Favorite Books

[Hylas]

Mine's Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

 

His poem Jabberwocky is my favorite poem.

 

Also.. hmm..

 

Jeff Long - Descent

 

and

 

Robert McCammon - Swan Song

 

EDIT

 

Ok... since they had lists! LOL

Sidney Sheldon - If Tomorrow Comes

Philip Jose Farmer - The Unreasoning Mask

Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

William Gibson - Count Zero

most of Ursula LeGuin, everything I've read by Tanith Lee, Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Stephen King... etc.

[BeaStKid]

Too long a list to post here, but I'd like to list a few of them--->

 

Harry Potter Series (Duh!)

The Third Twin by Ken Follet

Code to Zero by Ken Follet

Hammer of Eden by Ken Follet

Harlequin By Morris West

The Monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin .S. Sharma

Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat

One Night @ the Call Center by Chetan Bhagat

[Graeme]

I'm not even going to attempt to list them: I'd miss too many.

 

Overall, most of Anne McCaffrey's work, L.E.Modisett Jr, Isaac Asimov, James Hogan... the list of authors goes on.

 

The Cadfael Series by Ellis Peters is also highly recommended.

[corvus]

Wow, this is really hard... Hmm, let's see.

 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It's just completely brilliant -- the story is quick, the humor is ever-present, and you just got to love the characters.

The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley. It's one of those young adult books that really stuck with me. I connected to Aerin more than to any other character I've read.

The Story of the Night, by Colm Toibin. It's a bildingsroman about a gay man who grows up in Argentina in the 1980s. This story really tore me up when I read it. I think I came closer to crying with this book than with any other book I've read.

The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien. Tolkien understands mythmaking and beauty more than anyone else.

Beloved, by Toni Morrison. It made a huge impact on me, in terms of how to tell stories and what literature should feel like.

The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene. Existentialist angst. Catholic angst. Romantic angst. Love it.

 

There's tons of other books that I really like -- Lolita, Thursbitch, Ender's Game, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, etc. -- but I think these stand out for me.

 

Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats There's nothing like Yeats. If I had to choose favorites, they'd be: "Leda and the Swan," "The Second Coming," "Circus Animals' Desertion," "The Two Trees," the Byzantium poems, "Easter 1916," "A Dialogue of Self and Soul," and a lot more.

[Menzoberranzen]

We the Living by Ayn Rand probably tops my list of novels, and there are too many others to try and list individually.

 

I like Grisham for a fun read, Robert Jordan and R.A. Salvatore for fantasy (hence my user name) and I like a wide range of people for more 'serious' books. Michael Ondaatje is excellent, Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner), Ian McEwan, Frank McCourt...and others. Samuel Beckett is my favorite short-story writer/playwright, and e.e. cummings is my favorite poet.

 

Menzo

[FrenchCanadian]

Ummm, alright this one is going to be hard..

 

 

-The Harry Potter series -JK Rowling

-Deception Point - Dan Brown (I find it better than the Da Vinci Code)

 

-Violets are blue - James Patterson (for the very nice sex scene description 3g 1w ) no seriously I'd say all of the Alex Cross series is very good

[Kurt]

Okay, John Grisham is my favorite author of all times. I have read all of his books, and they are amazing.

 

The other day I just finished his first Non-Fiction piece, the The Innocent Man.

 

The book is about the wrongful conviction of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz for the Rape and Murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada, Oklahoma. The actions of the Ada police and Prosecutors and the OSBI are very unbelievable. It goes over the entire investigation, and the trial, and their time in jail and on Death Row, and their eventual freedom.

 

I strongly recommend this book!

[scoopny]

Hmm... some of the books I love:

 

Becoming a Man by Paul Monette, a great memoir about growing up gay in the 60s and 70s.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.

The Adventure of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (both Fortress and Kavalier are great novels about people who love comic books).

[YaP]

yea, i can't name a single book either.. there are many i really like.

 

among them are

 

Herman Hesse: "Narziss und Goldmund" ( i guess that translates to Narziss and Goldmund)

Robert M. Pirsing: Zen or the Art of motorcycle maintenance

Herbert Rosendofer: Briefen in die chinesische Vergangenheit (probably something like: Letters to the chinese past)

Pattrick S

[Menzoberranzen]

Okay, John Grisham is my favorite author of all times. I have read all of his books, and they are amazing.

 

The other day I just finished his first Non-Fiction piece, the The Innocent Man.

 

The book is about the wrongful conviction of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz for the Rape and Murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada, Oklahoma. The actions of the Ada police and Prosecutors and the OSBI are very unbelievable. It goes over the entire investigation, and the trial, and their time in jail and on Death Row, and their eventual freedom.

 

I strongly recommend this book!

 

It was good, but he was way, way to biased for it to be effective I thought. The man was a vile, loathsome person and Grisham glossed over all the other horrendous things he had done in telling the story.

[CarlHoliday]

Sheesh!

 

Fiction or Non-Fiction?

 

Living author or dead?

 

I suppose it's a toss up as far as fiction goes:

 

Dune by Frank Herbert

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

 

or

 

And, then non-fiction choices would have to start with:

 

Annals of a Former World by John McPhee

The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav

Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte

The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong

 

But, if I have to pick the one book that had the most influence on me as a person, one that I've read over and over and would read again and again, well, I suppose that would have to be:

 

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

 

 

Unless it was any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, which are all priceless and worth reading over and over, again and again.

[Hylas]

menzo:

R.A. Salvatore for fantasy (hence my user name)

 

I knew it! Udos zhal tlu abbilen, cal abbil! Lloth tlu malla.

 

sacha:

Deception Point - Dan Brown (I find it better than the Da Vinci Code)

 

Actually, I find Deception Point pretty shallow. From a scientific point of view (I'm an amateur fossil collector), it's totally implausible.

 

I liked Angels and Demons though, better than The Da Vinci Code.

[Menzoberranzen]

menzo:

I knew it! Udos zhal tlu abbilen, cal abbil! Lloth tlu malla.

 

I liked Angels and Demons though, better than The Da Vinci Code.

 

 

I got the Lloth part...

 

And I agree that Angels and Demons was better. Although, to Hylas, you have to take any scientific facts with a grain of salt in his books. Da Vinci code was rife with factual errors and Angels and Demons made the physics major in me cringe, but that doesn't take away from the compelling stories and interesting premises.

 

Menzo

[Hylas]

LOL, I actually just looked up the drow phrases heh. I have only read one RA Salvatore book ever, and it wasn't set in the forgotten realms universe. No drow But I play a lot of dungeons and dragons games. And I really like the artist who does the cover designs for RA Salvatore's books.

 

I know. I don't like Dan Brown that much actually, though when I first read The Da Vinci Code, I really liked it. The fact that he claims everything is true, however, was way too much to claim, even for gullible moi. LOL.

 

RE: Angels and Demons, yeah Antimatter? :wacko: But yes, it was captivating. I liked the fact that I didn't even notice that the title of the book itself was an ambigram when I first started reading it. LOL. It was only when I encountered the description of the first ambigram in the book that I did a double take and peeked back at the cover. He may be a charlatan, but he's still an awesome writer. Heh

 

Oh yeah, add this to my list:

 

Robert Fulghum - Everything I ever needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten!

[Menzoberranzen]

LOL, I actually just looked up the drow phrases heh. I have only read one RA Salvatore book ever, and it wasn't set in the forgotten realms universe. No drow But I play a lot of dungeons and dragons games. And I really like the artist who does the cover designs for RA Salvatore's books.

 

I know. I don't like Dan Brown that much actually, though when I first read The Da Vinci Code, I really liked it. The fact that he claims everything is true, however, was way too much to claim, even for gullible moi. LOL.

 

RE: Angels and Demons, yeah Antimatter? :wacko: But yes, it was captivating. I liked the fact that I didn't even notice that the title of the book itself was an ambigram when I first started reading it. LOL. It was only when I encountered the description of the first ambigram in the book that I did a double take and peeked back at the cover. He may be a charlatan, but he's still an awesome writer. Heh

 

Oh yeah, add this to my list:

 

Robert Fulghum - Everything I ever needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten!

 

Antimatter does exist, he just likes to...stretch...it's potential to be used as a weapon.

[Hylas]

I know. I read enough sci-fi to know that it's still probably hundreds of years in the future before we can safely handle some.

[Caipirinha]

Best books I've read in a long while:

 

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

Giraffe: A Novel by J. M. Ledgard

Life of Pi by Yaan Martel

[Hylas]

I would like to recommend my favorite fantasy book.

 

Death's Master by Tanith Lee

 

A story about two men. One, Simmu, ethereally beautiful as a young man, the son of a lesbian queen and a dead man (yes, he was dead when they um... ), he grew up with the knowledge of demons and the ability to change his sex into male or female at will. The other, Zhirem, was rendered invulnerable to any physical hurts by his mother at a young age, at a price none of us will ever want to pay - happiness.

 

Anyway, that's enough spoilers. LOL. The story has the scope of Tolkien's works, the elements of a Greek Tragedy, a heroic saga of overcoming mortality, the influence of both eastern and western culture and mythology...

 

and best of all (speaking as a gay author/reader), love between two men. In fact I classify this first as a love story. I won't tell you if it ends happily or in hearbreak, but it affected me so much... I.... nevermind.

 

Also a weird thing is that the story is strongly erotic, though as far as I can remember, the love scenes were never lurid.

 

Bleh. Read it. Tanith Lee has a fascinating way of painting a dreamlike story which though not visual, is really beautiful.

[myself_i_must_remake]

i have my top ten on my facebook so i'll put them here as well:

 

the way the crow flies (ann-marie macdonald)

beloved (toni morrison)

1984 (george orwell)

fall on your knees (ann-marie macdonald)

raise high the roofbeam, carpenters and seymour, an introduction (j.d. salinger)

song of solomon (toni morrison)

cat's cradle (kurt vonnegut)

me talk pretty one day (david sedaris)

dubliners (james joyce)

mrs. dalloway (virginia woolf)

[pietro]

Favourite of all time? It would have to be Dune by Frank Herbert. It is the only book I ever re-read immediately I finished it. I literally turned from the last page back to the first and started again, and enjoyed it even more.

 

Next would be Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillian.

 

Then Robin Hobb's books although not the current trilogy, that damned prig gets right up my nose! But he is improving as he gets ground further and further down.

 

Asimov's Foundation series and his non-fiction as well.

 

I will read, or at least attempt to read, any fantasy, or hard sci-fi.

 

P

[zland666]

Boy in the basemet

 

If you believe in mermaids...Don't tell

 

A child called it

 

Little Chicago

 

When Jeff comes Home

[Nephylim]

Fraid it's going to have to be a trilogy

 

The Grigori Trilogy by Storm Constantine.

 

Or perhaps the Wreuththu books by Storm Constantine

 

Or actually.... anything by Storm Constantine.

[JensenC]

hmmmmm i adore reading

 

Best book has to be the stand by Stephen King

 

Best series is the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

 

other top runners are

 

The Harry Potter books,

 

The Gone series

 

Hush Hush,

[TetRefine]

Fiction

1.) The Godfather by Mario Puzo

2.) Team Yankee by Harold Coyle

3.) Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra

4.) Emperor Series by Conn Iggulden

5.) The Afghan Campaign by Steven Pressfield

 

NonFiction

1.) One Bullet Away by Cpt. Nathaniel Fick

2.) The Revolution by Ron Paul

3.) Joker One by Cpt. Donovan Campbell

4.) Making A Killing by Cpt. James Ashcroft

5.) Faith Of My Fathers by John McCain

 

My genre of reading is pretty narrow as you've probably already guessed.

[David McLeod]

My favorite changes every time I look at this forum. Today, it's "Catcher in the Rye." Stay tuned...