Best published novel you've ever read?

[Anastacia]

My tenative list:

Children:

The Giver by Lois Lowry and Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Patterson

Young Adult:

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Science Fiction:

The Dispossessed by Ursela K. LeGuin

The Dragonsinger Trilogy by Anne McCaffrey

Classic:

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Arrowsmith by an author I forget

Historical Fiction:

The Other Boleyn Girl by another author I forget

[kristie911]

Wow...tough one. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only have three books what would they be? Hmmm...

Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
The Stand by Stephen King
Northern Lights by Nora Roberts

Don't ask me to explain...
Maybe I should list my 3 favorite music cd's...that would only confuse you more! :)

[alaskamatt17]

It's always easier to name the worst novel than the best, isn't it?

I cannot narrow it down to just one. Here's another list (I suspect this thread will get very long):

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Jurassic Park by Michael Chrichton
The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
End of an Era by Robert J. Sawyer

Those are all great books, though I suspect most of you will see that I lean heavily toward SF and fantasy (I fit in an even amount of each). If you aren't particularly keen on these genres, I'd recommend Ender's Game anyway--it's really that good. I had a high school English teacher who vehemently denied that anything of real literary value could come out of these two genres ... until he read Ender's Game. Good ol' Orson Scott Card shut him right up.

[jackie106]

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (The book is much better than the magazine.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Jackie

[Niesta]

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (The book is much better than the magazine.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes


Aha! Ingeniosa hidalga! It all makes sense now!

I would have picked three of your five! Just substitute The Brothers Karamazov for the Count of Monte Cristo, and Middlemarch or possibly A Tale of Two Cities for Vanity Fair...

And don't get me started on YA titles...

[GPatten]

Oh, I don’t know about the best, but I think these are some that I’ve enjoyed.

Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Haunted Mesa by Louis L’Amour
Last of the breed by Louis L’Amour
Gravity by Tess Gerritsen
There are many more I like by Hemingway, Stephen King, James Clavell’s, Mark Twain...and the list goes on, and on.

[AdamH]

In no particular order:

Great Expectations by Dickens
The Stand by King
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

[David McAfee]

Wow. Too many to list. I am glad someone else listed Jurassic park, though (all right, Matt!). I loved that book from Day 1. I re-read it about once a year, just because.


Now, lesse here... there are lots of others on my "favorites" list:

The Stand by Stephen King (that's a given)
Bag of Bones, also by King (I like King)
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The Death Gate Cycle (7 books) by Weis and Hickman

Plus I really liked The Doom Brigade, also by Weis and Hickman

Ok, so the truth is, I just can't make up my mind as to my "favorite" book.

[JerseyGirl1962]

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Jurassic Park by Michael Chrichton
The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
End of an Era by Robert J. Sawyer

Those are all great books, though I suspect most of you will see that I lean heavily toward SF and fantasy (I fit in an even amount of each). If you aren't particularly keen on these genres, I'd recommend Ender's Game anyway--it's really that good. I had a high school English teacher who vehemently denied that anything of real literary value could come out of these two genres ... until he read Ender's Game. Good ol' Orson Scott Card shut him right up.

Funny how different people react to a book. I read Ender's Game a couple of years ago, borrowing it from one of my bosses. I absolutely could not stand it! I can't put a finger on it, but for whatever reason, I wanted to wing the book across the room. I finished it, but it was a struggle. I saw a few reviews of it that said maybe it was a book more in tune with 20 somethings.

I have my doubts about that, and I obviously don't know (and don't want to know) your age, Alaska Matt. But I just found it weird that a lot of the positive reviews I've seen were all from people who said they were in high school or were in their 20's. I don't know why that is, and I'm just throwing it out there for the hell of it.

To get back on topic...my faves? Hard to say, but here are a few:

The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
The Fifth Ring, Mitchell Graham (esp. the 1st book of that trilogy)
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Winter's Orphans, Elaine Corvidae

Heavily fantasy oriented, but that's typical for me. :) There's only one classic in my list, because I can't really think of any that I've enjoyed reading more than once except for Pride and Prejudice.

~Nancy

[zarch]

The Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

[Perks]

Good, we get to have a list:


The Stand, Stephen King (just to be different)
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
The Book Of The Dun Cow, Walter Wangerin
Imajica, Clive Barker
The Gun Seller, Hugh Laurie
Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice

[BlueTexas]

Yikes. How to choose?

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens
We The Living by Ayn Rand
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

I could list so many, but these have stuck with me.

[Jaycinth]

Usually the novel I'm currently reading is my favorite. So I'm fickle. Everything listed here is good. YEAH!. I'm going to start a list of the ones I haven't read and use reading them as a reward for the days when I can actually get more than 2,000 words (2,000 different words, strung together to make meaningful sentences) on paper.

[blargh]

My list changes over time, but the following seem to always be on it:

Dune by Frank Herbert
Confederacy of Dunces by J K Toole
Lonesome Dove by L. McMurtry
Cannery Row by J Steinbeck
For Whom the Bell Tolls by E Hemingway
And Then There Were None by A. Christie
Raintree County by R Lockridge

[Syrra]

The only one I can really think of at the moment is George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. I never knew fantasy could be that real. Amazing stuff. Now, if he would just finish it already!! :Headbang:

Syrra

[Jewel101]

Halfblood series, Andre Norton, Mercades Lackey
Alvin Apprentice series, Orson Scott Card (though I hate the 2nd one)
Xanth series, Piers Anthony
Dark Magician series, Trudi Canavan

Can't think of any more, not in front of my bookshelf

[Zoe King]

Emma - Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Hunger - Knut Hamsen
The Woman Who Walked into Doors - Roddy Doyle
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Top favourite would have to be the Harper Lee. It's possibly the most 'organically whole' book I've ever read.

[jackie106]

Aha! Ingeniosa hidalga! It all makes sense now!

I would have picked three of your five! Just substitute The Brothers Karamazov for the Count of Monte Cristo, and Middlemarch or possibly A Tale of Two Cities for Vanity Fair...

And don't get me started on YA titles...

Those are also good books.

Jackie

[Manko]

Some Girls by Kristin McCloy
Lolita by Nabokov
The Collector by John Fowles
House of Leaves by Danielewski
The Devil's Apocrypha by John De Vito

[scarletpeaches]

How sad is this? I keep a list of my favourite books because my friends know me as a bookworm and the question, "What is your favourite book?" comes up a lot. I couldn't possibly pick one so I have a list to email them! I tend to add one every six months to a year; I read a lot of good books but spectacular ones only pop up once in a while.

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Twits - Roald Dahl
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Child of the Phoenix - Barbara Erskine
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
White Oleander - Janet Fitch
Cross Stitch - Diana Gabaldon
The Forsyte Saga (Volume 1: The Man of Property, In Chancery & To Let) - John Galsworthy
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris
Through a Glass Darkly - Karleen Koen
I Know This Much Is True - Wally Lamb
She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardobe - CS Lewis
The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough
Peyton Place - Grace Metalious
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
Interview With the Vampire - Anne Rice
The Stranger Beside Me - Ann Rule
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Tully - Paullina Simons
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Knowledge of Angels - Jill Paton Walsh
A Taste of Blood Wine - Freda Warrington
Forever Amber - Kathleen Winsor

[stormie]

The best I've read? As another poster said, it changes over time.
Now it's:

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

Missing Susan by Sharyn McCrumb
(and most books by Sharyn McCrumb)

Evening Class by Maeve Binchey
(and most books by Maeve Binchey)

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
(though it was panned by most critics)

[LightShadow]

Children: The Well by Mildred D. Taylor

Young Adult: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Dark Fiction: The Stand by Stephen King & Swan Song by Robert McCammon

Science Fiction: Nightfall by Isaac Asimov

Fantasy: On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony & The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

Classic: Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Historical Fiction: H.M.S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian (same guy that wrote Master and Commander)

[Lenora Rose]

Things that consistently end up on my favourites shelf:

Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Rose Daughter - Robin McKinley (Yes, that one and not Beauty. I'm a philistine, live with it.)
Freedom and Necessity - Steven Brust and Emma Bull
Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary - Pamela Dean
Someplace to be Flying - Charles De Lint
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Coraline - Niel Gaiman
The Fall of the Kings - Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman
The Sarantine Mosaic - Guy Gavriel Kay

Others vary by the moment. I keep feeling I should have something by Lois McMaster Bujold and Patricia McKillip there, but I can't settle on one book.

I also know that as the list stands, only one book doesn't contain magic, and it might as well, for the tone of it has much the same fantastical flair. (I guess that's where Uncle Jim's "Romances" comes in). I do read mysteries and SF, and Regencies, with enthusiasm.

[William Haskins]

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

The Plague by Albert Camus

[pconsidine]

I suppose it's only fair to have a thread to balance out the trash talk thread elsewhere. So here are mine:

Bluebeard by Vonnegut.
The Shining by King.
Lolita by Nabokov.

There are tons more, but I can rarely remember them without prompting.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Most of my recent reads are repeated re-reads. More and more I have to consciously motivate myself to read something new. So I've been trying to read through allllll the books that came in the World Fantasy Convention tote last year.

Most of them were "eh" or "my God that was awful."

One of them, though, constantly made me go "Wow!" on a line-by-line, writerly critique level. That would be Master of None by... (help me Google!) N Lee Wood. Oh my goodness did I enjoy that one. One of my "Wow" moments involved a dialogue in which the speaker's change of tone mid-paragraph clearly indicated the listener's body language before said body language was ever actually described. That sort of command of the language earns lots and lots of favorite points with me.

I have also recently adored This Alien Shore by CS Friedman (who has also written something called "The Coldfire Trilogy," making me think Rush's Counterparts album had been on infinite replay during a good part of that writer's earlier career). It's cyberpunk space opera goodness with exquisite psychoanalysis in its characterizations. I got the impression of an author with a reeeeally good understanding of the ways in which the human mind can break and still function. This one also had its line by line "Wow"s but sometimes they were followed by a "but--no! What are you thinking?" For instance, a particularly obsessive compulsive character is seen to reach out and straighten a hanging picture, and then pause to see whether the removal of his fingers has caused it to go infinitesimally crooked again. Beautful! But then the author had to tack on the narrative sentence, "Evidently not." Nooooo! You were doing so well until you stopped trusting me to get it! Why didn't you just show the character walking away, and let me infer "evidently not"? Grrr.

Authors that wow me on that level get subjected to a lot more scrutinizing than ones that just give me an adequately written plotful page turner. Yes, I can get a little anal about it, what's your point?