Favorite Books (any genre)

Remove all ads!

I know that previous topics have covered something similar, but I'm not looking for your favorite authors, series, or books in a series. I mean, what is your absolute favorite book?

Mine is The Magic of Recluce (yes spelled with two c's.) by L.E. Modesitt Jr.

I've read this book about eight times and I absolutely love it. If you haven't read it, then do so. It may seem a little childish at first but it's fabulous.

 

I have no particular favorite book or genre. Here are among my favorite:

[*]Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm
[*]Stephen King's The Dead Zone, Firestarter, and Insomnia.

There are much more, but I don't want to bother with listing them at the moment.

 

One of my fav books of all time is Mythology by Edith Hamilton. I like read it when I was around 8, asking my mom the stuff I didn't understand.

I also liked:

1) Little Prince
2) Jonathan Livingstone Seagull
3) Bridge Across Forever
4) The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran)

... aside from sci-fi and fantasy of course.

 

My vote would have to be for ender's game by orson scott card. It is a powerful read, and I think it is great how Card can make a fantastic book and a hugo/nebula award winner without all that crap you find in most "good" literature.

 

Red Storm Rising and Without Remore are up high on my list. Rhapsody by Elizabeth Haydon was also a great book. The entire Lord of the Rings simply kicked butt. Where the Red Fern Grows was pretty good too, but I was like 10 when I last read it.

 

The book that moved me the most in terms of the range of emotions and its raw power has to be 'Wuthering Heights'. It was just so intense I coudln't put it down and read it in a weekend. Funnily enough I've never been able to face reading it again as I'm worried it can't be as good a second time.

There are loads of other books I've really enjoyed and quite a few I've read several times but none have been like that. The closest was the Lord of the Rings but only the first part of it. I've just started reading it again (blame the film) and it isn't as powerful as I remember. But then I know what is going to happen so the Hobbits early plight loses a lot of impact.

 

Here's my favs:
Dune.
Dragonlance: The Cronicles trilogy.
Dragonlance: The legends trilogy.
Erik menneskesøn. (A very good danish book about the norse mythology.
And of course: Lord of the rings.

 

My A-list of books is constantly shifting, so I don't know that it could be considered an actual list of my favorite books all-time so much as the books I'd most recommend others to read. Right now.

The Vlad Taltos books, by Steven Brust
The Amber Chronicles, by Roger Zelazny
To Reign in Hell, by Steven Brust

 

Picking favorite books is like choosing a favorite diamond out of Solomon's mines!

I'd have to say:

Romans (from the Bible)
Desiring God by John Piper
The Great Divorce by CS Lewis
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
and ... last but not least ...
The Belgariad by David Eddings (starts with Pawn of Prophecy IIRC)

 

The Bible is my favorite book.

 

Lord of the Rings definitely. I loved it before the movie and i like it after the movie.And I DONT fortunately for us all,love Legolas.

 

Oh boy, where to start...or should I say where to stop? Impossible for me to pick one, two or even three favorite authors, so I'll just list a few of my favorites.

Tolkien obviously, huge influence.
Terry Pratchett, damn funny books, quite insightful as well.
David Gemmell, darker fantasy, excellent reading, especially his Shannow series.
L.E. Modesitt, Recluce series is great (up to about 11 books now Sapiryl, get the rest if you enjoyed the first).
Roger Zelazny, Amber chronicles.
C.J. Cherryh, sci-fi and fantasy both.
Anne McCaffrey, same as Cherryh.
David Eddings, cant go past Sparhawk for a good read.
Terry Goodkind, Raymond Feist,Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, Isobelle Carmody, Melanie Rawn, Larry Niven, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Julian May, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Tad Williams, Mary Gentle, Laurell Hamilton, ACK! The list could go on for miles...

 

Foucault´s Pendulum by Umberto Eco and A Secret History by Donna Tartt.

If you´ve never heard of these, please go read them...splendid reading.

 

My all time favorit books are "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings". "Tolkiens Letters" also make a great read. They provide lot of insight into the man and the process.

Anything by Mark Twain is wonderful. I would specifically recommend "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".

Additionally:
Dune - Frank Herbert
Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Leguin
Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

I could keep going, but this is good for now.

 

Not one book, but eight!

Lord of the Rings and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Though you could argue that Lord of the Rings is only one novel...

Examples of other great books are: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Young Zaphod Plays It Safe (a short story) by Douglas Adams, Starship Titanic by Terry Jones, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham by Tolkien (in case someone didn't know ), The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and Röde Orm (a fantastic Swedish book; would probably be Red Adder in English) by Frans G.Bengtsson.

 

I would have to say that my favorite of all time is The Foundation Series, by Isaac Azimov. It may not be only one book, but I have read this series more times than I can remember. It is by far the best Science Fiction Series, IMO.

[This message has been edited by Baldak Oakfist (edited April 04, 2002).]

 

Here's a couple of my all-time favorites.

1. The Count of Monte Christo, Alexandre Dumas.
2. The Foundation Series, Isaac Asimov

 

Steven Donaldson's Gap Series. Now there's an SF series well worth a read. Yeah, the first one is strange and you can even skip it completely (though I wouldn't).

Single novel, if you discount LoTR as a trilogy (although to discount it would indeed be criminal) , possibly Ender's Game.

LoTR - simply the greatest story ever.

 

It is neigh impossible to pick one favourite book, but one that really got to me and which I reread almost instantly was Ender's Game by OC Card, wonderful book everyone should read it. I second many of the nominations mentioned above too, great books.
I must say that even though I agree on most of the critique against WoT I am still hopelessly addicted and have read the whole series several times, say what you will about Jordan but he is one supreme world builder.
The Forever Hero by LE Modesit is great sci-fi book (rather a collection of all the books in a series). I recomend that to everyone.
Must say a swedish book too, Ondskan (The Evil) by Jan Guillo is a magnificient book very unlike most of the other easy reading he has written, I think it has been translated to atleast english, go buy or loan or your local library!