What is your favorite book & why?

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  • foraubs
    foraubs Posts: 263 Member
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    By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, by Elizabeth Smart.
    It's a novel of prose poetry and it's absolutely elegant and heart-gripping. It's one of the few books I can recite numerous lines from because they've stuck with me. One of the main reasons I love it is that it's largely anapaestic, so it reads more like a story littered with beautiful verse. And, believe it or not, she's a Canadian author.
  • bestbassist
    bestbassist Posts: 177 Member
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    Impossible to pick a favorite, but The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, **** Magnet by Jim Goad and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand are somewhere in the top 10.
  • VelociMama
    VelociMama Posts: 3,119 Member
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    My absolute favorite is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I like love stories, and Wuthering Heights isn't the traditional 'happily ever after', ' girl finds her prince charming' love story. And it's a classic!
    The 2009 movie adaptation with Tom Hardy is excellent also. Mainly because he's hot ;P

    I was very pleasantly surprised with the movie version. Wuthering Heights is a good choice.

    I'd probably answer your question with, "what genre?"

    Fiction (my top few):

    1. David Copperfield by Charles ****ens
    2. The Lord of the Rings series including The Hobbit and Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
    3. The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged) by Alexandre Dumas
    4. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
    5. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
    6. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

    Nonfiction: cannot choose just one... I'd say my top five are (not really in order):

    1. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
    2. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
    3. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
    4. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
    5. Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy

    I really love historical nonfiction. I have a passion for Roman history, so I really enjoy reading good biographies of the Emperors and the late-republic era. With fiction, I look for complex interesting characters more than anything. The style of writing should also be eloquent and gripping but not tiresome. I'm not a huge fan of happy endings either. I tend to enjoy dark sad endings...
  • GiddyupTim
    GiddyupTim Posts: 2,819 Member
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    All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
    Everything by Raymond Chandler.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    Ender's Game. (In case you couldn't tell by my screen name :P) Loved it since I was a kid. It has a chemistry that can't quite be explained. Plus, playing laser tag in zero gravity would be pretty awesome, don't you agree?

    Did you read the prequel that came out this summer? Earth Unaware?

    Favorite book of all time: Frankenstein and 1984

    Thanks for the prequel - Big fan of that series and his other work.

    As for my favorite book - I'm pretty sure it is un-read even though it is the only novel of a Nobel prize in Literature. In English, the most commercially unsuccessful "The Blinding" by Elias Canetti (Auto da fe or Die Blendung).
  • almc170
    almc170 Posts: 1,093 Member
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    The Razor's Edge - W. Somerset Maugham. It describes a philosophy that, while I may never emulate, can at least idealize.
  • TommiEgan
    TommiEgan Posts: 256 Member
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    Terry Pratchett - Nightwatch. Such a good concept of time travelling and alternate universes. He is my favourite author!
  • Kathy_TheVampireSlayer
    Kathy_TheVampireSlayer Posts: 189 Member
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    Mists of Avalon
    and anything by Stephen King
  • BinaryPulsar
    BinaryPulsar Posts: 8,927 Member
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    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    The Source of All Things by Tracy Ross
  • Lleldiranne
    Lleldiranne Posts: 5,516 Member
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    I LOVE all of Jane Austen's books, but my favorite has to be Persuassion. It is such a beautiful story of love,and I am a sucker. I also love The Giver by Lois Lowry. Brilliant.

    Yay, I'm not the only one who thinks Persuasion is better than the much more popular Pride & Prejudice. (Dont get me wrong, love that one too, but Persuasion is the best of the best!!)

    I also love Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (and the sequels, Enna Burning and River Secrets)
  • oregonzoo
    oregonzoo Posts: 4,251 Member
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    Memoirs of a geisha


    It was so heartbreakingly gorgeous of a book.
  • HurricaneElaine
    HurricaneElaine Posts: 984 Member
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    Moby-D*ck or, The Whale by Herman Melville. I'd finally read a great American novel, one which also convinced me I could write the way I wanted to, and make a good novel out of it.
  • MissJanet55
    MissJanet55 Posts: 457 Member
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    Wow, a lot of beautiful books on this list, and a lot of classics. I, too, loved Wuthering Heights. And I am so surprised and happy to see By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. I've been hauling that book with me every time I moved for more than thirty years.

    I can't pick a favourite, but I just read The Unlikely Pilgrimmage of Harold Fry and can't recommend it enough. It's the story of a retired man who gets a letter from an old friend telling him she has cancer and is in a hospice. He goes out to mail a quick note to her and decides he should walk to see her - more than 600 miles. On the way much is uncovered about his family, and the people he meets along the way.

    I absolutely loved this story, touching without being sentimental. It was on the longlist for the Booker Prize in the UK. I think I'll be giving it to a lot of people for Christmas this year.
  • gabriellejayde
    gabriellejayde Posts: 607 Member
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    "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. Incredible book. I reread it every year. I find it so well-written. I felt like I lived the life of Dolores. I hated having it end. You grow up with her, from age 4 to 40. The book haunts me. It sticks with me. Great books do that to you. They never leave you.

    that's one of my all time favorite books too.
    He also wrote "I know this much is true", which is another favorite of mine because I have twin brothers and one is autistic.

    My other favorites are:
    The good earth, by pearl buck. I never thought I'd love it as much as I did. I couldn't put it down.
    Memoirs of a Geisha, by arthur golden. I don't have a thing for asian themed literature, but this one was also an incredible story.
    The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. An unbelievably real story about the apocalypse, which doesn't usually interest me.
    anything else by cormac McCarthy
    The Contortionists Handbook by Craig Clevenger. I get migraines. I get this story.
  • JanaCanada
    JanaCanada Posts: 917 Member
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    My all time favorite....
    To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    Love the character Atticus Finch so much that I named my dog after him...always believing in the good in people and not letting others bully him into their way of thinking. He was a fare man and what a great dad. Teaching his children and loving them as all fathers should.
    And the bond between Scout and Jem is forever, the way it should be!
    And...the villain turns out to be the hero!
    What's not to love?


    ^^This, and for most of the same reasons.
    I have a rare 1st edition.
    Might. Be. Buried. With. It. :laugh: :laugh:
  • sevencallmemom
    sevencallmemom Posts: 505 Member
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    I LOVE all of Jane Austen's books, but my favorite has to be Persuassion. It is such a beautiful story of love,and I am a sucker. I also love The Giver by Lois Lowry. Brilliant.

    Yay, I'm not the only one who thinks Persuasion is better than the much more popular Pride & Prejudice. (Dont get me wrong, love that one too, but Persuasion is the best of the best!!)

    I also love Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (and the sequels, Enna Burning and River Secrets)

    I usually say it's whichever Austen I've just read, but Persuasion is usually at the top of the list.
  • orczombie
    orczombie Posts: 20 Member
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    A Song of Ice and Fire Series. I can't get enough of them. The plot twists, ugh, so good.
    The Sookie Stackhouse Series. It's like brain cake. Easy to read. Good for a long bath.
    I'm at the end of the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, and I've never loved a character more than Jack Shaftoe.
    I've read the novelization of the movie "Hook" more than any book ever. I couldn't tell you why. I just loved reading it as a child because I loved the movie.

    I like this thread so I can get some reading ideas after the Baroque Cycle. :)
  • KathyRed07
    KathyRed07 Posts: 75
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    Anything by Nelson Demille!!! I absolutely LOVE the John Corey character...Funny - Sarcastic - MY KIND OF GUY!!! :love:
  • KathyRed07
    KathyRed07 Posts: 75
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    The Count of Monte Cristo - Greatest revenge tale ever.

    Did not read that book - but LOVED the movie!!!!
  • BurtHuttz
    BurtHuttz Posts: 3,653 Member
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    Favorite of all time, HitchHiker's Guide to Galaxy (and sequels)

    But that's from ages ago and pretty careworn so I did just finish reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman and it was just fantastic; a really fresh, imaginative approach to theological fiction.

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