Whats a top 5 or 10, whatever floats your boat, of the best books you've ever read?

8/6/2008 12:46:49 PM

moby dick is my number 1


i read airframe in like 3 days...i also like mr poppers penguins, things fall apart, and the hatchet

[Edited on August 6, 2008 at 12:47 PM. Reason : why geography matters was a decent quick read]

8/6/2008 12:47:32 PM

robert jordan's wheel of time series was is pretty damn good (the first book was the best)

followed very closely by george rr martin's song of ice and fire series

catch-22 is up there

ender's game is an all-time favorite

[Edited on August 6, 2008 at 12:49 PM. Reason : he's dead, but it'll be finished...we'll see]

8/6/2008 12:48:48 PM

I'll get back to you after I google search the most edgy, provocative, abnormal title by the most obscure author that I can find; read it and declare that that is my fav.

8/6/2008 12:49:34 PM

i haven't read many books, and have just started getting into reading as a hobby but i'd say

1) 1984
2) Harry Potter (all of them with 7 being the best; I know I'm a total nerd)
3) Angels and Deomons
4) Lord of the Flies
5) Tuesday's with Morrie

8/6/2008 12:50:02 PM

the da vinci code

8/6/2008 12:50:06 PM

ender's game.
/thread

8/6/2008 12:50:21 PM

i like cat in the hat and green eggs and ham

but when i really want to get crazy i read goosebumps and the babysitters club!

jk i'll actually think about this since i am into reading

8/6/2008 12:50:27 PM

Mein Kampf

8/6/2008 12:50:59 PM

oh and we can't forget

I hope they serve beer in hell - Tucker Max

not only because its about taking advantage of drunk UNC girls whores but its just so funny

8/6/2008 12:51:26 PM

fiction - Dune

nonfiction - A Theory of Justice

8/6/2008 12:52:12 PM

i read like the first 40 goosebumps books

8/6/2008 12:52:27 PM

Quote :

"ender's game is an all-time favorite"

The lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Jurassic Park (a little heavy on the chaos though)
Xenocide (another OSC)
Jumper - Stephen Gould


I guess it is obvious i like sci fi and fantasy (books only, no games though)

8/6/2008 12:52:54 PM

The Other Boleyn Girl... I couldn't put it down!

8/6/2008 12:54:15 PM

8/6/2008 12:54:21 PM

pierce anthony's incarnation series was awesome as well actually
anne mcaffrey's dragonriders of pern
when was younger i read EVERY hardy boys book
the prince was good
OH the abyss written by OSC and james cameron after* the movie came out was great

8/6/2008 12:54:42 PM

100 Years of Solitude. not fav, but just popped into my mind

8/6/2008 12:55:30 PM

only book i really remember enjoying was Hatchet in 5th grade

8/6/2008 12:56:12 PM

8/6/2008 12:56:50 PM

I gotta say that I like the Dune Series, sadly Harry Potter. I recently read Kane and Abel and loved it. Generation Kill is the most recent favorite of mine.

8/6/2008 12:56:53 PM

anything by Pat Buchanan.

8/6/2008 12:59:49 PM

Gravity's Rainbow and V. by Thomas Pynchon
Pale Fire and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
Fury by Salman Rushdie
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Farewell Waltz by Milan Kundera

I'm going to stop here, but there are many more books I really love for one reason or another.

8/6/2008 1:00:20 PM

insomnia

8/6/2008 1:06:31 PM

Catch 22
The Demon-Haunted World Carl Sagan (I think this book should be required reading in every high school)

8/6/2008 1:07:22 PM

pale fire
the sound and the fury
adventures of huckleberry finn
the dark knight returns
watchmen
fever pitch
pudd'nhead wilson
as i lay dying

etc.

8/6/2008 1:10:03 PM

i'm not into fiction so my list is a little different. i read fiction from time to time but it must come extremely highly recommended

most recent book i couldnt put down: smart women finish rich
a book i'd read more than once: tipping point & freakonomics
most entertaining: i am america (and so can you!) & my horizontal life
best memoir: swimming to antarctica
best fiction: light in august
favorite series: sweet potato queens
favorite "current events" (i'm not even sure how to classify this): sex drugs & coca puffs

if i am in the mood for fiction i prefer short stories and my favorite short story author is flannery o'connor

8/6/2008 1:10:38 PM

Books read for school that I loved:
1. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
3. Night - Eli Weisel
4. Jealousy - Robbe-Grillet
5. Troilus and Criseyde - Geoffrey Chaucer

Leisure/Guilty Pleasure reading that I loved:
1. the twilight saga - Stephenie Meyer (just finished the last book in the series)
2. Chronicles of Narnia (entire series) - CS Lewis
3. Eat, Pray, Love. - Elizabeth Gilbert
4. LOTR - Tolkien

I'm sure more will come to me...

8/6/2008 1:13:46 PM

Quote :

"Gabriel Garcia Marquez"

ah, love in the time of cholera was pretty good

8/6/2008 1:16:42 PM

i love all tom clancy books. i think executive orders is probably my fav though.

8/6/2008 1:51:21 PM

in no particular order:

lord of the flies
catcher in the rye
1984
brave new world
if on a winter's night a traveler
and i also enjoyed the lotr trilogy, the hobbit, and the last 3 harry potter books


also, fwiw, i hated as i lay dying

8/6/2008 1:55:15 PM

botany of desire - Michael Polan
enders game - OS Card
doors of perception/heaven and hell - Aldous Huxley

8/6/2008 1:58:56 PM

Welcome to the Monkey House - Vonnegut

8/6/2008 2:22:24 PM

The Bible

Absalom, Absalom
Faulkner is awesome

Disgrace

8/6/2008 2:31:31 PM

Aubrey/Maturin Series Patrick O'Brian (and the Hornblower Saga by C.S. Forrester)
The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillian, and all of the History of Middle-Earth series.
Anything & everything of Jane Austen, but especially Mansfield Park
The Adam Dalgleish series by P.D. James
Iliad of Homer and Aeneid by Virgil
How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Father Elijah by Michael O'Brian
Apologia pro Vita Sua by John Henry (Cardinal) Newman
Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle
The Peloponnesian Wars Thucydides
The Divine Comedy Dante (esp. the Sayers Trans.)
The Betrothed by Manzoni
The Sea Wolf by Jack London
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Idiot by Fyodr Dostoyevsky
The Rommel Papers by Erwin Rommel (ed. by Sir Basil Hart)
Summa Contra Gentiles by St. Thomas Aquinas
The Psalms
Anything & Everything written by Pope Benedict XVI/Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

8/6/2008 2:33:32 PM

^you need to get more of your other professor friends to come in and make lists such as that

8/6/2008 2:34:33 PM

8/6/2008 2:34:50 PM

fushias list is the best so far.

8/6/2008 2:39:03 PM

I am glad this is a favorite books thread not a "best books" thread. Otherwise shit would be embarassing.

8/6/2008 2:41:15 PM

The Godfather
The Sicilian
The Family
Lord of the Rings
The Alchemist
A Clockwork Orange
Night
1984
The Arthurian Saga (4 books)
Wine for Dummies (got me started)


I'm excited about getting into some more books this coming month...some Vonnegut books, Catch-22, etc.

[Edited on August 6, 2008 at 2:43 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2008 2:42:42 PM

Catch 22
Song of Ice and Fire series
Harry Potter is a great series, I don't care what anyone says
Jurassic Park was awesome


Great books I have read for school include:
All Quiet on the Western
Graceland (about Nigeria, not Elvis Presley)
Les Misérables
Huck Finn

8/6/2008 2:46:10 PM

Harry Potter (all of them)
Angels and Demons
Da Vinci Code
Deception Point
The Ruins
The Hot Zone
Panic in Level 4

8/6/2008 2:46:13 PM

Quote :

"I am glad this is a favorite books thread not a "best books" thread. Otherwise shit would be embarassing."

I'm amazed that anyone who has submitted almost 55,000 posts here has the time to know what a book is.

8/6/2008 2:49:47 PM

I gotz the harry potters in my library.

8/6/2008 2:51:05 PM

I have a BA in literature, you ponce.

But you are right. Print is dead.

8/6/2008 2:51:59 PM

Quote :

"But you are right. Print is dead."

absolutely not and certainly no time soon...i spend about 2 hours a day reading for pleasure (usually a couple of minutes at breakfast, an hour at lunch, and then the gf and i tend to read before bed)...and i don't see digital readers or intarweb replacing books any time soon (i know it's a bit difference for newspapers and such)...i'd hate not having a physical book with paper and ink

8/6/2008 3:23:28 PM

There's no way I'll ever be able to read a book on a computer or one of those digital books. I NEED pages. I need to be able to flip a page, crease a page to save my spot, and I just enjoy the tangible qualities of a book.

Print will never die with books.

8/6/2008 3:27:52 PM

Print won't die for people who actually still read books, but that number is dwindling pretty fast. Pity.

8/6/2008 3:29:08 PM

The Godfather
Dune
The Hobbit & LTR
Jurrasic Park
Les Miserables
World War Z

8/6/2008 4:23:29 PM

8/6/2008 4:26:53 PM

Quote :

"things fall apart, and the hatchet"

the tenth grade called they would like their reading list back

8/6/2008 4:36:25 PM