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[Fugu]

Nineteen-Eighty Four changed my life, so there's that. But my less well-known pick would be Ha Jin's War Trash.

 

[Toxi]

I'm liking this one.

 

[Rug Monkey]

Catch 22 and Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Little, Big by John Crowley
Lanark by Alasdair Gray
Riddley Walker and Pilgermann by Russell Hoban
Flow my tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
ASH by Mary Gentle
Excession by Iain M. Banks
If this is a man by Primo Levi
Meditations in Green by Stephen Wright
The Way of Zen Alan Watts

 

[Floridian]

 

[ohkay]

My 2 favorite books are Slaughterhouse Five and Catch 22

 

[Daft Fear]

Harry Potter by JK Rowling— any one, really, but I guess my favourite would have to be Half-Blood Prince… these are the books that got me into writing.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman — I actually thought this was a better book than American Gods, though the less popular of the two. I enjoyed pretty much all his books, though.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett — hilarious and entertaining and brilliant.

1984 by George Orwell — my favourite of the books I studied in school (high school)

We So Seldom Look on Love by Barbara Gowdy — a collection of short stories I read in a class about the Northern Gothic (make of that what you will). Some of the best short stories I've ever read (non-genre, actually).

I think I'll leave it at that for now, but I read so many and love so many it's hard to cut it down to one short list. These have been the most lasting ones, though.

 

[Kahoona]

 

[Mr.Swag]

I'm liking this one.

Ase anos no Leo en espanol. Seria dificil entender ese libro?
Mi espanol es mas cubano que sur americano.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Watchmen by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore
Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn

I need some more stuff to read. Can anyone recommend me any afrofuturist novels?

 

[Grewitch]

I want to play:

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin (but the whole original Earthsea Trilogy actually)

Blood Music by Ben Bova

The Chronicles of Morgaine by C.J. Cherryh

Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Born to Exile / In the Red Lord's Reach / Sorceror's Son / The Crystal Palace by Phyllis Eisenstein (love her stories)

Ninja by Eric Lustbader (the other in the series are good too)

The Qur'an

Prisoner of Love by Jean Genet

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper

Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz (plus the rest in the series)

Fevre Dream by George RR Martin

Tell No One by Harlan Coben

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (rip)

Anything by Peter Straub

and

The Belgariad by David Eddings - I read the whole series about 12 times back in secondary school. I some issues about the series but there's something in the series that still just makes me go back. It's comfort food. His Elenium series is the same too.

I'm missing some but this'll do.

 

[demosthenes]

ASOIAF
Harry Potter
1Q84

 

[Hoho for breakfast]

Under the Dome by Stephen King
The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
The Running Man by Stephen King
To Kill a Mockingbird

The Thief Of Always was a favorite of mine when I was younger. Fantastic book. Also Singularity by William Sleator.

 

[ostrichKing]

Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
In Cold Blood by Capote
Lolita by Nabokov

 

[thomaser]

Wrote a list, then deleted it since I couldn't decide what it should contain. Also, which of the books did I really love and which ones did I put on there for cred? But I have a list-making-itch, so here's another try with many omissions:

- Adams, Douglas: The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Borges, Jorge Luis: most of his short-story collections
- Brontë, Emily: Wuthering Heights
- Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita
- Canetti, Elias: Auto-da-Fé
- Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote
- Danielewski, Mark: The House of Leaves
- Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
- Eco, Umberto: Foucault's Pendulum
- Fowles, John: The Magus
- Grass, Günther: The Tin Drum
- Heller, Joseph: Catch-22
- Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera
- Melville, Herman: Moby Dick
- Morrison, Toni: Beloved
- Murakami, Haruki: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance, Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, etc. Just about all of his magical realism.
- Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
- Pamuk, Orhan: My Name Is Red
- Pynchon, Thomas: Mason & Dixon
- Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter
- Rushdie, Salman: Midnight's Children
- Saabye-Christensen, Lars: Beatles
- Simmons, Dan: The Hyperion Cantos
- Smith, Jeff: Bone
- Steinbeck, John: East of Eden
- Stoker, Bram: Dracula
- Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
- Tolstoy, Leo: War & Peace and Anna Karenina
- Wallace, David Foster: Infinite Jest
- Wolfe, Gene: The Book of the New Sun, The Book of the Long Sun and The Book of the Short Sun.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Lord of The Rings trilogy. When I started reading them when I was younger I couldn't put that shit down.

 

[foxtrot3d]

Fuck yea!

Also:
A Song of Ice and Fire Series/Game of Thrones (Kind of surprised how little mention it's getting in here)
Harry Potter Series
Mass Effect novels (except the last one)
1984
Any sort of military non-fiction books (First In, Jawbreaker, With the Old Breed, etc.)

 

[Ahasverus]

Ase anos no Leo en espanol. Seria dificil entender ese libro?
Mi espanol es mas cubano que sur americano.

There is no such a thing as cuban spanish You'll do well, most hispanic literature is "neutered" for easy understanding across the continent.

 

[Joyful]

 

[Xero]

count of monte cristo, his dark materials trilogy, lord of the rings.

 

[LProtag]

I'll just give a smattering of some of my favorites with some short comments, in no particular order:

The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
Amazingly interesting worldbuilding. The scale of these books are incredible and yet they have a very emotional core to them. Truly imaginative science-fiction.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
A unique way of looking at how the horrors and decisions of war affect the people of a nation even when that war was decades ago and those people weren't even living at the time. Mind you, this is all done in a novel where the protagonist spends most of his time sitting in a well.

If on a winter's night a traveler... by Italo Calvino
You are about to begin reading a short review of the book If on a winter's night a traveler... by Italo Calvino, by LeadProtagonist. Sit back and relax. Find a comfortable position in your chair. As you are reading this review, you feel you'd really like to read If on a winter's night a traveler... by Italo Calvino. You glance at the time. It's 11:50 PM. Too late to head out to the shop. You click open a new tab on your browser and type in "amazon.com" into your search bar...

Seriously, read this book. Metafiction at its finest.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
I had to get a guide to this book in order to understand all of the historical references and to translate all of the foreign languages that popped up in it. It's a murder mystery set in 1327 and the clues are based in semiotics and literary criticism. One of the main allusions the book uses that plays a central role in the mystery is a book of which no copy survives today.

The Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
It's all of Borges' short stories in one collection. These stories are wonderful. If you like the idea of labyrinths and infinity, this might be up your alley. One story is about a library that has every single possible book ever written and how that is not as delightful as it sounds. Another is a piece of literary criticism comparing Cervantes' Don Quixote to an exact copy of Don Quixote written by a French author in the 20th century. The reviewer finds the modern version to be better.

Just a few favorites, anyway.

 

[Red]

Calvino, Eco, Borges... That is one fine list. Scratch Murakami and it could pass for mine.

Have you read Georges Perec?

 

[ElTopo]

 

[Burgess_101]

The Last Don by Mario Puzo, some how manages to be better than The Godfather its a shame the only film adaptation it got was a low budget TV movie.

I also love 120 days of sodom by Marquis de Sade.

There are a few more but these are my two favourites.

 

[ElTopo]

The Last Don by Mario Puzo, some how manages to be better than The Godfather its a shame the only film adaptation it got was a low budget TV movie.

I also love 120 days of sodom by Marquis de Sade.

There are a few more but these are my two favourites.

The 120 Days is a momentous achievement but I thought Philosophy in the Bedroom was the better work that articulated his philosophy.

 

[Tragicomedy]

Yo GAF, I'm really happy for you, and I'mma let you finish, but Catch-22 is the greatest book of all time. Nothing else comes even close. Best characters, best writing, best central plot...best everything.

I'll round out my top picks with:
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Literally everything I've read by Vonnegut

Ase anos no Leo en espanol. Seria dificil entender ese libro?

How many anuses has it been since you read in Spanish?

When I first moved to Argentina, that joke was all the rage with the 6-8 year old crowd. ¿Cuantos años tiene? Damn ñ!

 

[Red]

I've never made it through Catch-22. I always lose interest

Spoiler

around page 20.

I don't know why I can't do it. I've seen so many positive impressions online. There is a copy sitting on my bookshelf, gathering dust. I might try the audiobook version.

 

[Labombadog]

Kafka on the Shore - Murakami, Haruki
The One: The Tale of a Lost Romantic in Seoul - Justice, Steve
Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective - Sagan, Carl
Catch-22 - Heller, Joseph
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All - Barron, Laird
Black Wind - Wilson, F. Paul
House of Leaves - Danielewski, Mark Z.

 

[Tragicomedy]

I've never made it through Catch-22. I always lose interest

Spoiler

around page 20.

I don't know why I can't do it. I've seen so many positive impressions online. There is a copy sitting on my bookshelf, gathering dust. I might try the audiobook version.

I am punching you through the monitor right now.
/reggiefilaimeswhatiswrongwithyou.gif

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All - Barron, Laird

Not one of my top picks, but that was a damn good and haunting book. Really great stuff and I'm happy to see it in this thread.

One thing I'm learning from all this is that maybe I should give Murakami a shot. Based on their descriptions, none of his stuff sounds that great to me, but I'll be damned if he isn't a GAF favorite.

 

[Red]

I also really dislike Murakami (especially after 1Q84), so maybe he's a good choice for you.

 

[Nakho]

All time favorite, probably Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse.

Fantasy, A Storm of Swords, by G.R.R. Martin.

Sci-fi, The End of Eternity, by Asimov.

 

[leakey]

Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

 

[Labombadog]

I am punching you through the monitor right now.
/reggiefilaimeswhatiswrongwithyou.gif





Not one of my top picks, but that was a damn good and haunting book. Really great stuff and I'm happy to see it in this thread.

One thing I'm learning from all this is that maybe I should give Murakami a shot. Based on their descriptions, none of his stuff sounds that great to me, but I'll be damned if he isn't a GAF favorite.

Agreed. Catch-22 is a MUST read. I read it earlier this year and was blown away by it. Has a lot of humor but can get you emotionally invested as well with some of the characters/issues.

The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us all is a great read. I love weird horror and this was the best book I have read from this author. So dark and weird.

I haven't read anything outside of Kafka on the shore from Murakami but I plan to read his other books. I felt a great connection with the protagonist and how weird it got. I'm a sucker for weirdness I guess. haha

 

[Blood Red Sky]

.

 

[thomaser]

The 120 Days is a momentous achievement but I thought Philosophy in the Bedroom was the better work that articulated his philosophy.

Hehe, I thought Philosophy in the Boudoir (my version is called that) was absolutely terrible. One of the only books I own that I could throw away without regrets. But I just read and enjoyed Naked Lunch, so our tastes are not entirely incompatible...

 

[max.renn]

Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
Borges nonfiction as well
The Hobbit - Tolkien
The Innocence of Father Brown - G.K. Chesterton
A Storm of Swords - george RR. Martin
Edgar Allan Poe short stories

love seeing borges!! Had my mind completely blown while reading Ficciones

 

[kms_md]

i will play along:

calvino, italo: if on a winter's night a traveler ...
eco, umberto: name of the rose
grass, gunter: the tin drum
heinlein, robert: the moon is a harsh mistress
herbert, frank: dune
irving, john: a prayer for owen meaney
king, stephen: the stand
krakauer, john: into thin air
mitchell, david: cloud atlas
morgan, richard: altered carbon
vonnegut, kurt: slaughterhouse five
wallace, david foster (fiction): infinite jest
wallace, david foster (nonfiction): everything and more

and many history/biography texts that are too numerous to mention

 

[ImpalingNarwhal]

I try to read Catcher in the Rye and Great Gatsby once a year. Excellent books.

 

[Kule]

The dark tower series, I don't read too often but this set of books captivated me. I listened to the first on audio and thought it was great so I went back and read it, then the rest.

 

[Currygan]

Ivanhoe
Dracula
The Buddenbrook
Smut
A Christmas Carol
Treasure Island
the complete Sherlock Holmes
LOTR
Nero Wolfe's Too Many Cooks
Dubliners
Hitchhikers guide
Harry Potter 7
Uncle Vanja


...this is going to be harder than expected. Ivanhoe remains firmly at the top anyway

 

[Melon Husk]

I need to read Ivanhoe.

Many sci-fi books, but outside that genre or Tolkien's universe... Lord of the Flies. It's easy to imaginate, there's just the right amount of description. Too many writers can spend two pages detailing a scene that's never revisited.

 

[PassiveObserver]

The Trial by Kafka
Freedom by Franzen
White Noise by Delillo
Steppenwolf by Hesse
The Diamond Age by Stephenson
Notes From Underground by Dostoyevsky
Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by PKD
Stoner by John Williams
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware

 

[quik killa]

The Once and Future King - T. H. White
World War Z - Max Brooks
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

 

[Silver Arrows]

One of the best written books I've ever read. Effortlessly flips between straight fiction, and being essentially a biography about the mind of Africa's most confusing dictators.

Also has one of my favorite parts in all of literature when

Spoiler

Garrigan is recounting the reign of Idi Amin to a bunch of reporters. It felt so natural, felt like a true transcript of a news conference.

 

[BaltimoreLarry]

Anything by VS Naipaul, but particularly "A House for Mr.Biswas"

Also "Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser

 

[Rookje]

 

[Delta Assault]

The Final Reflection - John M. Ford: Best Star Trek novel ever. The book is replete with quiet moments between ambassadors from different cultures, coming together in communion in the best tradition of sci-fi literature. John M. Ford gave us a true treasure to reflect upon.

The Jade Phoenix Trilogy - Robert Thurston: Best BattleTech novels ever. I keep my avatar as a way to remember the greatness of this trilogy. If you've ever read "The Fall of Reach" and wondered what a much superior version of that novel would be like, set in the BattleTech universe, this is your answer.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald: It's as good as its reputation. One of those books you're forced to read in high school which actually should be read. The prose by Fitzgerald feels like something close to literary perfection.

Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
Old Man's War - Joe Scalzi

Three books that seem to be about the same thing, but they're about it in different ways. I think The Forever War probably edges out the other two by the narrowest of margins.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood: What a fantastic sci-fi cautionary tale. It's the sort of book that seems more prophetic as time goes by. What I also didn't expect was how it was this truly remarkable and honest bildungsroman. Margaret Atwood is this elderly woman yet somehow captured the experiences of a young boy effortlessly.

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card: A sci-fi classic that I only got around to reading a few weeks before the movie came out. It turned out to be just as good as all the hype. Again, just as with Atwood, Card somehow managed to prophesy the advent of the internet and blogs, way back in the mid 80s.

The Tripods Trilogy - John Christopher: Young adult novels usually get a bad rep, but these novels by Christopher were a revelation. The world building that he does to create this vision of a subjugated Earth post-invasion is fantastic.

The Stand - Stephen King: The ending sucks, but uh... everything else is pretty on point. King's horrifying details of how the modern world would fall apart, step by step, have made the book unforgettable.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams: Yo, it's funny.

 

[Maklershed]

My list comes with the caveat that it could change on any given day depending on my mood or how good my memory is working but right now I'd say:

The Long Ships
All Souls Rising
The LA Quartet
The Stormlight Archive
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Make Room! Make Room!
World Made by Hand
The Postman
Drood
The Testament
Ship of Fools
The Shadow of the Wind
Great Expectations
The Heechee Saga

 

[HOTDOG_GMF]

Douglas Coupland's Generation X

 

[Professor Renegade]

Frankenstein
1984
Breakfast of Champions
Do Androids Dream of of Electric Sheep?

 

[pupcoffee]

Infinite Jest
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Libra