What is your favourite book?

[mirni]

I don't know what my favourite book is. There are many books that have proved important to me -Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco), Thus Spoke Zaratustra (Nietzsche), Karamazov Brothers (Dostoevsky), Childhood's End (Clarke), the Foundation series (Asimov), Towards Planetary Thought (Axelos, non-fiction) and a couple of greek books. (I'm greek.)

However, I have never ceased to be amazed by "Journey to the End of Night" (Voyage au bout de la nuit, 1932) by Céline. I wouldn't call it my favourite, but I definitely consider this to be the absolute masterpiece of the 20th century, perhaps even "the best book written in the last two thousand years" as Bukowski has famously commented.

I would also like to see a thread about most hated books and most overrated books. That would be at least as long!^^

-m-

[DeltaOne]

Can't name just one. Here are my top 3:
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

[mirni]

I see Ender's Game is a popular choice around here. I've never read it. What makes it stand out in this way?

-m-

[feedme]

I see Ender's Game is a popular choice around here. I've never read it. What makes it stand out in this way?

-m-

Personally I just thought it was very well written, the battle parts are awesome, and to me it seemed somewhat realistic. I never read any of the other series though.



I can't pick a sole favorite, but the Chronicles of Narnia (outsdie the last book) and the Night Angel trilogy are up there

[Apteryx]

Hi, long time lurker, first time poster. I just want to say thanks everyone who posted here, it is very helpful to have the distilled wisdom of an internets worth of other readers. I have enjoyed some of the books some of you loved very much, and none of them have I out-right hated.

Some of my favourites

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.
The Miles Vorkosigan novels by Lois Bujold McMasters .
The World of Tiers novels by P.J. Farmer.
The Culture novels of Iain M Banks.

My most recent pleasure has been the works of Justina Robson. She has a series called "Quantum Gravity", it is aces, so well characterised, so much humanity, references our extended culture and that of the myths so well, and with such dexterity in the weaving of truth and myth,and true compassion in her writing, that it is strange indeed that she also has written such a hard rocking action storyline.
The lass can write up a storm, and it would be worth looking at if you like sci-fi. or fantasy for that matter.

[rar222]

I find it interesting that so many people have voted Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco).

For me, hands down favourite book is Eco's The Name of the Rose.

Edit: The Godfather is also high on the list

[crazyredhead42]

I see Ender's Game is a popular choice around here. I've never read it. What makes it stand out in this way?

-m-

I've always been considered an exceptional student, and I have to admit that I've never felt like a child.
I read Ender's Game when I was maybe 10, and it completely changed the way I thought about myself. Before I thought I was some kind of freak (though that might have had something to do with middle school girls. ), but after I read it I realized that my mind was a gift, not a curse.

Ender's game is Written about a child who acts in very adult ways, who thinks like and adult. When I read it for the first time, I realized that I wasn't alone in not feeling like kid.. Now, years later, I still love the book, but for different aspects of it. It's a great story and it's Great Science Fiction.

[crazyredhead42]

My Favorite Books.

Icarus Hunt- Timothy Zahn
Dune - Frank Herbert
Ender's Shadow - Orson Scott Card

[MathChief]

I have many favorite sci-fi novels
like A Deepness in The Sky, True names, etc
if I have to give one book among all other favs
it would be

James Joyce - Ulysses

[inexplicable]

Easy. It's Ender's Game.

I've read quite a few books in my time, and I see Ender's Game as being one of the most interesting novels I've ever read, and I've appreciated it similarly to how I appreciated the Lord of the Flies, although the fact that Ender struggled against everyone, instead of two groups of people, made it ever so much more interesting.

[feedme]

Ender's Game always reminds me of 1984 for some reason. When I was reading 1984 I really liked it, and then the whole last part of the book was just not where I thought/wanted it to go. I guess it depicts that he didn't win and stuff....but it just wasn't what I wanted or expected.

Kind of ironic really, because my friends and I always talk about how we want a movie or book where the bad guy actually wins, and that is one example, but I don't like it for that resaon.

[neoteric]

While I did enjoy Ender's Game, my favorite book is The Cheese Monkeys. Ender's Game was entertaining and offered a new perspective on things, but I didn't see anything happening in the novel that I couldn't see myself partaking in. I guess that I identified with the novel too closely and wasn't offered any sort of escape, which is what I tend to look for in a book. The Cheese Monkeys is like nothing I am even capable of imagining.

[inexplicable]

While I did enjoy Ender's Game, my favorite book is The Cheese Monkeys. Ender's Game was entertaining and offered a new perspective on things, but I didn't see anything happening in the novel that I couldn't see myself partaking in. I guess that I identified with the novel too closely and wasn't offered any sort of escape, which is what I tend to look for in a book. The Cheese Monkeys is like nothing I am even capable of imagining.

I have never honestly seen books this way before. Huh. That is really interesting. I just always read them for the story itself, and I submerged myself into that to get away... but that is one heck of an interesting thought.

[feedme]

While I did enjoy Ender's Game, my favorite book is The Cheese Monkeys. Ender's Game was entertaining and offered a new perspective on things, but I didn't see anything happening in the novel that I couldn't see myself partaking in. I guess that I identified with the novel too closely and wasn't offered any sort of escape, which is what I tend to look for in a book. The Cheese Monkeys is like nothing I am even capable of imagining.

I have never honestly seen books this way before. Huh. That is really interesting. I just always read them for the story itself, and I submerged myself into that to get away... but that is one heck of an interesting thought.

I do kind of a mix. I love reading fantasy stories and thrillers for the escapism and a good story. Things like Dan Brown books aren't really that great of stories, but they're fun to read and get immersed in.

[emceng]

Ender's Game always reminds me of 1984 for some reason. When I was reading 1984 I really liked it, and then the whole last part of the book was just not where I thought/wanted it to go. I guess it depicts that he didn't win and stuff....but it just wasn't what I wanted or expected.

Kind of ironic really, because my friends and I always talk about how we want a movie or book where the bad guy actually wins, and that is one example, but I don't like it for that resaon.

It might work better if the bad guy was likable, instead of just Big Brother. I really wanted the bad guy to win in Heat. That is a great movie, but the last five minutes kind of kill it for me.

[feedme]

It might work better if the bad guy was likable, instead of just Big Brother. I really wanted the bad guy to win in Heat. That is a great movie, but the last five minutes kind of kill it for me.

Yeah, I agree. Heat was a good movie and De Niro played a really a good smart villian. Movies like that, and Swordfish, I like. We don't always need the whole cliched 'good guy' somehow winning.

[Laika]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, without a (salmon of) doubt.

[GalstafSofL]

By far it's the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. So amazingly thought out, and different from most other fantasy.

[extrablue]

CALVIN AND HOBBES
= The greatest thing ever written in the history of history, and the books that made me who I am.


Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Confessions of an Economic Hitman
(Best Adult Book)

The Blood of Kerensky books by Michael A Stackpole - I've read them so many times I've had to rebuy copies after they fell apart.
(Most Often Read)

[Maple_fish]

While hardly being renowned classics, my favourite books are the ones written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor based on their joint creation: Red Dwarf.
The first two books were written by both authors (Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers & Better Than Life), then two more books followed written by each individually (Last Human by Naylor and Backwards by Grant). Even though much of the story was repeated in episodes of the TV show I felt the books were much funnier (maybe because concepts weren't stretched/confined to 30min time slots).

Great books...

[davidmarlee]

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino; I guarantee it will be like nothing you've ever read.

[Apteryx]

While hardly being renowned classics, my favourite books are the ones written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor based on their joint creation: Red Dwarf.

Release the hunting dogs !.

( Shoots dog )

=]

[SaltComplex]

A few of my personal favorites:
Coming of Age at the End of History by Camille De Toledo: Not poetry, but ironically the most poetic work of literature I have read, despite the book being translated from French. Summed up, the book is about revolution and society, though unlike nearly every other book of a similar topic, CoAatEoH is written with reflection and reality at its base. This is not a blind tirade or bitter and beaten dreamer, but a reasonable voice of the generation that came of age around or shortly after the Wall fell in Berlin (though other ages can appreciate the book as well). "The next revolution will be hidden, literary, nomadic and non-violent."
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn: A story of Mankind's cultural captivity and anthropormorphic roots, the state of the world today and how we got here, and what is to come. Observations on society are hard when you are knee-deep in one. As told by a telepathic gorilla. A good introduction to Quinn's works, and for those who are interested, The Story of B is a good follow up.
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: A great read for those who are inquisitive and appreciative of opinion about some intimate subjects about religion. If you feel so incline for hearing both sides of the argument, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis is a good counter-part.
The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher (I believe. He does not really make his name known as author in an obvious way): A massive book about seeing, be it about culture, writing, mathematics, creativity, what have you, all nicely accompanied by art and beautiful quotes throughout time. a book certainly worth looking up in the library more-so than buying it (as it is quite pricey). It is really a reference guide to all things practical in life and this description does not do it justice.
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: Classic
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: A mind-bending book, not for everyone, that is a piece of art in itself. It is a book about dark. Not darkness, because I believe that leads to the wrong impression, but just "dark." Curiously, the typography mimics the mental state of the characters, as well as some physical interactions in the story. This is a book with layer upon layer of meaning waiting to be interpreted.


And of course, the indispensable Guide to the Galaxy. I wouldn't leave Earth without it...

[Kaeyn]

At the moment, coinciding with my weird obsession with dark and depressing drama, I quite like The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks. It's a story reminiscent of the darkness of No Country For Old Men; about two brothers who trek into a remote part of England inhabited by gypsies, corrupt cops and bare-knuckle boxers, in an attempt to try and find the man who raped and killed their sister. The younger brother is a quiet and reserved person who can understand the emotions that people are feeling at any time, while the older brother is a cold, soulless bastard who doesn't care if he lives or dies, just as long as he catches the fucker that killed his sister.
I liked it mainly because it was dark and violent, but not so much as to be depressing. I also like the fact that I had never heard of Kevin Brooks before this book, and I found the book by accident, thinking "Hmm, this looks interesting... *reads a few pages* ... Holy shit, this is awesome."

[B.Good]

Some of my favorite books are:
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
And of course, the ever popular choice Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
I also really enjoyed Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

[musashi1600]

I'd say it's a toss-up between:

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

[Kurtimus_Prime]

Watership Down by Richard Adams is my favourite, without a doubt.

I also second anyone who put down the "His Dark Materials Trilogy".

[bobjoesmith]

well i have to say i enjoy jim butcher... 'specailly dresden files

[Cecily]

I'd say it's a toss-up between:
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favourites too. I love the fact that it is a paen to the power of the written word: that people will live and die for it, and will wither without the transformative power of fictional worlds and the insights of others.

Other include:

Galapagos(Vonnegut): Darky humorous post-apocalyptic/extinction story, unlike anything else (e.g. the names of those about to die are marked with an asterisk).

Brave New World: A slim volume that explores so many BIG issues (most still relevant), whilst also telling an interesting story.

The Hitchhiker's Guide: The first two or three. A whole new genre of thoughtful but comedic sci fi, with so many wonderful concepts and phrases.

The Handmaid's Tale (Attwood): A wonderful hybrid: a book that is eminently readable, but packed with fascinating and thought-provoking ideas and symbolism. Despite its title and the author's reputation, it's not a women's book! Give it a try!

Others that probably have fewer fans here are The Castle (Franz Kafka), Titus Groan and Gormenghast (Mervyn Peake), Little Boy Lost (Marghanita Laski), Ghostwritten (David Mitchell); Ballad of the Sad Café (McCullers), and The Unicorn (Iris Murdoch).

[cv4]

No way I am picking one, but a few of my short list are:

-Dune
-Ender's Game
-Song of Ice and Fire series (pointless to pick one book and only done first 2 so far)

Stranger in a Strange Land got pretty sweet after awhile and John Wyndham has wrote some good stuff.

[Rogles]

Accelerando by Charles Stross, indisputably.

>_> I'll just copy a review I posted on another forum. Effort sucks!

I'm a teen yet I find "teen" fiction so childish and vapid. :/ The only books that really get my attention have to present radical new ideas, be written amazingly, or both. Which is why I'm completely in love with this unnamed series Charles Stross is writing, that begins with what I believe is his best book, and the greatest science fiction book ever written: Accelerando.(He has released it online with a creative commons license or something here: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... rando.html LANGUAGE AND ADULT CONTENT WARNING. And uh. I'm 15 BUT I CAN HANDLE EXPLICIT CONTENT WITH MATURITY)

But holy crap is it good. Accelerando is a dizzying ride through a technological singularity that tells the story of three generations of the Macx family: Manfred, his ex-wife Pamela, and his wife Annette; Manfred and Pamela's daughter Amber; and Amber's eigenself and an imam named Sadeq's son Sirhan. I suppose it covers four generations; Sirhan and his wife Rita's son Manny is briefly seen at the tail end of the book. With huge claws for arms. God I love Charles Stross. XD

It begins in the 2010s with a group of virtualized lobsters asking Manfred for help with defecting from the Novy-SSR, continues with Amber's journey as queen of the Ring Imperium, a monarchy located in Jupiter's orbit, to an alien wireless router in orbit around a star half a parsec away, and ends with Manny killing the family's robot cat Aineko, which in its 300 or so years of existence has allowed it to transcend to a state of strongly godlike intelligence. And never in those 415 or so pages was I bored or disappointed. Stross manages to cram more wacky and genius ideas into a single chapter than most SF writers can fit into an entire book. And the writing. Oh god. It's the kind of thing that I can only imagine was written on a binge of some kind of heavy stimulant.

Manfred walks down a hall of mirrors. At the far end, he emerges in a public space modeled on a Menger sponge – a cube diced subtractively into ever-smaller cubic volumes until its surface area tends toward infinity. This being meatspace, or a reasonable simulation thereof, it isn't a real Menger sponge; but it looks good at a distance, going down at least four levels.

He pauses behind a waist-high diamond barrier and looks down into the almost-tesseract-shaped depths of the cube's interior, at a verdant garden landscape with charming footbridges that cross streams laid out with careful attention to the requirements of feng shui. He looks up: Some of the cube-shaped subtractive openings within the pseudofractal structure are occupied by windows belonging to dwellings or shared buildings that overlook the public space. High above, butterfly-shaped beings with exotic colored wings circle in the ventilation currents. It's hard to tell from down here, but the central cuboid opening looks to be at least half a kilometer on a side, and they might very well be posthumans with low-gee wings – angels.

Angels, or rats in the walls? he asks himself, and sighs. Half his extensions are off-line, so hopelessly obsolete that the temple's assembler systems didn't bother replicating them, or even creating emulation environments for them to run in. The rest ... well, at least he's still physically orthohuman, he realizes. Fully functional, fully male. Not everything has changed – only the important stuff. It's a scary-funny thought, laden with irony. Here he is, naked as the day he was born – newly re-created, in fact, released from the wake-experience-reset cycle of the temple of history – standing on the threshold of a posthuman civilization so outrageously rich and powerful that they can build mammal-friendly habitats that resemble works of art in the cryogenic depths of space. Only he's poor, this whole polity is poor, and it can't ever be anything else, in fact, because it's a dumping ground for merely posthuman also-rans, the singularitarian equivalent of australopithecines. In the brave new world of the Vile Offspring, they can't get ahead any more than a protohominid could hack it as a rocket scientist in Werner von Braun's day. They're born to be primitive, wallowing happily in the mud-bath of their own limited cognitive bandwidth. So they fled into the darkness and built a civilization so bright it can put anything earthbound that came before the singularity into the shade ... and it's still a shanty town inhabited by the mentally handicapped.

The asteroid is running Barney: it sings of love on the high frontier, of the passion of matter for replicators, and its friendship for the needy billions of the Pacific Rim. "I love you," it croons in Amber's ears as she seeks a precise fix on it: "Let me give you a big hug ..."

A fraction of a light-second away, Amber locks a cluster of cursors together on the signal, trains them to track its Doppler shift, and reads off the orbital elements. "Locked and loaded," she mutters. The animated purple dinosaur pirouettes and prances in the middle of her viewport, throwing a diamond-tipped swizzle stick overhead. Sarcastically: "Big hug time! I got asteroid!" Cold gas thrusters bang somewhere behind her in the interstage docking ring, prodding the cumbersome farm ship round to orient on the Barney rock. She damps her enthusiasm self-consciously, her implants hungrily sequestrating surplus neurotransmitter molecules floating around her synapses before reuptake sets in. It doesn't do to get too excited in free flight. But the impulse to spin handstands, jump and sing is still there: It's her rock, and it loves her, and she's going to bring it to life.

The workspace of Amber's room is a mass of stuff that probably doesn't belong on a spaceship. Posters of the latest Lebanese boy band bump and grind through their glam routines: Tentacular restraining straps wave from the corners of her sleeping bag, somehow accumulating a crust of dirty clothing from the air like a giant inanimate hydra. (Cleaning robots seldom dare to venture inside the teenager's bedroom.) One wall is repeatedly cycling through a simulation of the projected construction cycle of Habitat One, a big fuzzy sphere with a glowing core (that Amber is doing her bit to help create). Three or four small pastel-colored plastic kawaii dolls stalk each other across its circumference with million-kilometer strides. And her father's cat is curled up between the aircon duct and her costume locker, snoring in a high-pitched tone.

Amber yanks open the faded velour curtain that shuts her room off from the rest of the hive: "I've got it!" she shouts. "It's all mine! I rule!" It's the sixteenth rock tagged by the orphanage so far, but it's the first that she's tagged by herself, and that makes it special. She bounces off the other side of the commons, surprising one of Oscar's cane toads – which should be locked down in the farm, it's not clear how it got here – and the audio repeaters copy the incoming signal, noise-fuzzed echoes of a thousand fossilized infants' video shows.

[RabbitWho]

Can't remember if I posted in this before..

Crime and Punishment
It's just amazing. It's everything I could want in a book. If I could only read one book again for the rest of my life it would be that one, over and over. I think I would always find something new and life changing in it.

[prospero]

There are so many excellent books. The libraries seem to have all the latest books and take more out of date books off the shelves. A very good read is the series by Peter Robinson who writes a detective series.

[Pansori]

Maltese Falcon... I love the gritty detective pulpish novels.

And then there were None by Agatha Christie...love the atmosphere.

The House with the Clock in its Walls

A Wrinkle in Time

[kreecha1986]

Hmmm, I hate the 'what is your favourite...' questions, because I have so many!

I think I can just about narrow it down to a top 4? In no particular order!

Battle Royale ~ Koushun Takami
The Time Traveller's Wife ~ Audrey Niffenegger
Harry Potter - JK Rowling
The Long Walk - Stephen King

[Flying_Cookie]

There are way to many to choose from...
Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon where all VERY good. The follow up books where also enjoyable, though in retrospect not quite as good.
American Gods is one of my all time favorites.
His Dark Materials trilogy
The Lord of the Rings
Every Calvin and Hobbes.
Redwall series
Heart of Darkness
Discworld
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
and a lot more.

[SpaceShipRat]

I couldn't pick a second but my favourite is Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Just sublime the way I had to read it multiple times to understand it all but each time the reveals stunned me. It helps that I'd seen the two Doctor Who episodes written by Douglas Adams that reuse elements from this (or vice-versa...) I still never saw that coming. Plus I get thrills in the scene where the protagonist hears all the life on earth translated into music...
There are just so many elements I love. The ecological touch, so dear to Adams, the "mad" professor, the unpredictable Dirk Gently, who always seems to be acting absolutely crazy, till you understand he's just being way smarter than everyone else, and every stunt or non-sequitur he comes up with has a point. That's the whole book really, crazy stunts and non-sequiturs* that get pulled togheder in the end in a beautifully intense ending.
</gush>

*"It's nothing, just a horse in the bathroom"

[Aiwendil42]

I couldn't pick a second but my favourite is Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

That is indeed a great book. Have you read the other Dirk Gently book, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul? In my opinion it's even better.

If I had to choose a favorite book, it would probably be The Lord of the Rings. The closest contenders are:

The Silmarillion and The Hobbit by Tolkien
The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov (particularly Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation)
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams
Childhood's End and The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
An Instance of the Finger Post by Iain Pears
Beowulf
The Iliad

[SpaceShipRat]

"Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell "
Aah I was under the impression no one had even read that.
I have the second Dirk Gently book (and Salmon of Doubt) but I prefer the first. I don't like the second's deus ex machina ending, and it wasn't as wonderfully intricate as the first, Dirk relies on chance more than on his wits. But I do love Thor.

[Aiwendil42]

Yeah, I suppose the second book does rely more on chance. It is pretty intricate - I was amazed when the many seemingly random and unrelated events all came together. The phrase "deus ex machina" is particularly appropriate, though! The Salmon of Doubt was intriguing but infuriating, as it breaks off so soon. Much as I like the Hitchhiker books, I'd have to say I like Dirk Gently better, and I wish he'd written more of them.