Your Favorite Non-Fantasy Book

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This is pretty basic - what is your favorite non-fantasy book out there?? (Yes, there is something more than that one little section of the bookstore). Note that I am not including sci-fi in with fantasy - so feel free - we are assuming that everyone in the world loves LOTR, of course (myself included)

My personal favorites are:
John Steinbeck's East of Eden
Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms
Anything by Michael Chrichton
Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien: A Biography

 

Well it is kinda fantasy but also not, it would be a judgement call

Jurassic park the book is really great. Intelligent writing and the movie pales in comparrison.

 

Good question ...

"Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara. Great historical fiction on teh Civil War.

"Desiring God" by John Piper. If you think Christianity is a lame religion that will make life boring and stale ... you've got another thing coming!

"The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis. Take a bus ride from Purgatory to Heaven, see the sights and learn some wisdom!

Also by Lewis "The Screwtape Letters"

Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor and Rainbow Six (as well as most of his other books) (btw ... don't watch the movies and think the books are at all that simple!)

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G.K. Chesterton was once asked this question, but the interviewer inquired, "If you were stranded on a desert island, what one book would you want to have with you?"

Chesterton replied, "Thompson's Manual on Ship Building"

 

oh a hard question! erm... lets see...
Kafka, take your pick which title. Almost fantasy sometimes, (or atleast almost otherworldly)

C.S. Lewis, Screwtape letters & great divorce & mere christianity.

Roald Dahl. everything

Any myth or book containing myth.

Jerry kozinsky (or something like that) true he's rather vulgar, but his novel being there is very impressive!

Any distopia (Huxley, orwell, Coetzee)

there are way too many good books around.

but the best of all Marten Toonder (dutch writer)

 

Hmm, so many non-fantasy books... Well, I like Killer Angels, and the other books in that trilogy (have you read those as well Mathetais?)
I'm also in to books about military history (read a book on World War I by John Kegon (doubt I spelled that right) and another good book I read was an analysis of Lt. Gen. Fred Franks' strategy during Desert Storm (he was a corps commander at that time.))
Finally, I'm a big Frank Herbert fan (where do you think I got the name "Atreides?")

 

Lewis is great - I really like the Screwtape Letters.

I forgot to mention James A. Michener - The Covenant was an awesome book. He is really good at historical fiction!

 

Jack Higgins - The eagle has landed
George Orwell - 1984
Nikos Kazantzakis - Freedom or death
Ken Follet - The pillars of earth
Leon Tolstoy - War and peace
Clive Barker - Weaveworld
Daniel Keys Moran - The ring
Jack London - Call of the wild

[ October 29, 2002, 19:00: Message edited by: BOC ]

 

BOC did you actually read War and Peace? "faints"

Probably i should read it too heavy Literature and all, but everytime I see it standing there in the library (the bookcase sagging due to weight ) I think "nah perhaps next time"

So do enlighten me. is it any good? and more important why should I read it?

 

I like all the sharpe books by bernard cromwell. Rainbow six was good, and so was all the bond books

 

I've only read Killer Angels ... and I want to read the others. Gods & Generals, et al look great.

I read Weaveworld, haunted me for years. Now that I'm a sales professional, I'd love to have that jacket j/k

Bernard Cornwell is great. I haven't read the Sharpe books, but the Warlord Trilogy and the Archer's Tale are great (kinda fantasy, but more historical)

Right now I'm reading my first Stephan Ambrose book, "Undaunted Courage" about the life and explorations of Meriweather Lewis (the Lewis in "Lewis and Clark") ... great book. Next I want to buy (or rent ) Band of Brothers.

Glad to see so many C.S. Lewis fans out here

 

Aegron, I read it almost ten years ago (maybe more)and it's a very good book.Why you should read it? It describes a very interesting era and, as far as I know, it is considered to be a masterpiece of literature. I can't think of another reason.

 

If you haven't yet, you all should read Timeline by Michael Chrichton - an interesting mix of historical fiction and sci-fi.

 

I second that, Timeline was fantastic. As for my personal favourites:

George Orwell - 1984
Joseph Heller - Catch 22
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
H.G. Wells - A Modern Utopia
Ayn Rand - Anthem
Charles Bukowski - Septuagenarian Stew
Anything by Douglas Coupland or Tom Robbins

I just finished Clive Barker's Weaveworld. While it doesn't rank among my favourties, it is a good book and definitely worth reading.

[edit]
Mathetais: You sure you want that jacket? Remember what it did to Cal when Uriel looked into it?
[/edit]

[ October 31, 2002, 00:46: Message edited by: JohnnyRTFM ]

 

JohnnyRTFM ... true, but it would still be kinda cool ... I'd just have to be careful and use my powers only for good. (The salesguy in the book was such a slime-ball ... reminds me of my former boss)

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Saving Tal some time here ... "MAKE SURE TO BUY ALL BOOKS THROUGH SORCERER'S PLACE. IT HELPS KEEP THE SITE RUNNING!" hehe, couldn't resist.

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Anyone read Business Books?

Built to Last by Jim Collins is great. The sequal is "Good to Great" which I'm reading now, but isn't as good.

"The Heart of an Executive" is a brilliant book. The author Richard D. Phillips is an MBA and an MDiv, the book takes the life of King David (the giant killer) and uses his successes and failures to guide the development of a leader's heart and mind.

 

The best book I read recently was (in a rough title translation) "Essay about blindness' by Jose Saramago (nobel prize winner), another book I enjoyed a lot was "the incredible adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon (I think this is his name). There is also a book of short tales called (again in a rough translation) "laughable loves" by Milan Kundera wich is great, very ironic sense of humor, I recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of stuff (literature). And, if anyone likes samurais and this sort of stuff, there's a REALLY good book (a classic) called "Musashi", if you like oriental culture and samurais then you must read it (it takes some courage though, it's about 1800 pages long).

[ October 31, 2002, 16:03: Message edited by: MauricioEiji ]

 

The only books I can think of off the top of my head a the moment are:

Shogun by James Clavell
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Dune by Frank Herbert

All of those are really great books; I've read them all several times and enjoyed them a lot.

 

My favorite non fantasy books are:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies

 

But I have so many!

Dosteovsky- Crime and Punishment
Susan Kay- Phantom
Stephen King- The eye of the Dragon (which is sorta, but not quite fantasy ~^_^~)
Anything Sherlock Holmes, especially the series by Laurie R. King

 

I haven't read many non-fantasy books, but I think "A Clockwork Orange" is excellent. (Just the title is great, since "Orange" is invented slang and it means "human") It is a rather difficult read, unless you can get your hands on a Nadsat Dictionary. (Type "Nadsat" in almost any search engine and you should find a good dictionary)

 

Too many to list but I enjoyed Crime and Punishment and as it is the most recent non-fantasy book I have read I might as well list it.