We have a huge thread about crappy books (surprise surprise a ton of posts about King)...
But what about GREAT books? Why can't the good stuff get some love?

Some of my favorites (And I reserve the right to post amendments as I see fit) are
The Proud Highway
Hitchhikers Guide (any of the series except the 5th... WTF was that all about? I'll post something about that in the bad books thread so we don't get caught up here...)
Atlas Shrugged
Crime and Punishment / The Idiot. (The two MUST be considered a paired offering)
Kingdom of Fear
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (Charlie Papazian is amazing)
I'm sure there are a million more...

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I have a Theory that the truth is never told between nine to five hours" - HST

I love almost every book I've read for entertainment. That's fiction for me.

But off the top of my head, the ones that I can read over and over again and not lose interest because the story itself interests me, pop out.

Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave and Touch Not the Cat, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, and Frank Herbert's Dune are all books I've read several times.

Off the top of my head:

"The Autobiography of my Mother", Jamaica Kincaid.
"Gather Together in My Name", Maya Angelou
"Goodbye Tsugumi", Banana Yoshimoto
"Madame Bovary",
"Crime and Punishment", NOT "The Idiot"
"The Good Women of China", Xinran

The best books I have read in the last 5 years are;



The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, an excellent look at all aspects of the French defeat there and imho much more informative, on a broad scale than hell in a very small place by Fall.

Triumph Forsaken: Vietnam War 1954 – 1965 which used new sources as to nor Vietnamese cabinet members and generals retired who wrote their memoirs and some who spoke off the record as to what was really the deal in south Vietnam in those crucial years. Eye opening is to soft a term.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

I read dune oh once every 2 years or so, its just so engrossing.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Anything by Bertrice Small...also my childhood favorites, "Jane Eyre" and "Little Women".

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

Oh wow. Books I have enjoyed... Crap.

Probably at the very top of the list for the most excellent books ever in my humble opinion sit

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Años de Soledad) by Gabriel García Márquez.

Under that... I mean... shit.

Lord of the Rings
Narnia et al
Hitchhikers Guide
Dune (Haven't read this in foreeeeeever should do that over spring break. Which starts today).
Anything by Dr. Seuss.
The Crystal Cave and sequels (Thanks Si, for reminding me of this)
The Long Walk
Heart of Darkness (and call me pretentious I don't give a good god damn. I love this book.)
Anything by Graham Greene, but my favorites are The Power and the Glory, the Comedians (maybe because it was my first), and Travels With My Aunt (refreshingly light...)
The Iron Ring
Swallows and Amazons (British children's books that soaked up hours of my childhood)
Finn Family Moomintroll (more kid books, from Finland, obviously)


There are more... obviously, they're just not coming to me right now. That'll do for now.

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

It's hard to really pick best ever. Right now I'm really enjoying The Foundation Trilogy by Asimov. I'm almost done with the last of the three. I'm probably not going to bother with the additions he wrote later on.

The Demon Princes and the Old Tschai Series, both by Jack Vance.

These are, to me, the most perfect works of fiction ever written. I admit to being a fan of style above all in a story and the style of these works is unique. Keith Laumer, when told that many considered Vance's baroqueness to be wooden said, "..not wooden, carved." and I think no better description exists.

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

novella, but anyway, what did you take out of it?

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Thanks for reminding me of the sequels. I meant to list those as well.

What do you mean? Primarily I liked it for the writing, but a peek at the dark side of humanity is always fun.

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

I've gotten right into Vince Flynn over the last year or so. I also buy in the first week of their release any novel by Matthew Reily. In terms of the "best book" though; that has to be any book which has been powerful enough to elicit an actual emotive response from me (ie I cried when reading it), of which there are three:
Holding the Man, by Timothy Conigrave;
Vanity Fierce, by Graham Aitken;
and (surprisingly enough): Cujo. I read it when I was a kid, and the parts of the book which are written from the dogs perspective are incredibly sad, as he doesn't understand what is happening. It's actually a wonderful metaphor for mental illness I think.

Vince Flynn rocks.

I must admit I wasn't too keen on his latest. I think he was trying too hard to impress Bill O'Reilly (which he managed to do, as I had the misfortune to catch 2 mins of him a few weeks back and saw him praising Flynn). I think he tried too hard to incorporate current events into his novel and justify actions. Still, he's a bloody good read!!