Favorite Books

What are some of your favorites?


For me:

East of Eden
Lord of the Flies
Of Mice and Men
All Quiet on the Western Front

Lord of the Flies and Of Mice and Men are fantastic...two of my favorites as well.


Others are:

Princess Bride/Marathon Man/Magic - William Goldman
Dante's Inferno - Dante Alighieri
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Pearl - Steinbeck
The Island of Dr. Moreau/The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
Hamlet/Macbeth - Shakespeare
Planet of the Apes - Pierre Boulle
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
Rage/The Long Walk/Running Man/Desperation/ - Richard Bachman (King)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Armor - John Steakley (RIP)
The Puppet Masters (and so many more) - Heinlein
The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton
Catch 22 - Vonnegut
Paradise Lost - Milton


I'll stop there for now! Great topic!

Hamlet is good too, have you seen Kenneth Branagh's adaptation? Very good.


I've been meaning to check out Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I've heard really good things. I'm about to start The Devil in the White City.

mcg24 wrote:

Hamlet is good too, have you seen Kenneth Branagh's adaptation? Very good.


I've been meaning to check out Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I've heard really good things. I'm about to start The Devil in the White City.

Oh yes, I really like his adaptation (as well as Much Ado About Nothing). He directed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as well (and did a great job with it).

Hitchhiker's Guide is just pure fun. As are the rest of his books in the series. All worth checking out.

I downloaded my first audiobook the other day, and am going to give that a shot. The book I downloaded seem interesting (Plague of the Dead: Book One), but I haven't even wrapped my head around the whole Kindle/Nook thing, so we'll see. There's just something personal about holding and reading a book that I think I would really miss with those. It was a free offer though, and figured what the heck.

I'll try to keep this short... I love Wallace and Pynchon and have read every word they've written so all their books would fill by top 12/13 spots...

Infinite Jest - Wallace
Mason & Dixon/Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Chabon
The Recognitions - Gaddis
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Clarke
At the Mountains of Madness - Lovecraft
Light in August/As I Lay Dying - Faulkner
Moby Dick/The Confidence Man - Melville
White Noise/Underworld - DeLillo
Molloy - Beckett
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said - Dick
The Winter of Our Discontent - Steinbeck
Gun, with Occasional Music - Lethem
Suttree - McCarthy
The Castle - Kafka
The Mist - King
The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death - Huston
Naked Lunch - Burroughs
Horns - Hill
Sirens of Titan- Vonnegut
Rum Punch - Leonard
L.A. Confidential - Ellroy
Being and Nothingness - Sartre
Philosophical Investigations - Wittgenstein
The Sickness Unto Death - Kierkegaard

SteelCityMom wrote:

Oh yes, I really like his adaptation (as well as Much Ado About Nothing). He directed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as well (and did a great job with it).

I love his version of Frankenstein, severely underrated, I think.

SteelCityMom wrote:

I downloaded my first audiobook the other day, and am going to give that a shot. The book I downloaded seem interesting (Plague of the Dead: Book One), but I haven't even wrapped my head around the whole Kindle/Nook thing, so we'll see. There's just something personal about holding and reading a book that I think I would really miss with those. It was a free offer though, and figured what the heck.

Oh! Come on! Don't give in! In all seriousness, I don't think I'd ever be able to read a book without it physically being in my hand. I agree with that last sentence, for sure.

EDIT: I don't know how but I misread audiobook as Nook/Kindle I haven't tried listening to any audiobooks, me, personally I don't think I could make it through an audiobook... if I wanted a radioplay I'd listen to that but I hear Blood's a Rover by Ellroy has a really excellent audiobook.

McFly asked if I would create a Book forum, and I told him there probably wouldn't be too much interest in it ... so I created a Miscellaneous forum that could include books. Looks like I was wrong. Who knew that the Night Owls could read?

I used to read all the time in high school and college. But once I started working as an editor after college and reading for 8+ hours a day, the last thing I wanted to do in my spare time was read. In fact, it wasn't until I got heavy into Steelers boards that I actually started reading a lot outside work again. Although I'm not sure this stuff qualifies as brain-stimulating material.

I don't have a favorite book or author, but a few that are at the top of my list are:

The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker
The first Dragonlance trilogy by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis
1984 by George Orwell

SteelCityMom wrote:

I downloaded my first audiobook the other day, and am going to give that a shot. The book I downloaded seem interesting (Plague of the Dead: Book One), but I haven't even wrapped my head around the whole Kindle/Nook thing, so we'll see. There's just something personal about holding and reading a book that I think I would really miss with those. It was a free offer though, and figured what the heck.

I read The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, then listened to it on audiobook....SO WEIRD! Not my thing, I hope you like it better.

Farrior_roirraW wrote:

SteelCityMom wrote:

Oh yes, I really like his adaptation (as well as Much Ado About Nothing). He directed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as well (and did a great job with it).

I love his version of Frankenstein, severely underrated, I think.

SteelCityMom wrote:

I downloaded my first audiobook the other day, and am going to give that a shot. The book I downloaded seem interesting (Plague of the Dead: Book One), but I haven't even wrapped my head around the whole Kindle/Nook thing, so we'll see. There's just something personal about holding and reading a book that I think I would really miss with those. It was a free offer though, and figured what the heck.

Oh! Come on! Don't give in! In all seriousness, I don't think I'd ever be able to read a book without it physically being in my hand. I agree with that last sentence, for sure.

EDIT: I don't know how but I misread audiobook as Nook/Kindle I haven't tried listening to any audiobooks, me, personally I don't think I could make it through an audiobook... if I wanted a radioplay I'd listen to that but I hear Blood's a Rover by Ellroy has a really excellent audiobook.

Yeah, I have a feeling once I do try it out, I'll just fall asleep to it. I imagine it would be something nice to have on long car trips or airplane trips. I get a bit of motion sickness when I try to read in pretty much any king of vehicle, so I'll probably save it for something like that.

SteelCityMom wrote:

Yeah, I have a feeling once I do try it out, I'll just fall asleep to it. I imagine it would be something nice to have on long car trips or airplane trips. I get a bit of motion sickness when I try to read in pretty much any king of vehicle, so I'll probably save it for something like that.

Yeah, if I ever check out an audiobook it'll definitely be on a flight although whenever I fly anywhere now I pick a really early flight and stay up the whole night before and I usually sleep through it


I also forgot to put an Irving book on my favorite book list, love Irving. Any native New Englander has to. Has to.

I do love me some horror novels:

Salem's Lot/It - Stephen King
Books of Blood Vol. 1-3 - Clive Barker
Shadow Over Innsmouth - HP Lovecraft
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
John Dies at the End - David Wong

Non-Horror:
Tortilla Curtain/Tooth & Claw - TC Boyle
Breakfast of Champions/Mother Night - Kurt Vonnegut
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald


I'm sure I'll come up with more the more other books are mentioned.


Also, I hated Catcher in the Rye.

The Left Behind series.



It's a Christian Fiction series about the End Times according to the bible.



http://www.leftbehind.com/

stlrtruck wrote:

The Left Behind series.

My wife once tried to convince me that they were good books even if you didn't believe in Christianity. Though now that she's an agnostic, I wonder what she thinks of those books now.