# What a Novel Thread (Your Five Fave Novels) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028 "2003-12-31T23:07:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/21 "2004-01-01T13:13:41Z")
**The Power of One** by Bryce Courtenay. Coming of age story set in South Africa just before WWII. Compelling characters, apartheid, deep emotions, vivid landscape. **Cider House Rules** The abortion debate, wacky characters, tragi-comedy throughout, yep, this is a John Irving novel. One of my favorite, favorite books. **Mary Stewart’s Arthurian Series** There are many King Arthur novels out there. Stewart did it the best of all. Human, magic, timeless. **The Stone Diaries** by Carol Shields. Extraordinary lives of ordinary people…lots of minute details which say so much with so little. **Pride and Prejudice** I reread this every year. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/22 "2004-01-01T14:15:37Z")
**Trinity** – Leon Uris. The story of Conor Larkin and his childhood friend against the backdrop of the struggle for respect and freedom for Ireland’s Catholics. I have read it three times. It is not only _what_ it is about, but _how_ it is about what it is about. You must get past the first 150 or so pages though. **Rebecca** – Du Maurier (spelling uncertain). A favorite since high school and an absolute classic! It begins as a romance and deepens into an intriguing mystery as your read. Much, much better than the Hitchcock movie. **Forever Amber** Scheming heroine in England during the Court of Charles II. This book ruined a perfectly good marriage. I took it on my honeymoon in 1974 and simply could not put it down. Huge and wonderful! **Cheri** and **The Last of Cheri** by Colette. One of my rooms is a shrine to Colette and so it is hard to choose. These two are short novels and should be read together. They are a love story set in France about a hundred years ago. But it is the writing, the detail and the concept which take my breath away. Hmmm…How did I leave out **The Thornbirds**? It is a _must read_! ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/23 "2004-01-01T14:22:53Z")
godhelpme, ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand CS Lewis’s THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA- to me, the ultimate theological work of the last century Bram Stoker’s DRACULA Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN Stephen King’s THE STAND- 2nd ultimate TWoTLC and the close runners-up~ John Irving’s A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY Walker Percy THE SECOND COMING (a more enduring story, tho I prefer LOVE IN THE RUINS for its social satire which is both dated & still resonant- think I’ll start another thread on that) CS Lewis’s TILL WE HAVE FACES - a GREAT novel of love & tragedy & introspection & theodicy CS Lewis’s THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH - the Round Table is a collection of C’tian academists & their domestic help (who are just as important) fighting a conspiracy of occult fascists CS Lewis’s THE GREAT DIVORCE - not great writing, but a creepy & plausible vision of Damnation (AND post-mortem Salvation!) ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/24 "2004-01-01T14:28:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miss Mapp \* > \*\*Most of mine are pretty well-known: > > 1. _Pride and Prejudice_, Jane Austen. > > 2. _Middlemarch_, George Eliot. > > 3. _Brideshead Revisited_, Evelyn Waugh. > > 4. _The Lord Of The Rings_, J.R.R. Tolkien. > > 5. _Old New York_, Edith Wharton. \*\* Oh, **Miss Mapp** , you and I should have a Literary Salon–except for that Tolkien thing, whatever it is, we have much the same tastes! Have you ever read Mrs. Gaskell’s **Cranford** , or anything by that wonderful, completely forgotten proto-Dickens, Douglas Jerrold ( **The Story of a Feather** and **Mrs. Caudel’s Curtain Lectures** )? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/25 "2004-01-01T14:30:49Z")
**Magister Ludi** by Herman Hesse. Read it when I was a young un (high school or college, don’t remember) and thought, damn, I want to learn to play the glass bead game – but why does he give it up in the end? Read it again soon after leaving academia and understood the ending much better. It’s been 15 years, I think I’m due to read it again. **English Passengers** by Matthew Kneale. A big fat 19th-century novel written with a modern sensibility. It’s the interwoven story of explorers, smugglers, clergymen, and Maori. A wonderful, wonderful book. Everyone I’ve recommended it to has loved it. **The Mists of Avalon** by Marion Zimmer Bradley. A feminist retelling of the Arthurian legend. Long, and I tore through it eagerly – until the last hundred pages, when I slowed to a crawl because I didn’t want it to be over. I’ve recommended it whole-heartedly to at least a dozen people over the years, and every single one has come back with a heartfelt “thanks!” **The Custom of the Country** by Edith Wharton. (Thanks, Miss Mapp, for reminding me of one of my favorite authors!) This is my favorite of hers – it’s about trying to fit love into the confines of social expectations in 19th-century New York. Hmmm, fifth: I’m gonna fudge and go for a trilogy: **His Dark Materials** by Philip Pullman. A brilliantly throught out fantasy series about the struggle between good and evil. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/26 "2004-01-01T14:34:26Z")
**Eve, Miss Mapp** , for 19th-century female authors, let’s not forget Mary Elizabeth Braddon – **Lady Audley’s Secret** is a whole lot of fun. ---
**Author:** ![TheRealJohnPeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TheRealJohnPeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheRealJohnPeat)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/27 "2004-01-01T14:42:24Z")
**The Prestige** by Christopher Priest. As good as a book about feuding magicians (top hat and tails - not swords and sorcery!) could possibly get… **The Truth** by Terry Pratchett. His best book (since Mort anyway) which proves you can carry a message in a joke 8) **The Alchemist’s Apprentice** which isn’t Jeremy Dronfield’s 4th novel apparently 🙂 The fact you can write something this clever and not get your next book published worries me… **Vurt** by Jeff Noon. Feathers and software - mmmm… **Only Forward** by Micheal Marshall Smith. Too clever for it’s own good really. Note: I really wanted to include LOTR - but it’s too trendy - and Hitch Hikers - but that works best as a radio series, not a book. JP ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/28 "2004-01-01T14:54:59Z")
1. SM Stirling’s ISOT trilogy: Island in the Sea of Time Against the Tide of Years On the Oceans of Eternity Stirling has modern day Nantucket sent back in time to the Bronze Age (1250 BC) by some unknown phenomenon, and chronicles their quest to survive and reshape the world. 1. Robert Heinlein’s “Have Space Suit, Will Travel.” I first read it when I was 8 and although it was one of his “juveniles”–ie written to be sold to libraries, so no sex or profanity—it has an ageless appeal and every once in a while I still break it out and re-read it. 2. Douglas Adams’ “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.”–Very underrated book, I always find something I missed every time I read it. And it always makes me laugh. 3. Dean Koontz’s “Phantoms.”–A very intelligent horror novel. I can’t help but get wrapped up in the story every time I open the book. 4. Aaron Allston’s “Doc Sidhe”–a send-up of Doc Savage set in an alternate reality where magic is an everyday part of life. ---
**Author:** ![TWOTfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@TWOTfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWOTfan)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/29 "2004-01-01T15:42:24Z")
1. \*\*The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes \*\* - not even a novel, but it’s what I’ve read and reread the most 2. **The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings** 3. **Tom Jones** 4. **The Sun Also Rises** 5. **Pride and Prejudice** I know you didn’t ask for \*\*best \*\* novels but I thought you might find this list of somebody’s top 100 novels interesting: > **[The 100 greatest novels of all time: The list](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction)** > > From Don Quixote to American Pastoral, take a look at the 100 greatest novels of all time ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/30 "2004-01-01T15:49:40Z")
Actually, that Top 100 Novels list isn’t bad, but has only a couple of out-and-out _funny_ books. A novel does not have to be Serious to be good. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/31 "2004-01-01T17:16:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eve \* > **Oh, Miss Mapp, you and I should have a Literary Salon–except for that Tolkien thing, whatever it is, we have much the same tastes! > Have you ever read Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford, or anything by that wonderful, completely forgotten proto-Dickens, Douglas Jerrold (The > Story of a Feather and Mrs. Caudel’s Curtain Lectures)?** I haven’t read _Cranford_, but I have read _Mary Barton_, _North and South_ (Mrs. Gaskell’s, not the Civil War miniseries) and _Sylvia’s Lovers_. I’ve got her biography of Charlotte Bronte around here somewhere. Jerrold? No. I’ll have to see if I can find him. Just for you, I can gently set aside LOTR (it’s not as if I haven’t had ample opportunity to talk about that elsewhere) in favor of something a little farther down my list: _Portrait of a Lady_, _Vanity Fair_, _A Room with a View_. If you’re looking for lighter reading, have you read E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels (yes, this is where my user name comes from)? They’re about the social squabbles of a set of middle-aged ladies and gentlemen in England between the World Wars. If you like Wodehouse, I recommend them highly. I often describe them as being similar to Wodehouse, had he written less about Bertie Wooster and more about Aunts Dahlia and Agatha. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/32 "2004-01-01T17:45:44Z")
In no particular order **Permutation City** by Greg Egan - artificial intelligence, virtual reality, the nature of consciousness, sentience and existence, but nothing like you’ve seen it done so badly in the movies. **Weapon** by Robert Mason - a sentient military robot escapes and does what it wants to do (again, you’ve seen this done terribly in the movies, indeed in the movie ‘solo’ supposedly based on this book, but this is different - it is a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be a person) **Good Omens** by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Impossible to describe adequately - read it! **A History Of The World In 10½ Chapters** by Julian Barnes - everybody who takes themselves even a little bit seriously should read this. **Ringworld** by Larry Niven (or anything else by Larry Niven) ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/33 "2004-01-01T18:05:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eutychus \* > **Gospel** by Wilton Barnhardt. And lo, I am with you always, even while you’re searching the world for a lost Bibical gospel. Synchronicity! I just bought this a couple of days ago. My five: **The Dollmaker** by Harriette Simpson Arnow, heartbreaking story of an Appalachian family who move to Detroit after WWII. **The Lord of the Rings** , just read it for the first time. I really liked it but I think I’ll like it more after re-reading. **Blind Voices** by Tom Reamy, this book is sometimes compared to **Something Wicked This Way Comes** , but it holds up better IMHO. And it’s a bit more raw and edgy. **Stephen King’s first four books** – Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining and The Stand – it’s like going home. **Feesters in the Lake** – by Bob Leman, these are short stories he wrote for Fantasy and Science Fiction in the 60’s and 70’s, and every one of them deserves classic status. This is the best collection I own. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/34 "2004-01-01T18:52:04Z")
Lemme see…how do I answer this one _today_… **Invisible Cities** by Italo Calvino. Calvino’s seventh book, more of a series of prose poems than a structured novel. Old Kublai Khan and young Marco Polo sit in a palace garden at sunset, weaving tales about the evolution of the universe. **The Man with the Golden Arm** by Nelson Algren. The great 1947 realist novel about the mean streets of Chicago, winner of the first National Book Award, admired by Carl Sandburg, Malcolm Cowley, and Hemingway. Filled with great characters like Frankie Machine, Solly Saltskin, and Record Head Bednar. **Last Exit to Brooklyn** by Hubert Selby, Jr. Even realer, and meaner. Like Algren ratcheted up to beyond the max. His more-or-less sympathetic characters are replaced by monsters, whores, and benzedrine-popping sex maniacs. **Doctor Glas** by Hjalmar Soderberg. Set in Stockholm during the closing years of the 19th century, this 1905 novel details the inner life of an empathetic physician who murders the revolting Reverend Gregorious. A psychological novel well ahead of its time, and a strong influence on Arthur Schnitzler. **Monkey** by Wu Ch’eng-en. Part of the Journey to the West cycle of Chinese folk epics, it’s appeared in many translations under many titles. The one I’ve got on hand is the Arthur Waley translation from 1943. A combination of picaresque novel and fairy tale, it follows the Monkey King’s adventures among gods, minor spirits, demons, and sages. And its funnier’n hell. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/35 "2004-01-01T18:53:04Z")
Several of mine are on here already - Pride and Prejudice (Eve, if you haven’t read Austen, you must. Somehow, I suspect you have.), To Kill a Mockingbird, Cidar House Rules. Other favorites. I can’t possibly narrow down five, but here are a few unmentioned that come to mind as wonderful. Margaret Atwood (yeah, an author, not a book) - particularly Robber Bride, or Alias Grace or Handmaids Tale. Three very different books. Handmaid’s Tale is a book about a dystopia where women are chattle. The dystopia is based on fundamentalist Christianity of the extreme. Haunting. Alias Grace is a murder mystery. Robber Bride is about four women, three unlikely and very different friends, and the bitch that screws over the men in their lives. Possession by A.S. Byatt. On of the more lyrical books I’ve read. Make sure to give any Byatt 50 pages before you throw it aside. This one is about the romance of two Victorian poets, and the mystery of their romance unraveled by two contemporary scholars. House of Spirits by Isabelle Allande. Also very lyrical (are you getting the feeling that words are as important as plot to me). ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Danno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Danno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Danno)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/36 "2004-01-01T18:59:45Z")
These are the books that I read at least once every year, from start to finish: \*\*Lord of the Rings \*\* Yeah, I know. But I have been reading them since 1970 and I am still not tired of them. \*\*The Foundation \*\* Trilogy by Isaak Asimov. A sweeping epic of galactic history. \*\*I, Claudius \*\* and \*\*Claudius the God \*\* by Robert Graves. These books tell the story of the reigns of the Ceasars from the point of view of Claudius, the family ‘idiot’ who became emperor. **The Door Into Summer** By Heinlein. IMO the definative time travel novel. OK, so its only four. I will leave my fifth one blank to make up for the others who posted six. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/37 "2004-01-01T21:31:42Z")
My favorite kind of thread. 🙂 **Pride and Prejudice** - it’s like going home. I read it about every five years. **Rebecca** by Daphne du Maurier - I liked this literary equivalent of a gothic chick-flick so much there is a member of the 'addi household named after one of the characters. **The Haunting of Hill House** by Shirley Jackson - has the best opening paragraph ever. A ghost story that I measure every other ghost story against. Wonderfully creepy and gorgeously written. **All Quiet on the Western Front** by Erich Maria Remarque - the most compelling anti-war statement ever written. Brutal, terrifying, I’ll never read it again. A perfect book. **Regeneration Trilogy** by Pat Barker (Regeneration, The Eye in the Door & Ghost Road) - It’s hard to believe that this woman was not there in the trenches of the First World War-- that she never met Siegfried Sassoon, that she is an ordinary middle aged English woman writing today. Of all the books I’ve read in the past 20 years, these are the most memorable. ---
**Author:** ![jeanster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc348/32.png) [@jeanster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jeanster)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/38 "2004-01-01T21:44:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\* > **Good Omens** by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Impossible to describe adequately - read it! > > \*\* I read this book last year. It’s excellent and very, very funny. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/39 "2004-01-01T22:02:26Z")
Okay, here’s mine…initially, it took a bit of thinking (I’m an early modernist, so I’m not used to novels ;)) but after that I realized I’ve got a ton of candidates! The top five: **The Lord of the Rings** by J.R.R. Tolkien **The Once and Future King** by T.H. White **Les Miserables** by Victor Hugo **A Canticle for Leibowitz** by Walter M. Miller, Jr. **Watership Down** by Richard Adams Five honorable mentions: _The Left Hand of Darkness_ by Ursula K. LeGuin, _To Kill a Mockingbird_ by Harper Lee, _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ by Douglas Adams, _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_ by Mark Twain, _We_ by Yevgeny Zamyatin That was _really hard_…way too many choices there. :eek: 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bugnorton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bugnorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bugnorton)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/40 "2004-01-01T22:15:54Z")
No particular order, just the ones I read over and over: Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy The Stand - Stephen King Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers Too bad we only got five, but it was probably a great idea just to limit the size of the thread! Happy New Year, everyone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028.md?page=3)