Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Jimmy C Date: 17 Sep 00 - 12:24 AM Some of my personal favourites have been posted such as The Bible, Moby Dick and To Kill a Mocking Bird. I would add " A Tale of Two Cities", The Scarlet Pimpernel, "Famine" by Liam O'Flaherty and "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Midchuck Date: 17 Sep 00 - 12:11 AM My list would be too damn long, and mostly too escapist. For those with an interest in sci-fi and fantasy, though, I would offer a too-well-kept secret. Usual disclaimers. Peter. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Lepus Rex Date: 16 Sep 00 - 11:36 PM Welcome, Caleb:) ---Lepus Rex |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Caleb Date: 16 Sep 00 - 11:21 PM Newcomer; been checking y'all out for a long time, didn't know when to plunge in. Bookishness is a good reason. Mostly modern stuff, short term memory loss and all:
Cold Mountain - C. Frazier
Words are what make us. String 'em together and make it count. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: thosp Date: 16 Sep 00 - 10:36 PM territorial imperative-Ardsley on aggresion-lorenz foundation series-asimov i robot series-asimov fairoaks-yerby peace (Y) thosp |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Sep 00 - 10:32 PM Tough one to pick the best... In autobiographies: And A Voice To Sing With - Joan Baez Willie - Willie Nelson I, Tina - Tina Turner & Kurt Loder(?) The Ragman's Son - Kirk Douglas In adult fantasy: Lord of the Rings Watership Down The Hobbit The Water of the Wondrous Isles (and William Morris' other books on similar themes)
Tomoe Gozen In religion and spiritual philosophy: the Bible the Buddist scriptures the writings of Lao-Tse (Taoism) The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ - by Levi
Conversations With God (vol. 1,2, & 3)
A Return To Love - Marianne Williamson
The Tao of Pooh The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity - wonderfull book. Ageless Body, Timeless Mind - Deepak Chopra Health: Diet For A New American Sugar Blues - James Dufty Roger's Recovery From Aids Confessions Of A Kamikaze Cowboy - Dirk Benedict Native American subjects: Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - Dee Brown Seven Arrows - Hyemeyohsts Storm Childrens books: Winnie the Pooh The House at Pooh Corner The Wind In The Willows World War II non-fiction: Samurai - Saburo Sakai, Martin Caidin & Fred Saito Songbooks: The Buffy Sainte-Marie Songbook (songs, articles, photos, & drawings by and about Buffy) EVERY ONE OF THE ABOVE IS ABSOLUTELY GREAT.
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Lepus Rex Date: 16 Sep 00 - 10:14 PM Robert Jordan is the devil. No offence, richlmo. I've got a grudge against him for those damned 'Conan' 'books' he 'wrote.' ;) ---Lepus Rex |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: richlmo Date: 16 Sep 00 - 10:02 PM RE: the "Wheel of Time " series ,by Robert Jordan I loved the first 3 or 4, but the last umpteen have been pretty slow. No action until the last 2 chapters. I thought I was the only one who couldn't get into Michner. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: SINSULL Date: 16 Sep 00 - 08:51 PM Add "The Shipping News" to your lists. Magical! |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: GUEST,Ceitagh Date: 16 Sep 00 - 08:32 PM yup meebs, I'm still alive. can't keep me away from the 'cat for long. :-), specially not if good books are being discuused. What's really interesting is seeing which people have similar tastes to yours (so far sinsull and mousethief have made an impression as having *great* literary tastes...iow, they like a lot of the books i like). Btw, you *must* read leaf by niggle! It's absolutely beautiful. I see a lot fo fantasy and sci fi readers out there, just thot i'd drop a vote for anything by patricia mckillip (her descriptions are so gorgeous and vivid!), Robin McKinley, and lois mcmaster bujold (wonderful characters). Not really 'literature', but great reading. Ceit |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: katlaughing Date: 16 Sep 00 - 02:24 PM Also:
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Metchosin Date: 16 Sep 00 - 12:14 PM Maybe I missed it, buried in ths long thread somewhere, again not necessarily great literature, but just books that had a profound personal impact, Rachael Carson's Silent Spring and The Sea Around Us. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Rosebrook Date: 16 Sep 00 - 11:59 AM Definately my all-time most favorite book is The Little Prince by Antoine Antoine De Saint-Exupery. Was introduced to that book in junior high French class. Thanks Monsieur Sherman!! It has made a lifelong impact. Also: Dreaming the Dark - Starhawk Dykes to Watch Out For - Alison Bechdel (hysterical series!) Dance of Anger - Harriet Goldhor Lerner One Hundred Poems From the Japanese - Kenneth Rexroth Rose |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: sophocleese Date: 16 Sep 00 - 10:00 AM Wow I missed this thread earlier in the week. Paul Scott, Jewel in the Crown quartet and especially Staying On. Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, tangible language that you rest on and feel your way around. Susan Cooper, Dark is Rising quintet for children. Alan Garner, Elidor and others, excellent children's teens fantasy. Patricia McKillip, I like all of her titles. Tanya Huff, light reading again but very enjoyable.
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Callie Date: 16 Sep 00 - 09:51 AM The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch The Good Apprentice - Iris Murdoch Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor Felicia's Journey - William Trevor This Side of Brightness - Colum McCann The House at World's End - Monica Dickens Two Lives - William Trevor The Bone People - Kerri Hulme The Blackwater Lightship - Colm Toibin The Well - Elizabeth Jolley Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters - Julian Barnes Collections of Stories by Raymond Carver Callie |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: balladeer Date: 16 Sep 00 - 09:40 AM Note to self: read Lonesome Dove. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: katlaughing Date: 16 Sep 00 - 09:30 AM Crazy Eddie! Thanks for reminding me of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series! Great books, although I have to confess, I could not get into the last one. My neice and her husband are so into them, they dressed as characters from them for Halloween, last year. Rabbitrunning, I never get rid of the old ones!**BG** Just paperbacks and such. In fact, some of the best old ones I have came from library sales. Sadly so for library patrons, but at least they've come to a good home. I thought I'd died & gone to heaven when I went to a library book sale in Rhode Island. Everyone in the community had contributed to it and a huge gymnasium was filled with tables and rows of books, upon books. I was almost delirious! kat
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Naemanson Date: 16 Sep 00 - 09:26 AM NO! STOP! END THIS THREAD NOW! I can't stand it anymore. Every post incldes books I have loved and books that I now realize I must read and AAAARRRRGGGGHHH! must...end...now... help..... |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: balladeer Date: 16 Sep 00 - 08:54 AM Some favorites: The Winnie the Pooh series by AA Milne; the tragedies of Wm.Shakespeare; complete works of E.A.Poe; Tolkien's Lord of the Rings; To Kill a Mockingbird, On the Road, The Shining, OED, F.J. Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads; Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Agatha Christie, while not the best author I ever read, is the one who put me to sleep at night and kept me company on trains over many years. Two books that altered the course of my life were Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, which I read when I was ten, and Poems to Remember, an anthology that will be recalled by anyone who went to high school in Toronto in the fifties. That's where I discovered ballads. Seems Harper Lee is the most popular author here.... |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: rabbitrunning Date: 16 Sep 00 - 07:55 AM Be careful when you whittle your own collections book lovers, because the grand high muckymucks of librarydom have decided that old books are baaaad. I get encouraged to "weed! weed! weed!" on a regular basis. And I'm going to get downgraded on my employee evaluations because I won't do it, too. phooey. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Crazy Eddie Date: 16 Sep 00 - 04:44 AM Where to start............. East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice & Men, To A God Unknown...........Steinbeck Catch 22.... Joseph Heller One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest....Ken Kesey. Also a great movie but the book is so much better. One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch....Alexander Solzenytsen Lord of the Rings...JRR Tolkein Angelas Ashes...Frank McCourt Anything by Myles na gCopaillin (Flann O Brien)
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress...Heinlen The Belgariad, & The Malloreon,....David Eddings The Many Coloured Land...Julian May. NO, MUST STOP TYPING, GOT TO GO & READ SOMETHING...... Eddie
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: katlaughing Date: 16 Sep 00 - 02:31 AM Whew! First time in this thread. Lots of my favs mentioned, too, esp. Doyle; Sidhartha; and To Kill A Mockingbird. (Incidentally, one of my favourite cartoons, is a Mother Goose and Grimm, where the dog is sitting in an easy chair reading TKAM and says, at the end, "I thought it was an instruction manual!") Marion Zimmer Bradley was correct for Mists of Avalon, also one of my favourites, as are her Darkover novels. Big Daddy, I am glad you mentioned Told on the King's Highway and, A Treasury of Great Poems. I really enjoyed both. Currently reading a fascinating and excellent biography (something I usually do not enjoy reading all that much)called "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Collette" by Judith Thurman. A few others:
Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means and LOTS more; kind of the same mind as Micca, although I have whittled my library down due to several cross-country moves. LEEJ: GREAT IDEA! Let's do have a Mudcat book of the Month thread!
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: rabbitrunning Date: 16 Sep 00 - 12:14 AM Hooray! Someone else likes "The Hounds of the Morrigan!"
I'm a children's librarian, so a lot of my favorites (of the moment) are going to be in the kids or young adult's section, but believe me, they're worth looking at:
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Melani Date: 15 Sep 00 - 11:09 PM An almost impossible question. I've always really liked "The Grapes of Wrath" as a major classic. On a somewhat less intellectual level, I really enjoy the Flashman series and anything else by George McDonald Fraser. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: thosp Date: 15 Sep 00 - 10:38 PM well being an avid reader (my mother told me i was born with a book in my hand)here's just a few of the best book i have ever read 1)lord of the rings-tolkein 2)lord of the flies-golding catch 22-heller 3)tom sawyer&huck finn-twain the Jeeves series-wodehouse 4)the histories-tacitus 5)arundel 6)this fortress world-gunn peace (Y) thosp |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: GUEST,AB-Guest Date: 15 Sep 00 - 10:29 PM What a fun find for the evening. How can you decide and the BEST? A few favorites so far unmentioned. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte 1984, George Orwell Fried Green Tomatoes, Flagg The Bean Trees, Kingsolver and of course Stienbeck and Dickens are always a good read. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: richlmo Date: 15 Sep 00 - 10:19 PM 'Cold Mountain" was a beautiful book. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: richlmo Date: 15 Sep 00 - 10:17 PM I started this thread thinking " Lord Of The Rings " was my favorite and it still is ONE of my favorites, but "Lonesome Dove" is right up there. Maybe my favorite fictional character ever in "Gus McRae" Others that I keep re-reading, " Shogun" by James Clavell, The "Clan of the Cavebear" series is pretty good , too. Thanks for all the response. You have reminded me of lots of good ones. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: GUEST Date: 15 Sep 00 - 10:01 PM Cold Mountain--Charles Frazier |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Susan from California Date: 15 Sep 00 - 09:20 PM OK, y'all have already mentioned many of my favorites,(esp Irving & Steinbeck) but nobody has mentioned Octavia E. Butler. Her trilogy that begins with "The Parable of the Sower" is not to be missed. Her books are classified as Science Fiction, but they are not overly Sci for those of you who are not really excited by Sci Fi. For Kid Lit, I love the sadly out of print "A Tree for Peter" by Kate Seredy, "The Empty Barn" by De Angeli, and one I just previewed for my Jr High students, "Tangerine" by I'm not sure who. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Morticia Date: 15 Sep 00 - 07:30 PM Max, I thought that The Cat who Walked Through Walls was a follow on from Time Enough for Love? ( I love all Heinlein novels) Micca, darling, I'll help you 'thin' your collection ( actually I've already made considerable advances towards that goal but perhaps he hasn't noticed) and speaking of the LFU....no-ones mentioned "My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell...another comfort read. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Don Firth Date: 15 Sep 00 - 07:18 PM I don't think I could pick a best book -- many on my list have already been mentioned, some several times, but here are a couple to add to the pile: Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini -- historical novel that bears little or no resemblance to the movie with Stewart Granger (they took the title and the gimmick or "McGuffin," but little else). Sabatini has a thick Victorian style, which turns many people off, but his historical research is impeccable and he's one helluva story-teller. Errol Flynn made a career out of play (badly) Sabatini heroes. Whacking good adventure! The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell -- Hard to classify: mainstream/science fiction/religious/philsophical. Good story, but much more than that. It raises some uncomfortable questions -- definitely thought-provoking. She wrote a sequel, Children of God, which is almost as good, but you need to read The Sparrow first. Don Firth
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Lonesome EJ Date: 15 Sep 00 - 07:15 PM On a less stimulating intellectual level,but fun reads nonetheless... The White Spider by the same guy who wrote Seven Years in Tibet,tells the amazing and terrifying story of the first Eiger ascents.Trevanian's The Eiger Sanction was a good thriller that borrowed heavily from The White Spider. Most of John Grisham's stuff,especially Testament. Sarum and London by Edward Rutherfurd.A bit melodramatic,but based on solid historical research. Most Ruth Rendell mysteries.I'm not ordinarily a mystery fan,but my wife turned me onto her,and I think she's one of the best at developing three-dimensional characters(Ruth,not my wife.Despite her best efforts,I remain one-dimensional). And detective fiction? Sure.I love The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley.I'd describe Crumley as Hunter Thompson meets Mickey Spillane.
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: GUEST,John Galt Date: 15 Sep 00 - 06:36 PM Most of my favorites have been listed...except
Darkness at Noon - Koestler? |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: gillymor Date: 15 Sep 00 - 06:35 PM Thanks a lot y'all. My books to read list was long enough*g*.
Room With a View, Where Angels Fear to Tread and Howards' End by E.M. Forster. F
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: mousethief Date: 15 Sep 00 - 06:28 PM Leaf by Niggle is WONDERFUL. Literally and figuratively.
Alex |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Mbo Date: 15 Sep 00 - 06:14 PM Ha ha, I knew you'd pop up sooner or later, Ceit! Wanna know something? I haven't read "Leaf by Niggle" yet! Shameful, isn't it! And SINSULL, that is a flat out lie about Doyle. Just pop over the the Arthur Conan Doyle Society mailing list (of which my sister is part of too) and they'll set you straight! |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: BigDaddy Date: 15 Sep 00 - 06:09 PM Post Scriptum: You all might want to take a look at editor/author/artist Terri Windling's websitfor some really good reading ideas. See her "Recommendations" at http://www.endicott-studio.com/ |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: tradsteve Date: 15 Sep 00 - 05:57 PM I forgot "In Dubious Battle" Steinbeck |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: BigDaddy Date: 15 Sep 00 - 05:52 PM My current ten titles to take with me to a deserted island would be: The Hounds of the Morrigan (Pat O'Shea), Told on the King's Highway (Eleanore Jewett), The Education of Little Tree (Forrest Carter), A Treasury of Great Poems (edited by Louis Untermeyer), An Elegy For September (John Nichols), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), The Curse Of The Wise Woman (Lord Dunsany), Hunter's Horn (Harriet Arnow), Fairies (Brian Froud & Alan Lee), and A Christmas Carol ( Charles Dickens). As with many of you, my list changes from time to time. Also, some favorites are "guilty pleasures," that is to say they're not necessarily the best examples of writing but I love them anyway. I also have my "survival list" of albums I couldn't be without, but we'll do that another time perhaps. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: dwditty Date: 15 Sep 00 - 05:12 PM Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer - Kenneth Patchen Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlien Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut - who gave me a copy of this book on the day I shipped out to Vietnam. I had it read before I landed and spent the next year thinking about time and again. dw |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Mudjack Date: 15 Sep 00 - 05:06 PM The Holy Bible, by God a proven best seller, Grapes of Wrath by Stienbeck. I need to read more but PC stuff and music limits that option. Mudjack |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: GUEST Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:48 PM Cool! You people have mentioned some great books! my personal fave authors have been named a few times, but i'll do it again. The Lord Of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. Everyone knows this is a classic, and it is my favorite book. It gets better every time i read it. Leaf by Niggle, also by Tolkein. Lesser known, but almost more beautiful in its brevity than any of his other works, i feel. Til We Have Faces by CS Lewis. Gorgeous book. The Last Unicorn - this book always makes me feel more deeply for days after reading it. the Princess and Curdie, by George MacDonald
Pax,
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Naemanson Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:41 PM At first I thought it would be educational to copy out this thread and sort it for those books with which I share an interest with you guys. Then it occurred to me that the truly wonderful thing would be to sort through the list for those I haven't read and read them! Good thing I have a good library within easy reach. Good thing winter is coming. Good thing I have nothing else to do this winter.(Hah!) |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: SINSULL Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:38 PM Song of the Dodo and the Jewel in the Crown Trilogy. This is an amazing thread. Less than 24 hours and over 100 posts - must be a record. Reassuring too - no one mentioned Michener. I thought I was all alone in the world in finding his stuff drivel! Mary, who re-read the "Hephaestus Beetle, twice) Oh, LEJ. I read the Iliad, Odyssey, Euripides, Aeschylus, Sappho, et al in ancient Greek. How come I don't intimidate you? |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: guinnesschik Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:30 PM Wow, good choices all. I have to say that mt favorite are, in no particular order:
THE MISTS OF AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley
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Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Jim Dixon Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:28 PM Reading this thread keeps reminding me of more. Anyone read "Perfume" by Patrick Suskind? It's a real page-turner of a novel. Not especially profound, but I found it fascinating. It's about a man with a super-sensitive sense of smell. Once you accept that premise, it's otherwise completely realistic. (Except for the very end.) |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Max Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:21 PM Stranger In A Strange Land (and its follow up The Cat Who Walks Through Walls), Robert Heinlien Sidhartha, Herman Hess The Confessions, St. Augustine The Hitchhiker's Guide Series, Douglas Adams Brave New World, Huxley Henry IV, Shakespeare The Little Prince, That French Guy (Exubiere?) Hammer of the Gods (The Led Zeppelin Story), ??? Plato's Cave & Plato's Republic and everything else by Plato, Everything by Georges Bataille (Visions of Excess), Aristotle, Leibnitz, Spinoza, Michele Foucault (Madness & Civilization and Discipline and Punishment). I am sure I am missing some important ones. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Micca Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:17 PM Hesperis and Morty, the Josephine Tey book about Richard III is called "The Daughter of Time" from the proverb "Truth is the daughter of time" As for my own faves, The Triumph of the Moon by Prof. Ronald Hutton is engaging me at the moment, but my favourites vary with time, mood and need, I read certain books over as a sort of comfort, if I have flu' or something and others for Information, but the one thing that is clear is that books, and access to books is essential, a contributing factor when I moved here was its proximity to a Public Library, and my wife constanly wishes I would "thin out " the book collection, but I am resisting. |
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read. From: Peter T. Date: 15 Sep 00 - 04:12 PM Dante's Purgatorio -- especially the first cantos, when he returns from hell to the world of light, the meeting with Sordello, and the moment he loses Virgil on the top of the mountain -- all heart piercing, nothing like it anywhere else except in Shakespeare. Twelfth Night -- Life there on stage. Real life captured, breathing. How did he do it? Stendhal's Chartreuse de Parme -- if Mozart wrote prose, this would be it. The Great Gatsby -- the whole book is still the best thing on America. Le Grand Meaulnes -- probably the best key to the romantic side of the French character. but in the end for me it is Tolstoy's War and Peace or Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. God knows how one would choose between them. Probably War and Peace. Natasha and Andre and Pierre...., they are just too amazing. Have to start it again!!!! Someday I will have to learn Russian just to read it in the original. (Yeah, dream on). yours, Peter T. Best poem ever: maybe Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill. Like pure heroin. Best current book: Willa Cather's O Pioneers! What a woman!!!!
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