Favorite Book of All-Time?

wineturtle wrote:

agip wrote:

good call. I can't say SIASL is my favorite book, but it might have been the most influential book I've ever read. I read it at 14 or 15 and it was like seeing through the smallness of youth to the hugeness and unlimited possibilities of adulthood. I've been trying to get my 16 year old to read it.

EXACTLY WHY I RANK IT MY FAVORITE-OPENED MY YOUNG EYES TOO

My favorite books....

Cider House Rules - John Irving

Rabbit series - John Updike

Hemingway - either Old Man and the Sea or For Whom the Bell Tolls

Jack London - White Fang/Call of the Wild

Nice list. I had the pleasure of reading part of For Whom the Bell Tolls aloud to his granddaughter Margaux.

I notice that many of the favorite books listed are "fiction". Books of fiction hang on the "imagination" of the writer.

old guy 67 wrote:

Narcissus and Goldmund

Good choice.

I'll 2nd The Road - by Cormac McCarthy

In The Fall- Jeffrey Lent

The Places In Between- Rory Stewart

The Sheltering Sky

agip wrote: I've been trying to get my 16 year old to read it.

agip,

Give him the uncut version for a holiday gift If he does not read it- you can.

ISBN; 0-441-78838-6 Ace trade edition published Oct 1991

contains his original 220,000 word book. He was required to cut it to 150,00 by the publishers and cut or modify some story lines that might be "offensive to the( perceived 1960) public taste" Cutting 25% of a book was an almost impossible task but he got it to the 160,087 word version you read back then.

If you liked it then you will love it now.

When my Uncle Sam dressed me in asian green. I wore two sets of dogtags- One with the Church of All Worlds and one with The League of Spiritual Discovery as my religion(s).

Think I just might have Soupe de Petit Doigt a la Valentine tonight!!

Team Bartowski wrote:

The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham

A fine answer, and rare (unique?) for being a succinct and valid first response to a question posted on this board.

I cannot be so succinct. In addition to Razor's Edge, favorites include:

christie malry's own double entry - b.s. johnson

jurgen: a comedy of justice - james branch cabell. lots of good stuff from him

an arsonist's guide to writer's homes in new england - brock clarke

arthur rex - thomas berger

candide - voltaire; although quality can vary with translation. This one is my answer to the question "favorite book assigned in a class," which is what many responses seem to be limited to.

The Great Gatsby for hopeless romantics like me

raison d etre wrote:

I cannot be so succinct.

Allow yourself some wiggle room. Strive to be epigrammatically pithy.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is fabulous

four million steps by Tommy Neeson. Great running story.

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Million-Steps-Florida-Memories/dp/0615868541

5 bucks on amazon. go read it now. its fantastic.

My favorite book of all-time is "the unnecessary-hyphen"

Either Finnegan's Wake or the hunger games. Both very enjoyable reads. Seriously, it's the grapes of wrath

I might just read that myself - thanks - I didn't know about the uncut version.

Reading hemingway to Margaux H? really? I don't know what to say - that is one of the coolest literary stories I've heard.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius -- Dave Eggers

Catch-22

I go back and read it every few years. Throughout the book it has me going back and forth between laughing out loud and depression (sometimes its just an odd mix of the two) as it weaves humor with tragedy.

It questions and comments on war, the military, religion, capitalism, and over the 2 decades that I've read and re-read it, always seems to be relevant. It was published over 50 years ago, and I'm sure will hold up at least 50 more.

I personally love A Song of Fire and Ice Series, favorite books currently

Also love Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (forgot the author's name)

The Hobbit

and while they aren't literary masterpieces, the Harry Potter series and the Inheritance series will always hold places in my heart. Those were the books that really got me to enjoy reading.

The kite runner

Good to Great by Jim Collins

A lot of good business advice, but really changes an outlook on training too.

Why settle for "good" when you can be "great?"

To begin with I like words. But beware, the whole language is a machine for making falsehoods. ONE of my favourites, thus not THE favourite is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers.

Another is Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch. Scamp, by Roland Camberton is similar and equally brilliant.

And in my opinion, This Side of Paradise is better than Gatsby.

Finally, The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy is certainly worth reading.

And be leery of those citing Ulysses. It is a taxing, and thus rewarding read, but not the best. Remember: It’s easy to understand. That’s part of the racket, to make you think there are things you don’t understand. But it’s all quite simple, really; truth is simple. Anybody who tried to make truth complicated is an intellectual racketeer

The first half of "the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."