I won't name 10, but 2 I will name in tandem are Winds of War/War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk.
I won't name 10, but 2 I will name in tandem are Winds of War/War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk.
1. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
The rest in no particular order:
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
On the Beach - Nevil Shute (haunting end-of-the-world tale)
Cold Clear Day - Frank Murphy (marathon WR holder Buddy Edelen's biography)
All's Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
Into Thin Air - John Krakauer
Parliament of Whores - PJ O'Rourke (funny because it's so true)
How Soccer Explains the World - Franklin Foer (the world is nuts)
The Gulag Archipelago - Alexander Solzhenitsyn (and you thought Hitler was evil)
a quiet life-Kenzaburo Oe
a simple story-S.Y Agnon
the count of monte cristo- Alexandrew Dumas
hamlet-Shakespeare
the harry potter series- J.K Rowling
my uncle oswald- Roald Dahl
one flew over the cuckoo's nest-Ken Kesey
my name is asher lev-Chaim Potok
speak-Laurie Halse Anderson
Gray's Anatomy- Dr. Henry Gray
Clockers Richard Price
To Kill a Mockingbird
Parliament of Whores
Huckleberry Finn
Confederacy of Dunces
Lonesome Dove
Sports Books:
Boys of Summer-Baseball
Heaven is a Playground-Basketball
Bringing the Heat-Football(eagles,early 90's)
Semi-Tough-Sports novel-anything by Dan Jenkins is funny
Run,Run,Run-Fred Wilt-track I've read Once a Runner about 50 times,mostly when i was younger but to call it a great book is a bit silly. It is little more advanced than a Matt Chrisopher novel,which I devoured at an early age
My favorites
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
1984 - George Orwell
Once a Runner - John L. Parker
The Stranger - Albert Camus
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Great Gatsby - John Steinbeck
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Ask me a different day and the list might be a bit different, but this is about it.
Slaughter House Five
LOTR
Catch 22
Anna Karenina
Stanger in a Stange Land
Another Country
Lonesome Dove
A Separate Piece
On Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
OAR - the list needs a running book
Tough to keep it at ten.
In reading through everyone's list it's interesting to see books I've forgotten that I've read.
Like Watership Down, great book.
Not in any order:
Hopeful Monsters - Nicholas Mosley
Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls
Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
Matilda - Roald Dahl
Antigone - Sophocles
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Iliad - Homer
Dr. Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
Duino Elegies - Rainer Maria Rilke
Deliverance - James Dickey
Rich Man, Poor Man - Irwin Shaw
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Advise and Consent - Allen Drury
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
Rabbit is Rich - John Updike
Sophie's Choice - William Styron
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Phillip K. Dick
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters - Robert Lewis Taylor
badger wrote:
You are such a tool. There are so many ways to say what you said in your post but you chose the most arrogant, slimy and condescending way. Again, you are such a tool.
I think he/she was joking...
At least I hope he/she was joking...
you should read "Naked" by David Sedaris
reader wrote:
you should read "Naked" by David Sedaris
Or "Barrel Fever," if you want to know what he is like unfiltered...
...and to the folks listing "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," you should check out "You Shall Know Our Velocity." The story is obviously not as good, but the writing is tremendous.
atticus finch wrote:
To Kill A Mockingbird...Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird is one of the most overrated books in American literature. It still bothers me that it is so widely taught. When a really great southern writer, Flannery O'Conner, was was asked about the book she said of Lee: "I wonder if she realizes she's written a children's book?"
Harper Lee never produced anything else.
It's good to see that The Great Gatsby appears on so many lists here. Truly one of the best books ever written by an American.
Once a runner-John L Parker
Running with the Legands-Michael Sandrock
Running and Being-George Sheehan
Daniel's Running Formula-Jack Daniels
Mankind, Have a Nice Day-Mick Foley
Baseball-Ken Burns
Faithful-Stephen King/Stewart O'Nan
The Teammates-David Halberstam
Sport and Society in Ancient Greece-Mark Golden
The History of Herodotus-Herodotus
The Kite Runner. Can't believe it didn't get a mention (it's a guaranteed tear jerker - nothing to do with running)
Deception Point
To Kill a Mocking Bird
The Da Vinci Code
All the President's Men - Woodward and Bernstein
RunDaddy wrote:
It's good to see that The Great Gatsby appears on so many lists here. Truly one of the best books ever written by an American.
I agree with you.
Other favorite books:
Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
Arcadia, Tom Stoppard
In another category:
Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh (a very satisfying read)
A disappointing book (for me): Zero, Charles Seife
If anybody can recommend a good book on mathematics or physics, I'd be happy to hear your suggestions.
Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
Of Human Bondage- W. Somerset Maugham
The Razor's Edge- W. Somerset Maugham
Lucky Jim- Kingsley Amis
The Master and Margarita- Mikhail Bulgakov
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
You Shall Know Our Velocity!- Dave Eggers
Norwegion Wood- Haruki Murakami
Catch 22- Joseph Heller
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline- George Saunders
sure i'm leaving some out but there ya go
Annals of the Former World, by John McPhee. Possibly my favorite book ever. Pulitzer Prize.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes. Also PP?
Two extraordinary works of non-fiction.
1-Once A Runner (John L. Parker)
2-A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
3-A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
4-Best Efforts (Kenny Moore)
5-Love Story (Erich Segal)
6-The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
7-Running with the Buffaloes (Chris Lear)
8-Hamlet (Shakespeare)
9-The Kite Runner (Khalid Hosseini)
10-From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg)
Not necessarily the greatest literature ever, but they\'re my personal favorites.