Best book you ever read.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,dan evergreen
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:08 PM

A few which have not been listed:

Theodore Dreiser: An American Tradgedy Sister Carrie The Genius

Albert Camus: The Spectator The Plague

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 03:33 PM

In no particular order:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (much better than the movie) and Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (one more vote!)

The Power of Myth (Bill Moyers interviewing Joseph Campbell)

The Grapes Of Wrath and East Of Eden by John Steinbeck (my favorites, but any Steinbeck is worth reading)

Mila 18 by Leon Uris (again, all his books are good)

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester (my favorite, but everything by him is good)

The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, and The Wicked Day by Mary Stewart (a four-book series)

The Prophet and Jesus, Son of Man by Kahlil Gibran

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (I wouldn't have thought of this, but was reminded by other folks who posted; not a life-changing experience, but a great yarn)

Not So Wild A Dream by Eric Sevareid

Civil War histories by Bruce Catton

Anything by Peter Guralnick

And all the other ones that I'll remember as soon as I post this.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 03:27 PM

Every time I read through this thread I remember more books that line up as my favorites.

Annamill - I love most of McCaffrey's work. If you want a strong feminine hero with a truly tragic story try C. J. Cheryh's Morgaine series. I love them. As the stories develop she goes through an awesome emotional reversal in her relationship with Vanye her companion and bodyguard.

Kendall - If you like Forrester's Hornblower you should try Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin. O'Brian has a wonderfull sense of language that makes reading the books a real treat. I had to get some reference books from the library to understand some of the technical details of sailing an 18th century ship and I had to read with a good dictionary at my elbow. It's been years since I needed to do that.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 03:23 PM

Yeah,Mouse,Zen and the Art had a big impact on me.Turned me from an anti-tech tree hugger to a tech-accepting tree-hugger,no small feat.Remember the first line of the Japanese Bicycle Assembly Instructions?

"Assembly of this bicycle requires great peace of mind."

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Rana who SHOULD be working
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:51 PM

For sheer imagination it has to be:

The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake

Though the Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov follows very closely.

Woman in White, and the Moonstone by Wilkie Collins were books that kept me reading till 4 am - a thing I hadn't done fro years.

Auto da Fe by Elias Canneti was great - how could you resist a book about "an evil minded chess playing dwarf of evil propensities" or such like.

Use to read Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass each year

I almost forgot - Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

Rana

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:51 PM

Mousethief, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of my husband's favourite books. Unfortunately he leant it out and it was never returned, so you have just given me an idea for a Christmas present, thanks. If you liked that book you will also enjoy The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: mousethief
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:43 PM

I judge my favorites by whether or not I'd be willing to go back and read them again. The ones I've read the most times include (in no particular order):

Lord of the Rings - Tolkein (over 10x)
Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Rushdie
Till We Have Faces - Lewis
Studies in Words - Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia - Lewis (over 10x)
A Cry Like a Bell - L'Engle
Weather of the Heart - L'Engle
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig (over 10x)
Father Arseny: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father - Vera Bouteneff, tr.
Mossflower - Brian Jacques
Earthsea Trilogy - LeGuin

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: kendall
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:34 PM

Last but not least..anything that C.S.Forrester ever wrote. Hornblower is my alter ego.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: kendall
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:31 PM

Not in order of importance. MOBY DICK, SILVERLOCK (John Myers Myers) THE ODYSSEY, LONESOME DOVE.MANILA GALLEON (F. VanWyck Mason) SPEAK TO THE WINDS( by Ruth Moore)THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM. Plus selected stuff by Shakespere, the greatest writer of the English language of all time. Thanks for the plug Naemanson! Stories told in the kitchen is the funniest thing I ever wrote! LOL

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:14 PM

hmmm...Bert, I have that book...haven't looked into it for years. Maybe I'll dig it out.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:14 PM

Many of my favourites have been mentioned. The Deptford Trilogy, Owen Meany, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath and amny others

I may have missed it, but I didn't see a single Hemingway title listed. The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls are two of my favourites by Ernest.

Maugham's 'Of Human Bondage' may be my favourite of all time.

Favourite Hitchiker's Guide Passage:

"He wouldn't try to beat the system, He would just use it. The frightening thing about the Vogons was their mindless determination to do whatever mindless thing they were determined to do. There was never any sense in trying to appeal to their reason because they didn't have any. However, if you kept your nerve you could sometimes exploit their blinkered, bludgeoning insistence on being blinkered and bludgeoning. It wasn't merely that their left hand didn't always know what their right hand was doing, so to speak; quite often their right hand had a pretty hazy notion as well."

I often have to deal with one of the largest companies in the world, and as I am transferred from one 'wrong person' to another I often use the above passage as a calming mantra.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Morticia
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:09 PM

That Josephine Tey book......wasn't it Stranger in Time or something like that? I have it but as the house is full of books and runs over three storeys, I haven't a prayer of finding it. My list varies too but
Oranges are not the only Fruit..Jeanette Winterson
Speaker for the Dead..Orson Scott Card
Mansefield Park..Jane Austen
The Barrytown Trilogy..Roddy Doyle
and of course Angela's Ashes because it mentions members of my family and is exactly how my parents grew up. I could go on.........and on......and on.......but these are the ones that sprig immiediatley to mind. I've finally got round to reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac just now......jury's still out on if I like it.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bert
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:05 PM

Songs of Peace, Freedom and Protest - Tom Glazer

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:54 PM

Mbo,
A.C.Doyle is under investigation for murder - Really! It seems he stole the idea for the Hound of the Baskervilles from another author (sorry I don't remember the murder victim's name), had an affair with his wife, and convinced the woman to poison her husband with laudanum. Scotland Yard is conducting an investigation and they may exhume the body.
I forgot to add any Clive Cussler/Dirk Pitt/NUMA books to my list.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,cheryl
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:44 PM

Best so far ... John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany." Also, for you Moby Dick fans (it's on my top five, too), a new novel called "Ahab's Wife," has been out for about a year. A fascinating posit. Can't recall the author right off the top of my head but I don't think it's out in paperback yet, so it should be easy to find at the bookseller.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,useless
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:41 PM

I would have to say God's Word and A Time To Kill by John Grisham.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:34 PM

Dear Guest, you might try reading Ralph Loerich's The Secret of Ullyses, although it is probably out of print and it too is a long and difficult slog based upon psychosomatics and metaonerics.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:30 PM

DocJohn,thank God you didn't read The Odyssey in the original Homeric Greek.I would have been way too intimidated to speak to you! .>}

LEJ

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Doctor John
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:24 PM

... and I obviously need a book on HTML!

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Doctor John
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:22 PM

C. A. Stothard's Monumental Effigies
S. Runciman's History of the Crusades
The Alice Books De Sade's Works
Emsley The Elements
The Oxford English Dictionary (The Big One)
Homer's Odyssey (in English)
Robert Graves' The Greek Myths
C V Wedgewood's History of the Great Rebellion, sadly never finished.
Anything with lots of good illustrations!! Dr John

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:21 PM

Precious Bane, Mary Webb
No Name, Wilkie Collins
Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
A Prayer for Owen Meanie, John Irving
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
and my all time favourite: Little Dorritt, Charles Dickens.

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

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:05 PM

Asking a writer what his favorite book is asking for trouble.
Anything by Mark Twain, Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe. Especially Shakespeare.
Killer Angels- Michael Shaara
Bloodletters and Badmen - Jay Robert Nash
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and any of Ambrose Bierce's Civil War stories. (Check him out Kim C, very fascinating man)
Bruce Catton's Civil war histories.
The Maigret mysteries by Georges Simenon.
Dame Agatha's mysteries.
More Later. Kindest regards, Neil

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

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: annamill
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:04 PM

Naemanson, I'm reading Anne McCaffrey now. Her Pegesus series. Not Pern I'm afaid. I loved her Crystal Singer.

Love, annamill

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:59 PM

Thomas Covenant - The hero I hated with all my heart and couldn't stop reading about, both times through the series.

And Pern! Ah, to go back to the skies of Pern.

I'm surprised The Little Prince took so long to show up on this list. Also, where is the Velveteen Rabbit?

I left off of my list the book I reviewed recently - Drive Dull Care Away. It is about the art and craft of collecting folk lore. Excellant depiction of the trials and travails of lugging a heavy tape recorder over the rutted tracks on PEI. "Hey, boy, ye be wanting a drink?"

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:59 PM

If anyone can explain Joyce's Ulysses to me without suggesting I get advanced degrees in Catholic studies, mythology, and Irish history, I'd appreciate it.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bagpuss
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:40 PM

Apologies to the poster called KT. That's my handle on another site, and sometimes I forget it's not my handle when I sign off here!

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: annamill
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:39 PM

There are so many good books I have read...Hesse, Gibran, Twain, Heinlin, etc., but the one book that reallu affected my life will not be very popular here I'm afraid. I've heard her name bandied about with contempt more than once, but she changed my life and I respect her very much.

Atlas shrugged by Ayn Rand is my very favorite book. It made me sit up and look around. It made me question what I had always just taken for granted. But above all, it made me realize that making and having money wasn't bad!! I no longer wanted to be a parasite, or a boulder pusher. I wanted to be creative, innovative, a doer!!

Sorry folks. Love, annamill

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:35 PM

I wonder if Douglas Adams could talk to Alanis about irony?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:29 PM

Not found the book yet, here are some of the ones I enjoyed the most.
A Man Called Intrepid by Wm. Stevenson
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
Sharpes Rifles (whole series) Bernard Cornwell
Grey Seas Under, The Boat That Would'nt Float and The Serpents Coil by Farley Mowat
Every book written by the following Authors
Winston Churchill, Walter Lord, James Herriot, Allister MacLean, Douglas Reeman, C.S. Forester, Thomas Raddall, Elizabeth Longford, Robert Service, Tristan Jones, Eric Hiscock, Hal Roth, Lillian Beckwith and I have such a large collection in my library I know that I could swamp this thread. Yours, Aye. Dave (who does not watch TV)

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:20 PM

I'm coming in late, so I see that Mbo beat me to Lord of the Rings. I'm only BEGINNING to appreciate it, though, because I've only read it six times.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bagpuss
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:17 PM

Mbo - I loved The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I have read all of Stephen Donaldson's stuff. Also, that's my favourite quote for the hitchiker books! As well as "Life, don't talk to me about life"

My favourites are probably The Sandman by Neil Gaiman - and all of Gaiman's short stories. He does some great retelling of folk tales / fairy tales.

Also everything by Iain Banks - except A Song of Stone, which was uncharacteristically bad.

KT

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:15 PM

Mbo, I was a Thomas Covenant fan at one time too.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mbo
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:10 PM

--Chanteyranger, sounds like a great book. I'm a big buff on the WWII war in the Pacific...and I lived on Okinawa for 3 years, I would love to read it.

--Branwen, does the book have more about that mean little princess and her lassos?

--Marion, how could I forget The Hitchhiker Trilogy?? Love that stuff. "Sheesh, you guys are so un-hip, I'm surprised your bums don't fall off" --Zaphod Beeblebrox

--Jim Dixon, my sister is a Doyle scholar, and member of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society. She loves that stuff and has read Holmes many times, as well as tons of other stuff, and is currently trying to compile a comple collection of his poetry. All of this has rubbed off on me too! Long live Doyle!

I think I forgot to mention the "Dragonriders of Pern" series. My favorite one is a toss up between (no pun intended!) "Dragonsdawn" and the second book..arg, can't remember the name! Dragonquest?

I also forgot The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. Good stuff!

--Matt

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 12:06 PM

well the heart remembers what the mind forgets...

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince and The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas, again not the best but of some personal impact.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Luther
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 11:58 AM

LEJ, dunno -- wouldn't be the Sartre novel, would it?

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Wesley S
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 11:55 AM

Here's a few off the top of my head :

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee - Dee Brown /// The Cowboy and the Cossack - Clair Huffacker /// Little Big Man - Thomas Berger { ?? } /// Ragtime - E L Doctrow /// Tunnel in the Sky - Robert Heinlien /// Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar - Edgar Rice Burroughs /// Any Travis McGee book by John D McDonald /// I've Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me - Richard Farnia

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 11:52 AM

It depends on the time of day, day of year, year of life... but:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Moby Dick by Melville
anything by Trollope
A Prayer For Owen Meanie by John Irving
The Nightingale Song, The Perfect Storm, The Raft of the Medusa, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Euripides, Lucretius, Sappho,...not there yet..., Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Seven Years in Tibet, and endless amounts of horror, science fiction crap, anything on the Spanish Inquisition, Angela's Ashes, anthing on or by Sir Richard Burton (explorer not actor)...back to work.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 11:28 AM

"Johnny Got His Gun," -- Dalton Trumbo

"A Separate Peace" -- John Knowles

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bert
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 11:19 AM

Not in any sort of order...

It Can't Always be Caviar - Johannes Mario Simmel
The Golden Keel - Desmond Bagley
Trapp's War - Brian Callison
73 North - Dudley Pope
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
The Doctor who Saved Babies (can't remember who by)
Wilt - Tom Sharpe
Any of the 'Dover' books by Joyce Porter
The Land God gave to Cain - Hammond Innes
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Heinlein
The Alice books - Lewis Carrol
Sundials - A. P. Herbert

Bert - there's loads more I'll think of the moment I hit submit.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 11:16 AM

The Death Ship, by B. Traven is also a great novel. On the plight of poor sailors being exploited by ruthless and greedy ship owners.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. A very readable essay on city planning, or the lack of it. A strong argument in favor of diversity, especially mixed neighborhoods - mixed rich and poor, mixed commercial and residential, and so on.

A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander, et al. About architecture, but not just architecture, more about the human environment. It convinced me, among other things, that it's better to own a variety of coffee mugs than a matched set.

The Uses of Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim. A psychologist on the importance of fairy tales to children, but his insights can be applied to any art form, and any kind of people.

"A great book is one that tells you what you already know, but didn't know how to put into words. Or tells you what you already know, but didn't have enough confidence in yourself to say. Or just tells you that you're not alone." You can quote me on that.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Kim C
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 10:56 AM

Lately, it's The Black Flower by Howard Bahr. I'm on my second pass. I loved this so well I wrote a song about it. Recommended for EVERYONE who loves a good story, whether you normally like historical fiction or not. Also, his second book, The Year of Jubilo, is pretty good too. (For the record, I want to say that I did NOT like Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, a popular Civil War novel a few years back. I did, however, really enjoy Killer Angels.)

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Lonesome Dove (but stop there; the others in that series pretty much suck)

Anything by Louis L'Amour, especially the Sackett stories

Anything by Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo

Shakespeare, Shakespeare, and more Shakespeare

I love reading historical diaries and letters.

I also enjoy theological works by Charles Swindoll.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Giac
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 09:03 AM

B. Traven's seven-book series known as the "jungle novels." (Probably his best known novel was The Treasure of The Sierra Madre.)

Stranger In A Strange Land, Robert Heinlien (is that spelled right?)

As a youngster, anything by Walter Farley (the Black Stallion series, Island Stallion series and those about harness racing).

C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia

Previously mentioned: The Quincunx, and Ivanhoe.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 06:57 AM

Dammit! How on God's green Earth can anyone chose their favorite book, or even their favorite few dozen? I sit here surrounded by my favorite books and they break down into two categories, those I've read and those I haven't.

Still, I can list some of my recent favorites:

The Long Ships by Frans Bengtson (Hey! Scandinavian Mudcatters, what else did he write?)

Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine

Patrick O'Brian's 20 book historical novel series of the Napoleonic war

To The Ends Of The Earth by Michael Talbot (Hey! Australian Mudcatters, did he ever write the sequel?)

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

Tales Told In The Kitchen by Kendall Morse

That's enough for now.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:23 AM

Hey, I thought Jonathan Livingston Seagull was by Neil Diamond. Wasn't Bach the name of that woman on "the Spy Who Loved Me" and "The Dukes of Hazzard," the one who married Ringo Starr? She was my One True Love after I lost interest in Julie Andrews.
No, huh? Wrong Bach, I guess.

Many of my favorite books and authors have already been listed. One that hasn't is Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, Frankl's explanation of how he learned of the beauty and meaning of life, while was living in a concentration camp.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 02:14 AM

Wondering...anyone interested in a Mudcat Book of the Month Club? We could agree on some titles,and keep an ongoing thread discussion of each during the month.

Metchosin...I read The Glass Bead Game many years ago.I recall liking it,but have forgotten it.

Luther...not the Thomas Paine work. I'm thinking my Age of Reason was either Flaubert or Proust.The title in this case is an allusion to the end,at 30,of the age of complete irresponsibility and spontaneity,and the onset of the age of practicality and reserve.

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST, Banjo Johnny
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:58 AM

Yet another vote for Catch 22. == Johnny

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:51 AM

The oral book report was on to Kill a Mockingbird re: my post above. Idiot! you should know by now to reread before sending. Bad dog!!!

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Luther
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:42 AM

Lonesome, wonderful choices -- The Age of Reason is Thomas Paine, written in France (he lived in France, England, and the US, depending on who had the most current death warrant out for him, he's buried in England).

Best stuff I've read in the past decade or so is Cormac McCarthy, I can't choose, The Crossing or Blood Meridian maybe. I was just looking for The Magic Mountain to re-read, apparently I've given it away.

Some of the stuff that has most influenced my view of Life, the Universe, and Everything -- the essays of Orwell, Huxley, Bertrand Russel -- and Paine, Voltaire. Ed Abbey, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson.

I might have a look at Steppenwolf, I went through the obligatory Hesse thing as a teenager, and couldn't possible have had a clue what it was about then.

Speaking of things teen-age, I just read a couple of Vonneguts that I'd missed, "Deadeye Dick", one of his best, and "Timequake", the most truly awful thing I've ever read masquerading as a novel (loved it anyway, if you're a fan, you're a fan).

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: The Beanster
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:37 AM

Yes, Yes--thanks Metchosin and thosp! Metchosin, please pass some of that ginko over here. I probably should bathe in it or something.

How could I have forgotten "Lonesome Dove?" (sigh). My sister told me I should read it but it was fiction (don't really read fiction anymore) and it was a "cowboy" story (yech!). But she hounded me mercilessly until I read it. Such a wonderful book!

Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Allan C.
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 01:27 AM

Like many above, it is nearly impossible for me to speak of a single favorite.

anything by Mark Twain (Someone once said that if he had one wish it would be to be able "to read 'Life On the Mississippi' again for the first time." I feel that way about all of his works.)

A Reverence For Wood, by Eric Sloan

The Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.

Judas, My Brother, by Frank Yerby

Green Mansions, by W. H. Hudson

Now Hear This!, by Cmdr. Dan Gallery

...many others