What is your favourite book?

[madaloon]

Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam (Lynda VanDevanter)
Beowulf (Seamus Heaney translation)
Franny and Zooey (JD Salinger)

[fyn]

bhagavad gita,
theophilus north by thornton wilder, (story is set around 1900)

[Prole]

East of eden + the grapes of wrath

Steinbeck was a god

Also, Robin Hobb writes the most amazing fantasy books.

[ProletarianAvenger]

The Alchemist. Its made the biggest impact in my life.

[pieaholicx]

The Giver - Lois Lowry
Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot) - Samuel Beckett
Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkein
The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket (Yeah, I know they're supposed to be kids books, but I liked them).

Those are all I can think of right now.

[Aleril]

No argument from me:

"The Stranger" - Albert Camus

Ender's Game and that series also tops the list.

[tiny]

My favourite book of all time is 'Schlafes Bruder' (brother of sleep) by Robert Schneider.
The style is... wow. He virtuosely uses a 3rd person narrative where the author directly talks to the reader here and there (dunno the correct term), a country slang that's miles away from what is considered 'German', a humor that is cruel and more than bone dry, and his characters are just... small. And the story has an unhappy ending.
After you read this book you know everything you need to know to despise all humanity from the bottom of your heart.
The movie was boring.

The close second is 'Das Parfum' (perfume) by Patrick Süskind.
Again I love the exotic, anachronistic style. The characters are funny for the most part, and Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is glorious. He is so utterly, totally and abolutely different in his motivs from an average character/human. And his story has an unhappy ending.
The movie is the shitties shit I have ever seen. It completely misses the point of the story and is just wrong in so many ways.

Number three on my list is 'Gone with the Wind'. If you lough you only prove you haven't read it.
Margaret Mitchell is one evil sarcastic bitch. Her characters are victims to themselfs by design (though all bigger ones have a certain strength, too). They are born to suffer unfulfilled in a hostile, rapidly changing world and with her narrative design she points a mocking finger at them constantly. And you can't just *like* any of them or pity them, not even Miss Melly. You just wish for a baseball bat to beat some sense into them - but you wish for it in a good way, not in one that gives you scabies.
Still Mitchell creates two unmatched heroes: Rhett Butler is a bastard who doesn't let social propaganda veil his view. He does what is best for him and surrounds himself with people who dare to think what they want and say what they think. And Scarlett O'Hara... well, if she isn't the strongest female character in all literature I don't know. She adjusts to whatever circumstances she's thrown into. She manages to develop from a fashion doll to the breadwinner of a whole household to a businesswoman whithout ever giving up. Sure, she's much too proud and quite fucked up in the end, but who wouldn't be?
I especially like the unhappy ending.
The movie is hilarious when know the book.

Other books I enjoyed: Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles (1-4), Harris' Silence of the Lambs, Lem's Solaris, Hesse's Siddharta, Grime's Hotel Paradise, de Moor's The Virtuoso, Merkle Riley's The Oracle Glass, Kay's Phantom, Preußler's Satanic Mill.

[Morphing Ball]

The close second is 'Das Parfum' (perfume) by Patrick Süskind.
Again I love the exotic, anachronistic style. The characters are funny for the most part, and Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is glorious. He is so utterly, totally and abolutely different in his motivs from an average character/human. And his story has an unhappy ending.
The movie is the shitties shit I have ever seen. It completely misses the point of the story and is just wrong in so many ways.

This is good news. After seeing the film I didn't feel too inclined to read the book, but I might give it a go now.

[Alekii]

"Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson: Amazing book that is totally engrossing yet doesn't "ruin" the ending by telling you EVERYTHING that happened.

[bagelfairy]

"The Turn of the Screw"

It's more of a short story, but it's fantastic. Especially if you liked the movie, "The Others". You'll never be able to make a confident decision about what's really going on.

[Reid]

Absolute favorite book would probably be "The Death of the Necromancer", by Martha Wells. Fantasy in a non-standard setting with very compelling characters, even if two of them are essentially Holmes and Watson. Sadly I think it's been out of print for a while now, but I imagine there are ways to still get hold of a copy.

[Torvaun]

American Gods
H2G2 series, minus Mostly Harmless
The Name of the Wind (Proximity win, I live in the same city as Patrick Rothfuss. He was my brother's fencing instructor.)
Sword of Shannara (The book. I wasn't a fan of most of the rest of the series, but I liked this one)
How to Lie With Statistics
To Kill a Mockingbird
Cryptonomicon
His Dark Materials series
The Dark is Rising series (There is no movie there is no movie there is no movie)

The Redwall series by Brian Jacques used to be on the list, but I've been less than pleased with the last few, and I just don't feel the need to keep track of them anymore.

On my Hate list is Ethan Frome. I had to read it in high school for American Lit, and the whole time I was wondering when the teacher would say "Just kidding" and hand out Tom Sawyer or something. Digital Fortress also made my hate list when I kept seeing far easier ways to fix or prevent almost all of the major plot points. Mostly those ways involved the phrase "Pull the plug, restore from backup if needed."

Also in American Lit I had to read The Great Gatsby, which I disliked immensely. Seeing so many people list it as a favorite makes me want to read it again to see what I was missing.

[bbctol]

The Redwall series by Brian Jacques used to be on the list, but I've been less than pleased with the last few, and I just don't feel the need to keep track of them anymore.

I used to love those books, but after his stroke, his writing style changed noticeably, which is interesting.

[Mricpx]

Invisible Monsters- Chuck Palahniuk(guy who wrote fight club)

[yesway]

My favorite book is definetly Time enough for love by robert a. heinlein enders game is a close second but i love most books my orson scott card and robert heinlein. i am currently on the cat who walks through walls

[Sjonyonye]

I've... uh, had a difficult time finding books since I grew out of the children's section. So my favourites can be found there. Ever since then I've been judging books harshly, unless there is something that catches my eye right away. Like self-referential writing, absurd time travel, wacky worlds. I don't know.

That said, all you should read The Phantom Tollbooth, and give it to any child who enjoys ridiculous plays on words. My 10-year-old mind was continuously blown by the concepts of infinity, the Colour Symphony, and the Soundkeeper's Fortress.

There are some creatures that remind me of the one in my avatar, too.

[cheesegrits]

That said, all you should read The Phantom Tollbooth, and give it to any child who enjoys ridiculous plays on words.

I decided to make my first (non-introductory) post on xkcd in this thread, and the first two on my list were:

The Illuminatus Trilogy, Robert Shea / Robert Anton Wilson
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

Given that one of the central themes of Illuminatus Trilogy is the concept of syncronicity, imagine my delight when I read the previous post.

Anyway ... some of the rest of the my list is ...

The 'Revelation Space' series, Alastair Reynolds
Any 'Disk World' novel, Terry Pratchett
Winnie The Pooh, A.A. Milne
Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins
Anything by Iain Banks.
The Oxford English Dictionary.

The list was originally almost endless, then I realized the thread title said "book", not "books". So I guess I'd better stop there.

-- hugh

[Sjonyonye]

That... is pretty darn neat. Due to this instance of synchronicity, and the fact that the book sounds awesome anyway (and the cover rules), I am now going to read the Illuminatus Trilogy.

[cheesegrits]

That... is pretty darn neat. Due to this instance of synchronicity, and the fact that the book sounds awesome anyway (and the cover rules), I am now going to read the Illuminatus Trilogy.

I really hope you enjoy them. I first read them in my mid teens, more years ago than I care to remember, when they were just the most Out There books I'd ever read. If I was reading them for the first time now they might not have such a profound effect on me, but back then ... it was like being immersed in a huge vat of new ideas, as well as being a flat out Ripping Yarn.

Glad to meet someone who can take a hint from the Universe (which has always been the way I think about syncronicity). Please do let me know how you get on with them. I've decided to go back and re-read them, just dug the dogeared copies out from the waaaay back of my book shelves.

"I see the fnords!"

-- hugh

[jamesusillxd]

Phillip Pullman's: His Dark Matirials Trilogy
Stephen Kings: CELL

[Asleep or Wrong]

I usually try not to think of things so hierarchally, but I have to admit that one book really does stand out. Dream of the Red Mansion (紅樓夢) by Cáo Xuěqín (曹雪芹), t. Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang. It's such an immensely full work, I don't quite know where to begin in describing it. I haven't read anything so able to capture so much in it, from a single person to the ontological make-up of existence. It's really a crying shame that it and the other three great classical chinese novels are nearly unheard of in the West.

Other works that have been occuping my thoughts lately:
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, t. Diana Burgin's and Katherine O'Connor. Some of the most beautiful prose I've read. It's also hilarious. For some reason this is an odd combination.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Comedy option.
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. When I was a young scrap for some terrible reason I picked up Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. At some point when I was seventeen or eighteen things just clicked and I gained a sense of discrimination. Having been submerged in the Sword of Truth, I decided that all fantasy was terrible. Perdido Street woke me up from that.
All the songs of Catullus. He defines lepidum.

edit: hell's bells and cockleshells, how did I forget The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas? The Count's the most awesome character I've met and the way the end goes down is stupendously righteous.

[IronyandParadox]

When people say "favorite book," I always go straight back to the books that I know know know know know I will keep on rereading. No matter how old I get. Books that have already stood the test of time. In other words, I *blushes* still consider kiddie books my favorites.

So...
Little Women--Louisa May Alcott
Anne of Green Gables--L.M. Montgomery
Ender's Game--Orson Scott Card
Jane Eyre--Bronte

Of course, there are always other wonderful books, but I just haven't been loving them for as long as the others. (Tales from Ovid, Fahrenheit 451, Rule of Four, Gathering Blue, anything Mercedes Lackey, Year of Wonders, The Crying of Lot 49, and I'm going to stop there unless you want to die reading the rest of my list...).

Oh. And the dictionary. The dictionary is my friend.

(yay. first non-introductory post)

[Chrome]

My favorite book of all time is, without a doubt, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Is a hard read, physically hard because you have to turn the book around a thousand times, read reverse text in front of a mirror, follow five different footnotes, side notes and center-of-the-book notes simultaneously for dozens of pages and a lot of things like that. And psychologically because... well, it just is. It's a mind-changing book. I bought Danielewski's second book, Only Revolutions, the day it was published, but haven't built up the courage to read it yet.

But I read an average of a book a day (okay, most of them are second or third time reads) and most of them aren't as obscure. A quick list of things I've liked as they come to mind:

Horror:

- Heart-shaped box, by Joe Hill. This one got me really scared, and it had been six months since a book scared me. The creepy ghost-little-girl did it.
- Mr. B. Gone, by Clive Barker. It's not scary, I found some parts really naive, but I liked it a lot. It's short and sweet and I wanted to burn it.*
- Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card. Creepy Kids, mormons and video games, what else do you need to be happy?
- Song of Kali, by Dan Simmons. It's just soooo beautiful. Everytime I read it I end up crying and feeling full of hope and warm fuzzy feeling. Beware, it's cruel and sad too, and from the beginning you can feel that something terible is going to happen. But oh, the ending!

Sci-Fi:

- The Diamond Age, by Stephenson. Again, the warm fuzzy feeling in the end.
- Everything I've read by Bradbury.
- Night, Day, and Twilight Watch by Lukyanenko.
- Dead Girls, by Richard Calder.

Random:
- Mirror in the mirror, by Ende. It's pure poetry. Sometimes I just let my mind slide between the words...
- Power of One and the follow up Tandia, by Bryce Courtenay.
- The Perfume (poss. mistranslation by me) by Patrick Suskind. Read it for the first time when I was twelve, have read it like twenty times since then.
- The Monkeewrench series by P.J. Tracy. They have nice plots - who's the killer stuff- and the writing's funny.
- Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett (poss. misspelling there), has to be my favorite book about religion. And has a tortoise on it!
- Tokyo by Mo Hayder seriously freaked me out. I couldn't get it out of my mind afterwards.
- The same with Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk.

Enough. I could go on and on. I really do read a lot.




*Inside joke, you have to read the book to get it.

[roentgen]

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
East of Eden - Steinbeck
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - (and anything else by) Murakami
Faust - Goethe
The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway

hmmm I really enjoyed Ender's Game also... Cryptonomicon was a little self-indulgent for my taste...

[pictorignotus]

midnight's children by salman rushdie
brothers karamazov by fyodor dostoevsky
persuasion by jane austen
the wind-up bird chronicle & south of the border, west of the sun by haruki murakami
the metaphysical club by louis menand
the human condition by hannah arendt
slouching toward bethlehem by joan didion

[WraithXt1]

Jurassic Park 1 and 2

I must have read each 6 times now. They have done a great job furthering my study of Raptors =P

[Nexus_1101]

I read so many books a could not pick a fav.
But proberbly the ones that I have read the most would be "the grail quest" series by bernard Corwell (he also wrote the SHARPE books)

[Prole]

I read so many books a could not pick a fav.
But proberbly the ones that I have read the most would be "the grail quest" series by bernard Corwell (he also wrote the SHARPE books)

The sharpe books are good too.

If you like napoleonic heroic fiction.

[Aleril]

Steinbeck was a god

QFT

East of eden and Of Mice and Men were my favorites of his.

[paperbird]

nick hornby - high fidelity
vladimir nabokov - lolita
chuck palahniuk - fight club
lewis carroll - alice's adventures in wonderland

[bigglesworth]

The Engineer Trilogy - K.J. Parker. Innovative, beautiful, clever.

Cryptonomicon, Baroque Cycle, Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson (is a god)

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel - Susannah Clarke

The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchet

[Dr.Beardface]

I love loads of books but if i had to make a decision it would probably be between Dune and The Lord of the Rings.

Thats only counting fiction though i don't know what I'd do without my science books.

[Marvin]

my all time favorite would be h2g2, after that it becomes tricky... so i'll just make random list...
hyperion
amber trilogy by roger zelazny
fondation sequence by isak asimov

i'm sure i missed something i realy like...

[Shizo]

My favorite books are:

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Ulysses by James Joyce

House of Leaves is probably my favorite of the four. I love the style it's written in.

[Masuri]

Hmm, it's a tie for first place.

The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert Heinlein

[Edit0r]

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. Most amazing book, ever. Not because of the things it says and the values it demonstrates, that wasn't his intention, but because of how it gets you to think about and hypothetically reject everything you think of as normal.

[Jessica]

Right now? World War Z
I'm working my way through invisible monsters, and it's pretty awesome.
Quite enjoy most of Gaiman's novels/other works.

[Jc1991]

My favorite book would probably have to be a tie between Excession (Iain M. Banks) and A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge), with Feersum Endjinn coming in at a close second.
After that, His Dark Materials, the Wheel of Time series, and Ender's Game tie for third, followed by Star Trek: Dyson Sphere (the book, not the episode), which I greatly enjoyed for some reason, despite its horrible characterization. (That's probably mostly the publisher's fault though, given their editing and shortening of the book after it was sent to them.)

I also enjoyed Diane Duane's Young Wizards series and Garth Nix's Abhorsen Trilogy. Neil Gaiman's Sandman was wonderful, but it's not a book and I haven't gotten around to reading anything else by him quite yet.

[Edit0r]

My favorite book would probably have to be ... Excession (Iain M. Banks)

W00t!

[Jc1991]

I take it you're a fan?