Best book you've ever read

[Shelby]

'On Human Nature' - Edward O. Wilson

 

[BigBen]

I have a three car garage and can barely fit one vehicle inside. Books. All three walls are shelved with books from floor to 9 foot ceiling. I have four more rows of books in 8 foot shelving units back-to-back in the space that the other two vehicles would go. Also the fourth bedroom is a library and not a bedroom. No idea how many and this is just the ones I have read and kept. My "to read" book list is a bookshelf in the corner of my master bedroom. I see an interesting book, buy it, and put it on the shelf until I read it. About 50 on the shelf at a time but I go through it fairly quickly. Favorites? What a long list that is!!!

The best book ever written is Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien spent nearly 35 years creating a world to go with it. Not just a story, but three languages, alphabets, background histories of races and people. He created lives...amazing work. The LOTR is often published as three volumes, but it actually is one story and one "book" and was later broken up by publishing houses to sell.
He also wrote at least eight companion pieces of literature to give the past and present and future details and side stories to the history of Middle Earth. The Hobbitt is one of those works. Also an amazing book.
Seeing the movies, though they were very good, is not the book. The books are even better and are worth the read. Should be required reading for all students to get out of elementary school, middle school, and again in high school and college.

Almost anything by James Michener....his works are legend. The first 100 pages of each of them will make you ask "why is he writing about this?", but all will be clear as the novel moves on. In no particular order, Hawai'i, Tales of the South Pacific, The Drifters, Caribbean, Centennial, Alaska, Texas, Caravans, Iberia, The Covenant, Chesapeake, Space, etc, etc....with Michener, reading one of his books, you can learn more actual, factual history, anthropology, religion, sociology, science and a dozen other disciplines than most any semester long history class. And be greatly entertained while learning it.

After Tolkien and Michener, other authors of the last and current milliniums are "good" but Tolkien and Michener were great and giants.

Most people balk at the sight of the Tolkien and Michener books because even the cheap paperback versions are very, very big (thick) books. That probably intimidates many people. They should not be. Great books are worth every second you spend reading them.

I think it can be rightly argued that if you have not read Tolkiens Hobbitt and Lord of The Rings, and at least six or seven of Micheners works, you really can't consider yourself well read or a "reader".

Oh, and on a fun and light note...the Bathroom Reader series...the "Triumphant" 20th Anniversary book is now out. Uncle John has published dozens of books for the Throne Room and all are full of great stuff that is all the proper length for a visit to the TR. Even the margins are full of stuff that is a hoot. Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Home page

Just my two cents here.

 

[SpoiledPrincess]

I've read so many books it's hard to pick out a few I consider best, however ones I constantly re-visit are The Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queen, The Last Gladiator by Richard Ben Sapir, Shield of Three Lions by Pamela Kauffman - the last one isn't that well know but it's a rollocking good read, entertaining on every page.

 

[Not_Punny]

I forgot one of my fav's: My Family And Other Animals -- the childhood biography of British naturalist, Gerald Durrell. I've had multiple copies and have bought copies to give away. I've read it three or four times, and I'll probably read it another three or four times before I die.

The book is set in Corfu, Greece, about the author's pre-WWII English family who moved to Corfu to escape English winters. It was both funny and moving.

The first time I read it, I was 14 years old, and I was summering, oddly enough, in Corfu, Greece. And -- also oddly enough -- I too had weathered many an English winter.

So I really, really related to the book. If I ever write an autobiography, I'd want it to be as vivid, funny and touching as that book.

 

[naughty]

Here are some of my favorites:

Alice Hoffman - Here on Earth,The probable result, Practical Magic, BLackbird house

Amy Tan - THe Joy Luck Club

Anne Rice - Cry to Heaven, Feast of All Saints, everything

Anne RIvers Siddons Peach -Tree Road, Fox's Earth

Colleen Mc Cullough - THe THornbirds, THe Ladies of Misolonghi,

Edith Wharton- Summer, THe Bucaneers, House of Mirth, Age of Innocence, House of Mirth

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the TIme of CHolera

GLoria Naylor- Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, Mama Day, Bailey's Cafe

Gwyn Hyman Rubio- Icy Sparks

Henry James- Washington Square

Isabel Allende- House of the Spirits,Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia,
Zorro

Jane Hamilton- Map of the World, Book of Ruth

Laura Esquivel- Like Water for Chocolate

Manette Ansay- Vinegar Hill

Margaret Atwood- THe Handmaid's Tale, THe Cat's Eye

Oscar Hijuelos - THe Mambo Kings play songs of Love

Pat Conroy - Beach Music, THe Water is Wide THe Prince of TIdes

Thomas Hardy- Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Return of the Native,Far from the Madding Crowd

THomas Tryon- Harvest Home, THe Night of the Moonbow

WHitney Otto- How to make an American Quilt

More later...

Now is later...

Emma Donoughue - Slammerkin

Ian Mc Ewan- Atonement

Sena Jeter Naslund- Ahab's Wife, Abundant

Joyce Carol Oates- Blonde, We Were the Mulvaneys, The Falls

Toni Morrison- Paradise, Love, The Bluest Eye

Latita Tadema- Cane RIver

Mario Puzo -THe God father series, THe Family

Patrick Susskind- Perfume

Gregory McGuire- WIcked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror, Mirror

Charles Dickens- Great Expectations, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield

Ken Follett -THe Pillars of the Earth

Tracy Chevalier- Burning Bright, Falling Angels, THe Girl with the Pearl Earring, THe Virgin Blue

Maeve Binchey- Circle of Friends, Tara Road, Quentins

ELizabeth Kostova - THe HIstorian

Robert Hicks- THe Widow of the South

Octavia Butler - Kindred

Beverly Swerling- City of Dreams, City of Glory

Ursula K. Le Guim -THe Lathe of Heaven

 

[nay-nay]

"but inside i'm screaming" by elizabeth flock. i liked how honest it was. will make you laugh in some parts, as well. :smile:

here is a customer review:

Amazon.com: ChicBookFiend's review of But Inside I'm Screaming

 

[scanjock8]

The Catcher in the Rye will always be my favorite.

 

[Beef Stroganoff]

My reading is all over the place:

I Know This Much Is True - Wally Lamb

Aztec - Gary Jennings

Dune - Frank Herbert

Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons

Flicker - Theodore Roszack

An Instance of The Fingerpost - Iian Pears

Geek Love - Katherine Dunne

Perfume - Patrick Susskind

The Throat - Peter Straub

Boy's Life - Robert R. McCammon

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

the Otherland series - Tad Williams

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

etc., etc. - I've only given one example from each author but, generally speaking, I have greatly enjoyed other of their works (for examp: Dan Simmons' "The Terror" and Gary Jennings' "The Journeyor").

 

[Ethyl]

More than one so bear with me:

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

Anything by the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A few off the top of my head. I'll post more when I think of them.

 

[ZOS23xy]

I've gotten most of Alfred Bester, though WHO HE? and TENDER LOVING RAGE are also exceptional works, as are Theodore Sturgeon's books, Howard Waldrop and Mark Twain and Robert BVenchley and Dorothy Parker and Harlan Ellison...with some 7,000 books here, I tend to think I read too much.

 

[D_golden parachute]

The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins

The End of Faith - Sam Harris

I'm not so big on fiction anymore, The Hobbit would be my choice though I guess

 

[THEDUDER]

the first post i made was in the wrong thread.

i can't pick just one book.


i really liked on the road by jack kerouac, the stranger by albert camus, blood meridian by cormac mccarthy, shiloh by shelby foote, portrait of the artist as a young man by james joyce, moby dick by melville, jacob's room by virginia wolf, and the river war by winston churchill.

i mostly stick to the canon

 

[psidom]

Tao Te Ching~Lau Tzu
Golden Dawn~Israel Regardie
Diary of a drug fiend~Aleister Crowley
Key of the mysteries~Eliphas Levi
The story of O~pauline reage
Philosophy in the Bedroom1&2~marquis de sade
Function of the orgasm~wilhelm reich

 

[coxslover]

Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as The Big Book, truly changed my life, 7 years, 2 months ago!

 

[THEDUDER]

i'll never be a friend of bill.

 

[B_Monster]

Anything written by Steinbeck.


We know you'll never know Bill Duder

 

[THEDUDER]

hey everybody, monster's seventh grade english class read "the pearl"

 

[Northland]

A Farewell To Arms-Ernest Hemingway, actually anything by Hemingway.
Ethan Frome-Edith Wharton
The Prince and the Discourses- Machiavelli
The Pearl-John Steinbeck
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter-Carson McCullers
The Harbor- Ernest Poole
A Reporter's Life-Walter Cronkite
Blow Up A Storm-Garson Kanin
The Instrument-O'Hara
Tender Cheeks-Wolfe Kaufman
What Manner Love-Rita Weiman
Call It Sleep-Henry Roth
Shosha-Isaac.Bashevis Singer
Messhugah-also by, I.B. Singer
Up In The Old Hotel & other stories-Joseph Mitchell


I enjoy 9 out of 10 books, the above are just some of the selections which I have read more than once.

 

[Northland]

hey everybody, monster's seventh grade english class read "the pearl"

So did I, except it was assigned to me in the summer between 8th and 9th grade-a wonderfully written novella.

 

[WellHung83]

Lord Of The Rings by Tolkien

Maurice by E.M Forster

Brokeback Mountain by......damn forgot her name.

The Farseer Trilogy by Robbin Hobb

Harry Potter 1 - 5 by JK Rowling. Not listing 6 and 7 because they were utter shit.