favorite book thread

[Blue_Roses]

What is your favorite book and which genre do you like the best?

[KDLarsen]

1. At the moment...

... I've dug into Stephen King's The Talisman (I was craving for a "brick" to read).

Anyway, my favourite book is "Stalingrad" by Anthony Beevor (who has also done an amazing job with "Berlin"), which basically tells the story about one of WW2's most gruelling battles.

And as you can probably guess, I'm mainly into history books. After going through most of my WW2 books, I'm thinking about going back 1 war and looking at "The War to End all Wars/The Great War".

[AlCzervik]

18. The Talisman

I read that book when it came out and i loved it, in fact i cried when something happened in there, i wont tell you what but that is a great book. I wish that King and Straub would do more together.

[Zorra]

30. The Grapes of Wrath and

The Prince of Tides (the movie barely resembled the book)

and I like Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis

[BlackVelvetElvis]

2. Les Miserables

An epic. I reread it every few years (unedited). And every single time I enjoy it as much as the first time I read it.
Hugo's Notre Dame of Paris is a real tearjerker. Movie versions are so false.
Genre? I don't have one, although I love history related books. Especially if they deal with common people.

[Earth_First]

3. Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72

HST for President 2004

[buycitgo]

10. whoaaaaa, that was the SECOND book that came into my mind!

first one: Leap

about the Garden of Delights, Bosch tryptich in Spain

whole book about it, blending nature, religion, art history, psycholgy, etc.

beautifully, hauntingly written

[MAlibdem]

4. Gore Vidal

"Julian" good stuff

[seventhson]

5. Der Fuehrer by Konrad Heiden is the BEST political book

to understand fascism and what is happening today.

It was written in 1944 by a German antiNazi who fled Germany to the US and it reads like the Bush playbook explained.

I love investigative political exposes which tell the truth about corporofascism.

[eileen from OH]

6. Oh, toughie. To Kill A Mockingbird

I guess is the all-time fave. (Even though I am convinced Harper Lee didn't write it and Truman Capote did.) Also my favorite movie, btw.

Favorite genre is probably mystery/thriller, though. Favorite book in that category is probably A Place Of Execution by Val McDermid. (If you haven't read it and love books with layers and layers that the reader peels like an onion, this is a great one.) Close runner-up is Shape of Snakes by Minette Walters. Faves in this category change all the time!

I'm a tad prejudiced towards the whole mystery thing though, since it's also my bread n butter.

eileen from OH (www.mysteriesbymoushey.com)

[tigereye]

27. ah another mystery fan

Reginald Hill I just finished Death's Jest Book, it was excellent. Anything by him is great, esp. ones that have a historical flavor.

Martha Grimes is really good as well - mysteries, plus Cold Flat Junction, Hotel Paradise and End of the Pier are amazing.
Tony Hillerman
Ian Pears

Other writers

John Updike- don't always like his characters, but he is a great writer
Phillip Roth
Virginia Woolf
Doestoevski
Ethan Canin
Isaac Babel

[Ready4Change]

7. D*mn those movies!

I'd normally say the LOTR trilogy, but that seems so common now. :(

I hate it when my favorite things become massively popular. Ah well.

"Illusions", by Richard Bach.

At least, in this moment in time. Be something different tomorrow.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

8. gosh..where to start? genre...well...architecture?

Hard to say whats the best book in this field. I can say a few that influenced me.....

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

9. for politics...Emerging Republican Majority & Up from Conservatism

The first was by Kevin Phillips, and its a really good historical political geography of the US...the title is a bit misleading.

The second is Michael Linds deconstruction of the right. Indispensible.

[buycitgo]

11. let's not forget our glorious leader

[Sufi Marmot]

12. The Master and Margarita

Best. Book. Ever.

-SM, who doesn't have a favorite genre...

[frank frankly]

17. that is a great book

it is a masterpiece

[dbt]

13. "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" by Tom Robbins

You know all the people in the book. You may even be in it.

Shit O Goodness!
:bounce:
dbt

[grannylib]

20. *lol* I love Robbins....."Another Roadside Attraction" is right up there

too, and I loved "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas"

[loftycity]

24. Fierce Invalids from Hot Climates Tom Robbins

I just roared through that one. Today is tomorrow and tomorrow is today. Nuns, slits, John Foster Dulles, Cowboys, Angels and Potney! It was my favorite book for a good laugh this year.
And the Pope will just not come down to give them an audience....

[blindpig]

14. tough call

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons ties Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawerence this morning. Genre, couldn't say, I'm a book slut.

[Jim__]

15. Lolita

I can't believe Nabakov was a native of Russia and could write English like that.

Favorite genre - don't know - I like all kinds of books.

[terrya]

16. Not A book, but a series...Gore Vidal's history of the United States...

From "Burr" to "Washington, D.C" (in chronological order). Immensely readable over and over. And grounded in painstaking research. Good history.

Terry

[loftycity]

25. Was it the Golden Era? just finished that...another great one!

[grannylib]

19. "The Women's Room" and "In This House of Brede" are two that I re-read

fairly often.
Women's Room is by Marilyn French; House of Brede is by Rumer Godden.
Two very different books; two very different pictures of women.

[cedahlia]

21. A few favorites

I'm an aspriring librarian...please don't make me choose just one! Here's just a few of my favorites:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Cider House Rules by John Irving
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler
Girl by Blake Nelson
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume (children's book)

Realistic fiction is my favorite genre, and I have a newfound affection for reading biographies/memoirs, which makes sense given the "realistic" factor. I've never been that much of a fan of sci-fi or fantasy books, outside of a few of my favorite children's books like Alice in Wonderland and Matilda by Roald Dahl.

[Paul Hood]

22. World's End by T. Coraghessan Boyle. n/t

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

23. favorite books...

cry the beloved country
snow falling on cedars
i know why the caged bird sings
to kill a mockingbird
in the time of the butterflies
charlotte's web

among the ones i can pull out of my tired brain, those are some classics.

[Aristus]

26. "The Seed and the Sower" by Sir Laurence Van Der Post.

Beautiful story.


I'm also partial to the small but fascinating genre of the 'evil hero'. Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange'; Elric in Moorcock's Melnibone series; Thomas Ripley in Patricia Highsmith's 'Ripley' novels.

[asthmaticeog]

28. Infinite Jest

I know, I know, it was the "revered" book a bunch of years back, but it really IS that good. The first time I read it, a new roommate had just moved in with me and his whole experience of me his first three weeks there was me sitting in my reading chair giggling incessantly at this huge tome I wouldn't put down. That David Foster Wallace is one clever sum'bitch.

[VOX]

29. Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes"

Nails down the territory of hanging on and enduring in a totally insane and unfair world. Also savagely, laugh-out-loud funny.

[Triple H]

31. I'm a fan of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles...

and the New Vampire Chronicles.

My all-time favorite book would have to be Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice. Great book. :thumbsup:

[Rabrrrrrr]

32. In all my years, Dune is the one I've gone back to the most

beginning in high school, and revisiting it every couple years

LOTR is another, though I've not read it as much

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and sequels I also like to read every couple years, and it always remains fresh and hilarious

The Bible, of course, reading constantly just about all the time

Sherlock Holmes' stories I love to reread

Cryptonomicon I've gone back to a number of times, even though it's really not all that old; and Stephenson's other books I've read at least twice

David Edding's Belgeriad and Mallorean and sequels I've read a number of times - excellent books, though Eddings is a bit of an obnoxious, egotistic git. But great writing, great storytelling, and parts that are so deliciously funny I laugh out loud, and fantastic characterization. Yeah, he makes his characters more archetypal than real, but they still work like perfection. I've been missing them in the last year and been wanting to reread them. Problem is, it's a lot of books and I already own two sets, but they are both packed in different places far away from me, and as much as I really, really, really want to read these again, the thought of buying a THIRD set, when there are so many other books to buy, has left me not buying them. But I saw a week or so ago that the belgeriad and the malloread are available now in trade paperback form in two volumes, instead of 5 each... so maybe...

And Asimov's Robot, Foundation, and...amd shit, my brain stopped, can't remember the second set - Second Foundation? - I've read all those at least twice, including the books put out after Asimov died. Those have influenced my thinking about life and theology.

But of all the books I've read and enjoyed and which have caused me excessive incredible thought, besides the Bible it's Dune (the whole series) that I find myself almost ALWAYS thinking about, and which has had the most influence on me. Absolutely - to the nth degree - amazing stuff.

There is a lot of great science fiction, but there is NOTHING like Dune. And I mean that honestly and unashamedly. I think even in terms of American Literature, Dune is more important and necessary than even Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Melville, Bellow, Salinger, etc.

DUNE is, for my money, the most amazing, insightful, topical, and *@(^$%#*^$$%%^*@*(@#& important literature written in the 20th century.