Best book you ever read.

14 Sep 00 - 09:50 PM (#297670)
Subject: Best book you ever read.
From: richlmo

As a new Mudcatter and avid reader, I am amazed and thoroughly entertained by the diverse personalities we are dealing with here. Just wondering , What is the best book ( or 2 or 3 ) you have ever read?

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14 Sep 00 - 09:56 PM (#297679)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Rick Fielding

Ball Four by Jim Bouton.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.

Moby Dick by Jos. Conrad

L'etranger by Albert Camus

The Glory of Their Times by...damn, a senior moment! Who wrote it?

Rick

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14 Sep 00 - 09:57 PM (#297681)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Indigo

The bible is always spellbinding. 'There is A River' by Tom Sugrue, and 'Croiset, The Clairvoyant' are very interesting reading. Indigo

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14 Sep 00 - 10:00 PM (#297686)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Gizz

The Bible by God; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (the only novel she wrote); Any Dictionary; Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Suess (Not necessarily in this order. (Except no. 1)

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14 Sep 00 - 10:10 PM (#297696)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mbo

The Lord Of The Rings--Tolkien
The Hobbit--Tolkien
The Silmarillion--Tolkien
Les Miserables --Victor Hugo
The Pickwick Papers -- Charles Dickens
The Three Musketeers --Dumas, pere
Twenty Years After --Dumas, pere
Peter The Great: His Life & His World--Michael K. Massey
Hamlet --Shakespeare (plays count...right?)
Treasury of Irish Folklore --edited by Padraic Colum
Red Branch --Morgan Llewellyn
Lion of Ireland --Morgan Llewellyn

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14 Sep 00 - 10:11 PM (#297699)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: catspaw49

Either/Or.....Soren Kierkegaard.........No that's just a joke................

To Kill A Mockingbird.....Harper Lee. Hands down.

Spaw

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14 Sep 00 - 10:13 PM (#297700)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: CarolC

I would say welcome to the Mudcat, richlmo, but it looks to me like you've been here almost as long as I have.

Can't really name specific books, but the following authors:

John Steinbeck
John Irving
Graham Greene

I'll probably think of some more after I jumpstart my brain.

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14 Sep 00 - 10:21 PM (#297708)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: bseed(charleskratz)

Rick, I think you had another, unacknowledged senior moment above when you attributed Moby Dick to Conrad.

For me it's a toss-up between Catch-22 and Cat's Cradle, by Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut respectively. Oh, and Huckleberry Finn by some guy named Clemmins. Best book in the last few years, Angela's Ashes.

--seed

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14 Sep 00 - 10:31 PM (#297713)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex

Hard question... My favourites seem to change from year to year as my mind rots away and forgets what I've read.

I guess... Well, I hate to say that a translated novel is my fave, as I'm ashamed that I don't know the original language, but the English translation of 'Independent People' by Halldór Laxness has always been my favourite book.

Growing up, I read a lot of Robert E. Howard stories, and my favourite one has always been 'Black Colossus.' The images that I imagined while reading that story have always stuck with me, for some reason. :)
Oh, wait. He didn't say only fiction, did he? I really like 'The Hundred Thousand Fools of God' by Ted Levin, about Central Asian music. A eally good book that comes with an excellent cd (which contains, like, the only Karakalpak song I've got in my cd collection).

---Lepus Rex

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14 Sep 00 - 10:33 PM (#297714)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: death by whisky

Not much of a reader.....

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull....Whatsisname

About to start.

Round Ireland with a fridge...Tony Hawks

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14 Sep 00 - 10:37 PM (#297718)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Little Neophyte

I loved The Chose by Chaim Potok
Recently I read Shackleton's Legendary Antartic Expedition by Caroline Alexander. That was a really good book too.
There are lots of 'best' books for me though.

As in most important book I have ever read, I would have to say it was The Course Of Miracles. That book had a major impact on me.

Bonnie

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14 Sep 00 - 10:39 PM (#297723)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Little Neophyte

Oh you are so right death by whiskey, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by 'Whatsisname' was another very important book for me too.

BB

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14 Sep 00 - 10:52 PM (#297737)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: richlmo

Maybe I'm not a real new Mudcatter, but I'm just getting the hang ! Spend more time reading what you folks have to say than I need to.

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14 Sep 00 - 10:52 PM (#297738)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: death by whisky

iTS 4 AM .iCANT THINK OF HIS NAME.....

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14 Sep 00 - 11:00 PM (#297743)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: catspaw49

"whatshisname" being Richard Bach.............I wish he'd never written the book. I LOVE seagulls and watching them fly.......they know more about the wind than other birds. They fascinate me. HOWEVER, everytime I try to talk about that someone brings up JLS.............I was watching and thinking about and envying gulls long before he wrote it, but everybody thinks I must have gotten it from him.

Spaw

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14 Sep 00 - 11:03 PM (#297747)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Fortunato

Lord of the Rings.

Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein.

Horton hears a Who Dr suess

Great Expectations, dickens

The Old man and the boy, Bradford.

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14 Sep 00 - 11:06 PM (#297751)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mbo

Oops, forgot Killer Angles, by Michael Shaara. And all the Edwin P. Hoyt books about the Pacific Theater of WWII. I love those books.

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14 Sep 00 - 11:06 PM (#297752)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: death by whisky

Thanks Spaw.I ca go to bed now...maybe

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14 Sep 00 - 11:14 PM (#297761)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Branwen23

The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas,

Oh, The Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss,

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee,

Phantom, Susan Kay,

The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux.


-Branwen, who just knows someone's got a wisecrack about the Phantom....

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14 Sep 00 - 11:16 PM (#297766)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mbo

Bran, I LOVE The Phantom of The Opera, both the book & the musical. Good choice. All the folks who don't like it can go sit in Box 5.

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14 Sep 00 - 11:21 PM (#297768)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Branwen23

Then you should definitely read the other one I listed, Phantom, by Susan Kay.... it's a great take on the Leroux tale. Goes more in depth about Erik's background... his childhood, his passion for music, his life before the Paris opera.

Wonderful book.... my copy is ragged from being read and re-read....


-Branwen-

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14 Sep 00 - 11:21 PM (#297769)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Chris

Watership Down, by Richard Adams

Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen

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14 Sep 00 - 11:22 PM (#297775)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: MsMoon

H'm...so far I'm not overly inspired...how about a few things that WEREN'T on the high school summer reading list?

Like, A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin. Epic.

Or Possession, by AS Byatt.

Catch-22, though, I must agree. A work of genius!

duplicate postings deleted

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14 Sep 00 - 11:26 PM (#297781)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bill D

...no one said it had to be fiction...so...

"Gödel, Escher, Bach"

but the most fun was "The Mote in God's Eye"..(sci-fi)

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14 Sep 00 - 11:27 PM (#297782)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bugsy

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens.

My dad used to read it to us at Christmas when we were kids.

I never tire of reading it.

Cheers

Bugsy

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14 Sep 00 - 11:32 PM (#297784)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Branwen23

Hey, Timbrel, way to get the point across through repetition....


-Branwen-

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14 Sep 00 - 11:39 PM (#297790)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: MsMoon

Oops....keyboard screwup, sorry!

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14 Sep 00 - 11:44 PM (#297793)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Jim Dixon

The Complete Sherlock Holmes stories, A C Doyle. I've read them maybe 3 times in my life. After about a 10-year interval, I find that I can't remember how each story ends, so it's just like reading them for the first time.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. I read it 2 or 3 times as a kid. (Along with Tom Sawyer.) I didn't realize it then, but the edition I had was an edited, somewhat dumbed-down child's version. In spite of that, the book was wonderful. I remember feeling really depressed when I came to the end of the book, just because I didn't want it to end. I recently read the original version, and enjoyed it almost as much as I did as a kid. But this time I appreciated Twain's use of language a lot more. I've also read all of Mark Twain's short stories, essays and sketches, and a couple of his travel books.

Among modern novels, I recommend The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser, and Waterland, by Graham Swift.

In the realm of history, I loved the series called The Americans by Daniel Boorstin.

Various articles and essays by Robert Ingersoll. They helped me cut loose from that old time religion. A lot like The Age of Reason by Tom Paine, but by the time I read that, it was almost redundant.

Psychotherapy East and West, by Alan Watts. It tied together a bunch of ideas I had been gathering from other books by other writers, and put religion in a better perspective.

Any book by Idries Shah. I've read everything by him I can get my hands on, and I get more out of them each time I read them. I can't even tell you what they're about. They work on my unconscious mind. It's the closest thing I have to a religion right now.

I'll second Gödel, Escher, Bach. Can't say as it really changed my thinking about anything, though. It's more about the esthetics of complexity.

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14 Sep 00 - 11:50 PM (#297799)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: tradsteve

"Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls, I believe. "Desolation Angels", by Jack Kerouac. "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Zora Neal Hurston. "Hard Times", Dickens. Too many to list.

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14 Sep 00 - 11:57 PM (#297805)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: KT

I agree....."Where the Red Fern Grows" is wonderful!

I also love "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran

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14 Sep 00 - 11:57 PM (#297806)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Rick Fielding

Dammit Seed, you got in there before I had a chance to come racing back and scream "Melville, I meant Melville"!

The Glory of their Times (like Ball Four) is about baseball (and so much more) and is by Lawrence Ritter.

But since I DID mention Conrad....I loved Lord Jim.

Rick

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15 Sep 00 - 12:06 AM (#297815)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Peter Kasin

Rick -

Lawrence S. Ritter is your man. I love that book, too.

I read much more nonfiction than fiction. Back when I did read more fiction, Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men and Dreiser's An American Tragedy were my favorites. For nonfiction, With The Old Breed: At Peleliu And Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge is a deeply moving book. It is an account by a Marine WWII veteran of Pacific island warfare, told from his perspective as an infantryman. What makes it so special is his humility and humanity in recounting the horrors of combat, going into the kind of detail history books don't normally go into - such as battlefield sanitation, the dehumanizing effects of battle on the participants, of fear and of soldiers mentally cracking under the constant strain. I felt emotionally drained after reading it, and no other book has had such an effect.

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15 Sep 00 - 12:16 AM (#297818)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

Spaw I'm just coming to this thread and you already beat me to my selection. Possibly not the best books I ever read, but that ones that had the most impact on me when I was young, Simone de Bouvoir's The Second Sex and To Kill A Mocking.

I had to do an oral book report in a Junior Highschool class years ago, which due to my shyness was usually a painful experience. During the report, the usually restive class gradually became silent, to add to my embarrassment. When I finished, the English teacher looked at me sternly and in an accusitory tone said. "Susan! I don't believe you read that book!" as I started to crumble inside, he continued sofening his tone and added "You lived it."

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15 Sep 00 - 12:31 AM (#297825)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

Re Seagulls, same here Spaw, when asked in a Grade 10 English class in 1962, what we would like to be if we could choose anything else, I got some pretty odd looks when I stuck up my hand and blurted out "A Seagull".

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15 Sep 00 - 12:38 AM (#297827)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: hesperis

#1 ever: Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes

anything at all ever written by Tolkien

'A Horseman Riding By' which is a trilogy by R.F. Delderfield. I have composed a brass quintet suite based on this. He's written some other good stuff, but I've forgotten the titles.

any discworld book at all by Terry Pratchett

That book by Josephine Tey about Richard the 3rd of England

A Thousand Words For Stranger, and the sequel; and Beholder's Eye, and the sequel; by Julie E. Czerneda. She is a local science fiction writer.

I tend to have favorite authors rather than favorite books.

non-fiction #1: Discipline That Works, by Dr. Thomas Gordon
#2 Feeling Good, by Dr. David Burns

the only Harlequin romance novel that has a permanent place on my favorite shelf is 'Not By Appointment', by Essie Summers

Shadow Magic, by Patricia C. Wrede. Fairly light writing, but some deep concepts can be found in it. Sci-fantasy.

~*sirepseh*~

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15 Sep 00 - 12:49 AM (#297834)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: The Beanster

Some of my all time faves:

The Shining - Stephen King (scared the snot outta me)
Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Hot Zone - Richard Preston
And I Don't Want To Live This Life - Deborah Spungeon (mother of Nancy Spungeon of "Sid & Nancy" fame)
Communion - (the one about the aliens) spoooooky
The World According to Garp - John Irving
Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
The Psychopathic Mind - Reid Meloy
Gorillas in the Mist - Hayes?
Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan
Animal Farm - Orwell
Papers on Object Relations - Various
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Never Cry Wolf - ?
Lord of the Flies - ?

Damn, who wrote Lord of the Flies?? (mind like swiss cheese)

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15 Sep 00 - 12:52 AM (#297836)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

Beanster, Never Cry Wolf was Farley Mowatt.....best line from it was "Good idea....." words to live by. BG

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15 Sep 00 - 12:52 AM (#297838)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: DougR

I think the best novel I have read in recent years is, "Lonesome Dove," by Larry McMurtry. Harper Lee's, "To Kill a Mockingbird," is a classic and I love it.

I am currently reading, "Print the Legend," the biography of John Ford, and enjoying it very much.

DougR

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15 Sep 00 - 12:57 AM (#297842)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: thosp

lord of the flies was by william golding i believe

peace (Y) thosp

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15 Sep 00 - 01:03 AM (#297847)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ

To me Moby Dick is the greatest novel of all time.It is a parable,a poem,an adventure yarn,a study of the balance between Man,God,and Nature,and an examination of Life,Death,and Eternity.I take that voyage once in every ten years,and it strikes new chords in my soul every time.The first line..."Call me Ishmael" and the last line "It was the devious-sailing Rachel,that in her retracing search after her missing children,only found another orphan" are to me like the opening and closing of the door to a another, magical world.

Other novels I have experienced deeply are Crime and Punishment, a powerful work about man's basic nature, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann,a micro-cosm in which characters representing nearly every religion and philosophy vie for the narrator's soul,The Once and Future King by T H White,the story of KIng Arthur and much more,The Age of Reason by a French Author (sorry),which anyone approaching 30 should read,and Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion.

I plan to re-read Hesse's Steppenwolf this year.As I recall,it concerned the transcendent experience of a man who had reached his 50th year. Should resonate.

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15 Sep 00 - 01:17 AM (#297855)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Marion

Lord of the Rings by Tolkien.

Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck.

Till We Have Faces by C.S.Lewis.

The Gospel According to Luke by St. Luke.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

In the children's category: Anne of Green Gables by L.M Montgomery.

In the non-fiction category: By Little and By Little: an anthology of writings by Dorothy Day (founder of the Catholic Worker movement).

In the modern category: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

In the humour category: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy).

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15 Sep 00 - 01:19 AM (#297856)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

LEJ did you ever read Hesse's Magister Ludi, that's one I have been promising myself I would reread.

A great many of the books listed I know I have read but for the life of me the impact and what they were about are dimming. I am in need of a lot more rereading, this time on ginko. Gee is that the stuff that improves your memory, I can't remember. Reminds me of a quote: "We are all of two minds, the little mind for remembering the little things and the big mind for forgetting the big things."

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15 Sep 00 - 01:27 AM (#297861)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Allan C.

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

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15 Sep 00 - 01:37 AM (#297866)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: The Beanster

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!

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15 Sep 00 - 01:42 AM (#297867)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Luther

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).

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15 Sep 00 - 01:51 AM (#297870)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

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!!!

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15 Sep 00 - 01:58 AM (#297874)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST, Banjo Johnny

Yet another vote for Catch 22. == Johnny

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15 Sep 00 - 02:14 AM (#297881)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 04:23 AM (#297887)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Joe Offer

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-

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15 Sep 00 - 06:57 AM (#297888)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 09:03 AM (#297895)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Giac

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 10:56 AM (#297905)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Kim C

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 11:16 AM (#297914)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Jim Dixon

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 11:19 AM (#297915)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bert

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 11:28 AM (#297916)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

"Johnny Got His Gun," -- Dalton Trumbo

"A Separate Peace" -- John Knowles

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15 Sep 00 - 11:52 AM (#297930)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 11:55 AM (#297934)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Wesley S

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

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15 Sep 00 - 11:58 AM (#297940)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Luther

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

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15 Sep 00 - 12:06 PM (#297941)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 12:10 PM (#297944)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mbo

--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

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15 Sep 00 - 12:15 PM (#297947)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

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

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15 Sep 00 - 12:17 PM (#297952)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bagpuss

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

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15 Sep 00 - 12:20 PM (#297955)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Uncle_DaveO

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

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15 Sep 00 - 12:29 PM (#297971)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)

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)

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15 Sep 00 - 12:35 PM (#297975)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: catspaw49

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

Spaw

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15 Sep 00 - 12:39 PM (#297982)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: annamill

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

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15 Sep 00 - 12:40 PM (#297983)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bagpuss

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

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15 Sep 00 - 12:59 PM (#298001)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 12:59 PM (#298002)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson

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?"

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15 Sep 00 - 01:04 PM (#298004)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: annamill

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

Love, annamill

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15 Sep 00 - 01:24 PM (#298013)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Doctor John

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

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15 Sep 00 - 01:30 PM (#298016)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ

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

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15 Sep 00 - 01:34 PM (#298021)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 01:41 PM (#298029)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,useless

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

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15 Sep 00 - 01:44 PM (#298033)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,cheryl

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 01:54 PM (#298042)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 02:05 PM (#298048)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bert

Songs of Peace, Freedom and Protest - Tom Glazer

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15 Sep 00 - 02:09 PM (#298053)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Morticia

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 02:14 PM (#298054)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Steve Latimer

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 02:14 PM (#298055)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Bill D

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

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15 Sep 00 - 02:31 PM (#298072)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: kendall

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

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15 Sep 00 - 02:34 PM (#298078)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: kendall

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

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15 Sep 00 - 02:43 PM (#298085)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: mousethief

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=

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15 Sep 00 - 02:51 PM (#298092)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

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

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15 Sep 00 - 02:51 PM (#298093)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Rana who SHOULD be working

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

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15 Sep 00 - 03:23 PM (#298119)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ

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."

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15 Sep 00 - 03:27 PM (#298121)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 03:33 PM (#298128)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Whistle Stop

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 04:08 PM (#298146)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,dan evergreen

A few which have not been listed:

Theodore Dreiser: An American Tradgedy Sister Carrie The Genius

Albert Camus: The Spectator The Plague

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15 Sep 00 - 04:12 PM (#298149)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Peter T.

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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15 Sep 00 - 04:17 PM (#298152)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Micca

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 04:21 PM (#298154)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Max

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 04:28 PM (#298158)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Jim Dixon

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.)

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15 Sep 00 - 04:38 PM (#298169)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL

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?

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15 Sep 00 - 04:41 PM (#298171)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson

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!)

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15 Sep 00 - 04:48 PM (#298174)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

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,
Ceit

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15 Sep 00 - 05:06 PM (#298189)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mudjack

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

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15 Sep 00 - 05:12 PM (#298196)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: dwditty

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

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15 Sep 00 - 05:57 PM (#298231)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: tradsteve

I forgot "In Dubious Battle" Steinbeck

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15 Sep 00 - 06:09 PM (#298242)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: BigDaddy

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/

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15 Sep 00 - 06:14 PM (#298246)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mbo

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!

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15 Sep 00 - 06:28 PM (#298260)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: mousethief

Leaf by Niggle is WONDERFUL. Literally and figuratively.

Alex
O..O
=o=

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15 Sep 00 - 06:35 PM (#298263)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: gillymor

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.
Seasons Through the Net, The Bushwhacked Piano, Some Horses by Thomas McGuane.
Coyote Summer and The Morning River by W. Michael Gear.
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.
Great Expectations
The above mentioned The Glory of Their Times.
The Horses Mouth by Joyce Cary.
Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd.
Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton.
The Honorary Consul, Travels With My Aunt and much of Graham Greene and on and on.

F

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15 Sep 00 - 07:15 PM (#298296)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ

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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15 Sep 00 - 07:18 PM (#298299)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Don Firth

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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15 Sep 00 - 07:30 PM (#298310)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Morticia

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 09:20 PM (#298377)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Susan from California

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 10:01 PM (#298399)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

Cold Mountain--Charles Frazier

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15 Sep 00 - 10:17 PM (#298414)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: richlmo

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 10:19 PM (#298417)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: richlmo

'Cold Mountain" was a beautiful book.

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15 Sep 00 - 10:29 PM (#298424)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,AB-Guest

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.

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15 Sep 00 - 10:38 PM (#298429)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: thosp

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
5b)rabble in arms
5c)oliver wiswell-roberts

6)this fortress world-gunn

peace (Y) thosp

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15 Sep 00 - 11:09 PM (#298445)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Melani

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.

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16 Sep 00 - 12:14 AM (#298475)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: rabbitrunning

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:

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Beauty; and Rose Daughter both by Robin McKinley
2041 (collection of shortstories) esp. "Beggarman": the collection is edited by Jane Yolen
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
The Little Princess; and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Slake's Limbo by Felice Holman, I think
The Lottery Rose by Irene Hunt(again, I think...)
Ella Enchanted by Levine
Skellig by David Almond
Going through the Gate by A...
Wolves of Willoughby Chase (and sequels) by Joan Aiken

Non fiction I've liked lately:
Old Man in a Baseball Cap
In the Shadow of the Moons
I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Year I Got Polio (by Peg Kehret)

Authors with too many books to list are Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Arthur Conan Doyle, Terry Pratchett, Anne Perry, Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, C.S. Forester, Josephine Tey, Ellis Peters, Dorothy Sayers, David Weber, Elizabeth Moon, Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling, Tolkein, C. S. Lewis, Natalie Babbitt, Cynthia Voigt, Diana Wynne Jones, and probably several others that I'll think of when I'm at work and can see the shelves.

Grin!

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16 Sep 00 - 02:31 AM (#298538)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing

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
Razor's Edge - S. Maugham
White Witch - Elizabeth Goudge
Walking Drum - Louis L'Amour
1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion - Morgan Llywelyn
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Round the Bend - Nevil Shute
ANYTHING written by M.R. JAMES - Best ghost stories ever!!
Light in the Forest - Conrad Richter
Hnery V - Shakespeare
Arrows of the Queen & Heralds of the Queen series - Mercedes Lackey
Songkiller Saga - Elizabeth Scarborough

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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16 Sep 00 - 04:44 AM (#298563)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Crazy Eddie

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
Lucifer's Hammer..........Larry Niven
The Wheel of Time Series...Robert Jordan
The Stand, The Shining, Needful Things, Misery, by Stephen King
Battlefield Earth...L.Ron Hubbard Anything by Terry Pratchett, but most especially the book he wrote with Neil Gainman, "Good Omens"
In the Balance, Tilting The Balance, Upsetting the Balance, etc....Harry Turtledove.

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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16 Sep 00 - 07:55 AM (#298591)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: rabbitrunning

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.

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16 Sep 00 - 08:54 AM (#298600)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: balladeer

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....

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16 Sep 00 - 09:26 AM (#298611)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson

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.....

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16 Sep 00 - 09:30 AM (#298615)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing

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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16 Sep 00 - 09:40 AM (#298617)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: balladeer

Note to self: read Lonesome Dove.

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16 Sep 00 - 09:51 AM (#298620)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Callie

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

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16 Sep 00 - 10:00 AM (#298625)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: sophocleese

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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16 Sep 00 - 11:59 AM (#298665)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Rosebrook

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

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16 Sep 00 - 12:14 PM (#298669)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

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.

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16 Sep 00 - 02:24 PM (#298731)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing

Also:

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
He, She, it - Marge Piercy
City of Darkness; City of Light - also by Piercy

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16 Sep 00 - 08:32 PM (#298941)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Ceitagh

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

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16 Sep 00 - 08:51 PM (#298953)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL

Add "The Shipping News" to your lists. Magical!

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16 Sep 00 - 10:02 PM (#298998)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: richlmo

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.

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16 Sep 00 - 10:14 PM (#299003)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex

Robert Jordan is the devil. No offence, richlmo. I've got a grudge against him for those damned 'Conan' 'books' he 'wrote.' ;)

---Lepus Rex

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16 Sep 00 - 10:32 PM (#299011)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Little Hawk

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
The Golden Naginata
The Thousand Shrine Warrior
All by Jessica Amanda Salmonson...these are utterly stunning and beautiful tales about a female Samurai warrior in a fictional land called Naipon, which greatly resembles feudal Japan. You will never be all that impressed with male samurai again after reading about Tomoe Gozen. Absolutely the BEST!!!

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)
Friendship With God
Those are by Neale Donald Walsh (and they are superb)

A Return To Love - Marianne Williamson
The Healing of America - Marianne Williamson

The Tao of Pooh
The Teh of Piglet
Those two are a charming explanation of Taoism in practice, and are absolutely right on.

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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16 Sep 00 - 10:36 PM (#299014)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: thosp

territorial imperative-Ardsley

on aggresion-lorenz

foundation series-asimov

i robot series-asimov

fairoaks-yerby

peace (Y) thosp

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16 Sep 00 - 11:36 PM (#299050)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex

Welcome, Caleb:)

---Lepus Rex

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17 Sep 00 - 12:11 AM (#299065)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Midchuck

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.

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17 Sep 00 - 12:24 AM (#299073)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Jimmy C

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.

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17 Sep 00 - 01:08 AM (#299099)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing

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

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17 Sep 00 - 01:39 AM (#299103)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,[e-mail]

"On Liberty" By John Stuart Mill

"Victory" by Joseph Conrad

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17 Sep 00 - 02:48 AM (#299110)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Kryptonium

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy hehe :-)

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17 Sep 00 - 02:55 AM (#299111)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Kryptonium

My douglas Adams i beleive

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17 Sep 00 - 08:49 AM (#299191)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson

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.

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17 Sep 00 - 09:33 AM (#299218)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Stewie

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

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17 Sep 00 - 12:49 PM (#299291)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex

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

---Lepus Rex

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17 Sep 00 - 01:11 PM (#299299)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Carlin

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

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17 Sep 00 - 01:46 PM (#299324)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Micca

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.

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17 Sep 00 - 02:11 PM (#299332)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Terry K

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

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17 Sep 00 - 04:56 PM (#299407)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ

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.

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17 Sep 00 - 07:32 PM (#299504)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

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.

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17 Sep 00 - 08:36 PM (#299531)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: SINSULL

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

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17 Sep 00 - 08:41 PM (#299532)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Micca

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

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17 Sep 00 - 08:55 PM (#299539)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dave Swan

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.

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17 Sep 00 - 09:01 PM (#299544)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: simon-pierre

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

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17 Sep 00 - 10:05 PM (#299574)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mary in Kentucky

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!

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17 Sep 00 - 10:32 PM (#299586)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Amergin

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

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17 Sep 00 - 10:47 PM (#299591)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Metchosin

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.

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18 Sep 00 - 12:05 AM (#299635)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Amergin

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

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18 Sep 00 - 12:52 AM (#299664)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing

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!

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18 Sep 00 - 01:58 AM (#299711)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: grgptrsn

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_

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18 Sep 00 - 03:06 AM (#299727)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Thomas the Rhymer

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

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18 Sep 00 - 03:59 AM (#299735)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: katlaughing

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"

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18 Sep 00 - 05:08 AM (#299748)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Kryptonium

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

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18 Sep 00 - 05:23 AM (#299754)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Thomas the Rhymer

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

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18 Sep 00 - 06:16 AM (#299771)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dave the Gnome

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!

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18 Sep 00 - 06:55 AM (#299780)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: rube1

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.

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18 Sep 00 - 06:56 AM (#299781)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Naemanson

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

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18 Sep 00 - 08:51 AM (#299835)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Airto

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?

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18 Sep 00 - 09:10 AM (#299851)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Gervase

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.

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18 Sep 00 - 09:36 AM (#299870)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: JulieF

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

Julie

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19 Sep 00 - 02:07 AM (#300464)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Peter Kasin

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?

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19 Sep 00 - 11:28 AM (#300688)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,turandot

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

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19 Sep 00 - 11:54 AM (#300721)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

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

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19 Sep 00 - 02:08 PM (#300829)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Dizzie

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.

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19 Sep 00 - 02:16 PM (#300834)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex

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

---Lepus Rex

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19 Sep 00 - 03:05 PM (#300853)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Peg

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

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19 Sep 00 - 07:46 PM (#301058)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Merlin

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.

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19 Sep 00 - 11:21 PM (#301156)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: mg

up from slavery by Booker T. Washington.

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20 Sep 00 - 10:05 PM (#301876)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: richlmo

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.

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20 Sep 00 - 10:43 PM (#301914)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Amergin

The sequel has already been started...

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01 Nov 00 - 09:20 PM (#332422)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Guest, Rbynum

I thought the Conan books were by Robert E Howard.

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02 Nov 00 - 12:13 AM (#332514)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex

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

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02 Nov 00 - 12:44 AM (#332530)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: pict

Ortha nan Gaidheal/the Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael

Táin Bó Cúalnge

Popular Tales of the West Highlands by J F Campbell

Mabinogion

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02 Nov 00 - 01:53 AM (#332552)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,goodnight moon, you arrogant bastards

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02 Nov 00 - 02:00 AM (#332554)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,bob a ghanouj

best book? You weazles. what are yu thinking?

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02 Nov 00 - 02:08 AM (#332560)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,humble

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

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02 Nov 00 - 02:22 AM (#332561)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,jaze

Sacajawea--Anna Lee Waldo
The Name of The Rose--Umberto Eco
The Drifters--James Michener
And A Voice To Sing With-Joan Baez

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02 Nov 00 - 07:52 AM (#332629)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Guest still

The Bible.
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
The Prophet and all other writings by Kahlil Gibran
The Sleeping Prophet by Jess Stern
There Is a River by Tom Sugrue
Anything by Taylor Caldwell
Meditation, Gateway to Light by Elsie Sechrist
Any thing by Eula Allen
And the list goes on and on, but it always comes back to the Bible.
:o) Gs

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06 Nov 00 - 08:57 PM (#335622)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: death by whisky

Just finished Around Ireland with a Fridge...Tony HAwkes Just starting..Mister,are you a priest?...Edward Daly

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06 Nov 00 - 10:01 PM (#335674)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: mmm

i am amazed that almost all my favorite authors have been mentioned its nice to see people with the same taste in books as i do. i am surprised not to see any mention of the harry potter series my son and just finished reading the last book and really loved them (he was harry potter for holloween) tolkien, anne McCaffrey and piers anthony are my all time fantasy writers mmm

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06 Nov 00 - 10:03 PM (#335678)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: kimmers

Children's books? Anything by Lloyd Alexander or Joan Aiken. Also, The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare.

Fantasy? Tolkien's works, of course. Also, the Winter of the World trilogy by Michael Scott Rohan. And anything by an obscure fantasy writer named Teresa Edgerton. Oh, and Tad Williams' books.

SF? Anything by Connie Willis. Much of Robert A. Heinlein's works, although his last few works were a little weird for me. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Adventures. Others too numerous to mention.

General fiction? The World According to Garp, by John Irving. East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath, by Steinbeck. Many works by Twain. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flag. Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna something-or-other.

History? Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose. The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. An obscure French book called The History of Food (author?) Shelby Foote's three volume history of the American Civil War.

Other nonfiction? David Keirsey's Please Understand Me, William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways, Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and James Kunstler's The Geography of Nowhere.

I'm not much on romances, Westerns, or mysteries, so I can't comment on those.

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06 Nov 00 - 10:05 PM (#335679)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lepus Rex

Just wanted to remind you all: The neglected sequel to this thread is here. This one's, ehhh, a little long. :)

---Lepus Rex

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17 Feb 01 - 06:34 PM (#400439)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Firecat

I would ike to take this opprtunity to refresh the thread and nominate the HARRY POTTER books by JK Rowling, as well as all the others

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17 Feb 01 - 09:42 PM (#400536)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Katcina

I guess it all depends on the criteria for being the best but the one that stands out in my mind the most is "Insomnia" by Stephen King. It has the honor of being the only book in my vast reading history, besides calculus in high school, to make me cry. I don't cry at movies either so that makes it especially memorable for me.

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17 Feb 01 - 10:06 PM (#400544)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,jaze

Dialouges with The devil--Taylor Caldwell-Incredible story in the form of letters written between Archangel Michael and Lucifer, a former Archangel on their ideological differnces on the fate of Man. Narcissus And Goldmund--Herman Hesse

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18 Feb 01 - 04:08 PM (#400988)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: RoyH (Burl)

I give in - I've got to put my choices up. BEST - not read it yet, but I've had delight, enjoyment, education, and inspiration from many books including the following; MOBY DICK, the opening statement by Ishmael relating his reasons for going to sea is outstanding. TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, especially the chapter about the old actor. This sparked off a desire to travel in America which I do whenever the chance arises. THE INCOMPLEAT FOLKSINGER; Pete Seeger, need I say more?. THE LONG WALK TO FREEDOM, by Nelson Mandela. THE RIGHTS OF MAN, by Thomas Paine. MULES AND MEN, by Zora Neale Hurston. Tons more, many of those mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Reading right now - LAST NIGHTS FUN by Cairan Carson, wonderful stuff. NAEMANSON - please give me publishing details for DRIVE DULL CARE AWAY, that sounds right up my street. Thanks, Burl.

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19 Feb 01 - 08:28 AM (#401367)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Mr Red

Tall Story by Warren Peace

No but seriously folks - I read Alan Kline's biography of Woody Guthrie and "Bound for Glory" back to back. I was spell bound.

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19 Feb 01 - 09:13 AM (#401385)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Grab, cookie-less

"Skallagrigg" by William Horwood does it for me. Amazing book. The first 2 Dark Tower books by Stephen King. Stephen Donaldson's Gap series. And Tolkien, of course.

Grab.

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19 Feb 01 - 09:05 PM (#401889)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: FOG(Friend of Gnome)

This has been a fascinating thread. As both a lover and teacher of literature it never ceases to amaze me that writers such as Swift,Dickens and Tolstoy not to mention Tolkien and Heinlein seem to hold their own. For anyone who hasn't come across this guy can I strongly recommend 'The River Why' by David James Duncan.Its still available I think in King Penguin I used to think I was such a cynic that it would take a miracle to get me to grin and cry through words again but this did For all you aging hippies out there that feel like a reaffirmation of life and joy. Buy it. E-mail me and tell me what happened to you. Cos I'll tell you what-all of you -it changed my life.

Phil

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20 Feb 01 - 01:49 AM (#402005)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: sadie damascus

I'd have to say "The Corn King and the Spring Queen", by Naomi Mitchison (published circa 1945?)

Although Malamud's "God's Grace" is pretty wonderful.

Is anyone going to sort and collate this list and make us up an easily read chart or something?

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20 Feb 01 - 01:32 PM (#402313)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Merlin

Lord of the Rings, The Hobbitt, The Silmarillion-Tolkien The Merlin Trilogy(obviously)-Mary Stewart Trinity-Leon Uris A Canticle For Leibowitz-Walter Miller Any poetry by Tennyson or Yeats

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02 Feb 04 - 09:24 AM (#1107240)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

The Waves By Virginia Woolf. Return of The Native, Thomas Hardy. The Cold Moons Aaron Clement. Ivanho, Walter Scott. Narciss and Goldmund, Herman Hesse. Fifth Business, Robertson Davies. Silas Marner, George Eliot. The Lost Garden, Helen Humphries.The Spire, William Golding. The Name of The Rose. Umberto Eco. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte. By Grand Central Station I sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart.
Non Fiction..Down and Out In Paris and London, George Orwell. Broca's Crain, Carl Sagan. Voltaire's Bastards, John Ralston Saul. The Western Canon, Harold Bloom. Goodbye To All Taht, Robert Graves. England Have My Bones, T. H. White, Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain.The Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his Son. Caught In a Web of Words, Elizabeth Murray.
   And oh so many more, a grand thread and great lists.

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02 Feb 04 - 10:03 AM (#1107270)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton

My "Pass Book" by Woolwich Equitable makes excellent reading at the moment!

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02 Feb 04 - 10:08 AM (#1107274)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Jerry Rasmussen

A tie between The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter and Giants In The Earth.

If I could only have one book, though, it would be the Bible.

Jerry

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02 Feb 04 - 10:23 AM (#1107284)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: VIN

I reckon 'Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' and Ursula K Le Guin's 'The Dispossessed' must ranked among my faves (and of course Tolkiens Ring saga)

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02 Feb 04 - 11:00 AM (#1107322)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Fergie

Stevie Wonder received a present of a cheesegrater. He said it was the best book he ever read.

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02 Feb 04 - 05:40 PM (#1107636)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Cluin

A bit gory, though.

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09 Apr 04 - 12:37 AM (#1157768)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Tonya

These five books all tie. Each and every one of them are awesome and must reads.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Killing Mr. Griffin, by Lois Duncan
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor
A Picture of Freedom, by Patricia C. McKissack

Each of these books are extremely well written, have complex yet understandable plots full of twists and turns, and can be deeply analyzed. All of them have powerful endings. Very unforgetable books.

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09 Apr 04 - 11:14 AM (#1157831)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Ellenpoly

How strange...I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a thread on this subject! Now I'll have to make the time YET AGAIN to read this whole thing, and the others listed above!

I have one true addiction, and they are books. I know this thread has been out of circulation for a long while, but if anyone reads this, and wants to offer some of their favorites, I'd be most beholding...

As to my own favs...the top on my list is "Magister Ludi ( or The Glass Bead Game) by Hermann Hesse

It's a long list, and in some cases easier to mention authors, as I seem to read my way through whatever someone I really like has written.

My latest is Sheri S. Tepper, which if you like Science Fiction or Feminist literature, or just a darn good read, I highly recommend.

I hesitate really getting going here, because like all addictions, I can wax lyrical...and truth be told, I'm far more interested in seeing what some of you have to recommend.

If this thread gets re-energized, I'd be happy to add on to it..but let's see if there are any other bites!

xx..e

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09 Apr 04 - 11:32 AM (#1157850)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Amos

One of my recent (last ten years) favorites is anything by Barbara Kingsolver ...especially the Poisonwood Bible.


A

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09 Apr 04 - 01:18 PM (#1157941)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

mabe not the best but one of the funniest- Stories told in the kitchen by Kendall Morse.

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09 Apr 04 - 02:06 PM (#1157993)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,An English Patriot

My favourite fiction is:
Most novels, short stories, and novels by Thomas Hardy, but       especially "The Mayor of Casterbridge"
Waterland by Graham Swift
Gulliver's Travels by the other Swift
Most Roddy Doyle, but especially "Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha"
The Bridge by Iain Banks
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Lanark by Alisdair Gray
Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
Both "Slaughterhouse 5" and "The Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr
Most Harlan Ellison, but especially "Strange Wine."
Catch 22- Joseph Heller
The Grapes of Wrath by John Stenibeck
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
Any Graham Greene
In Case of Emergency by Georges Simenon
The Gormenghast Triology by Mervyn Peake
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Best of Robert Block
The Time Machine by HG Wells
Captive Universe by Harry Harrison
Dying Inside and Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
FLuke by James Herbert
and I like the stories of Brent Dorman that appear in Forum but which, as far as I am aware, yet to be collected.

......... and best political books are:
Heroes by John Pilger
The View From the Ground and The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn
Deferring Democracy by Noam Chomsky
The Heavy Dancers by EP Thompson
The Thomas Paine Reader
Essays by George Orwell

.... and best history books:
The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson
Cromwell:Our Chief of Men by Lady Antonia Frasier
William Cobbett; The Poor Man's Freind by George Spater
Thomas Paine:A Political Life by John Keane
Industry and Empire by Eric Hobsbawm


I am reading Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom, which is proving fascinating.

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09 Apr 04 - 02:56 PM (#1158032)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,earthling

THE MAGUS by John Fowles
WALKING ON GLASS by Iain Banks
THE MAGIC TOYSHOP by Angela Carter

reading THESE IS MY WORDS   by Nancy Turner at the moment.

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09 Apr 04 - 06:36 PM (#1158259)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Penguin Egg

Here are some books about music:

Victor Jara: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara
Dazzling Stranger : Bert Jansch and the Britsh folk and blues revivial by Colin Harper
Deep Blues by Robert Palmer
Alexis Korner by Harry Shapiro
Mystery Train by Greil Marcus
Conversations with Eric Clapton (circ. 1976) by Steve Turner

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10 Apr 04 - 02:06 PM (#1158635)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Lonesome EJ

Amos
Yes, The Poisonwood Bible was indeed both amazing and heartbreaking.

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12 Apr 04 - 07:02 AM (#1159734)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Ellenpoly

Refreshing this..

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13 Apr 04 - 04:51 AM (#1160548)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Jawbone

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

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13 Apr 04 - 05:33 AM (#1160571)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

the instruction book for my microwave, i didn't read all of it though, it got a bit boring towards the end.

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13 Apr 04 - 06:20 AM (#1160593)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,M'Grath of Altcar

The Lydian - Chromatic Theory of Tonal Organization in Composition and Arrangement. - by George Russell. Anyone else here read it? Mmmmm new thread perhaps?

If fiction it is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

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13 Apr 04 - 08:56 AM (#1160679)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: s6k

1984, george orwell

dark side of the moon - william corlett

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13 Apr 04 - 09:04 AM (#1160687)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: kendall

Rock Formations in death valley by Beauregard Bottomly

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14 Apr 04 - 02:29 AM (#1161456)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Boab

Spirit Lake--McKinlay Kantor
Andersonville---same author.
Sitka--Louis Lamour
The Lion in the North --John Prebble

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14 Apr 04 - 11:25 AM (#1161487)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Stu

The New York Trilog by Paul Auster

The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin - your life will be enhanced if you read this book!

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14 Apr 04 - 12:30 PM (#1161533)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Fibula Mattock

Eureka Street.

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14 Apr 04 - 04:17 PM (#1161714)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST

Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan, The Green Fool and Tarry Flynn by Patrick Kavanagh.
The Ragged trousered philanthropist by Robert Noonan. [he used the non-de-plume Tressell].
On another mans wound by Ernie O`Malley.

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14 Apr 04 - 04:17 PM (#1161715)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: ranger1

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay (avoid the really bad movie)
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
anything by Charles de Lint
The Lord of the Rings
Beowulf (in translation)
Le Mort d'Arthur (in translation)
365 Days (can't remember the author)
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
the Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr

And too many more to list at the moment

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15 Apr 04 - 03:07 AM (#1162121)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,Boab

Guest [two posts back]--nobody believes me, but I'll repeat it again----I read the "Ragged-trousered Philanthrophist" before my ninth birthday. Hardly usual childhood reading--but I was an odd kid [still am----!]

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15 Apr 04 - 03:20 AM (#1162126)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: jacqui.c

My granddaughter,Meghan, read GREAT EXPECTATIONS at the age of 8.

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15 Apr 04 - 07:11 AM (#1162235)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: freda underhill

The Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton, tho a bit gory in places, is a fascinating book by a British forensic/criminal psychologist, about his investigative work with criminals. more interesting than those i've read by US "profilers".

Any book by Robin Hobb.(fantasy writer)

Mayada, Daughter of Iraq, by Jean Sassoon - this book is an incredible true account of an upper class Iraq woman's time in jail under Saddam Hussein's regime.

If you are a lawyer, and you want to change the world, read "Lionel Murphy - a Political Biography" by journalist Jenny Hocking. This story of an Australian left wing lawyer who became a judge and then Attorney General, is inspiring for any lawyer or politician in any country to read. its interesting to read how he changed a country, and how conservatives forces in the country "crucified" him in response.

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15 Apr 04 - 08:03 AM (#1162260)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Ellenpoly

Some that have stuck with me in the past few years;

My Year of Meat, by Ruth Ozeki
Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman
The Fresco, by Sheri S Tepper
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, by Thad Carhart


Some wonderful children's books include-

"Sabriel", "Lirael", and "Abhorsen", by Garth Nix

Not to be missed Children's Book (For all ages) is-

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle

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08 Jul 04 - 02:18 AM (#1221145)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: GUEST,sarah springall

the best book i have ever read is by Chris Saint John a an author of children's books. He recently published a book called Timbrel. Timbrel is a fantasy story about a little girl who dreams she is a fairy princess from another world. It is fast paced and full of action Chris Saint John has an energetic style and a great sense of humour. His imagination is vivid as is his prose

You can buy his book at www'lulu.com/chrissymonds the ISBN 1-4116-0807-0

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08 Jul 04 - 12:40 PM (#1221462)
Subject: Excellant!
From: GUEST,ladyfox

Just got the downloaded copy of this book! Read 5 chapters already and I love it! My 11 and 12 year old love it and I had to stop them from reading too much as it was getting late. Well done! Yuo have got even an adult excited about finding out what happens in the future pages.

Recommend this book!!!!

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08 Jul 04 - 12:48 PM (#1221473)
Subject: Timbrel
From: GUEST

Just got the downloaded copy of this book! Read 5 chapters already and I love it! My 11 and 12 year old love it and I had to stop them from reading too much as it was getting late. Well done! You have got even an adult excited about finding out what happens in the future pages.

Recommend this book!!!!

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08 Jul 04 - 02:47 PM (#1221566)
Subject: RE: Best book you ever read.
From: Cuilionn

Tae reward masel for a few months o haird "responsible grown-up type" wairk, Ah went tae the local library an ransacked the sae-called "juvenile" section for Celtic folklore-inspired fiction.

Twa verra satisfyin results: Nancy Bond's "A String in the Harp" (Welsh history/folklore, ISBN 0-689-80445-8) and Franny Billingsley's "The Folk Keeper" (Child Ballad-influenced, complete wi selkies & things that gae bump in the nicht, ISBN 0-689-82876-4).

Ah suid alsae recommend the "Green Knowe" buiks by Lucy Boston, (English history & folklore) & onythin by Jane Yolen, especially her short-story collections sic as "The Moon Ribbon" & "The Girl Who Cried Flowers."

Wi that, Ah'm aff tae the library aince mair!

--Cuilionn

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