I have many but Animal Farm and 1984 are definitely one of m favorites. What about you?
What a hard question. I’ve read thousands of books, many have made me think and had an impact on my outlook on life. I honestly don’t know if I can answer this. Some are grossly entertaining, some linger and make you think for years.
Maybe Blood Meridian. For Whom The Bell Tolls. Slaughterhouse Five. Lord of the Flies. I could list another dozen and not be able to choose.
Well, I am mostly a fan of your list from the ones I have read. Care to list some more so I can read them?
Dubliners if you’re up to it.
Anything Cormac McCarthy will make you think. Child of God is intense.
Brothers Karamazov
East of Eden
The Stand
Fahrenheit 451
If you want a challenge, read The Dark Tower series, all 5000ish pages. It’s a good tale.
If Vonnegut appeals to you, start at Player Piano and work your way up chronologically. You occasionally get tossed a reference to a prior book, which is something I loved when I read him the first time.
The Man of La Mancha?
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
I re-read this last Winter for the first time in 20+ years. What an amazing, heartbreaking book.
Mine, too.
"Candide," by Voltaire. It's a quick read, if anyone is interested.
It's a satire about a young man who travels all over the world, encountering all kinds of hazards and humiliations, always believing that he was living in the "best of all possible worlds." He sees people killed randomly and cruelly, he meets people who despise everything around them, he encounters thieves and liars. He meets a prostitute so poor that she has to borrow the very dress she has on in order to ply her trade. At the end, he encounters an old man who seems very content and Candide asks him what his secret is. The old man tells him that instead of spending all his time concerned with the news of the day, he cultivates his garden, and thus achieved the peace and modest prosperity to sit in the shade of his trees and sip cool drinks on hot summer days.
This book taught me to cultivate my own garden, so to speak, and not worry overmuch about what's going on far away.
Thanks for this recommendation for Candide. I’ve not read it since college and I think its humorous wisdom would help me right now.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, first time reading it I was a kid and now I'm older than all the main characters. It's an annual re-read and I own three IRL copies, (2 copies are over 70 years old), the digital version as well as the audio version. It's my go-to read when I just need to be distracted from things.
Gone With the Wind
Stayed up ALL night reading it, could not put it down.
Yes!!!! I had planned to pace myself, but there was no stopping me from rolling on through the night like a freight train when it came down to the last 300 pages! I was bawling like a baby!
I read this while working at a counter when I was 19,20 years old and the amount of women who I ended up chatting about it was so great. I’ve never been stopped more over a book. A woman came up to me on the train when I was about 50 pages away from the ending and we spoke for 30 minutes 😂
This is absolutely in my top five. Sometimes I’m afraid to say so. As if I’ve made a poor decision. But this is, hands-down, one of the most captivating books. I’ve read it maybe 8 or 9 times.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, laughed out loud many times while reading it.
My 11th grade English teacher was a hippie. In 12th grade, I was her student aide. She gave me this book and a book containing the art of MC Escher as a graduation present. I was not prepared for Fear & Loathing. Maybe I should give it another read. I love Escher, though.
Stranger In A Strange Land.
I read this when I was studying abroad in college. Figured I could really relate to it given my circumstances.
The Grapes of Wrath
Great book, but it is also the most depressing one that I've ever read.
Depressing, no doubt, but the writing sings.
Everything the man wrote sings. God what an artist he was.
If you would like the Steinbeck prose without the angst, try Travels with Charley.
Steinbeck sets out in a homemade converted pickup with his black standard poodle to see America and meet its citizens. Very much of its time, but beautifully written.
This book inspired me to acquire a standard poodle of my own.
The Stand by Stephen King.
Read this as a teen and have been chasing that post-apocalyptic fiction high ever since.
Have you read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel? I’m also a big fan of the Stand and I really enjoyed this one.
Swan Song was wonderful. Similar theme and vibe.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is the best post-apocalyptic book I ever read. It is much more narrow the The Stand, as it just follows a boy and his father, but it’s much better written than The Stand, more personal, and I believe more terrifying.
Canticle for Lebowitz and Alas Babylon should be on your list.
Try the Dark Tower series. Also King
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
And breaking with conventions, the movie was also great.
Lord of the Rings. The entire trilogy. I actually learned to read by reading along with my mom every night. We started with The Hobbit, then by the time we finished all of LotR, I was reading more of it than she. Still has the best settings, characters, story; encouraged my imagination to no end.
Agreed. And it is one book, or perhaps six.
Tolkien never intended for it to be divided by three, and struggled to come up with three names.
The Two Towers is confusing because there are a lot more than two towers mentioned. And The Return of the King is a massive spoiler.
Agreed. I read the trilogy over and over, round and round, through my teenage years; and I can still read it for pleasure.
Mind you, when I watched the films, I could mouth every line of dialogue.
Yes
Yep
Dark Tower series isn’t just one book, but it’s a truly epic journey.
Long days and pleasant nights.
Thankee, Sai. And may you have twice the number.
Jane Eyre - I'm a hopeless romantic.
The Once and Future King
T. H. White
Ooo. I read that at 12 and was forever a huge fan
Hands down it is The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I read it in HS (I actually still have a HS copy of it which I stole from a neighboring HS). I routinely re-read it and have easily read it over 20 times in my lifetime.
The idea that no matter how stacked the cards are against you. That one can escape their circumstances. Grow and acquire knowledge and wealth. And return, to wreak a fitting revenge on those who wronged you. Well... it's a story well told and resonated with me as a poor boy growing up in the Bronx.
Alex andry Dumb ass (as per The novella and movie Shawshank Redemption)
‘We should file that under ‘educational’….aughtn’t we?’
I love Dumas and this one in particular.
This is one of my May library books! I’ve never read it but am excited to start it. I had know idea how long it was though! The thing weighs a ton!
1A "Bonfire of the Vanities" - Tom Wolfe
1B "Travels with Charley" - John Steinbeck
Good Omens
Good Omens and To Kill a Mockingbird are tied as my favorite books
Superlative!
COBOL for Dummies. That book helped me launch a career that I never thought possible.
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
And his "Terms of Endearment." Several academy awards for the movie starring Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Debra Winger, Danny DeVito, John Lithgow and Jeff Daniels. He also wrote "The Last Picture Show."
I need to reread this. I last read it in the early 90s.
Dune
Fried green tomatoes. One of the funniest.
Saw the movie twice on the same day. First with my aunt, then I took my daughter.
So good, I bought the book.
Such a great book!
1984 as well. I've read it dozens of times over the years and have had to replace worn out copies several times. and that doesn't count the movie or the audio book.
Fox in sox
The Princess Bride. Great movie, great book.
Yes! Probably the only book/ movie where one didn't ruin the other.
My daughter just gave me an Inigo "action figure"... I can't wait to find the others.
Roget's Thesaurus.
Some people have asked if it's about dinosaurs.
One of mine is kind of childish, Holes by Louis Sachar. Fav author too. My second is The Alchemist.
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
My favourite singular, stand alone book though is Watership Down by Richard Adams
"The Stand" by Stephen King. I have read it over and over!
One of my very favorite books as well
Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut? Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron?
Pema helped me tremendously in my 30's. Might be time to revisit now that I've hit a hard patch. Thanks for the reminder 💗✌️
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The movie is an excellent adaption, too.
It depends on what you mean by favorite, but the one I think everyone should read at least once in their life is the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy of 5 books.
I convinced my mom to read it, even though she didn't like science fiction.
At one point she was laughing so hard (the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses scene) that a neighbor came over to see if she was all right.
HUGE favorite of mine! Douglas Adams deserves to be with Swift and Voltaire in the annals of great satirists!
Read them as they came out.
Just found them on YouTube as audiobooks. I listen to them as I fall asleep, which is sometimes self defeating.
Last night I heard the line- "and the sun was shining like it didn't know what day it was..." I cracked up instead of dozing off.
I would also recommend Eoin Colfer's "And Another Thing..."
It's an excellent addition to the series. It's about 95% as good as DA's work. Completely worth it.
I'm told even after he became successful he would drop by the Greenpeace office in Islington to stuff envelopes as a volunteer. For the dolphins, presumably.
This book was a paperback in my elementary school (grades 1-6; age six to thirteen). I had read every book in that library (cooking, juggling just ANYTHING) and I would not read Hitchhiker's Guide. I literally thought it would be a boring book about constellations with a ton of boring facts about planets and stars. I read 2001: A Space Odyssey as a last resort having read everything in the library.
Of course I exaggerate saying I read everything in the Library.
My top three, out of many - out of dozens!
The Lord of the Rings
Catch-22
To Kill a Mockingbird
Runners-up:
Good Omens
Paper Moon
Franny and Zooey
................................................................
I could go on.....and on.....
Dracula
Tristram Shandy
The Nine Tailors
Brideshead revisited....
Yeah, let’s get some Dorothy Sayers love!
Catch 22. Fell in love with it way back in highschool.
To Kill a Mockingbird as long as I live.
Lolita by Vladímir Nabokov. I love the fact that it's from an unreliable narrator. I also love the magic Nabokov makes with his use of the English language. It blows my mind that someone could master 3 languages the way he did.
Lolita is just beautifully written and so (purposely) uncomfortable. The Nabokov story that stuck with me the most was “Signs and Symbols”—it was one of those stories that actually changed my perspective a bit.
Lolita is such an excellent novel. And then I show up in English Lit class in University and a student says "it's a handbook for pedophiles!" completely missing the point.
Laughter is the Dark is also brilliant.
Jaws. I read it front to back in a few sittings. Could not put it down. I was 11. Credit it for making me the voracious reader I have been for 50 years.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, changed my perception of humanity when I first read it in 1976. Made me a proud bleeding heart liberal.
I read when I was 16. I am now 73. It changed my perception of humanity. And, yes, I understood from that point, that I would be progressive. Until my dying breath, I will do what I can for those who are disenfranchised for whatever reason.
After reading the book, I checked out a photography book of Dorothea Lange's photos from the Depression to drive the point home.
Yup.
Growing up, the Black Stallion Series by Walter Farley.
As a grown up- anything by Lewis Grizzard, but especially: "Don't Bend over in the Garden, Granny, You Know them Taters got Eyes."
"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt.
"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold.
"Drop Dead Gorgeous", "Doll Parts", "FLU", and "FEVER" by Wayne Simmons.
I'm also quite fond of Jane Austen's books.
"Last Man Out" by James Parker Jr. (his account about the Vietnam War).
There are plenty of other books I love, but those are just off the top of my head.
Yes!! The Black Stallion books..and especially The Island Stallion. I was lost in those books for many years..they were a huge part of my childhood. I'm so happy to see that mentioned here..
Loved the books as a kid. I was a groom for Cass Ole who was the horse in the movie version during part of his movie promo tour.
I have to say Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. Like a lot of his books, it hasn't aged well in all respects. That said, it was the first book I ever read twice, and the only one I've read three times. The third was a new "as Heinlein intended" version, but still.
The Stand, by Stephen King.
Books are like Lay’s potato chips. Nobody can eat just one.
The Virginian, by Owen Wister and One, by Richard Bach. Oh, and The Captains and the Kings, by Taylor Caldwell.
One Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s so good I can pick it up, read a passage and enjoy that part like a song on an album.
Anne of Green Gables
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Phantom Tollbooth
Phantom Tollbooth yes!!
The Aeneid. I’ve been translating it since 1969. I’m in the middle of chapter 2, so I’ll be done any day now. 😺
To Kill a Mockingbird. Read this my first time in middle school. Read it several times again. But, my favorite time was when my son was in middle school. His teacher suggested parents read it at the same pace as the kids. That book prompted so many discussions with my son.
The Great Gatsby
"And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Pillars of the Earth. ♡♡♡
Came here to say this - no book has ever made me feel that way before. It's simply epic.
♡♡♡ World Without End!! That one too!
A Prayer for Owen Meany.
I'd have to say The Lord of the Rings given the number of times I've read it. But I don't really go with "favourites". It's just still a good story that I can stand to read again.
In my 20s I loved The Thornbirds (1977) by Colleen McCullough.
In my 30s I loved Lonesome Dove (1985) by Larry McMurty.
Didn't get to read for a while because marriage, a kid, divorce and trying to survive took up my time.
In my 50s a friend suggested Rules of Civility (2011) by Amor Towles (who also wrote A Gentleman in Moscow).
In my 60s I discovered Stoner (1965) by John Williams, a classic I'd never heard of; fell hard for the elegantly effortless writing.
I think all of these books stand up well today.
I was going to comment that A Gentleman in Moscow is my favorite novel. Liked it better than Rules of Civility. But was not crazy about The Lincoln Highway, his newer one. Did you read that?
BTW - Currently watching the TV series of A Gentleman in Moscow with Ewan MacGregor snd loving it. Some critics thought it didn't live up to the book, but I think it's doing an admirable job. Impressive.
The Prince of Tides Anne of Green Gables
Kite Runner was the best book I’ve ever read!
Any of the Calvin and Hobbes compilations
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was the first book that made me really, really THINK as a kid growing up in the South. It’s still my favorite and I give a hardback gold-bound copy to every friend and family member’s kid when they graduate to this day.
Middlemarch, by George Eliot. I re-read it often as I age and get a new perspective on my own life and experiences every time.
I just read Middlemarch for the first time, and as soon as I finished it, I started over again.
The Yearling, by Marjorie Rawlings. Dune, by Frank Herbert. Hawaii, by James Michener. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. The Old Man and The Sea, by Hemingway.
The Tolkien books and Pillars of the Earth.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper
I'm almost embarrassed now about my all-time favourite books... one is The Princess Bride. Like I commented on someone else's reply, it's probably one of the only book/ movie combos where one didn't ruin the other.
My others are children's/ YA series or titles-- Little House books, Anne of Green Gables books, A Little Princess, River of Time series, also The Royal We and it's sequel.
But the one I would love to find somewhere? The Kitten Twins. It was my favourite as a little girl.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I've read it countless times.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. Fascinating.
The Grapes of Wrath for (historical) fiction and Guns, Germs and Steel for the nonfiction. I am aware that GG&S has been deemed problematic but this book inspired me to learn more and set me off on a journey.
Oliver Sacks, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat." A book made up of several vignettes studying people with all kinds of perceptual disorders. Fascinating stuff.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
My favorite tiger cat that recently passed was named Richard Parker 🧡
I've never met anyone else that has read it, but for some reason it just stays with me. In This House of Brede by Rumor Godden.
I've read it several times!
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Watership Down
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Fiction:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Catcher in the Rye
Non-fiction:
The Last Stand--Nathanel Philbrick
Operation Mincemeat--Ben MacIntire
The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway
The Little Prince. It was an assignment for French class. We had moved half way across the country, and so its themes of loss and figuring out what's really important resonated with me.
Also, the restaurant scene in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" had me laughing so hard that it hurt. So add the Hitchhiker's trilogy as a close second. (The sequels were meh.)
Pride and Prejudice. I can pick it up and read from any page and find a new nuance I missed before.
Shantaram.
Absolutely amazing story. The fact that this actually happened blows my mind. I read this book while I was in Thailand. Southeast Asia vibes made it even more amazing
The Time Travelers Wife. It was my first run in with SyFy Romance.
Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr.
Definitely.
Hard to pick an actual favorite, but The Book Thief is definitely one I can read over and over.
Little Women.
A Little Princess
"Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin, I read as a teenager Definitely was instrumentally effective on my feelings about racial iniquities and how wrong they are.
Randomly, after a bad, no seatbelts, car wreck in college, I found out my mother was Black French.
I developed severe keloid scars. The plastic surgeon looked at my mom, black hair with green eyes and my blond hair, blue eyes, and pale freckles.
His comment, early 70s, "We usually don't see keloids of this magnitude unless it is from Negroid races."
Later, mom told me her "dark French" was African Moors and French intermingling.
I also listed this book as one of my all time favorites. I read this book in high school. Really made me think about how black people are treated.
I can never decide between Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, The Last Unicorn, and Lord of the Rings.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Cold Comfort Farm.
I'm with you with 1984.
As a boy, I liked Jules Vernes' Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, those types of books.
As a teen, I liked Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, and Childhood's End.
Recently, I greatly enjoyed Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Designing Your Life, and Make Your Bed.
Country Women : A Handbook For The New Farmer
Changed my life.
Probably Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. Sort of a meditation on space and liminality, but you could take a lot of things from it. Quite recommended.
One that I read over and over again, but it's comparatively light reading, is "The Curse of Chalion" by Lois McMaster Bujold.
But the long-term, serious favorite is "The Way of All Flesh" by Samuel Butler. It's about his Victorian upbringing and its consequences and by extension is about growing up in general, good read for anybody who had parents good or bad.
There's also "The Color Kittens." Yeah, it's for preschoolers, but it's trippy, man.
West with the Night - Beryl Markham
Excellent
A kids book “Imogene’s Antlers” is tied with “Duckat”. I was a children’s librarian for ten years. I don’t have a favorite adult book, but I have favorite authors. Jana DeLeon is my favorite
1984, The Right Stuff are two of my favorites.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Stand by Stephen King
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. Try to reread it every year. Such a short beautiful book about perseverance and love.
The Stand
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
An Anthropologist on Mars
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Stand
This Perfect Day
Of Human Bondage
I have a ton of favorites, depending on genre and what I’m using as the criteria for “the best.” But maybe my desert island book is Franny & Zooey, by JD Salinger.
Well if it has to go by how many times I've read it and my estimation is 11 or 12 times, it would have to be, The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck.
But I've been a Stephen King stan, since I was 22 and read Carrie for the first time, which I happen to be reading again right now!
For lot of years, I just waited for the next Stephen King book!
I loved The Good Earth.
Lord of the Flies, Judas my Brother, The Princess Bride, Gone With the Wind, The Hunt for Red October, Kitchen Confidential. TBF I could go on for hours.
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison.
Flowers for Algernon
Necroscope written by Brian Lumley
That whole series is awesome!
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse (fiction) and Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault (non-fiction)
The Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. They are one long story that make up the best historical fiction series bar none.
Dreamsnake by Vonda N McIntyre. Read it as a kid and loved it. Listened to recently on audio book and still found the world fascinating. Wish there were more stories to tell.
Always been interested in reading to Hell and Back by Audie Murphy as I have seen the movie and he just seems like such a good guy.
A Prayer for Owen Meany
I have two: Dickens' Tale of Two Cities and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. All you may need to know about humanity is in these two books.
The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
McTeague by Frank Norris. A story of ignorance and greed set in turn of the century San Francisco. My all time favorite author who is highly underrated and whose work is now Public Domain.
Seven sisters by Lucinda Riley. LOVED the series!
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
As a kid it would have been The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Adult me: The Other Boleyn Girl or Dr. Shivago
The Old Man and The Sea
*The Man Who Fell to Earth
*Invisible Cities
*Wounds (Ballingrud)
*Master of Djinn
*God Emperor of Dune
*House of Leaves
Edit: Forgot House of Leaves
Prey!
Moby Dick - but listen to it in the audible version narrated by Frank Muller. Soooo great - I think I need to listen to it again soon!
Dune
Agree with 1984 and Animal Farm. Black Like Me is up there too. For a long time it was Anne of Green Gables, then On the Road, then Harriet the Spy.
Lonesome Dove
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, anything by Pearl S Buck, the Sound of Thunder-Taylor Caldwell, My Antonia by Willa Cather
Lord of the Rings
Homer’s Illiad for me. It has all of humanity in it.
I read a LOT when I was younger and still read when I can now. If we are talking about most re-reads, it's LOTR hands down. The Dragonriders of Pern series. Early Stephen King, especially the unabridged version of The Stand. The greatest hits of Jane Austin. Jane Eyre. In more recent history, Harry Potter and GOT have been very entertaining.
In non-fiction, I'm really enjoying the tales of Lieutenant Detective Joe Kenda, and re-read John Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven because of the mini-series.
Confederacy of Dunces
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