Best Hemingway book?

Agreed on "In Our Time." My all-time favorite (also Quenton Cassidy is reading this book at the cabin when Denton walks in).

"You in here, Nick?"

I enjoyed To Have and Have Not very much. The problem with A Farewell to Arms, which has its virtues, is that Hemingway is terrible at writing dialogue among lovers. I found the conversations with Catherine(?) nauseating. For Whom The Bell Tolls has the same problem. The Garden of Eden is very surprising; you'd almost say courageous, given his investment in machismo. I consider it his best book. Obviously The Sun Also Rises is great and A Moveable Feast is wonderful despite the editing and I'm curious to see the new version. An excerpt was published in Harper's with very comical, Hemingwayesque dialogue by an older Bumbi (his son) about other writers. Just recall that his intention is to show, not to offer interior monologues and feelings, to omit important details that shape what happens, and to use a very spare language after the model of Gertrude Stein's experiments with language (I hated the results in her own work, except for The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas).

I only skimmed over this thread, but I agree with the people who mentioned 'A Farewell to Arms' as the best Hemingway book. Personally I think it's the greatest book written in the 20th century. It's use of symbolism is efficient and more subtle than 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', and the war scenes and dialogue are far less repetitive. In addition, there are also elements of social criticism (though not on the scale of 'The Sun Also Rises') and a great offering of what war truly is. No other writer has ever so truly and simply evoked emotion in written form about armed conflict.

If you don't want a "war" book, then yes, 'The Sun Also Rises' is his next best work. 'A Moveable Feast' may be fun to read, but it is not on the same level of literary achievement. It's a beautiful nonfiction portrayal of a key time in the life of one of America's greatest writers.

For number three, I think you are looking at 'Old Man and the Sea', just by pure originality and influential prose. After that I'd say 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. Those two, SAR, and FTA, are all genius and American literary masterpieces. Other works such as 'Death in the Afternoon', Moveable Feast, 'To Have and Have Not', and 'Men Without Women' are good, but clearly not on the same level.

If you are looking for the best Hemingway writing in general, check out the short story collection "In Our Time". It was the first thing he published, when he was 26, absolutely beautiful writing. The book is short and easy to read. Read it twice and you will get much more from it. The final two stories in the collection (Big Two Hearted River I and II) are my favorite of all time.