William Goldman:
The Princess Bride (The book is just as funny if not funnier than the movie)

Sharon Shinn, all the books in the Samaria saga:
Archangel, Jovah's Angel, The Alleluia Files, Angelica, Angel-Seeker

Michael Crichton, I love the (Science) of his books, they make me feel like I learned something:
Timeline (Quantum Physics / Mechanics)
Prey (Nanotechnology and programming to mimic animal group behavior)
Sphere (Deep Sea Aquatic Technology, Human Psychology, some Space Technology)

Bill Watterson, all the Calvin and Hobbes books (So I'm an avid newspaper comics reader too. Sue me :-)

Frank Cho, cartoonist that does Liberty Meadows. Those are some funny comics:
Liberty Meadows, Volume 1: Eden
Liberty Meadows Volume 2: Creature Comforts

Dang, that took a long time...

Um...ok, here we go, I hope. In no particular order:

1. A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving
2. The King of Heart's Heart by Sam Teague
3. Harry Potter by JK Rowling
4. A Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
5. Killer Angels by Jeff Shaara
6. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
7. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
8. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
9. Timeline by Michael Crichton
10. Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

edit, i lied, and add in Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow in place of something, but i'm not sure what.

Hitchhiker's Guide series by Adams
1984 by Orwell
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett adn Neil Gaimen
Of Mice and Men
Cannery Row by Steinbeck
Snowcrash by Neil Stevephenson
Dune by Frank Herbert
I'me going to count my Calvin and Hobbes books, as I still read them.
Lastly, though I haven't yet finished it, I feel Catch-22 will be on my list when I'm done.