Favorite Books

[cuterebra]

I have dozens of favorites and could never pick one. So many wonderful books have already been mentioned, so I won't repeat them.

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes is easily one of the most perfect books I've ever read--check it out if you've never read it! It's about children who are kidnapped by pirates, but it's more Lord of the Flies than Peter Pan. The New York Review of books re-released it a couple of years ago with a Henry Darger painting on the cover.

Edit: NYRB Classics is a whole series of great but neglected books. Great place to look if you're out of ideas for quality reading.

 

[Robert]

Well, loads ...

Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams
George Eliot's Middlemarch
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
Spenser's The Faerie Queene
Sterne's A Sentimental Journey
Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Son
Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths
Charlotte Bronte's Villette
Milton's Paradise Lost
Shakespeare's tragedies, esp. Lear and Hamlet, and some of his comedies ...
etc.

 

[Thebhr]

Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy, and The Tawny Man Trilogy

This is my all-time favorite fantasy series. I don't normally get emotional but this series played on them like a violin. Took me three days to recover. I just noticed, Lor reminds me of the fool. That's not a bad thing Lor, don't hate me.

 

[Infinite Regress]

The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger. Because its aces

 

[grEEEn]

I hate reading books because they destroy my ability to do anything until I finish the story!

I have a bunch of Chuck Palahniuk and Max Brooks somewhere on the floor of my bedroom. I used to have a bunch of Andrew Lang but my ex probably has gotten rid of them. He also had my Labyrinth story book my mom found for me for a dollar, and Buddy Babylon by Scott Thompson and Paul Bellini - it was a birthday present from my aunt when I was 17. Sad. And my Alice in Wonderland and The Secret Garden books. I need to go over to that guy's place and asronate his book shelf!

I've read a bunch of library books whose titles and authors I can not remember. Boo. I should go get a new library card tomorrow.

 

[ElderToadstool]

Anything by H.P. Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard
The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
VALIS - Philip K. Dick
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Phillip K. Dick
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Dark Tower series - Stephen King
The Elric series - Michael Moorcock
Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
The Golden Bough - J.G. Frazer
Acid Dreams - Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain
Man And His Symbols - C.G. Jung & Others

 

[antedox]

Read Kurt Vonnegut...immediately. I did my undergrad thesis on all of his novels (yes, all of them).

Beyond that, I'd suggest:

Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
The God of Small Things - Arhundati Roy
The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Lamb - Christopher Moore
Pulp - Charles Bukowski
White Noise - Don DeLillo

And these are just suggestions in fiction...

 

[Lear]

Nightfall (short story), Asimov, my favourite story ever.

Masters of Rome series, Colleen McCullough, extraordinary.

Foundation and Robots series, Asimov, classics.

Ringworld, Larry Niven

Axis trilogy, Wayfarer Redemption trilogy, Darkglass Mountain (almost) trilogy, plus Threshhold and Beyond the Hanging Garden, Sara Douglass, incredible

Most of Robert Ludlum's work, but especially The Chancellor Manuscript and The Matarese Circle.

The Sharpe series, Bernard Cornwell, Hornblower on dry land!

 

[Polaris]

As a child I enjoyed Jules Verne (particularly Twenty thousand leagues under the sea). I also remember being completely fascinated by a book by Jaqcues Costeau (can't remember the title). I guess I had a fascination for underwater settings, as it was/is a relatively unexplored world. Seven Little Australians, by Ethel Turner was another favourite. I liked The Adventures of Huck Finn, by Mark Twain, The Wind in The Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, Scandinavian author Anne Cath-Vestly's books and I think I read The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren about seven times.

I have enjoyed so many books in my adult life time, but the ones that stand out are:

Historic trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset
Pan, by Knut Hamsun
The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Life is Elsewhere, by Milan Kundera
The Grass is Singing, by Doris Lessing
Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse
The World According to Garp and Hotel New Hampshire, by John Irving
Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown (and don't frown...)
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx
The Garden of Eden, by Ernest Hemingway
James Bond books, by Ian Fleming (what the....??!)
An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth
Anything by Douglas Adams
The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Lovenskoldska Ringen, Charlotte Lovenskold, Gosta Berlings Saga by Selma Lagerlof
Anything by Fay Weldon
I was fascinated by the I Ching, but had to put it away as it freaked me out

 

[Saoshyant]

What Every Body Is Saying - Joe Navarro, ex-Fbi agent. This is my favorite book on body language. I believe it inspired the show "Lie to Me" on FOX, starring Tim Roth.

The definitive book of body language - Barbara Pease and Allan Pease

Lots of books on Tibetan Buddhism. Anything by the Dalai Lama, B. Alan Wallace, The Mind and Life institute series.

Prometheus Rising - Roberton Anton Wilson
The Way of the Superior Man - David Deida
Handwriting Analysis -Putting It to work for you
Social Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
How to Win Friends & Influence People - David Carnegie
If you see the Buddha on the Road Kill him
The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz

 

[Scourgexlvii]

Dune - Frank Herbert, Dracula - Bram Stoker, I am Legend - Richard Matheson...

I've stopped reading recently, as I don't want to subconciosly steal stuff for my book, as I've been known to do on occasion.

 

[sadprofessor909]

So many favorites...my favorite authors are Shakespeare, Poe, Orwell and Bradbury. As far as individual books go, I am reading Lolita and enjoying it. I have read the Hannibal series multiple times. I am also an avid Stephen King reader.

 

[The Frood]

Oh gosh, I have sooo many
Hitchhikers Guide trilogy (all 5 of them) -Douglas Adams
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Timeline - Michael Crichton
Treason, Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Pastwatch - Orson Scott Card
Animal Farm, 1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter series - J.K Rowling
The Lightning thief - Rick Riordan
Lord Of the Flies - william golding

 

[Schneizel]

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.

More recently, the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. They're so bad they're good.

 

[vurt]

Prometheus Rising - Roberton Anton Wilson

Ah I'd forgotten all about this, very interesting read.


Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Vurt - Jeff Noon
Accelerando - Charles Stross
Hackers - Steven Levy
Ring - Stephen Baxter
Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan

 

[Eef]

A clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
All novels by Agatha Christie
some kid stuff like Charlie and the Chocolate factory and Matilda by Roald Dahl
And Coraline by Neil Gaiman

 

[amorfati]

If I had to pick one book to recommend to a person it would be Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Few men in history have had such tremendously penetrating insights into the psychology of the human mind as Doestoevsky had.

 

[Traianus]

I'm also big on the classics. The last 3 i read were Conrad's Nostromo, Hemmingway's Fiesta, and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. I also love Rand's books...Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead especially.

 

[Sparrow]

One of mine is 'The Hobbit'

 

[Traianus]

Somehow I forgot Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth...great book.

 

[Audentia]

Questions like these are so hard for me. I'm a book addict. Sometimes more of a collector than reader though, lol. My favorites are many and varied and change . Oh well. Here are some I've held on to over the years...


A Universe of Consciousness by Gerald M. Edelman

The Black Rose by Thomas B Costain

Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast

A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt

The Witching Hour series by Anne Rice

The Wisdom of The Body by Sherwin B Nuland. Amazing book. Some parts might need skipping if you have a weak stomach for vivid medical writing .

The Purpose Driven Life by Reverend Rick Warren

Crazy Love by Luanne Rice

The Beautiful Ache by Leigh Mcleroy

 

[Jah]

I could never stomach The Lord Of The Rings,
probably because of it's popularity, and seemingly obvious style.
Though I read it a couple of times when I was younger.

I recommend reading all books in the Discworld series, by Terry Pratchett.
Immensely funny, witty, and reflective, in a way that only could imply a truly intelligent writer.

I also recommend reading Robert Anton Wilson, who continues to be one of my idols, even after his death.

Honore de Balzac is entertaining, and even more so because if you read up on his work-habits.
I also enjoy;
Plato,
The Tibetan Book Of The Dead (truly recommended reading, the most lucid religious text I have ever read, and thus far quite compatible with science, and not as opposition (like the Abrahamic religions))

Carl Jung
James Joyce (read Finnegan's Wake, as a challenge)
Richard Dawkins (a must)
James DeMeo.
Edgar Allen Poe, (cliche, maybe, but still worth reading)
Lewis Carroll (Alice In Wonderland and Through the looking glass, but look into the puzzles and logic conundrums he created. )
Mark Twain.

Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse five, is a good, short, book.
and the graphic novels:
"Sandman"
"From Hell"

 

[Sparrow]

I'll just post some favorite authors...Lawrence Block, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, John Grisham, Vince Flynn, Don Pendleton, Tolkien, Rowling, Greg Illes, some more.

 

[reprographist]

Anthem - Ayn Rand
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Catcher in The Rye - JD Salinger
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
Blue Like Jazz - Donald MIller

 

[HecticRat]

I haven't really started reading until pretty recently but so far my favorites have been:

40 Days and 40 Nights - Matthew Chapman (A book about the Dover trial that reads like a novel)
John Dies at the End - David Wong (horror/comedy/fantasy and it works)

And I'm currently enjoying "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" by Adam Smith.

 

[ifelloverboard]

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

 

[Antonio Bufera]

5 libri preferiti. Sono nuovo del forum, ecco la mia cinquina 1. Chuck Palaniuk. Soffocare. 2. Italo Calvino. Cosmicomiche. 3. Beppe Fenoglio. La malora. 4. André Gide. I sotteranei del Vaticano. 5. Grazia Deledda. La madre. Spero di trovare tanti nuovi amici appassionati di lettura e scrittura. Ciao.

 

[Philosophyking87]

What initially comes to mind:
The Hitchhiker's Guide
Lord of the Rings
Brave New World (I thought this was better than 1984.. but they're pretty similar)
Ender's Shadow (I accidentally read it before E's Game, so I guess that's why I like it better)
The Traveler, by John Twelve Hawks
...
And I'm currently reading The Anarchist in the Library, which seems good so far. Well, was reading.. it seems to have lost itself temporarily. >.< That and my library card...

Ah, how lovely. I'm currently still reading through Lord of the Rings.
And I hear that Hitchhiker's Guide is really good. I gotta check it out.
Good stuff.

 

[Keary]

My personal favourites are:
"1984" By George Orwell (The political side of the novel and how close our society really is to that is fascinating of not somewhat frightening)
"Lord of the Rings" By J. R. R. Tolkien (Come on who doesn't like these books"
"Time Machine" By H. G. Wells (Again how similar our society is to that 802, 701 C.E. with the Eloi being the "upper class" now used as food by the "working class" or Morlocks)
There are others but laziness has now taken over, time for /v/ and /b/.

 

[PapyrusAirplanes]

A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt

That is an amazing book.

A Wrinkle in Time :: Madeleine L'Engle
The Giver :: Lois Lowry
The Small Rain :: Madeleine L'Engle
A Girl Named Zippy :: Haven Kimmel
The Irresistible Revolution :: Shane Claiborne
Ender's Game :: Orson Scott Card
A Ring of Endless Light :: Madeleine L'Engle

 

[the internet]

well these are the books i have on my tier 1 bookshelf (where all my cool books go)

zen and the art of motorcycle maintenence
naked lunch
junky
on the road
siddhartha
vice magazine volume 11 number 2, 3, 4
scientific american: new answers for cancer
house of leaves
true hallucinations
pihkal: a chemical love story
the fairy tales of hermann hesse
the illuminatus trilogy
lolita
a confederacy of dunces
the picture of dorian gray
the bfg
no one belongs here more than you: stories
prince caspian
the doors of perception
animorphs: the extreme
the horse and his boy
dune
artemis fowl
labyrinths

 

[Lostwitheal]

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
The Revelation Space trilogy - Alastair Reynolds
The Night's Dawn trilogy and Fallen Dragon - Peter Hamilton
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
Incredible Victory - Walter Lord
Shogun - James Clavell
Mister God, This is Anna - Fynn
The Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Illusions and Jonathan Livingstone Seagull - Richard Bach

Probably some more, I can't think of them right now

 

[ShipwreckSilence]

American Psycho -Bret Easton Ellis (My favorite author)

Tao Te Ching -Lao-Tzu

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -Robert M. Pirsig

This Side of Paradise -F. Scott Fitzgerald (really any Fitzgerald)

The Gunslinger -Stephen King

The Bell Jar -Sylvia Plath

 

[Farion]

I'm going to have to come back to this thread and take notes, there are just too many books for me right now.

My favorite book is probably The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Other than that:
Ender's Game
Catcher in the Rye (although I need to re-read it since I read it as a school book)
His Dark Materials

 

[cam3llia]

"Gentlemen and Players"-Joanne Harris
"The Romantic"-Babara Gowdy

 

[Dr. Manhattan]

Brother's Karamazov
Fooled by Randomness
Black Swan.....

Too many to name really.

 

[Stoic Beverage]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
1984
The Count of Monte Cristo

The Name of the Wind

The last one gets an extra space 'cos it's my favoritist.

 

[ReadCentral]

hi GudEvening
my favorite books are :
http://readcentral.com/book/Mark-Twain/Read-Adventures-of-Huckleberry-Finn-Complete-Online 1)Adventure of Huckleberry finn by mark twain
2)Adventure of sherlock Holmes by arthur conan doyle
3)Pride and Prejudice by Jane austen
4)ulysses by james Joyce

 

[Jesse]

Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy. Love it and one of the few books/series I have read multiple times.

 

[gilliatt]

Short Stories - O'Henry
The Discovery of Freedom - Rose Wilder Lane
The Man Who Laughs - Victor Hugo
Human Action - Ludwig Von Mises
The Romantic Manifesto - Ayn Rand
Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt
The Law - Frederic Bastiat
The Tariff Idea - W. M. Curtiss
Man, Economy and State - Marray N. Rothbard
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
The 12TH Planet - Zecharia Sitchin


To name a few.
"Atlas" by Denys

 

[jantling]

Romano Lavo Lil - George Borrow
The Grey King - Susan Cooper
Forever Odd- Dean Koontz
The Children of Hurin - J.R.R Tolkien
The Curious incident of the dog in the night-time - Mark Haddon
A Beautiful Mind - Slyvia Nasar
Johnathan Strange and Mr.Norrell- Susanna Clarke

 

[suseleng]

این کتاب (اسماعیل: دانیل کوئین) به Ùارسی برگردانده شده ..Ù…ÛŒ توانید از این آدرس دانلودش کنید

 

[mastermind23]

Am I the only one who hate (with a passion) Catcher in the Rye? It is one of the most boring and pointless books with zero plot I have ever read, I cannot understand why so many like it so much...
Fav books: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Philosophy: Who Needs It? -all by Ayn Rand, Theory of Everything - Ken Wilber. I am half-through reading Dune by Frank Herbert and I can already tell it's going on the favorites list.

 

[7even]

Wild by Jay Griffiths. - It just really sucks you in.

 

[Anamnesis]

Assuming non-scientific.

Anything by Albert Camus and Edgar Allan Poe. The first time I read "The Myth of Sisyphus" and "The Rebel" it blew my mind. I couldn't sleep for a couple days after, up reintegrating my universe.

I can't read too many modern works; I don't like putting in my brain that which hasn't stood the test of time, frightening what kind of crap exists out there. Tend to trust classic lit., philosophy, and slightly older theology.

"On The Shortness of Life" by Seneca
"On Tranquility of Mind" by Seneca
"Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius
"Confessions" by Augustine
"Faust" by Goethe
"Inferno" by Dante Alighieri
"Freedom of the Will" by Jonathan Edwards
you get the idea...

"Dune" by Frank Herbert was actually really good.

 

[lungs]

the giver
the grapes of wrath
tao te ching
the talisman
the story of b

 

[MichiganJFrog]

"Scribbling the Cat" Alexandra Fuller
"Siddhartha" Hermann Hesse
"The Joke" Milan Kundera
"The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" Ibid.
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" Ibid.
"Lord of a Visible World: The Collected Letters of H.P. Lovecraft" S.T. Joshi, ed.

 

[Ninjamanda]

My favorite book is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

It's more complex than you think. The way the prince thinks is so amazing. It has great characters and teaches you a lot about life.

 

[Manic]

Non-fiction is almost impossible; have read many hundreds and too many good ones to name on numerous topics. Here’s a short list of fiction:

Camus The Stranger
Voltaire Candide
Calvino The Baron in the Trees
Amado Home is the Sailor
Maughm The Moon and Sixpence
Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mathew Lewis The Monk
Shakespeare Macbeth, The Tempest, and Othello favorite plays
Tool A Confederacy of Dunces
Fowles The Magus
Tanizaki The Key
Poe’s Murders at the Rue Morgue
Hemmingway A Clean Well-Lighted Place
Faulkner A Rose for Emily
Graham Green Our Man in Havana
Jerzy Koszinski Being There
Eco The Name of the Rose
Christopher Marlowe The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
James Hilton Lost Horizon
Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby
Williams A Streetcar Named Desire
Waugh The Loved One
Orwell Burmese Days
Marquez Memories of my Melancholy Whores

 

[GeneralPatton]

I would have to say that I'm quite impressed with all Burroughs extraplanetary works, but my favorite was the John Carter of Mars series, though his Carson of Venus and Pellucidar series were quite good as well.