Best book you ever read.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,humble
Date: 02 Nov 00 - 02:08 AM

I'm sorry. read alot of good books. don't mean to be an asshole

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,bob a ghanouj
Date: 02 Nov 00 - 02:00 AM

best book? You weazles. what are yu thinking?

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,goodnight moon, you arrogant bastards
Date: 02 Nov 00 - 01:53 AM

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: pict
Date: 02 Nov 00 - 12:44 AM

Ortha nan Gaidheal/the Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael

Táin Bó Cúalnge

Popular Tales of the West Highlands by J F Campbell

Mabinogion

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 02 Nov 00 - 12:13 AM

They were, Rbynum. Or rather, the Conan short stories were by REH, and one short novel. Robert Jordan, a writer I despise, wrote a bunch of crappy NEW 'Conan' books in the 80s and 90s, which truly blew yak. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Guest, Rbynum
Date: 01 Nov 00 - 09:20 PM

I thought the Conan books were by Robert E Howard.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Sep 00 - 10:43 PM

The sequel has already been started...

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: richlmo
Date: 20 Sep 00 - 10:05 PM

I really have enjoyed all this response , in less than a week, too. But, I think it's about time to kill this thing! Somebody tell me how.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: mg
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 11:21 PM

up from slavery by Booker T. Washington.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Merlin
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 07:46 PM

Favorite books:Lord of the Rings, and anything else that Tolkien ever wrote. The Crystal Cave series (unsurprisingly)by Mary Stewart, The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (always know where your towel is), Trinity, by Leon Uris, Irish Myths and Legends, collected by Lady Gregory, and poetry by Yeats and Tennyson.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Peg
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 03:05 PM

well, my all-time favorite is Jane Eyre.

At the moment I am also reading Hutton's Triumph of the Moon: Micca, I would be interested to know what you think!

other favorites (repeating those of others in many cases):

fiction:

Atlas Shrugged
Possession
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Mists of Avalon
Children of Light by Robert Stone
Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The World According to Garp by John Irving
The Stand and 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Pippa in the Land of Winter by Richard Grant
Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand
A Family Madness by Thomas Kenneally
Binding Spell by Elizabeth Arthur
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Bowen, M. John Harrison, Jane Yolen, and many others

poetry: W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 02:16 PM

JulieF made a sequel to this thread here yesterday. GO THERE. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dizzie
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 02:08 PM

Agree with most of the choices listed, will not claim to have them all. Agree with- anything James Herriot wrote. Having been to Yorkshire makes it easy to picture the stories. Anyone who likes Arthur and Merlin, might check out a series by Jack Whyte "A Dream of Eagles" there are five books in the series, he puts quite a different slant on this story, and being a fan of Mary Stewarts for a long time I'm sorry to say Whyte's story is ,to me,a little more plausible. Sci-Fi Anne McCaffrey is my choice, especially Crystalsingers, Pern Series, the Pegasus has characters in it that I seem to remember from 'The Rowan'as if it's a prequel. Shakespeare seems to be on all lists. I saw Hamlet this year at Stratford in Ontario,I have seen, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Merchant, and a few others, have read most. Just to keep up with children's books try the Harry Potter series I think thay are good, I'm on book four. If it didn't take too much paper I'd print this thread and use it as my library list fo years to come.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 11:54 AM

Thanks to Gervase and Metchosin for their suggestions on help with Ulysses.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,turandot
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 11:28 AM

A.S.Byatt-Possession,Virginia Woolf-Orlando,Hermann Hesse-Steppenwolf,Simone de Beauvoir-Les Mandarins,Toni Morrison-Song of Solomon/Tar Baby, Shakespeare-Hamlet,Rabbit series by John Updike

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 02:07 AM

In the children's category, Goodnight Moon, Mike Mulligan And His Steamshovel, Dr. Seuss's Thidwick The Big-Hearted Moose and The Sneetches And Other Stories, as well as of course, The Cat In The Hat, Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, and just about anything by Beverly Cleary are my favorites - all books I grew up on. It would be interesting to see how they would stand with kids today. I would imagine that Cleary and Mike Mulligan would be dated, but the others would stand a good chance.

TradSteve mentioned Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle. I forgot about that one, too. One of the underrated gems, eh?

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,James
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 11:20 AM

It is difficult to pick a favourite, but here goes...a few of my favourites...in no particular order...

To the Lighthouse...Virginia Woolf
Waterland...Graham Swift
Fifth Business...Robertson Davies
The Woodlanders...Thomas Hardy
Richard 11...Shakespeare
The Cold Moons...Aaron Clement
Moonfleet...Meade Faulkner
Silas Marner...George Eliot
The Flanders Panel...Reverte
The Name of the Rose...Eco
Wuthering Heights...Emily Bronte
Faust...Goethe

Well, I'm sure I have left out a lot of my favourites...but who could list them all? Great thread, I have really enjoyed this.

HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone 19-Feb-2001.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: JulieF
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 09:36 AM

I've Started a new thread as this is taking time to load

Julie

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Gervase
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 09:10 AM

GUEST, re Ulysses - it doesn't have to be explained, it has be lived!
As a book it's without doubt my favourite - the ultimate desert island book in that if someone tol me I could have just onebook, that would be it (and bugger the Bible and Shakespeare - there's enough in the old grey cells through osmosis).
Joyce once reckoned that you could rebuild Dublin almost stone by stone from the pages of Ulysses - I don't know about that, but you could almost rebuild the entire history of English literature from the book.
Essentially it's a day in the life of two men and a woman in Dublin on 16 June 1904 (chosen, by the way, because that was the day that Joyce had his first sexual encounter with the young Nora Barnacle - a hand shandy by the sea wall!).
Without doubt, a breathtaking, life-affirming book.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Airto
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 08:51 AM

Some gems not yet specifically mentioned:

- the Murphy/Molloy/Malone Dies trilogy by Samuel Beckett Parts of it are hard going, and the message is often bleak, but it is also very funny, and, I believe, uplifting.

- If This Is A Man, Primo Levi Primo Levi's account of his experience as a prisoner in Auschwitz is amazing. One of the most surprising things to me was how in even such an extreme system of us (prisoners)and them (guards), different social levels existed and moral choices for those caught up in it were never simple.

- At Swim Two Birds, Flann O'Brien Hilarious parodies of all the various genres of Irish Literature and some great characters.

- The Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler A great insight into the relationship between science and culture. Even scientists confronted by reliable facts are imprisoned by their own beliefs. Copernicus spent most of his life trying to fit the data he collected about the movements of the planets into the belief that they moved around the earth rather than the sun. - The Dead, James Joyce His greatest short story. John Huston made a wonderful film of it in which his daughter Anjelica is brilliant.

- Football Against The Enemy, Simon Kupar Great articles about the interaction between football and politics in various parts of the globe. His account of the Stasi persecution of a completely apolitical East German fan of Eintracht Frankfurt shows how absurd that regime really was.

I'm surprised, by the way, that nobody has mentioned Catcher in the Rye. Has it fallen out of favour?

A great subject for a thread. When do we get to talk about plays?

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 06:56 AM

This thread just reminded me that I haven't Kipled lately. Time to dig out the books and do some Kipling again.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: rube1
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 06:55 AM

Hard to pick one, but this year, for me, Joan of Arc by Mark Twain gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "top shelf." The most obscure title in his canon, Twain considered it his best book by far. It's hard to find. Ignatius Press has a reprint in paperback. Well worth the effort to locate.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 06:16 AM

Generaly love Sci-fi and Fantasy but for sheer inspiration my favourites include 2 non fiction works by Ted Edwards - Beyond the last oasis and Fight the wild island. Ted is a Lancashire singer/songwriter, famous for such classics as Coalhole cavalry and Ladybird. He is also an explorer. The first book mentioned chronicles his crossing of the empty quarter of the Sahara desert with only 2 camels for company. The later his solo trek across Iceland. Both journeys nearly killed him and are testaments to both Teds brilliant storytelling abilities and to his amazing courage. Unfortunately Ted suffered 2 srokes some time back and his mobility is a little impaired but he still treats us with his poetry every now and again and is still managing to climb the odd mountain - what a guy!

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 05:23 AM

I forgot... The Last Hearld Mage - Mercedes Lackey

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Kryptonium
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 05:08 AM

My total and complete list of the best (in my opinion) books not in any order

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy The Hunt for Red October The Dragon Riders of Pern Stranger in a Strange Land

I could probably think of more but it is 5:10 am and i need sleep.

Kryptonium

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 03:59 AM

Thomas the Rhymer, if you like Blavatsky, you might also like "Great Women Initiates" by Helene Bernard.

Another one I forgot: Amy Tan's "A Hundred Secret Senses"

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 03:06 AM

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson - G.I.Gurdjieff
Isis Unveiled - H.P. Blavatsky
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
The Fourth Way - P.D. Ospensky
The Mill on the Floss - George Elliot
Living the Good Life - Helen ans Scott Nearing
Das Capital - Harpo Marx
Democracy in America - Alexis De Tocqueville
Germinal - Emile Zola
The Golden Bough - J.G. Frazer
The Complete Writings of Blake - Blake
The Trajedy of Nijinsky - Bourman
The Agony and the Extasy - Irving Stone
The Idiot, Notes From Underground - Dostoevskii
Secrets of the Soil - Christopher Bird
The Preindustrial City - Gideon Sjoberg
Unlikely Stories, Mostly - Alastair Gray
The Classic Slum - Robert Roberts
And Quiet Flows the Don - Mikhail Sholokov
My Life - Isadora Duncan
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
Gulliver's Travels - Swift

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: grgptrsn
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 01:58 AM

these both really stick out in my recent memory (and surprisingly no one else has mentioned either author): Samuel Beckett _Murphy_ Thomas Pynchon _Mason & Dixon_

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 12:52 AM

Whew! Naemanson, finally! I've found someone else who reads Parke Godwin!! I will look for the series you mentioned.

Micca, thanks for the reminder of Kipling and I'd make my dad cringe to think I haven't also mentioned the poems of Robt. W. Service, as well as Scott's "Quinten Durward."

Amergin, I will watch for the new one by Llywelyn and lucky you! Shakespeare AND a great bookstore!

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Amergin
Date: 18 Sep 00 - 12:05 AM

I forgot to mention anything written by the great James Herriott.....

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 10:47 PM

simon-pierre, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was mentioned in another post besides Max's.

A second vote for abe.books.com. I have ordered many books from this site and have never been disappointed. The number and selection of out of print books at a reasonable price is phenomenal, especially if you just want reader's copies and are not into first editions.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Amergin
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 10:32 PM

Micca, I go to Powell's all the time, I only live about 40 miles from the main store...the bugger is huge, one whole city block and several stories high.....

I love the Dark Is Rising books by Susan Cooper Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea

Kat and Mbo, I love Morgan Llywellyn (sp?)....especially 1916 and The Bard.....she has a sequel to 1916 coming out this fall I believe called 1921, it's about the Anglo-Irish War....

Peter and Kat, I love Shakespeare also.....and I saw Twelfth Night and Henry V (in very well done productions) at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland a couple of months ago....came out awed....

I also dearly love the 4 LOTR books and the Chronicles of Narnia....have read both series countless number of times....

One book that really affected me though (and am amazed that I haven't seen it here) was And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts....it's a nonfiction book about the politics of AIDS in the early years....very well written....Shilts died of it himself.....

Amergin

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 10:05 PM

Does anyone else remember where and when you read a particular favorite? Or have you noticed that the same book has such different meaning at various stages of your life?

I was at the beach when I read Killer Angels.

I was pregnant and so tired I curled up in bed early every night with Michener's Iberia. I still remember the description of the smell or orange groves off the coast of Valencia.

Mousethief, Metchosin and LEJ - did you know that there is a guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? It explains all the philosophy. I enjoyed the descriptive passages in that book, and was later surprised at all the philosophy that went way over my head.

Don't forget Michener's autobiography, The World is My Home. His life was as exciting as many of his stories. (I think he survived three plane crashes.) I especially enjoyed his description of his lifelong love of opera.

Also, The Virginian. I think kat is familiar with some of the Wyoming locale described in that book (the baby swap.)

Also James Herriot's book, Yorkshire.

It's fun to meet people here at Mudcat that have lived in places I've only read about!

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: simon-pierre
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 09:01 PM

Didn't read the whole thread, but I agree with most of the choices here.

I would mention "Lord of the barnyard" by Tristan Egolf. Terrific. It will leaves you speechless, as I am.

The complete works og Allen Ginsberg (of course, especially, "Howl" and "Kaddish").

And Denis Diderot, "Jacques le fataliste,"; Rabelais, "Gargantua"; Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Robert Desnos (all French poets); and Guy Debord.

Did anyone corrected Max? It was Saint-Exupery who wrote "The little prince".

SP

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dave Swan
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 08:55 PM

Sinsull,

Orson Scott Card is the author you're looking for. Advanced Book Exchange (www.abebooks.com)lists several copies offered by its members, who are all independant booksellers.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Micca
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 08:41 PM

Sinsull, you could try Powells the second hand bookstore here Click here

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 08:36 PM

And "Captains Courageous" both book and movie (Spencer Tracy - sigh).

To Sci-fi Officianados: Years ago I read a paperback called "A Planet Named Treason" and lent the book out. Any idea who the author is or where I can get a copy?
Mary

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 07:32 PM

Are you serious? Nobody's mentioned "Two Years Before the Mast" not even a shantyman? What a literate, readable, multilayered triumph of a book it was.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 04:56 PM

SINSULL...yes,indeed you DO intimidate me.But I'll try to not let it show.:>}

richlmo,great idea for a thread.Can't believe no one thought of it before.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Terry K
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 02:11 PM

OK then

Catch 22
Lord of the Rings

recently

Garp Woman who Walked into Doors (Roddy Doyle)

and for all time

all Steinbeck
most of Turgenev, Zola, Gide
all of Marcel Pagnol (a delight)

Cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Micca
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 01:46 PM

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
The Rubiyat of Omar Khyyam, Trans Fitzgerald
Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy MacLean
The Oxford book of 20th Century English Verse selected by Philip Larkin
The series of "The dark is Rising" and Mandrake by Susan Cooper
All the Arthur Ransome books
Rudyard Kiplings collected verse and Stalky and Co
Heinlein and Edmund Cooper ( for Sci-Fi)
and books by John Fowles,Dorothy L Sayers, Kathy Reich,Patricia Cornwell, and how much time do you have???
and Thnk you Richlmo , I know have several ideas if I am stuck for something to read this winter.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Carlin
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 01:11 PM

I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves

Catch-22 by Heller

Any of George McDonald Fraser's Flashman books (I guess my favorite is Flashman at the Charge)

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

All Tolkien

The Road to Gandolfo by Robert Ludlum

Moby Dick and Billy Budd by Melville

Physics and Philosophy by James Jeann (? spelling)

Plutarch's Lives

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 12:49 PM

I always wondered why so many people at sci-fi/fantasy conventions looked like folk singers. Hmmm... ;)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Stewie
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 09:33 AM

'The Ginger Man' - Donlevy
'A Distant Mirror' - Barbara Tuchman

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 08:49 AM

Oh Kat, how could I have left out Parke Godwin! Have any of you read his Robin Hood books? I think he's the one who wrote the legend from the perspective of the Sheriff Of Nottingham. Very good.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: P05139
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 07:48 AM

I loved the following:-

Any of the NIGHT WORLD series by L.J. Smith
Watership Down By Richard Adams
Any of the DRINA series by Jean Estoril
Any of the CHALET SCHOOL series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Any of the TREBIZON series by Anne Digby
Crystal by Virginia Andrews
Melody by the above authoress
Any of the HORRIBLE HISTORIES series by Terry Deary
Talking In Whispers by James Watson
Any of the DISCWORLD series by Terry Pratchett
Nobody's Horse (sorry, I can't remeber the author, Joanne somebody I think)

There are many, many more as well. Honourable mentions go to Terrance Dicks for Death to the Daleks and Rob Grant and Doug Naylor (Grant Naylor) for the RED DWARF series.

This is sounding like an awards ceremony!

Byee!

Firecat

HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone 19-Feb-2001.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Kryptonium
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 02:55 AM

My douglas Adams i beleive

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Kryptonium
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 02:48 AM

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy hehe :-)

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From:
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 01:39 AM

"On Liberty" By John Stuart Mill

"Victory" by Joseph Conrad

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Sep 00 - 01:08 AM

Can't believe I forgot to recommend these:

Waiting for the Galactic Bus & the sequel to it, The Snake Oil Wars, both by Parke Godwin.

Out of print, but libraries and secondhand places usually have them. I liked them much better than Hitchhiker's Guide. Can't say enough good about them.

Also, I Send A Voice by Evelyn Eaton