It's that time again....Your Top 5 Books of All-Time

[bicentennial_baby]

I know, I know, it's hard to pick just 5, but I love doing this thread once in a while, to see what y'all are into. Here we go! :bounce:

1) Lolita- Nabokov
2) The Great Gatsby- Fitzgerald
3) Drawing Blood- Brite
4) American Gods- Gaiman
5) The Bell Jar- Plath

Ok, out with it! What do you like? :bounce:

[Beer Snob-50]

1. Not quite as literarially challenged but...

John Irving- The World according to Garp
John Irving-A Prayer for Owen Meaney
John Irving-The Cider House Rules
Jimmy Buffet- A Pirate looks at 50
Mark Twain- Tom Sawyer (an oldie but I love it)

[RandomKoolzip]

2. My list:

1. Rock and the Pop Narcotic- Joe Carducci
2. Stairway to hell- Chuck Eddy
3. Psychotic Reactions and Carbuerator Dung- Lester Bangs
4. For Keeps- Pauline Kael
5. A Whore Just Like the Rest- Ricahrd Meltzer

I'm not really into fiction; I like criticism.

[fishwax]

30. What Jane Austen novels have you read?

Have you ever seen the movie Metropolitan? Your last comment reminded me of one of my favorite exchanges :)

Audrey Rouget: What Jane Austen novels have you read?
Tom Townsend: None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.

[khashka]

62. All of 'em.

In fact yesterday I was looking for something to read. The Juveniela of Jane Austen.... No sex, no violence?

Jane, Jane Jane - I have no words.

But if you want literary criticism - try Fay Weldon's "On first reading Jane Austen"


Khash. a Janeite to his very heart.

[khashka]

3. 'm going with Lost Souls

1) The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - RAH
2) Lost Souls - Brite ( Drawing Blood was a good choice - you really see how fucking amazing she is, but I'm going with Lost Souls)
3) American Gods - Gaiman is such a treasure. He's so wonderful.
4) The Bell Jar - a woman spills her heart and it hurts.
5) Any of of Iain Bank's Culture books. Especially Excession or Look To Windward. He's a violent little bastard but he knows how to reach your heart.


Khash.

[bicentennial_baby]

5. baby, let's hang out!

yes, I love love love Lost Souls, but Drawing Blood just...gets me.

and i'll have to check out your last one, never read any of his stuff before. :)

[khashka]

6. Actually Drawing Blood gets to me - really

The whole "My Daddy killed all my family and himself but not me. Didn't he love me?" That totally fucks me up.

And who but Poppy could write a rape scene where the victim is actually the perp?

If you want to try Banks Start with Consider Phlebas.


Khash.

[bicentennial_baby]

7. exactly

Trevor's whole life experience and anguish just jumps off the page at me...and I can't shake the images of the claw-hammer and nail marks in the wall where he killed Trev's mom...just chilling :scared:

[khashka]

9. Yeah,Trev's Mom's death really hit me

What was worse - Trev's liittle brother. I cried.

I keep reliving that moment - Trev discovers his brother is dead He goes for help and finds his mother brutalized. Because she fought back.. He finds his father dead.

But what really rips me up - You took everyone you loved with you. But not me. Why not me?


Khash.

[bicentennial_baby]

11. yeah, was it that he wasn't loved

or that he was the most loved? was his dad attempting to preserve the talent that he saw in lil Trev's drawings? or did he really resent him for it?

[khashka]

31. Love and resentment

Of course he loved Trev. And resented his talent. And when it came down to it - he could kill the baby, he could kill his wife,he could kill himself, but he couldn't bring himself to kill Trev's talent. So instead he left Trev to live a life full of unanswered questions....

And that's what Poppy starts with.....


Have you read Swamp Foetus? (I think it was reissued as Wormwood in the States) There is one story in there that always gets to me - The Elder.

Khash.

[Squatch]

4. In no particular order

1) The Nick Adams Short Stories - Hemmingway
2) Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
3) LOTR - Tolkein
4) The Dark Tower Series - Stephen King
5) The Unabridged Journals of Lewis & Clark - Lewis & Clark (Ambrose - Editor)
5.5) The Monkey Wrench Gang - Abbey

[Atmashine]

8. Um..

1) The Necronomicon.
2) The Poetic Eddas.
3) Instruction manuals.
4) Pop-up books.
5) Books about space. And velociraptors.

[flamingyouth]

10. Mine:

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
The Parade's Gone By - Kevin Brownlow
Silent Star - Colleen Moore
The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley

[bicentennial_baby]

13. Oh I adore McCullers

:thumbsup:

[flamingyouth]

15. Me too - It's hard to pick just one book of hers

But I think "Heart" is my favorite. My mom would have me read books with her over the summers when I was a kid and I remember reading this the summer before sixth grade, along with "The Member of the Wedding," which at the time I liked better. LOL - a little heavy for a kid. :)

[bicentennial_baby]

17. I love that one!

I haven't read that in ages!! I'll have to pick it up again next time I'm at the library. :hi:

[flamingyouth]

18. Yeah, it's a good one

:hi:

[Misunderestimator]

16. I loved The Mists of Avalon.

:thumbsup:

[Misunderestimator]

12. Not in order:

The Color Purple, Alice Walker
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather

[bicentennial_baby]

19. Ah, The Handmaid's Tale

Love it, can't read it these days...it's just too much. x(

:hi:

[Misunderestimator]

22. I need to re-read it. I recently read Oryx and Crake, and it was...

disappointing. Great premise, but... fell flat. I haven't really been able to get into any other Atwood book since Handmaid. :hi:

[LynneSin]

27. it's too real

:scared:

[Richardo]

14. 1) "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

2) "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" & "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" by Lewis Carroll
3) "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
4) "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon
5) "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

[bif]

20. Mine

Music & Silence
Catcher in the Rye
Up in the Old Hotel
Catch-22
Corelli's Mandolin

[jane_pippin]

21. Here are mine. Today anyway:

1. Franny & Zooey-J.D. Salinger
2. Cat's Cradle-Kurt Vonnegut
3. Middlesex-Jeffery Eugenides
4. Lincoln-Gore Vidal
5. Jude the Obscure--Thomas Hardy

[bicentennial_baby]

23. Middlesex f'n rocks!!!

We read it for Queer Lit last semester. I LOVED it. :bounce:

[jane_pippin]

25. Me too--just love it.

It's so rich and full of everything, which probably doesn't make sense but you've read it so maybe it does. I still can't believe that the same person who wrote it wrote the Virgin Suicides. They seem so different but I don't know...the more I think about it the more I think I see in common. I think it is a perfect book--a rare thing.

[regularguy]

24. In no order

Redetsky March, Joseph "Air" Roth

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt "Sweetness" Vonnegut

Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor "The Body" Dostoyevski

Zuckerman Bound, Phillip "P Deli" Roth

Money, Martin "Babe" Amis

Honorable Mention:
Native Son, Richard "Mahatma" Wright

[LynneSin]

26. My 5

1. Dante "Divine Comedy"
   
2. John Irving "Cider House Rules" (which I have loved years before the movie which totally sucked!)
   
3. Arthur Goldman "Memoir of a Geisha" (which I have loved years before the movie which was done well)
   
4. Margaret Atwood "The Handmaid's Tale"
   
5. Jaqueline Susann "The Love Machine"
   

[Radical Activist]

28. Good thread. Mine...

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Rules for Radicals - Saul Alinsky
John L. Lewis: An unauthorized biography - Saul Alinsky
Tao Te Ching
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

[miss_american_pie]

29. Just five?

This is hard, but my for today

Gatsby
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
To the Lighthouse
A Passage to India
Emma

Ask me tomorrow and you'll get a different list.

[khashka]

33. Oh yeah, Emma

In college I had a prof who on the first day threw a copy of Emma on the desk and said "Read it. If you get it, you'll be a good psychologist. If you don't get it, find another profession."

And he was right.....

Khash.

[miss_american_pie]

41. My English dept chair

listed it as the book she'd want should she be stranded on a deserted island. ;)

[bridgit]

32. 1. dickens - david copperfield

2. tolstoy - anna karenina
3. hemingway - farewell to arms
4. estes - women who run with the wolves
5. petronius - the satyricon

omg, they're all so corny :cry: there have to be some others around here somewhere :shrug:

[azmouse]

34. It's tough to chose just 5

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Dracula by Bram Stoker
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Walden by Ralph Waldo Emerson

[KamaAina]

35. A chance for redemption!

1) Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein, who was not as much of a conservatroid as many think so stop saying that!
2) The Dispossessed - Ursula K. LeGuin. Her Urras is our Earth, taken to its logical conclusion.
3) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole. One can only imagine how Toole would view his beloved yet maddening New Orleans right now...
4) The People's Almanac - David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace. Nonfiction, to be sure, but a compendium of lots of interesting progressive-type stuff not found in more mainstream works of its type.

And finally, the one I left off last time...

5) Blu's Hanging - Lois-Ann Yamanaka. This was my literary introduction to Hawai'i; little did I know I would one day eat nishime in the author's house!

[Book Lover]

36. Hmmmm, just 5, eh?

OK, I'll try:

1) The Wreckage of Agathon by Gardner
2) Doorways in the Sand by Zelazny (yes, this book will *always* be on my list)
3) Beowulf translated by Huppe
4) The Iliad and Odyssey translated by Knox
5) One Hundred years of Solitude by Marquez

[DontBlameMe]

48. Doorways?

I always thought that was a collection of short stories, kind of like 4 For Tomorrow.

Thanks for the info. I thought I'd read everything of Zelazny's, now I'll have to find that.

Have you read the Dilvish books?

[Xipe Totec]

37. Okay...

Obscure, but that's my style.

1).- The Ascent of Man - J. Bronowsky
2).- The Psychology of Computer Programming - Weinberg
3).- The Master and Margarita - Bulgakov
4).- Inherit the Stars - Hogan.
5).- The Adventures of Captain Hatteras - Jules Verne

I read The Ascent of Man, cover to cover, in one night. Started at 8:00PM, finished around breakfast time the next day. I just could not stop reading.

Psychology of Computer Programming I quote chapter and verse to my managers. They hate it.

[skygazer]

38. Four of them are easy for me

Because these are the books that I read, without fail, at least once a year. In no particular order, they are -

The Odyssey - Homer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Just thought of a fifth - Never Cry Wolf - Farley Mowat

I noticed a couple of years ago that they all have a common theme - that of a journey, both physical and spiritual. That's fitting because that's what my own life has been. I sometimes wonder if I like those books because of my own nature or if my nature is a result of liking those books. But then sometimes I think far too much. :)

[WCGreen]

39. Here they are...

A Wrinkle in Time... Cause it got me to start reading seiously...
Who Will Tell the People... Cause it got me to start thinking seriously...
Catch 22 ... Cause it got me to laugh out loud while reading a book for the first time...
Playboys Girls of the World, 1970... Cause it got me, well cough cough, kick imaginary dust...
Will in the World... Cause it made me understand Shakespeare even more...

[Atmashine]

58. A Wrinkle in Time

was the first book I went out of the way to read too! I was in...first grade or something. It's awesome!

[pscot]

40. It would be easier to list rhe top 100

Pride and Prejudice
Moby Dick
Huck Finn
Catch 22
Silent Spring

[Queen Jane]

42. for the moment...

1) Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe
2) The Grass Harp - Truman Capote
3) To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
4) The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
5) A Prayer For Owen Meany - John Irving

no...too hard...:booknerd: :nopity:

[xmas74]

43. A few of these change all the time.

The one that never changes is Little Women. I read it as a child and still love it as an adult.

I'll agree w/ you on Lolita. Beautifully written, it blows me away every time I read it (thanks for bringing it up-I've been thinking about what to re-read right now!)
Jane Eyre. I can't even count how many times I read it.
Wuthering Heights. WOW!

After that-I don't know. Maybe Stranger in a Strange Land, Bell Jar and Catcher in the Rye are always good choices, nearly anything by Jane Austin (constantly back and forth on Emma. Love it and find something more to it every time). Maybe the first Dune. It really changed the way I read things the first time I read it. 1984 or Brave New World are often on my top ten list.


(on edit: have to add something by Twain. Maybe Huckleberry Finn. I don't know-I just keep thinking about the books I have read and read again because they draw me to them. It's like they call out to me, demanding that I give them another shot).

[TexxMatty]

44. Hi Y'all,

Hope it's ok for a Newby to join the discussion :)

I love book threads! But just 5 is real hard...I'll give it a shot anyways.

These are all books I've read more than once
In no particular order:

1.A Wrinkle in Time- Madaleine L'Engle

2.This Perfect Day-Ira Levin

3.The Secret History-Donna Tartt

4.Texas-James Michener

5.Gone With the Wind-Margaret Mitchell

-Matty

[creeker]

45. my 5

The Art of War -- sun zu
The Grapes of Wrath --- Steinbeck
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -- H.S.Thompson
Anything by James Clavell
Texas --- Michener

[yellowdogintexas]

46. these come to mind at this time:

in no particular order:

To Kill A Mockingbird

Gone With the Wind

The GodFather

Tom Sawyer

The Joyous Season (by Patrick Dennis, author of Auntie Mame another favorite)

[Inspired]

47. The Thorn Birds....

Interview with a Vampire
The Stand
Intensity
The Witching Hour

Just good simple reads.

[robbedvoter]

50. The Witching Hour was awesome...way above all others

[Inspired]

57. It was scary

I had to put it awhile for several months because it gave me the creeps. I finished it years later. The Thorn Birds was such a grand novel but not something I would normally want to read. I'm glad I did and realized what all the hype around it in the early 80's was all about.

[robbedvoter]

49. What? First one to have 100 years of Solitude? I'm shocked!

1. Gabriel Garcia-Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude
2.Salmon Rushdie - Midnight's Children
3. Salmon Rushdie The Moor's Last Sigh
4.Robert Graves - I Claudius
5. Voltaire - Candide

[blue neen]

51. Not in any particular order:

Far from the Madding Crowd--Thomas Hardy
Lonesome Dove--Larry McMurtry
Memoirs of a Geisha--Arthur Golden
Texas--James Michener
Age of Innocence--Edith Wharton

[tarkus]

52. Some James, Steinbeck, others

As I am still reading, this list is still very much incomplete. But so far, the lists runs:


Henry James- The Wings of the Dove (Greatest author ever... I need to read The Ambassadors though.)
John Steinbeck- The Grapes of Wrath
F. Scott Fitzgerald- The Great Gatsby
Harper Lee- To Kill a Mockingbird
Charles Dickens- Great Expectations (I need to read more Dickens, this might change when I do.)

[XemaSab]

53. My declasse choices

(and it's not that I don't read a LOT, mind you!)

Harry Potter
His Dark Materials
The Secret History
The Sabbathday River
Lord of the Flies

:D

[obxhead]

54. Shogun,

The Stand, then the Gunslinger series.

[Spider Jerusalem]

55. Mine:

Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow
Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
William S Burroughs - Cities of the Red Night
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (I'm related to Fitzgerald, which I thought was pretty cool when I found out)

[NMMNG]

56. My five, at this time

Ask me some other time and you'll likely get a different answer

In no particular order

1. 1984
2. The Jungle
3. Catcher in the Rye
4. Crime and Punishment
5. Anna Karenina

[buddhamama]

59. arrrggghhh

this is tough, always evolving

i will list some that i have read umpteen times

All the Strange Hours- Loren Eiseley

Siddhartha- Hermann Hesse

Cloud Hidden (Whereabouts Unknown)- Alan Watts

The Stranger- Albert Camus


anything by Henry James

[AzDar]

60. Hmmmm..

That would be:
1) The Grapes of Wrath- Steinbeck (although it HURTS me, literally, to read it).
2) Son of The Morning Star- Evan S. Connell
3) The Stand - Stephen King
4) Holy Blood, Holy Grail - Baigent, Leigh, et al. (conspiracy theories non-withstanding, it really made me THINK!)
5) Fingerprints of the Gods - Graham Hancock ( a fascinating read)

[azmouse]

61. One book I would add to my list would be

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
It's a great book to read around Halloween.