What is the BEST book you've ever read?

[Oblivion437]

Alright, the rules are simple, and practically non-existent:

Pick your favorite book, the one you enjoyed the most, you aren't required to limit yourself to one choice, maybe one for each genre, but you don't have to go into each one. Just the books you like the most.

Don't criticize another poster's choices, though you may ask why they chose what they did. Also, don't get defensive, this is a positive thread.

I'll start with my choices:

My two favorite political/nonfiction books are All The President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Kill John F. Kennedy. They're both deeply disturbing whistle blower books that paint even more unpleasant pictures of very unpleasant events, Watergate and the Kennedy assassination respectively.

My favorite Sci-Fi books are Frank Herbert's Dune and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. Wonderfully well beyond the Science Fiction setting, using the whole science fiction concept as a backdrop to grander philosophical and logical exploration...

My favorites from the random schtuff category...

James Joyce - Ulysses

Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness

Alex Haley - Roots

Dante Alighieri - Comedy

Nicholas Pileggi - Wiseguy: Life In a Mafia Family

Frederick Forsythe - The Day of the Jackal

Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

Nicholas Pileggi - Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas

[ 07-09-2004, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: Oblivion437 ]

[Albromor]

In no particular order...

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath; At the Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William Schier

The Lyonnesse Trilogy; The Dying Earth Series - Jack Vance

Does God Exist? - Hans Kung

Naming the Silences - Stanley Hauerwas

Ruthless Trust - Brennan Manning

Healing for Damaged Emotions - David Seamands

Mythago Wood - Robert Holdstock

The Earthsea Trilogy - Ursula LeGuin

The Golden Man - M.A.R. Barker

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

The Brothers Karamasov - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Irrational Man - William Barrett

The Face in the Frost - John Bellairs

The Amber Series - Roger Zelazny

Something Wicked This Way Comes; The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

The Time Machine - H.G. Wells

The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers

The Gathering Storm - Winston Churchill

...and tons more where these came from.

[Dron_Cah]

I'll keep mine short: The Holy Bible.

[img]tongue.gif[/img]

[SpongeBobTheDestoyer]

Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon [img]graemlins/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Lady Blue03]

<font color=pink>Hmm...so many!

I suppose my absolute favorite is "The Memoirs of Cleopatra" by Margaret George. I'm fascinated by the ancient Roman and Eygptian cultures (especially the 3 main chars, Cleopatra, Ceasar, and Marc Antony ), so I *love* this book.

Everything else has an equal place below it:

-The first 3 books of Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series, his Mode series, and of course the Incarnation series.

-Lord of the Rings trilogy

-Song of Ice and Fire (the 3 books out so far)

-Harry Potter (except #4 and #5...)

-Select books from the Wheel of Time...some of them were good and some of them were ick [img]tongue.gif[/img]

-Sword of Truth series

That's all of them to date I believe...Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden was good too. I remember my freshman english teacher asking me if I knew what a geisha was...effing duh, rofl</font>

edit for font tag [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 07-10-2004, 05:13 AM: Message edited by: Lady Blue03 ]

[uss]

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.


A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

[Bozos of Bones]

Originally posted by Lady Blue03: <font color=pink>Hmm...so many! <SNIP> -The first 3 books of Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series, his Mode series, and of course the Incarnation series. -Lord of the Rings trilogy -Song of Ice and Fire (the 3 books out so far) -Harry Potter (except #4 and #5...) -Select books from the Wheel of Time...some of them were good and some of them were ick [img]tongue.gif[/img] -Sword of Truth series That's all of them to date I believe...Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden was good too. I remember my freshman english teacher asking me if I knew what a geisha was...effing duh, rofl</font> edit for font tag [img]tongue.gif[/img]

With minor changes, that is my list too. I haven't read Harry Potter books, but I've seen the movies and from the sound of things they pretty much capture it good(altho IMHO the last one was under standards). And I have yet to get a hold of Piers Anthony's stuff.

EDIT: spellcasting

[ 07-10-2004, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: Bozos of Bones ]

[The Fallen One]

wow, no one mentioned the Erevis Cale Triology....well its one of my favorite books so far and i hope the third is going to be more astonishing than the first and second combined. [img]tongue.gif[/img] and i also liked the song of fire and ice by GRR martin.

[Lauren]

I think the best books I ever read were ones by Jaquilin Quin (I think that was it). I used to read her books a lot when I was younger, I loved them to death I wouldn't put her books down.
I also think Mage Heart was excellent (I can't remember the author though, unfortunately ).

[ 07-11-2004, 06:19 AM: Message edited by: Lauren ]

[Marathon]

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
100 Years of Solitude - Marquez