Best Books You've Ever Read?

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This is for research purposes as much as anything. I'm getting into reading a lot lately and want to know what to read next. So, I want people to put down their favourite books so I know what to look out for . Over to you, SP!

 

In no particular order, my top 10 or so:

The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Deadhouse Gates - Steven Erikson
Memories of Ice - Steven Erikson
House of Chains - Steven Erikson
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
A Clash of Kings - George R. R. Martin
The Cider House Rules - John Irving

 

1. The Coming of Conan of Cimmeria by Robert E Howard
2. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
3. The Crystal Shard by R A Salvatore
4. The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
5. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
6. Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra
7. Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Weis and Hickman
8. The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
9. Mission MIA by J C Pollack
10. From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

 

The Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorites.

 

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
The Liveship Traders - Robin Hobb
A Song of Ice and Fire - GRR Martin
Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds
Chasm City - Alastair Reynolds
Redemption Ark - Alastair Reynolds
Absolution Gap - Alastair Reynolds
The Saga of the Exiles - Julian May
Intervention - Julian May
The Galactic Milieu Trilogy - Julian May
Stardust - Neil Gaiman
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
The Last T'En Trilogy - Cory Danniels
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Snow Crash - Neal Stephanson
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephanson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephanson
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Count Zero - William Gibson
Mona Lisa Overdrive - William Gibson
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
Frankenstein - Mary Shelly
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Anthem - Ayn Rand
The Children of Men - PD James
Jennifer Government - Max Barry

That's everything that comes to mind for now - I'll edit if I think of more.

[ November 16, 2005, 10:15: Message edited by: Aikanaro ]

 

Steven Erikson, if you are looking for fantasy. His books are epic length, and they will keep you busy for quite some time.

 

My favourite fantasy novel would have to be The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance. Strange lands, stranger peoples and a loathsome anti-hero who is just engaging enough that you want him to win through. Wonderful stuff.

 

I won't repeat other people so here's some others

Demon Prince series - Javk Vance
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
anything by Roger Zelazny (my favourite author of all time)
Pride and Predujice - Jane Austen
Paradise Lost - John Milton
The Divine Comedy - Dante Aligheri
Candide - Voltaire
The Black Company series - Glen Cook
Anything by Sean Russell
The Ender series - Orson Scott Card
The Book of Words - J V Jones

And just in case graphic novels
Ronin - Frank Miller
The Sandman series - Neil Gaiman
Watchmen - Alan Moore
V for Vendetta - Alan Moore
The Dark Knight returns - Frank Miller
Camelot 3000 AD - Mike W Barr

 

Any particular genre?

Anything by Hemmingway (especially The Old Man and The Sea)
Anything by Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men is amazing)
All the Sherlock Holmes Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Anything by John LeCarre (start with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)
The Evil that Men Do (authors name is Hill -- sorry, don't know the first name)
The Eagle has Landed by Jack Higgins
Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
The Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edit: Catcher in the Rye has quite an infamous reputation... be afraid of anyone claiming it to the their favorite book.

 

From the Corner of His Eye-Dean Koontz
It was just so good, it was the first book he strayed from sraight horror to more of pyschological horror. Barty was such and interesting child

Odd Thomas-Dean Koontz
The first book I almost cried at the ending off. Odd Thomas is such a great character. It was just a great book.

The Killing Kind-John Connolly
I've read lots of detective novels but none of them were nearly as interesting as Charlie Parker. A tortured ex-cop whose family was killed by a serial killer sent on a case of finding what happened to a young women and it leads him to a cult with a murder filled past. It was great.

Helter Skelter-Vincent Bugliosi
I was interested in the whole Charles Manson thing and read this book. It was so crazy, it honestly scared the hell out of me. I slept with a golf club next to the bed for like 3 months after reading it.

LOTR-JRR Tolkien
Started the whole obsession with fantasy for me. I actually read LOTR before The Hobbit. Aragorn was such a classic character.

Mossflower-Brian Jacques
I read it when I was in like grade 5, and loved it. I can still remember the whole story. Brian Jacques stories really slipped after Mattimeo. Mossflower is heads and tails above the rest.

Thats all I can think of for now.

My favourite graphic novels are The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman

 

I can't believe I left off Frankenstein -- one of the best books ever written. It is not a gothic horror novel as portrayed by Hollywood, but rather an engrossing novel about prejudice.

 

The last time we had a similar thread here, _Gates of Fire_ by Steve Pressfield turned up several times also. It's really very good.

 

• Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The first man in Rome by Colleen McCollough (chances are that I mispelled that name).
• The road to Jerusalem (and the three other books in this series) By Jan Guillou
• Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Anerssen Nexø (The book I'm named after ).
• Ditte Humanchild (bad translation, I think) again by Martin Anerssen Nexø.
• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
• Homers the Illiad and the Odyssé (really, really bad translation, I think) is also two great works.

No nearly all of them, but some of the books I charish the most. Other books of interrest, which I, mind you, haven't read thrtough yet, but only begun are: Gates of Fire and With fire and Sword.

Funny that noone has mentioned J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter books. Personally I find them to be great books, though writing-wise nothing that would reach my top-ten.

 

too many to try and name... but it appears that Darkstrider and I have the same taste in graphic novels have you ever tried reading John Constantine: Hellblazer or Lucifer? Great stuff as well.

 

Too many, but I'll try and put some of the best ones:
Dune (Frank Herbert)
Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
Silmarillion (Tolkien)
War and Peace (Tolstoi)
The Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy (Douglas Adams)
The brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky)
Ficciones (Jorge Luis Borges)
History of the Peloponysian War (Thucydides. Father of all historians, and an absolutely brilliant analysis of wars in general)
The Count of Monte-Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
The Stranger (Albert Camus. Went into depression for several weeks after reading this)
The Culture of Terrorism (Noam Chomsky)
The Sound and the Fury (and mostly anything else by William Faulkner, but this one stands out)
Neuromancer (William Gibson)
Petersburgh Stories (Gogol)
Short stories by ETA Hoffmann
The unberable lightness of being (Milan Kundera)
The Call of Cthulhu (HP Lovecraft)
An American Dream (Norman Mailer)
Le Horla (Guy de Maupassant)
The birth of Tragedy (Friedrich Nietzsche)
A la recherche du temps perdu (Marcel Proust)
La jalousie (Alain Robbe-Grillet)
Season of Migration to the North (Tayeb Saleh)
A confederacy of dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
Autumn in Pekin (Boris Vian)

If you include graphic novels:
Nikopol Trilogy (Enki Bilal)
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo)

And many others. Yes, I like reading

 

Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
This Day All Gods Die - Stephen R. Donaldson
Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey
Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb
Gardens of the Moon - Steven Erikson
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

I'm sure there're quite a few I'm forgetting, but whatever.

Hellblazer's good, Lucifer's better. But you really need to read Preacher, dammit! Preacher!

 

A song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin.

Best series I have ever read.

 

have to disagree with that master. Lucifer gets away with stuff because 1) he's so smooth 2) he's so powerful that people always think twice before messing with him anyway. Constantine on the other hand can't even fight properly but he always finds a way to screw everybody over in the end. So I prefer Constantine Yeah, I think I'll try reading Preacher, it used to be by Garth Ennis anyway, right?

 

I'm sure there will be duplications from others' lists, but hey, great minds think alike...

The Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Neuromancer, et al. - William Gibson
Red Storm Rising - Tom Clancy
Team Yankee - Harold Coyle
Ringworld - Larry Niven
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Starship Troopers - Heinlein
A Game of Thrones - George RR Martin
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Dune - Frank Herbert
Shogun - James Clavell
Eye of the World - Robert Jordan
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Watchmen - Alan Moore

 

"The Third Policeman" by Flann O'Brien - surreal and funny
Any "Books Of Blood" by Clive Barker, particularly #1 & 2 - imaginitive horror short story collections
Anything Joe R. Lansdale has written - nasty, exciting, yet hilarious
Thomas Harris' books that feature Hannibal Lecter - carefully constructed, thoroughly researched thrillers