PBS has listed 100 books and asked for you to vote on your favorite(s). You can vote more than once but only once a day. This is not a “Best Literature of All Time” poll, just what you enjoyed reading. I’m not a particularly voracious reader but found that I’ve read 20 of the books. My favs, in no particular order:
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Pillars of the Earth
Lonesome Dove
Hitcher Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
I may have to tackle War and Peace one of these days/weeks/months.
It doesn’t seem fair somehow to list series like The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series as one novel.
Sorry to disagree with you right off the bat, but I found Confederacy of Dunces un-finishable. Flowers in the Attic was repellent. And The Da Vinci Code?
The other choices were tough, though. Pride and Prejudice is one of the great novels of all time, and Catch-22 was fun to read as well as great literature. And Then There Were None is good but not Agatha Christie’s best work - I would say The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the best whodunit of all time.
“Book I Most Enjoyed Reading” vs. “Best” is a tough distinction to keep in mind. I would guess I would go with The Godfather, but that could change at a moment’s notice.
A Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Chronicles of Narnia are my favorites on the list. 1984 is a great, great book but I wouldn’t call it enjoyable.
Does “Pride and Prejudice” count if it was the one with Zombies? Then I have read 24 of these. It would have been 25 but then I remembered that it was Red Storm Rising, not Hunt for Red October, that was the one Tom Clancy book I’ve read.
Catch-22 is probably my favorite on the list. I have read it many times over the years.
I’ve read about 25 of them, and saw the movies for several more.
Favorites: A Confederacy of Dunces
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Catch-22
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Moby Dick
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Little Prince
(Why Vonnegut is represented by The Sirens of Titan is inexplicable. Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night are far better).
Picking one choice, it’d be One Hundred Years of Solitude for the first sentence alone.
Their list seems to be slightly influenced by current events as well as recent movies.
I’ll list some of my favorites from the list. I’ve left out the Narnia, Potter, and Rings series. I love all three series and have read all of them multiple times, but I’ll limit my responses to stand alone novels. I really need to read the Foundation series again, it’s been far too long.
A Separate Peace, a high school book that i’ve read again a few times.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (which I prefer to Huckleberry Finn)
Crime and Punishment (one of the books I picked for independent reading in 12th grade)
The Hunt for Red October, one of Clancy’s best before he became obsessed with right wing politics.Cardinal of the Kremlin is probably his best, although Red Storm Rising is also excellent.
War and Peace, another book I read for 12th grade independent reading.
I probably should include Dune and The Stand, but I really need to read them again.
I’ve never understood the To Kill a Mockingbird worship. Didn’t really care for the book nor the movie.
Dickens should have been represented by Oliver Twist.
How I’ve tried to get through Don Quixote, maybe one day I will.
I prefer Animal Farm to 1984
There’s a lot better from Agatha Christie than And Then There Were None. I’ve just recently read Death on the Nile and liked it.
I’ve read 40 of them, and was surprised by the mix of good books and crap on the list. My favorites, what I’ve love and reread the most, are:
The Lord of the Rings
Little Women
Pride and Prejudice
Anne of Green Gables
And Then There Were None
Picture of Dorian Gray
Siddhartha
I admired A Prayer for Own Meany greatly, but have had no desire to reread it, so it doesn’t count as a favorite.
I’ve read 39 of them, skewed heavily towards the older end (except for Pilgrim’s Progress). My favourites from that list are probably Moby-Dick and The Stand.
That was pretty much my reaction. “This list is all over the fricken place.”
FWIW, it looks like I’ve read 53. Some I loved, some I liked, some I respected but didn’t love, and some I hated or at least thought were way overrated.
Highlights: I love, love, love Gilead. I know To Kill a Mockingbird’s star has fallen somewhat in some quarters over the last few years, but I still think it’s one terrific book. The Color Purple is outstanding. So is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. (The dramatization is possibly the most impressive theatrical production I have ever seen as well.) Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer, and Catcher in the Rye are marvelous books too.
On the other hand, Left Behind is pretty bad–badly plotted, badly written, and tells the wrong story to boot. I thought The Little Prince was awesome and wonderfully wise, but that was when I was a kid; my opinion today is the direct opposite. I don’t hate The DaVinci Code, exactly–it’s fun in its own way, and its flaws didn’t bother me nearly as much as they bothered some critics–but it’s just bizarre to think it’s anywhere near the cailber of many of these other novels.