What are your all time favorite novels?

[wildeyed]

I am thinking A Prayer for Owen Meany, 100 Years of Solitude and The House of Spirits.

[blue neen]

1. This is a diverse list.

Lonesome Dove, The Age of Innocence, Far from the Madding Crowd, Cold Mountain, Lady Chatterly's Lover. :hi:

[Demit]

2. Vanity Fair. House of Mirth.

[charlyvi]

4. Yep. Vanity Fair eom

[DrZeeLit]

5. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon; Lonesome Dove; Shogun; Prince of Tides...

Helprin's A Soldier in the Great War; A Tale of Two Cities; ...and how can I make a list?
I sooo love books!

[charlyvi]

8. Yep. A Tale of Two Cities.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.......

[signmike]

3. Tom Sawyer

anything by Mark Twain
or John Steinbeck
Gorky Park, more by Martin Cruz Smith
1984

[Unstuck In Time]

6. 'The World According to Garp'... 'Setting Free the Bears'..

... are my favorites by John Irving.

Other authors...

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, but especially The Sirens of Titan.

Stenbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, for all-time classics, and Dickens' Great Expectations.

I love anything by Anne Tyler, but especially Saint Maybe and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is required reading for the times in which we live!

A quirky little novel that I love a lot is Asa, As I Knew Him by Susanna Kaysen. Very warm and intimate, much like the way Anne Tyler writes. Takes place in and around Cambridge and Boston, too, which adds to the charm, for me. Kaysen is best-known for Girl, Interrupted.

:)

[porkrind]

273. "The Grapes of Wrath" was excellent.

"Handmaid's Tale" is on my list also. :) I like dystopian novels.

[charlyvi]

7. David Copperfield, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold,

The Thorn Birds (yeah, but what the hell); Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Madame Bovary.

[derbstyron]

13. Ooohh...LeCarre

That book was the first I had read of him. I'm not really into spy fiction but that book was excellent and I plan to read more of him.

[charlyvi]

14. I finished Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the bathtub.

I was in there a couple of hours. I was freezing, wrinkled like a prune, but couldn't put it down.

[truth2power]

93. LeCarre...

"The Constant Gardener". About the dark underside of the pharmaceutical industry. A lot of symbolism in that title. Constant = loyal etc.

[Donkeyboy75]

154. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

is an excellent book. I'm bummed that his later work seems to have dropped off, but maybe this is because I'm expecting too much of him...

[TheCentepedeShoes]

163. Read it in HS

and agree that his later seemed disappointing, not as edgy.

[derbstyron]

9. tough choices

Don Quixote/Cervantes
An American Tragedy/Dreiser

and anything by
John Fowles &
William Styron (esp. Lie Down in Darkness & Sophie's Choice)

[charlyvi]

11. Yep. Sophie's Choice. eom

[Mist]

10. Just what comes to mind this morning

Cat's Eye (Margaret Atwood), Rebel Angels/Bred in the Bone/Lyre of Orpheus--trilogy by Robertson Davies, Alice Through the Looking Glass,
Forever Amber, and recently, The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall.

[Lucy - Claire]

245. Cat's Eye......

A must read for any women that were bullied by girls at school. It explores the bitchiness of girls and long term damage too.

[LWolf]

12. Here are a few; I've read to many to have

"all time favorites," but these are high on my list:

Tolkein...hobbit and trilogy

Kingsolver...Prodigal Summer

Elizabeth Peters...Amelia Peabody series

Sharon McCrumb; any of her appalachian stories

Ursula LeGuin; earthsea stories

Patricia McKillip; The Book of Atrix Wolfe

William Goldman; The Princess Bride

Conan Doyle & Agatha Christie

Mark Twain; anything

Oops, you said novels, not authors. I have a hard time settling on just one novel from a favorite author! This is but a fraction; just those that popped into my head first this morning.

[ms liberty]

232. Amelia Peabody is the best...

One of my all time favorite lines:

"Well, Peabody, I always say no one slaughters their co-religionists quite so cheerfully as a Christian!"

[bpcmxr]

15. A few come to mind immediately ...

Jitterbug Perfume, One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Soldier of the Great War, 1984, A Confederacy of Dunces.

And many many more.

[quispquake]

16. So, so many!!!

Watership Down by Richard Adams (I read this when I was 11 or 12, and it still sticks with me as one of the most intense novels I've ever read)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich by Philip K. Dick (hence my moniker)

1984 by George Orwell (another book read when I was 11 that changed my life...at this point I'm not even sure if this book could be considered fiction...too many parallels to current day America).

The Sex Sphere by Rudy Rucker (HILARIOUS and way out there sci-fi novel by my favorite living sci-fi writer).

And lots more too...I sadly don't have as much time to read nowadays as I used to (mostly techie stuff or the Internet), but I still try to read a book every couple of months.

[CitySky]

164. rabbits

Watership down, age 11 or 12 -- I read it about 7 times. Then again in college, out loud with a boyfriend. :) Remembering that makes me want a kid to read to.

Favorite? Maybe: Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

But ask me again when I'm done re-reading Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky... going to start that with a friend in a week or so. :)

[LibDemAlways]

17. The Catcher in the Rye, and also

The Great Gatsby..Tom and Daisy Buchanan without question vote R.

[skjpm]

20. Ulysses, His Dark Materials (Golden Compass Trilogy), Jane Austen

Henry James' The Ambassadors, Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, Melville's Moby Dick, O'Connor's Wise Blood--so many--

[jobycom]

22. Gatsby is the greatest work of prose in the English language

Not necessarily the best novel in terms of content or emotional impact, but it the best crafted novel and the best written prose I've ever seen. I don't read poetry when I want to feel the beauty of language, I read Gatsby.

[derbstyron]

26. I would be hardpressed to disagree.

Fitzgerald's style in all of his novels is as close to perfection as it gets, I think. I remember talking with one of my instructors about how he is the greatest American stylist. Period.

[jobycom]

27. The first time I read Gatsby

I remember reading the first page or so and stopping, and just holding the book and staring at a wall for a while. The writing can take youur breath away at times, if you love writing. In one passage, someone knocks a phonebook off its stand, and it "fell to the floor with a sort of splash." I just put the book down and enjoyed that phrase for a moment. I don't do that with anyone else's writing.

[charlyvi]

31. Okay. I like The Great Gatsby....

I've read it twice, but I'm missing something. "The greatest work of prose in the English Language"; not trying to be snarky, but WHY?

[jobycom]

37. I don't know

It's like explaining why Mozart is better than the Monkees. His style, the lyric nature of his language, the ability to load each phrase with two or more meanings, the tightly crafted structure of the book, the beauty of his descriptions...

[charlyvi]

40. Okay.

I'm going to try and read it again with your points in mind. Thanks

[MISSDem]

160. However, lest we forget, some people like the Monkees

better than Mozart.

[jobycom]

216. I listen to the Monkees more often than Mozart

But liking something better and realizing the difference in talent are two different things.

[bowens43]

249. Mozart better then the Monkies? Your kidding right?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

52. The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night

Those are the two I climb into when I need to escape. My copy of The Great Gatsby is frayed from much use and love.

[jobycom]

66. Ever find yourself

pulling out Gatsby and quoting passages from it, independent of the story, kind of like a Bible? Or is that just me?

Lone Star Dems have to hang together, you know.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

75. Of course!

The language is so inspirational it's almost as if you can't help doing so.

It's amazing to me how many Lone Star Democrats I am running into here. Either we're growing in numbers or we've all found DU. :)

[LisaM]

89. Pulling them out? I have some memorized.

It's so tightly crafted and beautifully written it makes me ache.

[jobycom]

99. I know what you mean

It takes me longer to reread that book than to read much longer works, because there are lines that hit me so hard I just put the book down and think about them for a while, then start reading again.

[BamaGirl]

121. I love Gatsby too.

I've read it over and over again, and have my grandfather's copy at that. It's in pieces, but it just wouldn't feel right reading a different copy lol.

[cavanaghjam]

119. Funny

when I want to feel the beauty of language, I read Shakespeare (or Ezra Pound or Yeats or Jeffers or Whitman or Donne or Dylan Thomas or just about any poet bfore I'd read Fitzgerald, Jeez).

[jobycom]

175. Poetry?

You read poetry to feel the beauty of language? I read poetry to understand sadism. How complicated can you make a simple statement? Let me count the ways...

[ExclamationPoint]

202. Life IS complicated

Too often do people simply stop noticing the small details, that which seems insignificant can in fact have a crucial impact. You wouldn't say that if one artist painted one picture of one flower that would be entirely enough for the entirely world, would you? Poetry is a way of interpreting, of seeing things not just for the simple fact of shape color and size, but of what they could mean metaphorically.

Saying that all poetry is sadistic is over generalizing horrifically. There are some sadistic poets, but those are generally the ones who live sad or tragic lives, or those who put their emotions into words instead of passionate uproars and violence.

The beauty of the English language (or any other language) can be seen through poetry because every poem can be both eternal and ephemeral, a poem from the 17th century can have just as much resonance today as it did then.

[jerryster]

137. Overrated

I know a lot of people swear by this book. I consider it one if the most overrated I've ever read.

[one_fine_day]

134. Yes!

The Cather in the Rye is incredible.

I would also have to go with Death be Not Proud and Of Mice and Men.

[autorank]

18. The Alexandria Quarter, Durell

[likesmountains 52]

123. Alexandria Quartet

me too.

[ruthg]

143. wonderful stuff...

The Alexandria Quartet.... I should re-read , it has been eons.

[Zorro]

153. It's THE masterpiece of English literature over the past 50 years

I wish I could write with the same lyricism that Durrell displays with The Alexandria Quartet.

The four books truly comprise an extraordinary work of modern literature; it's a shame that so many people aren't familiar with them.

[On the Road]

183. Howdy, Durrell Fans!

The Alexandria Quartet my clear favorite as well. Have read the whole series several times.

[vitariva]

259. Durrell

I was named after one of the books in the quartet--I'm not saying which one! When I first read them in college I thought they were the best books ever, but then I re-read about a decade later, and, well, had a hard time getting through them. The prose seemed over the top and trying too hard. Interesting how one's tastes change over time.

[charlyvi]

19. The Scarlet Letter.

Hawthorne's prose is so charming and quaint, contrasting sharply with the dark themes beneath.

[XemaSab]

241. Now there's a book with LAYERS

Every 2-3 years I reread it, and every time I realize that the last time I read it I didn't get half of what it was about...

[jobycom]

21. The Color Purple, To Kill a Mockingbird, Les Miserables-- more

The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises
The Tropic of Cancer

Those are by Alice Walker, Harper Lee, Victor Hugo (have to read the full unabridged version to understand it, though), F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, and Henry Miller.

[GOPNotForMe]

38. Les Miserables!!

I have been obsessed with that book since I read it in 10th grade. I love it so much.

[SCDem]

85. Les Miserables - my fav too.... only book I've read more than twice

Jean Valjean now if I could find him he would be my soulmate!

[jobycom]

100. I've found him, he's

Al Gore! Think about it...

[babylonsister]

23. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier.

Haven't read it lately, but read it about 4 times im my youth.

[charlyvi]

46. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

One of my very favorite first lines in any book!

[truth2power]

95. Anything by DuMaurier

"The House on the Strand". Loved it. It's been years since I read it, but the main character keeps taking some potion and flashes back and forth from the present to the past.

[2bfree]

105. I love you!

That was my fav as well. What a great book!

[pantouflard]

24. Middlemarch, George Eliot -

The Gate to Women's Country, Sheri Tepper

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World by Neal Stephenson


Not a novel, but I have an audio recording of The Diary of Sam Pepys read by Kenneth Branagh - have listened to it three times. So good!

[charlyvi]

45. self delete

[Redneck Socialist]

25. Sometimes a Great Notion by Kesey

Pretty much anything by Cormac McCarthy and Moby Dick for the "classics" pile.

[bvar22]

149. Sometimes A Great Notion...

..is in my top 5. Great Novel.
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is good also, but not in the same class as Great Notion.

The movie was acceptable too.
Released under the name Never Give an Inch with:
Paul Newman
William Holden
Karen Black

Its hard to find on video, but is around.

[Kire]

246. That's Howard Dean's favorite book

Sometimes a Great Notion

[charlyvi]

28. The French Lieutenant's Woman....

The first time I read this book, nothing. Then I read it in college---BLEW ME AWAY!!!

[derbstyron]

29. Fowles is like that.

Try anything by him. Especially The Maggot as well as Daniel Martin (THE best novel about lust/obsession I have ever read).

[charlyvi]

30. OOOOO!

Lust and obsession--how can you beat that!

[derbstyron]

32. So we agree a lot on books and lust and obsession...so.....

what are you doing later???? :)
want to come over and look at my bookshelf? :)

please be single..
and straight...
and live in FL..
:) :) :)

[charlyvi]

33. Well, I'm doing nothing later.

Have quite a few bookshelves myself, I'm single and straight (at least I think so) but I don't live in Florida. Close, though, Alabama (originally from Chicago). However, there is a greater obstacle. As you see from my post above, I don't "get" The Great Gatsby. I'm ashamed, but I just don't get it. I like it; especially those eyes looking out over the junkyard (wasteland), but I don't get the rest. Hanging my head.

[derbstyron]

34. sigh...

"It's always something." Gilda Radner

2outof3 ain't bad as some rotund singer once sang. I could get over the Gatsby thing. And considering the sad shape of my life right now and how long its been since I've had a date and I'd almost be willing to make the trip.

NOW tell me that you look anything reasonably like Kelly Monoaco who plays Sam on General Hospital (I know, I know, what can I say I've been hooked since I was a kid) and I am SO ON MY WAY. Screw Gatsby.
:)

[charlyvi]

36. Screw Gatsby?

Wow. That's what Daisy said. LOL

[indigobusiness]

69. 'A Maggot' is one of the most unique books I've read.

Some sort of bejewelled alien craft...and in what period English is that written, anyway? Beautiful in its rhythm, once you get the hang of it. I'm still shaking my head over that one. Loved it, but???
'The Magus' is my favorite of his.

[derbstyron]

70. He is amazing

As a writer I am merely left in awe.

[FuzzySlippers]

60. I loved it from the git-go.

I was going to put it down as my favorite when I clicked on this thread.

[Patiod]

96. I went through a Fowles binge when I was younger

This thread is encouraging me to re-read some of them.

[ruthg]

145. Fowles

The Magus knocked my socks off when I was about 16.. Think I should buy it for my 17 year old kid? Perhaps I will re-read it first...

[insanity]

35. just a few:

Les Miserables
East of Eden
Fight Club
Catcher in the Rye
Cats Craddle
The Great Gatsby
Tao Te Ching

[yellowdogintexas]

39. so many books, so little time (sigh)

some of my favorites..things I have read more than once...

To Kill a Mockingbird
Gone With the Wind
The Godfather
The Joyous SEason
Tom Sawyer
Shogun (or anything by James Clavell)
Exodus
Tolkien
All the King's Men (well worthy of a re read at this particular time)

(sitting in my book room looking at the shelves ....

[deadparrot]

41. I've always had a soft spot for Jane Eyre...eom

[charlyvi]

54. Me too

When I was younger, but now she seems a little sanctimonious. I absolutely love Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, though. The atmosphere of that book is amazing.

[deadparrot]

55. Yes, for me, it's not so much Jane

as Mr. Rochester...I absolutely love that character.

[charlyvi]

56. He was a hottie all right!

So was Heathcliff. Those Bronte girls could sure write up a sexy man!!

[Mist]

91. It seems, for women

You're either a Wuthering Heights gal or a Jane Eyre gal. (I'm WH)

[ruthg]

144. me too

[ok_cpu]

42. Hard to keep the list reasonable

but here goes...

The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises
The Catcher in the Rye
The Optimist's Daughter
Ishmael
The Things They Carried (although I guess you could argue it might be a collection of short stories)

[derbstyron]

47. Optimist's Daughter.

Is that the one by Carson McCullers?
If so, her Heart is A Lonely Hunter is masterful.

[ok_cpu]

61. It's Eudora Welty

I don't think I've read any McCullers. I'll have to remember that one.

[derbstyron]

62. Excellent

I just picked up a collection of Welty's short stories a few months back. Great.
Get Heart is A Lonely Hunter by McCullers. It's wonderful.

[matt819]

43. You folks have some strange tastes

There's far too much "literature" in this list. I mean, really. I like The Great Gatsby (even have a first edition) and the classics we all had to read in high school. But are these really on your all-time favorite list? I read or listen to 2-3 books a week, and they sure aren't the classics.

And asking for your favorite all time novel is like asking for your favorite number or color or food or letter. You kind of need the full range of offerings for your life to be complete.

Now for my choices:
Corelli's Mandolin
Middlesex
Motherless Brooklyn
Empire Falls
Nobody's Fool

[charlyvi]

44. LOL matt819!

But you know what they say.....they're called classics for a reason.

[jobycom]

51. I never read Gatsby in high school

In Mississippi, I don't know if half my teachers could read it. I remember reading "Turn of the Screw" in 12th grade, because we got to choose our own books and I was tired of the fluff the teachers assigned. The other book reports were on Piers Anthony and Ben Bova and other lightweight genre fiction stuff.

We were scheduled to read The Grapes of Wrath once, but the principle decided it had sex in it, so we couldn't. I think Gatsby was bumped for the same reason. We wound up with Watership Down, Lord of the Flies, and some other good but not very challenging stuff. We never even got to read Faulkner, Welty or Williams, and they were from the damned state.

So when I finally escaped from the third-world to the much more enlightened land of Texas, I read what I wanted to. I read Gatsby when I was in my thirties (I still am, so that wasn't long ago). It may be a classic to you, but to me it was pretty damned fresh.

I couldn't watch "Oh God" or "Life of Brian" in Mississippi, either. Sad, scary place. They teach kids there the same way the raise veal.

[jerryster]

138. Let me get this straight

You were not allowed to read Faulkner in MISSISSIPPI?! And compared to where you were TEXAS was enlightened? I shudder to think all my latent biases about certain parts of the South (like Mississippi) are actually true.

As an aside, I am almost through the second of the three Civil War narratives by Shelby Foote. He's from Mississippi as well. Is he even acknowledged?

[MISSDem]

161. Please, Mississippi is not that bad. If it is how did we

ever produce a Faulkner, Welty, Williams, Ford, et al? And Texas is a more enlightened place?

[jobycom]

176. Mississippi didn't produce Faulkner

Welty, Williams, Ford, Grisham, Buffet, Presley, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, etc. Those were people who overcame Mississippi. Mississippi was responsible for making them great in the same way Bill was responsible for making the Bride a fierce warrior.

I love the state. But it is a lonely place for people who like to read.

[StellaBlue]

228. yep

This is how I feel about Texas. Love-hate relationship. But I wouldn't be who I am without Texas.

I am going to be the first really great Texan author.

We only have Katharine Anne Porter. hrm....

And maybe Larry McMurtry, but he's genre....... ?

[tjdee]

53. Intellectual elitists, every one!

The freepers are right, these dangblasted libruls with their snobby bookish ways!!

;)

Maybe DUers with less than "classic" favorites have steered clear of the thread perhaps?

Though, I really do like "classic" classics. That's why I read them LOL, had to read 'em for school....then I heard of other "classics" and wanted to see what they were all about.

[jobycom]

67. Maybe that's backwards

Maybe we are Dems because we like language and can't stand to see it shattered and mocked by the likes of Reagan and the two Bushes?

[woo me with science]

190. lol....although

it makes it harder to separate out those who actually read versus those who picked a book from an English class they remember...

[Patiod]

97. God, I love Richard Russo

and really liked Middlesex and Motherless Brooklyn.

But Gatsby is truly and absolutely my all-time favorite. It's almost poetry.

[indigobusiness]

110. You want tripe with that?

Thanks for the sermon.

[matt819]

117. What is your problem? (nt)

[indigobusiness]

118. Not quite sure..

I say the darndest things, sometimes.

[AbbyR]

248. What you said!

I went to my "books I've liked over the years" list at Listology, and y'know, I'm going to repeat what I said there: Once I got out of graduate school, I swore I would never again read a book I didn't want to read. Now, I read what I like, and it's mostly mysteries, suspense, etc., with a lot of kids' books and young adult books thrown into the mix. (Can you tell I used to be a teacher?)

Here are a few I've liked: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Dark Is Rising series, Susan Cooper; The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling; Alvin Maker series, Orson Scott Card;
Watchers and Lightening, both by Dean Koontz
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd; The Last Juror and A Time to Kill, John Grisham; Exodus and Mila 18, Leon Uris; The Outlander series, Diana Gabaldon; Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flag; A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle; The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown; Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley; Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis; The Door in the Wall, Marguerite De Angeli; The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare; Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier; Charlotte's Web,E. B. White; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing,Judy Blume; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Judith Viorst; The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.

I'm sure there are more - I have no real absolute favorite. Not possible.

[Beetwasher]

48. Confederacy of Dunces, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Any Vonnegut

Clockwork Orange, LOTR Trilogy, Catch 22, Island, Siddhartha...that's enough for now I guess...

[Hog lover]

72. Love Confederacy of Dunces - best is Invisible Man

n/t

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

49. A short list.....

off the top of my head. If I think about it, this post will be 2000 lines long. :7


The His Dark Materials Trilogy (by Philip Pullman)

The Poisonwood Bible (by Barbara Kingsolver)

I Know This Much Is True (by Wally Lamb)

The Stand (by Stephen King)

A Prayer for Owen Meany
A Widow for One Year (both by John Irving)

All the King's Men (can't remember author's name at the moment)

[charlyvi]

50. All the Presidents Men

was Robert Penn Warren. Great Book

[charlyvi]

64. Sorry. I was thinking of All The King's Men...

That's the Robert Penn Warren book. All the Presidents Men was Woodward/Berstien, I think. Watergate.

[USA_1]

150. favorite: The Broken Commandment

The Broken Commandment by Toson Shimazaki

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Ulysses by James Joyce

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

Brothers Karimazov by Dostoyevsky

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

Maggie, A Girl of the Streets by Stephem Crane

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

The Last Puritan by Jorge Santayana

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Knickerbocker's History of New York by Washington Irving




Along the way, I've enjoyed a few more.:)

[Donkeyboy75]

157. I liked the World According to Garp,

but just couldn't get through Owen Meany. It is the only book I never finished.

[greatauntoftriplets]

57. Lady Chatterley's Lover.....

Excellent.

[derbstyron]

58. Didn't read the book but....

I saw the movie!!! :) :) :)

[catbert836]

59. A Prayer for Owen Meany, as well as

"Heart of Darkness" by Conrad, "1984" by Orwell, and the series "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman.

[AgadorSparticus]

63. there's SO many but off the top of my head, here goes:

and not in any order:

1. LOTR trilogy
2. The Chronicles of Narnia
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God
4. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
5. Contact by Sagan
6. Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
7. Memoirs of a Geisha
8. The Da Vinci Code
9. The Stranger
10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

[wildeyed]

74. I have read most of those, but I just put in a library transfer request

for 'Their Eyes Were Watching God '. That one I missed. Thanks!

[Polly_Sorbate_60]

65. I second many of these choices

including "The Stand," "I Know this Much is True," "She's Come Undone," "Confederacy of Dunces," "Memoirs of a Geisha," etc.

Classics I love: "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" (Carson McCullers), "Catcher in the Rye"

A recent fave: "The Namesake," by Jhumpa Lahiri

I also love Garrison Keillor, Steve Martin, and short stories by Sherman Alexie and Lorrie Moore. (And darker "chicklit/ladlit" by authors like Jennifer Belle and Mark Barrowcliffe ...please don't knock it--I write this stuff LOL)

[indigobusiness]

68. Blood Meridian - Dogs of God - Rock Island Line - Dr. Sleep

Cormac McCarthy, Pinckney Benedict, David Rhodes, Madison Smartt Bell

---respectively.

[OrwellwasRight]

71. Has someone mentioned My Pet Goat? nt

[RebelOne]

73. All of Stephen King's, Dean Koontz' and

Ray Bradbury's books.

[Terran]

76. Excluding science fiction...

...for the moment...

Pride and Prejudice
Sister Carrie
Madame Bovary
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The 42nd Parallel (well, really the whole USA Trilogy, but The 42nd Parallel is my favorite of the three)
Babbit
The House of Mirth
The Age of Innocence

I could probably go on. Now I wanna reread all of the above, wah!

Edit: oh god, I left off Mary Renault's The Persian Boy.

[lakemonster11]

101. I love Mary Renault!

The Persian Boy is excellent, but my favorite is The Last of the Wine.

My other favorites (off the top of my head):
Catch-22
Moby Dick
Harry Potter series
The Great Train Robbery
The Phantom of the Opera
To a God Unknown
The Martian Chronicles
Invisible Man
A Clockwork Orange

[LSU_Subversive]

214. i'm starting the persion boy tonight.

[Crunchy Frog]

77. Lord of the Rings,

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Tom Jones, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, alot of stuff by Mark Twain, alot of stuff by Kurt Vonnegut.

I'm really more into non-fiction, but reality sucks so much right now that I may get alot of fiction reading done in the next four years.

[RevolutionaryActs]

78. Lord of the Rings..

Most defiantly! I love that book so much. Tolkien is a genius.

Some of other favorites of mine.

Catch-22
The Mists of Avalon
Harry Potter (what can I say? I love them!)
The Princess Bride
The Count of Monte Cristo
A Tale of Two Cities
Ella Enchanted (A great book for young girls)


P.S. I'm in the middle of The Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy, must say its really funny! hehe

[wildeyed]

82. Reality does suck right now. I am boycotting.

Can you blame me? I loved the Hitchhiker series, too. Those would be great to re-read right now. So escapist.

[Johnny Noshoes]

165. The Hitchhiker series

was great I laughed out loud reading one of them on a plane years ago and got these looks and shot the person a look as if to say - Hey its funny okay.

I read all of Thomas Wolfe's stuff when I was 18 - back in the stone ages :-) and loved his work.

"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." — John F. Kennedy

[tishaLA]

79. The Golden Bowl, The Man Without Qualities,

Clarissa, Remembrance of Things Past, Moby-Dick.

But I also love some quirky, perverse, little-known books too.

[wildeyed]

83. quirky, perverse, little-known books?

Which ones? Maybe I will add them to my to-read list.

[Malebolgia]

80. Interview with the Vampire

The Vampire Lestat
Queen of the Damned
Dracula (Bram Stoker)
1984

These are but a few of my many favorites.

[Parrcrow]

81. Fifth Business, What's Bred in the Bone

by Robertson Davies.


Sirens of Titan, Bluebeard, Cat's Cradle, Dead-Eye Dick by
Kurt Vonnegut

Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler

Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany by
John Irving.

The Tin Drum by
Gunter Grass.

to name a few.

[CAcyclist]

84. Too Many Men - a recent book

Randy Shiltz's books - I know they are non-fiction, but they read like fiction.

Wally Lamb's books

romance historical novels by Madeline Brent. She did one about a woman who was a slave in Afghanistan during the time of the British Empire - a little plebian, but not the trash that most people associate with romance novels

[Emboldened Chimp]

86. Don Quixote

[USA_1]

152. Don Q

I especially liked the episode with Clavileño the wooden horse. Hilarious!

[Richardo]

87. Catch-22; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time;

Roughing It
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
Huckeberry Finn
2001: A Space Odyssey
Shutter Island
Mystic River

[Her Blondness]

139. Mine too!

I was going to post "Catch-22" as my all time fave novel.

And "Through the Looking Glass" is in a category all by itself. It is my favorite all time work, period.

I just finished reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" -- Loved it!

If I were going to add anything here, it would be "Ubik" and "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldricht" both by Philip K. Dick.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

174. Curious Incident

has become one of my favorites. I cried at the start because I have a dog just like Wellington and I cried at the end when the boy got his puppy (and his mom back).

[kaitykaity]

88. "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein.

I don't know why, but it has stuck with me for
over 20 years.

[indigobusiness]

111. Great title.

I went on a Heinlein binge, back in the day. Never have quite gotten over Valentine Michael Smith, and Jubal Harshaw is my ultimate patriarchal hero model.

[LisaM]

90. Gatsby, Middlemarch, Portrait of a Lady, Persuasion...

Lucky Jim.

[2bfree]

106. My all time favorite is Persuasion.

I will also add:

East of Eden
Catcher in the Rye
The Poison Wood Bible
Lonesome Dove

[magdalena]

92. Cat's Cradle

theres far too many others but something compels me to keep rereading that one in particular

[shugah]

94. many!

mists of avalon
the sunne in splendour
the witching hour
mayor of casterbridge
any charles dickens
the dead zone
the lathe of heaven

and many already mentioned - the vampire lestat, jane eyre and wuthering heights, LOTR, the gabaldan outlander series ... like most posting here, i just love books!

[Patiod]

98. Not really a novel, but "Spoon River Anthology"

Gatsby
Cold Mountain
Anything by Richard Russo
Most of Lee Smith, especially "Fair & Tender Ladies"
Jitterbug Perfume
Michael Dibdin's "Aurelio Zen" mysteries - gorgeously written

[Justitia]

102. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Hardy

loved one of the last lines - "Fate had finished her sport with Tess"

And the movie w/Kinsky I thought was pretty good!

[Malikshah]

103. Another Thomas Hardy--- Return of the Native

Had to read it in high school-- but came back to it and have since read most of his others. This one, though, always gets me. The descriptive abilities of Hardy were perfectly balanced and evocative.

He made the heath come to life off the page and you could smell the air as it passed over the grass.

Great stuff. Plus-- where the hell will you find a femme fatale named Eustacia Vye...

:)

[WMliberal]

104. the only thing I have in common with *...

Lonesome Dove being our favorite book.
I'm also a big fan of the Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brien.
The first two parts of Willie Morris' North Toward Home.
Favorite shorter novel is Things, by Georges Perec.

I can't think of much more. Maybe I'll edit when it's not 4 in the morning.

[Zorra]

107. The Grapes of Wrath and most all Steinbeck,

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver,
A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving,
The Prince Of Tides by Pat Conroy,
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey,
The Long Ships by Franz Gunnar Bengtsson,
The Stand by S. King
The Lord Of The Rings, Tolkien
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Comanche Moon and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Chesapeake by James Michener
Northwest Passage

There sure are a lot of great writers and novels out there.:)

[leyton]

192. Steinbeck: The Winter of Our Discontent.

Though I have not read much of him, so I'm sure I would love his other works. In any case, I thought the Winter of Our Discontent was one the most well-crafted books I've ever read (not that that's a huge number) and also one that was very resonant.

[2sheds]

108. Any Chaim Potok fans?

So sad that he passed away recently. "My Name is Asher Lev" is my all-time favorite novel (but all his books are fantastic).

"Master and Margarita" (M. Bulgakov) is a great one. (There are some not-so-great translations of it out there, though.)

So hard to choose... so many books...

Edit: Oo, crud, I forgot -- "Imajica" (Clive Barker)!

[indigobusiness]

109. I ordered "...Asher Lev" yesterday. On mitchum's rec

The review was fascinating.

I also ordered Charles Portis' "The Dog of the South" and 'Masters of Atlantis'. Supposedly the funniest dead-pan humor out there. Next to John Kennedy Toole's 'A Confederacy of Dunces', of course. Who could top that?

[hickman1937]

151. In the Beginning

and The Chosen. I liked The Promise, but read Asher Lev at a real bad time in my life. I wanted to slug him. I think I should re-read it.

[2sheds]

162. Oh, yes, do ...

Reread "Asher Lev"

I'm brain-fried right now so I'm having a hard time coming up with a nice argument, but -- oh, it's just such an awesome book. I think more than any other fictional character, Asher Lev is a real person to me.

[RebelOne]

112. The Martian Chronicles

by Ray Bradbury.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

113. DAMN! That was my answer!

But I haven't picked up my worn, tattered, autographed copy in a while...every since I found out Bradbury thought Clinton was a "shithead" and couldn't stop fawning over Bush** in the same interview.
Ol' Ray actualy thinks Bush** is going to help schools and libraries.

[fiorello]

114. Connie Willis' dog, Mark Salzman's monkey king, Milagro, and Bulgakov

All these are good -n- funny.

Connie Willis' "To say nothing of the dog" is a comic masterpiece... one of the funniest ever written. Involves a historian who time-travels to the Victorian era in order to hide from his boss. (The Doomsday book - very different, more serious, also very good).

Mark Salzman's "The Laughing Sutra" - involves a young Chinese man during the cultural revolution who travels to America, accompanied by a character from Chinese legend (the "monkey king"). Along the way they have to deal with fundamentalist Christians, rowdy sailors and politically correct artists. Love it.

Every lefty should know about John Nichols "The Milagro Beanfield War" - it's loosely set among hispanics in New Mexico, and features (among other things) the "Smokey the Bear riot" - Smokey as representative of colonialist Uncle Sam.

Bulgakov's "Master" has been mentioned before. It's serious literature, but it's also funny. Written in Stalin's time - since the Soviets are now atheists, the devil is free to visit Moscow along with his entourage; they turn bureaucrats into pigs, rescue censored literature, and generally restore hope to life.

[ms liberty]

231. I loved "To Say Nothing of the Dog"! n/t

[YankeyMCC]

115. A prayer

I think of myself as a voracious reader but appearently I'm very much out of the loop...or at least some loop.

I had never heard of "A Prayer For Owen Meany" but so many people in this thread and others have mentioned it now as a favorite of theirs. I guess I should take that as a clue and give it a try. :) There's just so many books to get through...if only I could get paid for reading!

My list:
Illiad
LoTR
Enemy Papers
Fahrenheit 451
Robot and Foundation Novels by Asimov

Just the ones I can think of sitting at the job that eats into my reading time. And they're in no particular order.

[robbedvoter]

148. Foundation fan here too! "The Gods Themselves" is the best Asimov

story - as well as the best sci-fi ever written

[lies and propaganda]

116. can i only pick a hundred?

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Slapstick - Kurt Vonnegut
Invisible Monsters, Choke, Survivor, Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuck

mmmm...books...

[Phentex]

156. This is how I feel! I can't name just a few

favorites.

[cavanaghjam]

120. No doubt (at least of today)

Watership Down
Sirens of Titan
Galatea 2.2
The Man in the High Castle
The Name of the Rose
The Russia House
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
1984 or Animal Farm (take yr pick)
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Huxley
Crime and Punishment
and the perfect detective novel -
The False Inspector Dew by Peter Lovesey

Now if you want to include plays better read than watched, you go
Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard II etc. then continue down the above list

[BamaGirl]

122. Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Handmaid's Tale

Alas, Babylon, The Empire of the East (Saberhagen)...many many more, but these are the ones I seem to read over and over again.

[2nd_class_citizen]

124. anything written by Kazuo Ishiguro

I can't decide which of his novels I like best though. He's coming out with a new one in April 2005 - I'm so excited!:bounce:

yeah, I'm weird...

Depending on the day, I've loved a few Jeanette Winterson novels as well, but sometimes I just don't get it...

[Merrick]

125. A handful

Dead Souls - Gogol
Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Notes from the Underground - Dostoevsky
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
Confederacy of Dunces - O'Toole
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Thompson
Clockwork Orange - Burgess
1984 - Orwell
Master and Margarita - Bulgakov
Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
The Magus - Fowles

[kslib]

126. The Fountainhead

Yes, yes I know. Everyone hates Ayn Rand....



:7

[pnwmom]

250. Well . . . how can a progressive like Ayn Rand? Just wondering . . .

[milkyway]

127. Paul Auster's "New York Trilogy"; Doctorow's "Ragtime"

[Patiod]

128. Also, A River Runs Through It

Not a fly fisherman, never been to Montana, but loved it.

[marigold20]

130. One of the best books I've read.

.

[Uncle Roy]

220. YES!

Gorgeous writing, profoundly moving...

"...but you can love completely without complete understanding."

Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.

Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

129. everything by vonnegut & the count of monte cristo

to kill a mocking bird

[cavanaghjam]

133. Compare The Count of Monte Cristo

to other books of its era and it becomes even more impressive.

[marigold20]

131. The Shipping News

The Stone Diaries
Lonesome Dove
Jane Eyre
The Martian Chronicles

There are so many...

[flordehinojos]

132. Four books I treasure,

Ann Radcliffe's THE ITALIAN; E. Annie Proulx's THE SHIPPING NEWS; Michael Dorris' A YELLOW RAFT IN BLUE WATERS and CLOUD CHAMBER.

[Kazak]

135. The Sirens Of Titan, Vonnegut

Such a cleverly written little book, and I just LOVE some of the subtle sarcasm.

:loveya:

[ruthg]

146. my favorite of his as well n/t

[jerryster]

136. My 2 solid favorites

Catcher In The Rye and Catch-22

[skygazer]

140. Everything by Neil Gaiman

Particularly "American Gods" and "Good Omens"

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Time and Again by Jack Finney

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

The Odyssey

[peacefreak]

141. What a great list of books.

Now for mine...
The Stand--Stephen King
Master & Margarita--Bugalov
Tin Drum--Grass
Beauty--Sheri Tepper
Winterdance--Gary Paulsen
Corelli's Mandolin--D'Bernieres
One Hundred Years of Solitude--Marquez

and some nobody's ever heard of unfortunately...
Time in it's Flight--Susan Fromberg Schaeffer(out of print)
With--Donald Harington
Some Other Place, The Right Place--Harington
Butterfly Weed--Harington
Marie Blythe--Howard Frank Mosher

and honorable mention--Christopher Moore, because he's just so damn much fun!

[ruthg]

142. Catch 22, To Kill A Mockingbird....

and lots more..but those are the ones I usually answer this question with.. ( with which I usually answer this question......oh, you know what I mean).

I am also gonna throw in a plug for Scott Spencer's Endless Love which I have read many times.

[robbedvoter]

147. The Moor's Last Sigh, 100 years of Solitude, I Claudius, The Cursed

Kings by Maurice Druon

[Donkeyboy75]

155. My list:

Boring, and not much obscure here:

1984-George Orwell
Brave New World-Aldous Huxley
Watership Down-Richard Adams
Ask the Dust-John Fante
Don Quixote-Miguel de Cervantes
Catch-22-Joseph Heller
The Hobbitt-James Tolkein
Elmer Gantry-Sinclair Lewis
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time-Mark Haddon
Gulliver's Travels-Jonathan Swift
A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens

That's what pops in my head right now...

*Edited for spelling

[Mz Pip]

158. Forsyte Saga

It's actually 6 books. I've read the series 3 times. Galsworthy received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1934 for his work.

Others that come to mind:

Childhood's End
War & Peace, Anna Karinina
Cold Mountain

Mz Pip
:dem:

[robbedvoter]

166. Forsyte Saga comes to mind too - I think I read it more than 3 times

and enacted it in my head for years.

[MISSDem]

159. Richard Ford's Independence Day

Howard's End
All of Lawrence Sander's "deadly sins" books
All of Stephen King's books
(I like some of the more modern authors).

[Spider Jerusalem]

167. I have quite a few.

Thomas Pynchon - "Gravity's Rainbow"
William Faulkner - "Light In August"
Fyodor Dostoevsky - "Notes From Underground"
Joseph Heller - "Catch-22"
Philip K Dick - "A Scanner Darkly"
Vladimir Nabokov - "Lolita"
Salman Rushdie - "The Satanic Verses"
Umberto Eco - "The Name of the Rose"
David Foster Wallace - "Infinite Jest"
William S Burroughs - "Cities of the Red Night", "The Place of Dead Roads", "The Western Lands" (a trilogy, so you can't really break them up)
Ishmael Reed - "Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down"


And I'm sure I've omitted a few.

[HuskiesHowls]

168. A rather diverse collection, here

The Razors' Edge by W Somerset Maugham
The Aubrey-Maturin books by Patick O'Brian
Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

[Doctor Panacea]

169. A couple of suggestions

Since these were mentioned by other people earlier, let me suggest them for anyone who has not read them:

A Confederacy of Dunces. Really funny, lots of depth. But not for the politically correct. I have read it about six times over the last twenty years.

Masters of Atlantis. Very funny. I have read it three or four times over the last fifteen years. Someone mentioned Dog of the South, by the same author. It is also quite good. I have read it several times. It was one of Portis's first (the first?) novels. All of Portis's books are good, in my opinion.

[truizm]

170. Johnny Got His Gun, Crime and Punishment, 1984, The Great Gatsby...

Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, The Brothers Karamazov, A Farewell To Arms, To Kill A Mocking Bird, and Cather in the Rye

[imenja]

171. Growth of the Soil and The House of Spirits . . .

by Knut Hamson and Isabel Allende respectively.
As a young girl, _My Antonio_ by Willa Cather was one of my favorites, as well as _The Sun Also Rises_. I also loved _The Heart is a Lonely Hunter_, by Carson McCullers and all of Flannery O'Conners stories.

[RhodaGrits]

172. I had to cut my list so I eliminated the classics I might have been

assigned to read for a class - not that they aren't deserving but all that I would list have already been nominated by others above.

In No Particular Order, these are books that have stuck with me over the years and are still hanging out on handy bookshelves. Like most of the people on this thread, I have piles and piles and piles of books all over my house. I blame my father - in 1970 he gave me a "charge account" at the local village bookstore and I was hooked. I just love books.

Sheri S. Tepper - The Gate to Women's Country

Stephen King - The Stand

Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale

Peter S. Beagle - The Innkeeper's Song (and The Last Unicorn which led me to the lesser known Innkeeper's Song)

Jack Finney - Time & Again

Anita Shreve - The Last Time They Met

Star Hawk - The Fifth Sacred Thing

John D. MacDonald - any Travis McGee novel (he was one of Vonnegut's favorites too)

Guy Gavriel Kay - just about anything

Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover Series and The Mists of Avalon (okay, so I like Travis McGee AND the Renunciates - shoot me).

Thanks everyone for more good books for reading and re-reading :-)

[toddaa]

173. The Red and the Black!!!

Can't believe no one has mentioned this gem of a novel. Who can forget a character like Julien Sorel. Okay, so I'm a bit of a Napoleonophile.

Others I like -
Kafka The Trial
Camus The Plague
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughter House 5, Cats Cradle
PK Dick most anything
Joyce Ulysses, Finnegans Wake (read it aloud, it's loads of fun)
Chuang Tzu (not a novel, but one of the greatest contributions to world literature ever)

[jobycom]

177. You know, for a literate group of people

We all seem to have trouble understanding the exclusive nature of the meaning of the word "favorite," don't we? :-)

[jeanarrett]

178. WHEN is Wally Lamb gonna write another book?

Anyone know or heard?

[peacefreak]

179. "Couldn't Keep It to Myself"

about his experiences running a writing class for women in prison. Might even be out in paper by now.

[Kipepeo]

180. I love Margaret Atwood

"The Handmaid's Tale" is still my favorite.

I would also add "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver and "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison to the list.

[JitterbugPerfume]

181. It is like asking

which one is your favorite child?

answer is "the one I am with right now"

tomorrow? who knows?

the only one of my favorites that has not been mentioned is

Flowers for Algernon

and oh yeah----- Skinny Legs And All--Tom Robbins

[ruthg]

184. Have you read Oryx and Crake?

And what did you think of it?

[Kipepeo]

185. Not Yet! :)

Although I have it sitting here waiting...almost like I'm saving it. The last I read of hers was "The Blind Assassin," which I think is the 2nd to last?

I have recently become hooked in Jodi Picoult books, which a friend turned me on to (and which are very different from Atwood...almost predictable but still page-turning)....so Atwood will have to wait. But she will never be replaced. :)

Have you read "The Blind Assassin?" In general, I think her style has gotten much better...much more fluid. But I almost love her early stuff *more* specifically *for* it's choppy, raw feeling. Besides "Handmaid's Tale," another of my favorites of hers is "Surfacing."

[Caoimhe]

217. I have read a few Picoult

and yes some of it seems rather simplistic or predictable but she really does seem to do her research. I picked up "Vanishing Acts" yesterday and though it is super quick reading (I'm almost done) it has really kept my attention. I loved her book "The Plain Truth" about the Amish, and "My Sister's Keeper" which really blew my mind in terms of the ethical issues involved with having a child for the purpose of saving an existing child's life.

I should try to read Atwood, I have tried twice and the books I had just put me to sleep. What are you favorites of hers?

[raccoon]

194. Great book

It really made me think. About genetic engineering and what it might lead to. And "Snowman" (Jimmy) seemed so sad. Parts of it I wanted to cut & paste to some discussion group (like this one) to hear others' thoughts about. Such as, when Crake was saying that if the industrialized world as we know it fell apart, it would not be possible to re-create it because all the mineral deposits that were easy to access were gone.

[OnionPatch]

182. Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo is one of my favorites

I've read that book about 5 times.

One of the very best books I've ever read was "Follow the River" by James Alexander Thom. I stayed up all night reading that book, literally could not put it down!

[Matilda]

186. J.D. Salinger also wrote

FRANNY & ZOOEY, which I treasure and
RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAM CARPENTERS coupled with SEYMOUR, AN
INTRODUCTION - Short, and immensely readable, over and over

Others I have read and re-read over the years are:
CATCH-22
THESE OLD SHADES by Georgette Heyer
FRENCHMAN'S CREEK by Daphne du Maurier (I love all her work, but
that was my introduction to her and has remained my favorite)
SWORDS AND CROWNS AND RINGS by Australian author Ruth Park - she
was a wonderful writer, but that one tore my heart like no other
LORD OF THE RINGS
PRIDE & PREJUDICE - My favorite Jane Austen, but I can read anything
of hers
TURN OF THE SCREW - My favorite Henry James, but again, I delight in
all his books

And CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, THE DARK IS RISING SEQUENCE and every
HARRY POTTER - I bought all these books to read with my children,
and loved them myself.

[fudge stripe cookays]

187. Hmmm...an interesting mix here.

* Donald Stanwood- The Memory of Eva Ryker. All time favorite for BRILLIANT PLOTTING. The interesting complexities of an evil couple out to steal diamonds that were on the Titanic, and their constantly changing identities hooked me.

* Harper Lee- To Kill a Mockingbird- Read it in 7th grade. Still love it.

* Peter Mayle- Anything Considered- He's like reding champagne. His characterizations and dialog are fun, witty and oh-so-entertaining.


* Sarah Bird- Alamo House (or Women Without Men, Men Without Brains)
* Sarah Bird- The Boyfriend School
She's the reason I decided to become a writer.


* Caleb Carr- The Alienist- I ADORE books that can weave fictional characters and true-to-life historical ones this seamlessly. Especially in a mystery or suspense setting.

* Larry McMurtry- Lonesome Dove- And I hate westerns! So extra kudos to Larry. That and he's a fellow alum of my university.

* Douglas Adams - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy- If you don't know, I can't explain it to you.

* Jennifer Crusie- Fast Women- Another master of the genre I'm trying to break into. Her dialog is hilarious.

FSC

[Red State Rebel]

188. Memoirs of a Geisha and She's Come Undone n/t

[cedahlia]

189. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

is my all-time favorite work of fiction.

Coming in close behind would be Ethan Frome, The Cider House Rules, and Anne Tyler's Ladder of Years. I love almost everything Anne Tyler's done, though.

[Goblinmonger]

191. Middlesex

I read this book last summer and still think about it all the time. It is the most powerful book I have read in a very long time.

I will agree that with threads above that Fitzgerald is a prose master.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

193. "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", "Catch-22",

"The Grapes of Wrath"
"In Dubious Battle"
"Huckleberry Finn"
"Tortilla Flat"
"Flashman"

And, many more.

But, nobody, nobody, comes up to Tolstoy's sheer genius.

[raccoon]

195. Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank,
To Kill a Mockingbird,
Huckleberry Finn,
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

[tammywammy]

196. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Catch-22, The Thin Red Line

We Were the Mulvaney's, and Where's No Gods Came.

This is todays favorite all times, tomorrow it could change.

[NYdemocrat089]

197. I loved The Grapes of Wrath.

I've read it twice. I also liked Breakfast of Champions and Slaughter-House 5.

[Dogmudgeon]

198. Another Great Gatsby fan

The first time I read it, I was 16, and it was part of an English Lit class I took.

The second time I read it, I was 42, and I walked around in a trance for about a week.

Sometimes, you just have to wait a few years until you catch up with the novelist.

--p!

[CBHagman]

199. To read and re-read...

...I like Elizabeth Jane Howard's "Getting It Right," Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" (a more psychologically and culturally interesting book than you might think), and Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," "Persuasion" and "Sense and Sensibility."

On edit: In German, I like Theodor Fontane's "Irrungen Wirrungen" and Heinrich von Kleist's novella "Die Marquise von O...." (Not what you think, you naughty people!).

[Sympleesmshn]

200. Count of Monte Christo

Great book, hard long read... but well worth it, I think it is the best book ever written, leaves the movie in the dust...

[ExclamationPoint]

203. Would you recommend that for anyone under 18? 16?

[primavera]

264. The unabridged version is especially good

Having read the under 400 page Bantam version as a kid, I was astonished to discover that the original was closer to 1,400 pages. What a great joy it was to read the book as it was originally intended!

[NationalEnquirer]

201. The House of Meat and Farts.

I forgot who wrote it.

[Gimley13]

204. Enders Game, and Rotten: Johnny Rottens biography

[BreweryYardRat]

205. I don't have individual novels-I have whole SERIES, baby!

Harry Turtledove's Fox novels.

Turtledove's Menedemos and Sostratos books (written as H.N. Turteltaub).

Turtledove's alternate history America (How Few Remain, The Great War trilogy, American Empire trilogy, Settling Accounts trilogy )

John Maddox Roberts' SenatePopulousQueRomanus (SPQR) series.

David Weber and John Ringo's Prince Roger books.

Alan Dean Foster's Journey of the Catechist series.

David Weber and Steve White's The Stars at War novels.

Simon R. Green's Hawk and Fisher books.

Edit: Knew I was forgetting something...

David Drake's Lord of the Isles series.

[SerpentX]

206. Super-Cannes by J. G. Ballard

Focault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Phillip K. Dick
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson

On Edit:

Almost forgot Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by the late, great Hunter S. Thompson.

[sharonking21]

207. Here are some of my favorites

Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

George R. Stewart, Earth Abides

E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel

Monica Ali, Brick Lane

Virginia Wolff, Orlando, To The Lighthouse

Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy

Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner

Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

MacKinley Kantor, Spirit Lake

Elithe Hamilton Kirkland, Love is a Wild Assault

David L. Lindsey, In the Shadow of the Moon

Anita Diament, The Red Tent

Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks

R.F. Delderfield, God is an Englishman, The Avenue, The Avenue Goes to War

Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance, Family Matters

Erich Maria Remarque, All Ouiet on the Western Front

Nancy E. Turner, These is my Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine

Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

Steven Saylor, A Murder on the Appian Way, Arms of Nemesis, Catalina's Riddle, Last Seen in Massilia, Roman Blood, The House of the Vestals, The Venus Throw

Emile Zola, Germinal, L'Assimoir

Jane Smiley, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

Alexander Solzhenitsin, The Cancer Ward

William Brammer, The Gay Place

Daniel Defoe, Journal of a Plague Year

Paul Scott, A Division of the Spoils, The Day of the Scorpion, The Jewel in the Crown, The Towers of Silence

Ann Benton, Burning Road, The Plague Years

[hippiegranny]

210. good list!

I absolutely loved "Brick Lane" by Monica Ali. I forgot to include that on my list.

[hippiegranny]

208. oh, god... so many

a short list:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Chabon
The Poisonwood Bible - Kingsolver
100 Years of Solitude - Marquez
The Stand - King
The Handmaid's Tale - Atwood
Tipping the Velvet - Waters
The Last Time They Met - Shreve
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint - Udall
Memoirs of a Geisha - Golden
The Corrections - Franzen
Empire Falls - Russo
Middlesex - Eugenides
To Kill A Mockingbird - Lee
I Know This Much Is True - Lamb
The Wonder Boys - Chabon
Prodigal Summer - Kingsolver

so many more... these are just what came to mind here at work!

[gate of the sun]

209. Siddartha by Herman Hesse

Razors Edge, those are my 2 all time favorites though I love many other books

[obietiger]

211. A Canticle for Leibowitz

by Walter Miller. More than a science fiction story, it combines futuristic fiction with religious ideals and philosophy. I have read it at least four times over the past 40 years.

[Zorro]

212. An excellent dark comedy

I agree that it's an excellent read; Miller really crossed genres when he wrote that work.

His short story "The Hoofer" is a great piece of work, also.

I've always been intrigued about Miller; it seems to me that his attempts to come to terms with his Catholicism was partly what drove his writing style. It's unfortunate that he killed himself in middle age.

[Jean Louise Finch]

213. To Kill a Mockingbird

though you might have guessed that from my screen name.

Also,
"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" - Michael Chabon
"Big Sur" - Kerouac
"Great Expectations" - Dickens
"I Am the Cheese" - Cormier
"In the Lake of the Woods" - Tim O'Brien
"Another Roadside Attraction" - Tom Robbins
"Cavedweller" - Dorothy Allison

and more recently, "Unless" - Carol Shields

[LSU_Subversive]

215. 100 years of solitude is definitely up there for me

but i'd have to say that my absolute favorites are:

the memoirs of cleopatra, by margaret george
an american tragedy, by theodore dreiser
the damnation of theron ware, by harold frederic

[catbert836]

218. The first two are definitely favorites

Other than those, I'd say Lincoln, The Fifth Sacred Thing, The Martian Chronicles, I Claudius, Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Ishmael.

[Thirtieschild]

219. Another diverse list

Pride and Prejudice
Lonesome Dove
Little Big Man
To Kill a Mockingbird

[Montauk6]

221. "Invisible Man" - Ralph Ellison

"Northanger Abbey" - Jane Austen
"Pulp" - Charles Bukowski
"In Cold Blood" - Truman Capote
"To Kill A Mockingbird" - Harper Lee
"Animal Farm" - George Orwell
"My Secret Life" - Anonymous
"The Outsider" - Richard Wright
"Elmer Gantry" - Sinclair Lewis
"Bonfire Of The Vanities" - Tom Wolfe (damned * supporter's still a damn fine writer)
"Frankenstein" - Mary Shelley

[RebelOne]

222. Anything by Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Ray Bradbury. n/t

[smbjoe]

223. favorite novels

My favorites right now are Tom Robbin's Fierce Invalids Home form Warm Climates and Stephen Buckler's 3 Wise Men

[bemildred]

224. "South Wind" -- Norman O. Douglas nt

[smbjoe]

225. 3 wise men

"3 Wise Men" by Stephen M. Buckler. It's new, he's unknown, it blew my mind!!!!

[really annoyed]

226. My three

The Great Gatsby
Jane Eyre
Of Mice and Men

[terrya]

227. The entire American history novels of Gore Vidal....

From "Burr" to "Washington, DC"

"Giovanni's Room" by James Baldwin

"David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens

[Blenderman]

229. Bester

"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester. At the moment at least. It is the quintessenstial SF novel and has NEVER been surpassed in my opinion.

[Strong Atheist]

230. Wheel of Time, Bridge of Birds,

most things written by Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Larry Niven, Mercedes Lackey, Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Series, anything by Roger Zelazny ESPECIALLY "A Night in the Lonesome October", the list goes on ...

[MountainMama]

233. Been reading and reading........

for literally as long as I can remember. So many of you have mentioned books that I've liked over the years......

When I was a girl, I loved "Little Women." As a young adult, I enjoyed mysteries and suspense and Stephen King. His favorite of mine is "The Stand."

Now? I find myself reading a lot of non-fiction and humor. I love Dave Barry and Bill Bryson.

The best fiction books I've read lately are Terry Pratchett's stuff and the Forsyte Saga.

The Great American Novel, in my estimation? "Grapes of Wrath" A sheer masterpiece of time and place. Steinbeck was such a poet.

Great thread, btw.

[wildeyed]

234. Bill Bryson is so funny.

His books are the type I sit up late reading while my husband sleeps and I keep waking him up by laughing too loud. The first half of the Appalachian Trail book was crazy funny. I also liked the one about Australia a lot.

[MountainMama]

235. Have you read...

"I'm a Stranger Here Myself"? It's about when he visited American after living in Britain for several years.

I enjoyed the Australia book myself. Made me want to go there even more, no matter how dangerous the critters might be!

[wildeyed]

236. I think so, but it doesn't stick in my mind as much.

My sis lives in Australia, so I am much interested in anything Australian.

[anitar1]

237. Very difficult to name. Irst the works of

John Steinbeck. I especially like "Travels With Charlie". :ole Earthe Abides. Just too many to list.

[LWolf]

238. Since this thread is still active,

I'll just add a couple more:

The Grass Harp Truman Capote
The Trip to Bountiful Horton Foote

[bunny planet]

239. First time I've checked out this topic forum. Delighted to be asked my

fave books. It'll be hard to stop though

1.Crime and Punishment
2.House of Mirth
3.The God of Small Things
4.Stones From a River
5.The Name of the Rose
6.The Known World
7.Seabiscuit
8. Memoirs of a Geisha (haven't seen the movie yet, hope it doesn't ruin my so-far untainted memories of the book)
9.The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
10. The Mysts of Avalon
11. A Tale of Two Cities
12. I Claudius
13. Brave New World
14. The Stand
15. Anything by John Le Carre especially the early work
16. Rebecca / Du Maurier
17. Atonement
18. All Quiet on the Western Front
19. Cousin Bette
20. Les Miserables
21. A Passage to India
22. Jane Eyre
23. 100 Years of Solitude
24. The Kitchen God's Wife
25. The Good Earth

so many books I'm sure I've forgotten to include. Reading is one of life's greatest pleasures.

[elehhhhna]

240. Coming Through Slaughter, by Michael Ondaatje

[XemaSab]

242. Let's see....

Lord of the Flies
Name of the Rose
The Secret History
The Sabbathday River (little known and HIGHLY recommended mystery novel starring a progressive Jewish woman surrounded by republicans)
Harry Potter (this series can't be underestimated)
His Dark Materials Trilogy
The Poisonwood Bible
The Scarlet Letter
Lolita


And probably about 10 more I'm forgetting...

[BlueAlert]

243. Depends on what mood I am in

For something deep Dune is my favorite book.

For something that its just fun to read, I'd have to say the Redwall series of books. I started reading them when I was 10 and I'm still reading them 12 years later.

[Lucy - Claire]

244. Some of mine...

My list:

One Pair of Hands/One Pair of Feet - Monica Dickens
The Ivy League Chronicles
Briget Jones' Diary
The Stepford Wives
The Pianist
Rebecca
Frenchman's Creek
All Harry Potter books
A Handmaid's Tale

[Ursus Rex]

247. Late to this party ...

mine are either/or/and about the ideas AND um, prosality (structure, diction, use of language/idiom, etc.):

yes, The Great Gatsby (I'm almost embarrassed to say that I wrote a series of poems based on Tom, Jay, and Daisy)

Moby Dick - *that*, I consider to be the *real* source of American literature - what hyper-prrecise attention to detail in narrative and form

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner - now *that's* how to talk about the South: never condescending, but absolutely damning throughout (family's been in Alabama since the 1770's, so I can say it ;) )

{blushing] The Pliocene Exile Books by Julian May, esp, the fourth/final, "The Adversary" - wow ...just, wow

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Perfume by Patrick Suskind (the English version/translation)


again, yes, to the Harry Potter books

geez, I thought I wasn't reading much anymore ...

[pnwmom]

251. Yes! to Absalom, Absalom. . .

and to Harry Potter, too!

[McCamy Taylor]

256. Q: "Why do you hate the south?" A: "Absalom, Absalom!" Best novel ever.

This book is so good that all other novelists should be ashamed of themselves for not being William Flaukner (and I am a writer and I have written several novels myself). The only thing that comes close is Ulysses. "Heart of Darkness" is its equal, but this is a short story in my opinion. Plenty of poetry is better (including poems by Wallace Stevens, William Blake, John Donne, WB Yeats), but poetry is intrinsically a finer artform than the novel or the short story.

[pnwmom]

252. The Bobbsey Twins.

Just kidding.

But I totally fell in love with reading when I discovered them in first grade.

[RebelOne]

254. I had the whole set of Bobbsey Twins books when I was a kid. n/t

[valerief]

253. Killer in Drag by Ed Woods

Held me spellbound

[GymDude]

255. Sound and the Fury, At Swim Two Boys, Confederacy of Dunces nm

nm

[vitariva]

261. Do you mean...

At Swim Two Birds? I read that a while ago, if that's the novel you mean. Flann O'Brien? Is that the author?

[skyblue]

257. The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kozinski, Hot Zone by Robert Preston,

Armies of the Knight by Norman Mailer

[Maud]

258. Has anyone read the Pearle Buck series?

When I was a girl my mother succumbed to the wiles of a door to door book salesman and bought a collection of the works of Pearle Buck. The Good Earth is the best known and was made into a movie, but the sequels take the reader up to the Communist revolution. They are really a great read.

[vitariva]

260. Never Let Me Go

I just finished Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I read it in three sittings--it was very hard to put down. Has anyone else here read it yet?

[sal paradise]

262. I know there's already a lot listed but...

most of my favorites weren't:

On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
The Stranger (Albert Camus)
Journey to the End of the Night (Louis-Ferdinand Celine)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche)
Nausea (Sartre)
The Possessed (Dostoevsky)
The Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs)
No Exit (Sartre)
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
The Plague (Camus)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Kesey)
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
The Bridge Over San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder)
Junky (Burroughs)
Last Exit to Brooklyn (Hubert Selby, Jr)
The Metamorphosis (Kafka)
The Trial (Kafka)
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)
Animal Farm (Orwell)
Heart of Darkness (Conrad)

[primavera]

263. Brideshead Revisited

Anna Karenina and Crime & Punishment are also near the top of the list.

[SutaUvaca]

265. Oral History, LOTR, Stones in the River

and so many in second place.

[Homer Wells]

266. A Canticle for Leibowitz

nt

[DixieBlue]

267. This is hard, but I'd have to say "The Red Tent" by

Anita Diamant. "The Talisman" by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Hmmm, the third one. The third one. Hmmm, number three. Right now, I will say "Glass Palace" by Amitav Ghosh.

Ask me again tomorrow, it'll be totally different.

[Ozarks Lover]

268. Apologies to the books I can't think of at the moment.

My favorite books are A Prayer for Owen Meany, Prince of Tides, The Color Purple, Grapes of Wrath, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Oh, and Centennial.

My list is incomplete, but these are the front-runners.

[gratefultobelib]

269. Like so many have said--how to choose? Oh well, here goes...

Exodus
Lord of the Flies
Sophie's Choice
To Kill a Mockingbird
Gone With the Wind
The Stand
A Tale of Two Cities
Alas Babylon
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Rosemary's Baby
The Proud Breed
The Life of Pi
The Alienist
A Fine Balance
The Known World

James Herriot's books--all of them

All of the Miss Piggly-Wiggly and Nancy Drew books that got me started.

[trouble97018]

270. In the mood for murder.....

Agatha Christie can't be beat. I love the way she portrays the people and society of the time. She could also figure out more ways to bump someone off than I thought possible. I loved it!

[MedleyMisty]

271. I admit, I'm a closet Regency/Victorian girl

Jane Eyre is my most favorite book. Ever. Of all time. I identify with Jane so much it isn't funny, and I even have my Mr. Rochester. Although fortunately no Bertha.

I need to reread it. Again. For the fifty millionth time.

I like all of the other Bronte books too, even Anne's.

And I love Jane Austen, except Emma.

I like early Charles Dickens. I love Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist. At some point after that, he must have gotten terribly depressed.

Actually I need to reread Pickwick Papers. It's been forever since I read it.

I used to be quite the Holmes fan when I was twelve and thirteen. Not so much now, although I do somewhat enjoy Laurie R. King's pastiches. Not much, because god Russell is the most annoying character ever.

If I am forced to read contemporary stuff - the top two bookshelves of the first of our four bookcases is Terry Pratchett.

[MilesColtrane]

272. Bookz

Trying to avoid some that already been listed...

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" -Pirsig
"Pale Fire" -Nabokov
"Blood Meridian" -McCarthy
"Ask the Dust" -Fante
"White Noise" -DeLillo
"Being There" -Kosinski

Must. Stop. Listing....