Preface: This list is not me trying to be literary. But these books truly are the ones I read over and over. My list is littered with African-American and Southern writers, but I also enjoy British Literature and Russian Writers. 1. Invisible Man By Ralph Ellison 2. Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman By Laurence Sterne 3. Man's Fate By Andre Malraux 4. Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 5. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 6. Go Down, Moses By William Faulkner 7. The Fire Next Time By James Baldwin 8. Wise Blood By Flannery O'Connor 9. Heart of Darkness By Joseph Conrad 10. The Best Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky, particularly "Notes from Underground." 11. Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose By Kenneth Burke 12. Shadow & Act By Ralph Ellison 13. The Souls of Black Folk By W.E.B Du Bois 14. The Waste Land & Other Writings T. S. Eliot 15. Slouching Toward Bethlehem By Joan Didion
Wow, my list sucks. Ender's Game Catcher in the Rye Catch 22 Crap. Harry Potter 4 and 7 I got nothing.
I think you might be in the wrong forum. I don't know if I speak for everyone when I say we watch way too much basketball and are too ignorant to read.
off the top of my head, w/out going and looking at my bookshelf. blood meridian - currently reading the border trilogy - halfway thru the crossing right now. confederacy of dunces - absolute funniest book ive ever read moby dick things fall apart - if you enjoyed 'the gods must be crazy' this book will be right up your alley. swan song - stephen king-style epic in the style of the stand w/ the frightening intensity of IT. havent read in over 10 years, but its still up there for me. duel of eagles (texas history) history of the conquest of mexico (william prescott version) conquest of new spain (bernal diaz) texian illiad (military history of texas rev) a tale of two cities miles davis autobiography uncle toms cabin slaughterhouse five soldiers of misfortune (history of texan incursions into mexico culminating in the black bean episode) coronados children - my fav of the 3 j. frank dobie books ive read
1984 Catch-22 Slaughterhouse 5 The Good Soldier Brave New World The Best and the Brightest Fast Food Nation The Omnivore's Dilemma The Natural Outliers Sort of all over the place now that I look at it, but if I had to narrow to down to my 10 favorite books, that would be my list as of right now Edit: For some reason I had 10 on the brain, here's another 5: No Country for Old Men Moneyball The Guns of August The Sweet Science Wealth and Democracy
Top 3: 1) Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 2A) The Book Thief by Markuz Zusak 2B) The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein 4-15 kind of fluctuate on any given day, but here are some of my other favorites today. Pillars of the Earth (and World without End) by Ken Follett Matthew Corbett series by Robert McCammon Mordan't Need series by Stephen R. Donaldson Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger City of Thieves by David Benioff The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke First Law and subsequent books by Joe Abercrombie
ASIDE: It is insane that INVISIBLE MAN has not been made into a movie Rocket River Hell . . make it a mini series!
That's okay. There is usually only a few books that really speak to a person. Sometimes, not even a book. Brent Staples wrote a piece that is on the internet called Black Men in Public Spaces, which is only 1600 words, but probably one of the most classic stories ever told. The same goes for Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell.
Ellison wouldn't allow it to be made in a movie. There are scenes from Invisible Man on a documentary about Ralph Ellison after Ralph died and Fanny, his wife, finally relented. The documentary is the American Masters by California Newsreel.
I've recently created a Book log, because I'm finding that my memory for books has diminished. I'll remember liking a book, but then I'll have practically no memory for what it was about. And sometimes I'll even have no memory of reading a book at all. So it's hard for me to pick a top 15 - I read too much and forget too much for anything to really be set in stone. However these are some books that I've read several times and enjoyed The Ballad of the Sad Cafe - Carson McCullers Lolita - Vladmir Nabokov American Psycho - Brett Easton Ellis Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison Siddartha - Herman Hesse The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne Ironweed - William Kennedy These are some that I've read recently (last 5 years) and enjoyed Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa Little Bee - Chris Cleave A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan The Red Garden - Alice Hoffman The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks What is the What - Dave Eggars I really need to mix in more non-fiction and classic literature - I tend to stick with postwar American fiction.
In no particular order: The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas Man in the Iron Mask (only if you've read the other books starting with the Three Musketeers.) - Alexandre Dumas On the Road - Jack Kerouac Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams A Clash of Kings - George RR Martin A Game of Thrones - George RR Martin Chicot the Jester - Alexandre Dumas Marguerite de Valois - Alexandre Dumas The Shark Hunt - Hunter S. Thompson A Storm of Swords - George RR Martin A Dance With Dragons - George RR Martin Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy My Wicked Wicked Ways - Errol Flynn I think that's 18 I have plenty of others that will sometimes tie.
More than any other writer that I know of, Hunter knew how to merge story time with the illusion of actual time on the page. He was more than a bit looney and that's why he is not mentioned at the top of lists, but his prose is a master class in fiction writing, that's for sure.
No doubt. His style was really different than anything else until after he made it popular. I once worked as an assistant at Random House, and was working with his editor and editor's assistant. The correspondence he'd send in to the publishers was hilarious. It was almost like reading one of his books. During lunch breaks I'd just sit in the file room and read them.
Off the top of my head... No order Favorite book ever = Survivor 1984 The Giver Brave new world... Seeing a pattern ha Maus Atlas Shrugged Things fall apart Revolution a manifesto even though it's not fiction Choke The Underdogs or los de abajo if your Swoly
i, sadly, read for work, after hours...don't get to read for myself much...I know this is out of date,,,,but.... Cryptonomicon Fire in the Deep Fiasco
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry Misery - Stephen King Love in the time of cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Your cheatin heart - Chet Flippo Stalking Justice - Paul A. Mones Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole Dona Flor and her two husbands - Jorge Amado The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles Hamlet - Shakespeare A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn The Civil War: A Narrative - Shelby Foote Animal Farm - George Orwell
