My list of this keeps changing, but at the moment, off the top of my head, my list is (in no particular order):
A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
The Corrections by Jonathan Frantzen
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Anyone else like to share their list? I’m thinking this might be a good thread to pick up reading tips.
I can’t bring myself to whittle my list down any more than this:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Don Quixote
Lolita
The Grapes of Wrath
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
To Kill a Mockingbird
Cold Mountain
The Name of the Rose
Original Dune Trilogy (Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune) by Frank Herbert
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
The Story of B by Daniel Quinn
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (cheating)
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Godfather
The Exorcist
Shibumi
Perfume
Cold Mountain
Microserfs
Mists of Avalon
All families are Psychotic
The Witching Hour
Little Women
Mine’s a rather long list, too, but some that have stuck with me over the years as favorites are:
A Wrinkle in Time - Madelein L’Engle
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Mendel’s Dwarf
Cold Sassy Tree - Olive Ann Burns
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
These are just a few that I’ve read that when I’ve finished I’ve been sad to see the story end.
Vanity Fair-William Makepeace Thackeray
I, Claudius–Robert Graves
Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoevski
Light in August–William Faulkner
Barchester Towers–Anthony Trollope
It’s really difficult to name just five, so the books I named are novels that I’ve read several times and gotten something new out of them every time, but I could just as easily and fairly name many other sets of 5 novels as “my favorites.”
I have no qualification to rate these as literature. They are just the novels of which I have the most favorable and lasting memories.
Geek Love Katharine Dunn
The Last Confession of Mabel Stark ? Keough
Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chicken Every Sunday Rosemary Taylor
As soon as I post I will think of 3 others that I should have said instead.
Yeah, those are the only real criteria I have. Enjoyment is in the eye of the beholder, and damn anyone who gets elitist about it.
“Top five” is a very tough choice, but it’s a fun exercise anyway.
The Old Curiosity Shop, by Chas. Dickens
Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, by Henri Murger
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos
Vile Bodies, by Evelyn Waugh
Now, Voyager, by Olive Higgins Prouty
I will limit myself to single novels - thus no trilogies or The Chronicles of Narnia.
The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Crime and Punishment, by F. Dostoveskey
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
I only get to name five?
Regards,
Shodan
I make no particular claims for extraordinary literary merit, but these are the five I keep reading over and over again:
Jane Eyre and Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
And with that in mind…
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth ( I thought I was the only one to make it through all 1500 pages)
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins (note: this is primarily due to a quote from this book Redheads are either demigods or potential demigods or something to that effect.)
House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Correct Tom Robbins quote
“Redheads are either descendents of or are potential demigods”
:smack: I remembered as soon as I hit post reply
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino
The Trial - Franz Kafka
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevski
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Man Who was Thursday - GK Chesterton
Of course, this ignores series such as The Chronicles of Narnia, the Foundation series, and the Hitchhiker’s Guide, as well as stories like those of Poe and Saki.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
A Soldier of the Great War - Mark Helprin
oh, almost forgot (sorry to go over the limit, but…)
The Regeneration Triology: Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
The Princess Bride by William Goldman masquerading as S. Morganstern
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Hamlet - William Shakespeare (not a novel, but…)
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Little, Big - John Crowley
A Soldier of the Great War - Mark Helprin
Three Men In A Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig