By which I don't necessarily mean your top ten evah, but ten books that you love and perhaps go back to from time to time.

My list, in no particular order:


Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The great 19th-century American novel. Deconstructed, reconstructed, argued over, it's great.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I don't know another book that sets out its story in such a clear, economical fashion. And the last line is perfect.

Ham on Rye, Factotum, Women, all by Charles Bukowski. I think Bukowski is the only truly lumpenprole writer I know. He expresses the anomie of the modern underclass with humour and dignity. A very brave writer.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. I don't always agree with Solzhenitsyn on politico-historical analysis, but it's a great, simple book that expresses so much about human beings.

Great Apes by Will Self. It's Gulliver's Travels for the 21st century. Hilarious and profound.

Kangaroo by DH Lawrence. If you want somebody to really see your society, get an outsider to look at it. In many ways, a book about being an outsider.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. HoD is the more famous and possibly the more fully-realised book, but there's something about Jim's story that always pulls me in.

Emma by Jane Austen. I happen to think it's the pinnacle of Austen's spritely tour through her society's manners and mores.

Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy.I grew up during the height of the cold war, and this is a great book.

Flakenberg's Legion by Jerry Pournelle. I just enjoy this book. The whole series.

The Corps and the Brotherhood of War series by W.E.B. Griffin. These are fun reading for me.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. This was a great book.

Dune by Frank Herbert. I never get tired of this book.

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison. Great fun.

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, despite it's heavy S&M themes I enjoyed it.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I can't recommend this highly enough.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. A timeless classic.

1632 by Eric Flint. A fun ride.

I love books, and would love to have thousands more. Someday I'll restock my library!

Quote from: Serious Paul;242855Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. A timeless classic.

That's one of the earliest books I remember reading for myself.

This is tricky. I used to enjoy reading novels when I was younger then the focus flared out or reverse-zoomed for me....and I had trouble fallinto the world of the book. Kept see the mechanics of the writing on the page instead of just being able to relax and read the story.

 Being cursed with a partially photographic memory doesn't help much either....


These are the few I can go back to and still wind up in the world of the book in a good way:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

The Stand by Stephen King

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare (technically a transcribed play)

ROADMARKS by Roger Zelazny

Changeling by Roger Zelazny

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg.

I used to love the Flinx of the Commonwealth novels by Alan Dean Foster - but sold or traded those all off to HALF-PRICE BOOKS years ago.

Best new book that I've tried to get into is The Summer Country by James A. Hetley. Its about bCetic/Irish myth and magic crossing over into what we think of as the real world.  It was recommended to me by a friend, main problem I have with is the female protagoist reminds me too much of someone I know from past. (geez!! She needed therapy)


- Ed C.

Like to re-read STARSHIP TROOPERs and STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Heinlein - but they don't have the same appeal that they used to.

Huck Finn
To Kill A Mockingbird.
V--Thomas Pynchon, not the reptillian alien invasion
Fevre Dream, George RR Martin--Vampire buys into a Mark Twain-era steamboat line. It's much, much better than its premise would suggest . . .
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Frankenstein
Ulysses
Foucault's Pendulum
Another Roadside Attraction
I the Jury

Ask me tomorrow and it might be a completely different list. It's hard to bust it down to ten favorites.

Moby Dick
People of the Black Circle
Tarzan at the Earth's Core
For Whom the bell Tolls
Blood Meridian
The Sound and the Fury
The Dying Earth
Book of the New Sun
The Stars My Destination
The Three Musketeers
Swords of Lankhmar

Yeah that's eleven. I couldn't decide what to cut. I'm also a fan of all those Bukowski books, btw- especially Women.

Fuck I want to add Catch 22 and Gravity's Rainbow too.

No particular order:

A Tale of Two Cities - the first love story I could ever really believe in.
Great Expectations - the third love story I could ever really believe in.
God Emperor of Dune - a great fall writ large.
Hellstrom's Hive - for sheer awesome of premise.
The Last Legends of Earth - some of the awesomest creepy bad guys ever, combined with a deliciously surreal, dare I say psychedelic setting and plot.
Lolita - the second love story I could really believe in.
The Wars - easily the saddest thing I've ever read, and one of the few "miserably bleak CanLit thing we had to read in school" novels that stuck with me in a good way.
Spider World: The Delta - this was the first of the series I'd read, so it was all sort of in media res. I think the process of puzzling out what happened based on this book alone really heightened the esteem for this particular volume in my mind.
On the Banks of Lethe - the only recently-read entry here. Think Lovecraft as film noir.
The Great Gatsby - okay, like seriously, I have way too many tragic tales of unrequited love on this list and I need to rethink my priorities. D:

The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
* The character George Hayduke is based on my dad.  Ed Abbey was a close family friend.

Zodiac by Neal Stephanson
* A "green noir" that blends environmental science, hippie freethinking, and a traditional detective story narrative.

Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy by Douglas Adams
* The funniest, smartest book I will ever read.

Population 1280 by Jim Thompson
* A dark and scary story told from the perspective of a sociopathic small-town sheriff by the master of American Gothic literature.

The Hunter by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark
* Made into the movie Payback with Mel Gibson and Point Blank with Lee Marvin, this book defines the criminal-as-protagonist genre.

About A Boy by Nick Hornby
* Made into a movie with High Grant, the book is a touching and fun story of a boy who is too grown up and his relationship with a man who never grew up.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
* We are the dancing singing shit of the world.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
* Best use of made-up vernacular ever.  The most realistic story about crime ever written.

The Castle by Franz Kafka
* Basically this book explains why everyone hates government.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
* Technically not a novel, but it's gotten me laid several times, so it rocks.  It's also really good stuff.

No author was allowed to list more than once.  In all cases, the work listed is only the most favorite by that author.

Dhalgren, Samuel R Delany
Neveryon series, Samuel R Delany
Lolita, Nabokov
Pale Fire, Nabokov
White Noise, Don Delillo
Empire Falls, Richard Russo
Where I'm Calling From, Raymond Carver (Short Stories, really, but I love his writing so much...this is a great introduction to his work; Cathedral is a masterful volume)
Anything by Alice Munro (see Carver comments...her stories have all the complexity and craft of a full novel as it is!)
Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
Ficciones, Borges (gah, again, not a novel, but a collection of shorts...the Carver and Munro comments go double here, though)

Quote from: Aos;242925Yeah that's eleven. I couldn't decide what to cut. I'm also a fan of all those Bukowski books, btw- especially Women.

Have you seen the Peanuts by Bukowski page?

http://progressiveboink.com/archive/peanuts-by-charles-bukowski/

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault

The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

Dune by Frank Herbert

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuinn

Glorianna by Michael Moorcock

Being Dead by Jim Crace

Treasure Island- Robert Louis Stevenson.  No, not technically a novel, but definitely a story that I've read many times and enjoyed as a child and an adult.

Around the World in 80 Days- Jules Verne.  My favorite Vern tale.  It strikes the right balance between adventure and explanation, avoiding the textbook-like sections found in some of his others.  It amazes me how the hot air balloon has come to be known with this story, since nobody rides in one.  It's even on the cover of my book!

1984- George Orwell.  I'm a big fan of Animal Farm as well, but 1984 gets the nod if I could only pick one.

Once an Eagle, by Anton Myrer.  An outstanding novel about life as a career military man.  

The Hobbit- J.R.R. Tolkien.  I enjoy it more than the Lord of the Rings and it's a lot easier to pick up and read through when the mood strikes you.

Jurassic Park- Michael Crichton.  I read this book multiple times before I ever heard they were making a movie.  Awesome story for anyone who likes dinosaurs.  Owes a lot to the next one on the list...

The Lost World- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Great adventure story.

the Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow, by Allen French.  Just another great adventure story.  A real easy read, that I enjoy going back to every so often.

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding.  I'm noticing a theme: exotic locations (frequently islands), and struggles for survival against both man and nature.

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe.  Why stop a theme when it's a good one?  A little tougher to get into thanks to the older language and slow start, but it's definitely worth the effort.

This is cruel hard... I couldn't really make a real top ten, so conisder this a "top ten of the moment." Also, it has lots of series in it, so much more than ten books!

Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh

Merchanter's Luck by C. J. Cherryh

The Chanur series by C. J. Cherryh

Ringworld by Larry Niven

The Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian

The Alan Lewrie series by Dewey Lambdin

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien

Emphyrio by Jack Vance

The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance

Trullion: Alastor 2262 by Jack Vance

I'm sure that would change if you ask again in a day or so. I also didn't even mention movies! That would break the deal!

-clash

How is Treasure Island not a novel?