What Are Your Favorite Books??

opm1s6

opm1s6

Son
I'm surprised this thread doesn't exist already...bad smiling! :mad:;)

So just go through a couple of your favorite books

For me, I have three that I cycle through every couple of years. Atlas Shrugged
wiki said:
Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. It was Rand's third, largest, and last novel. Afterwards she only completed non-fiction works; concentrating on philosophy, politics, and cultural criticism.

At over one thousand pages in length, she considered Atlas Shrugged to be her magnum opus. The book explores a number of philosophical themes that Rand would subsequently develop into the philosophy of Objectivism. It centers around the decline of Western civilization and Rand described it as demonstrating the theme "the role of man's mind in existence." In doing so it expresses many facets of Rand's philosophy, such as the advocacy of her own views of reason, individualism, and the market economy.
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The Grapes of Wrath
Novel by John Steinbeck, published in 1939. Set during the Great Depression, it traces the migration of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family to California and their subsequent hardships as migrant farm workers. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1940. The work did much to publicize the injustices of migrant labor. The narrative, interrupted by prose-poem interludes, chronicles the struggles of the Joad family's life on a failing Oklahoma farm, their difficult journey to California, and their disillusionment once they arrive there and fall prey to a parasitic economic system.
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and Unbearable Lightness of Being
amazon said:
A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover -- these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.
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amazon review said:
This is either a book of philosophy masquerading as a novel, or a novel about the lives of four or five characters with pretensions to be a book of philosophy.
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I'm currently going through a pile of philosophical almost self-help type stuff, that while it is the base for very interesting discussions with friends, they aren't doing much for truly changing my own philosophies.

The Black Swan is a book I'm going to try to finish before the year ends. In January I want ot move on to a novel called Lush Life by Richard Price, which is an urban crime drama that is set in the lower east side and the runs through the random diversity of the area.
 
I think every salser@ should read "Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love" by Oscar Hijuelos. I recently read another book by him that I liked even more, "The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien".

I also really liked "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace. (There's a movie of the same name coming out, but the previews, to me, look terrible.)

As for past favorites, those would be "Lord of the Rings" and "The Bounty Trilogy", the latter by Norman and Hall. As a kid (and at times as an adult), I was a big fan of the Oz books.
 
"Freakonomics" by Stephen Leavitt
"Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
"Blink" also by Malcolm Gladwell

Coming Soon (when in paperback) and highly recommended by others:
"Irrational Predictability" by Dan Ariely
"The Mind of the Market" by Michael Shermer

Music related:
Cuban Music - From the drums to the mambo - by Ned Sublette
Musicophilia - by Oliver Sacks

Have it but haven't read it yet:
"This is your brain on music" by Daniel Levitin
 
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, and everything else, really
Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere and American Gods are top, and everythign else is good too
Haruki Murakami: Hard-Boiled Wonderland, Dance dance dance, etc.
Bulgakov: Master and Margarita, Dog's Heart
Strugatsky: too many to name
 
Wow antigone, you like Master and Margarita!? I don't meet many people who've read it. It's an odd little book, but the black cat will forever be one of my favorite characters.
 
wow, 2 english-speaking people who not only have heard of Master&Margarita, but have read it and liked it. Makes me feel warm and squishy. I wouldn't call it a "little book", though, it's actually considered a russian 20th century classic :)

And I completely left out Albert Camus! Let's see..Stranger and The Plague are top for me...I tried Ayn Rand, but it was way too dry for me
 
antigone said:
wow, 2 english-speaking people who not only have heard of Master&Margarita, but have read it and liked it.
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make that 3. :cool: or maybe 2 and a half. ;) it took a while for me to get into it, then i loved it, then not so much towards the end...

favourite books....got a week? ;) some are....

the dispossessed, ursula le guin
wuthering heights, emily bronte
the passion, jeanette winterson
the white hotel, d m thomas
lord of the rings, j r tolkein
 
I almost never read books anymore since the advent of my Internet addiction, and literature might be great and good in most ways, but when I start reading something actually worth reading I can't put it down until I'm finished at the cost of sleep, work, everything.

It's just not practical, I guess I'm an addictive personality, can't even have a TV at home. I get hooked.

Commenting on previous posts.., books I relate to

"Atlas Shrugged", I should read it since I subscribe to almost everything Ayn Rand has to say as a thinker. But frankly I find her writing a bit pompous and tiresome. And it's a big book, I'm obliged to read it some day I guess.

"Master and Margarita", read it as a kid. Great book, and more interesting now since I read more about it and how amazingly sophisticated storytelling this really is, as an "Menippeah", a case of "Unreliable narrator".

http:// megaone.com/bulgakov/


I came to this from looking into more of the case of "Hamlet", another very strange and confusing story where the author is really playing games with you, a lot more than meets the eye. The real story is something completely different than we are first led to believe.
http:// geocities.com/shakesp_marlowe/hamlet01.html


Otherwise, reading experiences that come to mind..

"The Alexandria Quartet" by Lawrence Durrell. If you give it time during the first part the story gradually opens up, wow..

"Death on credit" by Celine. I initially resisted it since I was turned off by his apparent sympathies for the nazis, but man.., it's a great and intensive book with loads of humanity in it.

"The Elementary Particles" and "Platform" by Michel Houllebecq.

Everything I've read of Henry Miller

As a kid I read absolutely everything in Science Fiction and loved it all. Nowadays I take care of that through movies instead, I have very low quality standards in SF and horror Movies. But I digress..
 
antigone said:
Dandelion Wine
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That brings back memories... read it a dozen times when I was at junior high.

antigone said:
Haruki Murakami
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Everyone around me loves Haruki Murakami but he just doesn't work for me... My favourite Japanese writer is Kaoru Takamura - someone should translate her works.

TrulyMadlyAmanda said:
the dispossessed, ursula le guin
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I miss my Le Guin collection, which I left in storage in Edinburgh... :( Love the Dispossessed, but I think I like the Left Hand of Darkness better now.
 
I ordered The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins) because I liked the title :) and took it on holidays with me. We shared many chai lattes. I'm not into crime or detective novels, but I am addicted to classics, and I must say I enjoyed this one. I was reading so much I had to duck into a bookshop in Brisbane to buy another book. I came out with Cuba. A History by Hugh Thomas, which I've just commenced. It's over 1000 pages - might just find itself intertwined with other reads! His The Spanish Civil War was a magnificent book (plenty about Manuel Azana in there ;) ) so I have high expectations. I also recently ordered Carthage Must Be Destroyed which Must Be Read soon.

My favorite books, hmmm...include

- The King's General - Daphne du Maurier
- The War with Hannibal - Livy
- For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
- Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (difficult to pick my favorite of his...)
- Villette - Charlotte Bronte
- Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, of course!
- Me Against My Brother. At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda - Scott Peterson (horrifyingly gripping)

And I still have my complete, childhood collection of Nancy Drew books :) From back when you had to stalk bookshops to find them all...

I am terrified Garcia Marquez is going to die, or become incapacitated...before he can complete the promised last two volumes of his autobiography. I don't think I can hold out waiting much longer!
 
Eat Pray Love
Flow
The Power of Kindness
The Secret
Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

Obviously two of those are chickie but I'd recommend the middle 3 to everyone! And HIGHLY recommend the first and last ones to the girls.
 
Tricksy! Where shall Will begin!

In no particular order:

The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (Really, if you love fantasy then this is IT!)
Elantris - Brandon Sanderson (An author who does sci fi/fantasy in a stand alone novel in this day and age, and makes me cheer, is amazing.)
The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit (I need say nothing!)
Riddlemaster - Patricia A.McKillip (Totally original fantasy which does a great line in Zen without beating you over the head with it.)

---Ok Enough Sci Fi and/or Fantasy

The Little World of Don Camillo - Giovanni Guareschi (Utterly charming)
Humboldt's Gift - Saul Bellow - (Just a great novel which takes you on an interesting and informative journey)
Any Human Heart - William Boyd (The first Boyd novel I read and my favourite. )

The Shadow of the Wind/ La Sombra del Viento - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (I LOVE this book, yes it's a bit over the top, yes it enjoys a little melodrama; but it's just awesome, terribly sad, terribly beautiful, and completely satisfying.)

There are too many more to mention, but these are the names that floated to the top first when I put the question to my sub-conscious!
 
wildbill20056 said:
The Shadow of the Wind/ La Sombra del Viento - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (I LOVE this book, yes it's a bit over the top, yes it enjoys a little melodrama; but it's just awesome, terribly sad, terribly beautiful, and completely satisfying.)
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I don't think anyone has read that book and not loved it - one of those books those friends who usually have totally different tastes and I agree on :)
 
Isabel Allende: The House of Spirits, Eva Luna (they're english versions are exactly the same, I've read them in English)
 
Argh, too many to chose from

Fiction
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy by Stieg Larsson
Northern Lights (His Dark Materials) trilogy by Philip Pullman
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith

Sci-fi
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Dune by Frank Herbert
Ubiq by Philip K. ****
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
Short Stories Collection by J.G. Ballard

Crime Fiction
Anything by:
Ian Rankin
Reginald Hill
Colin Dexter
P.D. James
Agatha Christie
Arthur Conan Doyle

Non-fiction
Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing by Adam Greenfield
The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
Terra Incognita: Travels in Antartica by Sara Wheeler
The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional & Personal Life by Rosamund & Ben Zander
The O.E.D. (the 20 volume version :) )

Biography
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
Caught in the Web of Words: James A.H.Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary by K.M.Elisabeth Murray
 
I finally got around to reading 'The Secret History'. What an excellent holiday read!
 
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