# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/61 "2004-01-03T06:19:30Z")
Five is hard. Ten would be easier. 🙂 1. _The House of God_ I can’t think of the author right now, I lent it to someone. This is a must read for anyone in medicine. Many of the slang phrases used today are taken from this book. (ex.) GOMER (a term used to describe a recurring patient) means “Get out of my Emergency Room” 2. _The Magus_ John Fowles the most frustrating book I’ve ever read (4 times) 3.\* The Alexandria Quartet\* Laurence Durrell (This is cheating, a little, its really 4 books.) 3. _Snowblind_Robert Sabbag 5._The Prince of Tides_ Pat Conroy There are all those Stephen King’s I’ve read threadbare too. And Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea collection. And… **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. I have a first edition of this, and \* We have always Lived in the Castle\* Did you know she also wrote comedy? Two that come to mind are _Life Among the Savages_ and _Raising Demons_ They are about her children. ---
**Author:** ![Mephisto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@Mephisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mephisto)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/62 "2004-01-03T06:31:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by picunurse \* > \*\*2. _The Magus_ John Fowles the most frustrating book I’ve ever read (4 times) > \*\* If you don’t mind me asking, what’s so good about this book, and why is it so darn frustrating? I ask because _The Magus_ has been in my hands the last seven or eight times I have visited my book store, but I always put it down, unsure . . . Well anyway, thanks in advance, and have a great night! ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/63 "2004-01-03T07:09:40Z")
Y’know, I don’t know how I forgot this, but I’d like to add **Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas** to my list… ---
**Author:** ![Shana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@Shana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shana)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/64 "2004-01-03T08:10:25Z")
Ah **Miss Mapp** , I have not yet read _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_ , but I have always meant to. I think I will put that one first on my list! I know Anne’s sister Charlotte supposedly disaproved of the book and wanted her not to publish it. That has always made me want to read it even more! Anne had some serious pluck for someone of her time.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Marks\_1st\_wife](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Marks\_1st\_wife](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marks_1st_wife)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/65 "2004-01-03T20:41:31Z")
“Mr. Mortimer Gets The Jitters”-Berkeley Gray (pen name of Edwy Searles Brooks) Quick and easy, nothing profound, no thinking involved. 🙂 “Rose in Bloom”- Louisa May Alcott (a childrens book actually) “The Dean’s Watch”-Elizabeth Goudge (set in the 1870’s, friendship between the Dean and a clockmaker. (sounds exciting, eh? :-P)) Another plug for: Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy. and “The Belgariad”- David Eddings Once I find book I like, I usually read everything I can find by that author, limiting the list to five is difficult. 🙂 I didn’t even get to put any mysteries on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/66 "2004-01-03T20:57:28Z")
Just took Elizabeth von Arnim’s **Elizabeth and Her German Garden** out of the library–anyone read it? Loved her _Enchanted April_ and _Love_. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/67 "2004-01-04T00:13:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mephisto \* > \*\*If you don’t mind me asking, what’s so good about this book, and why is it so darn frustrating? I ask because _The Magus_ has been in my hands the last seven or eight times I have visited my book store, but I always put it down, unsure . . . > > Well anyway, thanks in advance, and have a great night! \*\* The plot twists back upon itself like the dragon eating its own tail. Just when you think you understand why something happened, the whole thing is turned inside out. In the end you still aren’t sure what was real, what was manipulation, and what was imagination. ---
**Author:** ![Mephisto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@Mephisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mephisto)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/68 "2004-01-04T00:39:25Z")
**picunurse** : sounds like something I would either absolutely love or absolutely hate. Probably I’ll end up reading it. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/69 "2004-01-05T13:39:39Z")
Thanks for the tip, Ike. I’m always looking for something new to read, I’ll give him a try. ---
**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 5, 2004, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/70 "2004-01-05T15:42:19Z")
I gotta add- three from Vonnegut GOD BLESS YOU MR ROSEWATER SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE MOTHER NIGHT Just OK was THE SIRENS OF TITAN (I liked it at first but not as much as it went on, but it was still much better to me than…) BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS - blah. ---
**Author:** ![Mal\_Adroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/71 "2004-01-05T16:22:43Z")
**Marathon Man,** William Goldman. First book I ever read on my own and remains one of my favorite thrillers. Wish he’d finish the damn _Princess Bride_ sequel already. **As I Lay Dying,** William Faulkner. Mind-blowing to read this in college. Had no idea literature could do that! **Labyrinths,** Jorge Luis Borges. “Meta lit” paradise. **The Big Clock,** Kenneth Fearing. The suspense novel to end all suspense novels, imho. **Help I Am Being Held Prisoner,** Donald Westlake. Crime farce. I simply don’t recall ever enjoying a book as much as this one. ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/72 "2004-01-05T17:02:40Z")
As of now: **Infinite Jest** , David Foster Wallace. I read this once a year, trying to wring everything I can out of it. I’m never satisfied. It’s the ultimate desert island book. **Dead Babies** , Martin Amis. Reprehensible people doing reprehensible things, but told in an utterly appealing, farcical manner. When I read it I’m filled with disgust, amusement, attraction, ridicule, and ultimately a sense of everyone getting their just desserts. **The Hotel New Hampshire** John Irving. For me it’s a tough call between this and **A Prayer For Owen Meany** , but **Hotel** wins out for the startling recurrence of themes (Sorrow, the desks nailed down, Freud and the bear, the shit flies up, Frank the King of Mice) and an utterly fascinating family dynamic. **The Secret History** , Donna Tartt. **The Bottoms** , Joe R. Lansdale. Southern Gothic-ish coming of age story, but very creepy and ultimately moving. This novel started me on a quest to read all Lansdale’s work, a task that is proving quite difficult as his books are hard to find. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/73 "2004-01-05T17:10:56Z")
Definitely hard to pick just 5 because I have so many faves (like everyone else here.) **Vanity Fair** , William Makepeace Thackeray. I read this at least every couple of years. It tells the stories of two classmates–one virtuous, the other wicked (but much more fun) and their intertwining lives during the Napoleonic wars. **Framley Parsonage** , Anthony Trollope. Alternately touching and hilarious tale of a naive young minister taken advantage of by a dishonest acquaintance, who by having the minister sign 3rd party loans drives the young minister to the brink of professional and personal ruin. **Flash for Freedom** , George MacDonald Frasier. Third in a series of novels that relate the adventures of a coward, bully, and lecher who finds himself caught up in most of the major events of 19th-century history, **F[sup]3[/sup]** finds Harry Flashman entangled into slave trading and the Underground Railroad. **The Moonstone** , Wilkie Collins. An early detective novel told as a series of first-person depositions, this novel contains the finest satire of the fundie Christian ever in the person of Miss Clack. **Les Liaisons Dangereuses** , Choderlos De Laclos. Adapted into the 1988 movie **Dangerous Liaisons** , this 222-year-old treatment of sex as war is still as relevant and as vicious as the day it was published. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/74 "2004-01-05T17:47:21Z")
City of God: A Novel (E.L. Doctorow) - This is just a bit of the synopsis from Amazon: > [@](#): > > You want ambition? E.L. Doctorow’s City of God starts off not merely with a bang but with the big bang itself, that “great expansive flowering, a silent flash into being in a second or two of the entire outrushing universe.” It doesn’t, to be sure, remain on this cosmic plane throughout. There’s a mystery here, along with a romance, a chilling Holocaust narrative, and a deep-focus portrait of fin-de-siècle Manhattan–not to mention cameo appearances by that Holy Trinity of contemporary mythmaking: Albert Einstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Frank Sinatra. But while the author of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate is no slacker when it comes to entertainment, he has more in mind this time around. Even the title, with its Augustinian overtones, tips us off to the author’s preoccupation with belief, human consciousness, and “our wrecked romance with God.” Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins. - This book just blew my mind. It’s funny, thoughtful, and really, REALLY bizarre. I just loved it. I’ll have to come back with the other three. This is a hard list to complete. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/75 "2004-01-05T17:52:11Z")
**Moby Dick** , Herman Melville - I’ve always just adored this book. I get all upset when Starbuck takes charge. **The Princess Bride** , S. Morgenstern - Like the movie? The book’s better. **Rebecca** , Daphne DuMaurier - My first _real_ grown-up book when I was 9. "Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. " Still stuck in my head after all these years. **Pride and Prejudice** , Jane Austen - Want to climb in the book and force everyone to just sit down and talk, fer cryin’ out loud. But I read it every year. **To Kill A Mockingbird** , Harper Lee - Just a perfect tale. ---
**Author:** ![Mal\_Adroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/76 "2004-01-05T18:09:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ukulele Ike \* > \*\*I personally have always preferred (Ross) Thomas. Try _The Money Harvest_ (1975) or _Chinaman’s Chance_ (1978) or the Edgar-winning _Briarpatch_ (1985) or _The Fourth Durango_ (1990). \*\* I wish to add any or all of the Padillo/McCorkle novels- _The Cold War Swap, The Backup Men, Cast a Yellow Shadow, Twilight at Mac’s Place._ I love those guys. Thomas was superb. One of those terrifically talented writers who should’ve been a household name. ---
**Author:** ![metanet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3e96dc/32.png) [@metanet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metanet)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/77 "2004-01-05T19:20:00Z")
**Snow Crash** - by Neal Stephenson – hacker-sci-fi with an incredible, rich plot related to linguistics, history, semiotics…I could re-read this book forever. **The Futurological Congress** - by Stanislaw Lem – a very weird sci-fi/fantasy story involving a good deal of hallucinogens… **Time’s Arrow** - by Martin Amis – he’s an amazing writer in general. It’s a story that moves backwards through time and significant historical events. **The Thief of Always** - by Clive Barker – pretty good characters, fantastic in a way that reminds me of Neil Gaiman; sorry for the lack of description. It’s been a long time since I’ve read this. so many favourites left…how about anything by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman, for my fifth? 😉 **Dangerosa** , any advice on how to make it to page 50 in A.S. Byatt? I’m trying to get through **Babel Tower** but am finding it impossible! ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/78 "2004-01-05T21:13:38Z")
What a neat thread – I found lots of good ideas for the next library trip, and also gift ideas. It’s next to impossible to pick only five, but I can list my five _right now at this moment_, in no rank order. Of course, this could be different tomorrow. **I Capture The Castle** by Dodie Smith. A young woman writes about her life living in a falling-down castle, with her very eccentric family, in a small English town, in, ah, it must be just after WWII. Funny and romantic, if a little dated. The writing is charming beyond belief, this is a very well-crafted book, it makes one wonder why Smith didn’t write more (she also wrote the original One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which is a lovely book and not at all like the Disney version). **In This House of Brede** by Rumer Godden. A chronicle of life in a Catholic convent. By all rights it should be more cloying than it is, but I’m endlessly fascinated by it. It includes all sorts of details about daily religious life, and the characters are extremely interesting. Sentimental, but who am I to turn down a good cry? **Tam Lin** by Pamela Dean. Adventures that border on the fantastic at a small midwestern liberal arts college. It’s usually shelved with “Fantasy-Sci Fi” but not very much fantasy happens, now that I think about it, it’s mostly intellectual snobbery. It makes me wish _my_ college days had been like that. College freshmen who get into fights by sneering Keats quotations at each other? That’s the fantasy part, I guess. **Gaudy Night** by Dorothy Sayers. It’s hard to pick just one Sayers, but I think this one is it. The usual mystery, this time set at a fictional women’s college at Oxford. Harriet Vane is endearing as usual. Peter Wimsey is dashing, as expected. It’s a bit dated – it’s quite a treatise on the “experiment” of higher education for women, thankfully that seems to have worked out for the most part. But it still manages to make me appreciate how difficult it was, not even 100 years ago, for women to achieve success in the academic world. **The Three Musketeers** by Alexandre Dumas. Boy, I love this book! It’s a page-turner. It is so goofy and so exciting at the same time, I’m very affectionate about this book. The fact that it’s about four guys, not three, and they’re not even technically musketeers anymore because they were disbanded shortly before the novel opens is just icing on the cake. And I managed to keep it to five novels – not biographies, memoirs, children’s books, etc etc. ---
**Author:** ![Horseflesh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horseflesh/32/7502_2.png) [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/79 "2004-01-05T22:38:54Z")
Most of these are -ilogy’s, but these are my top five: 1. **The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings** by You Know Who 2. **The Night’s Dawn Trilogy** - by Peter F. Hamilton. Includes _The Reality Disfunction_, _The Neutronium Alchemist_, and _The Naked God_. At 3,000 pages and six books, this is the last pager turner I’ve read in recent years. Hard sci-fi at it’s very best. 3. **Dune** - by Frank Herbert. None of the sequels grabbed me though. 4. **The Warhound and the World’s Pain** - a rather short novel by Michael Moorcock but one I’ve read over many times. 5. **The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy** “trilogy” - Douglas Adams. Best sci-fi comedy I’ve ever read. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028/80 "2004-01-05T23:35:13Z")
Oh gee. 1) **The Maltese Falcon** , by Dashiell Hammett - a great detective story that is also a great work of literature. 2) **Beat to Quarters** , **Ship of the Line** , and **Flying Colours** , by C.S.Forrester - the first three of the Hornblower novels, and bound together in one volume, so they count. 🙂 1. **The Dispossessed** , by Ursula LeGuin - a novel of such heart-breaking beauty that I have read it at least a dozen times. 2. **Perelandra** , by C.S. Lewis - the floating islands, the theology, and the haunting otherness of another planet. 3. **Gray Lensman** , by E.E. “Doc” Smith - sheer, pulp-fiction sci-fi fun. And, as others have said, I could extend this list for a hundred more. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-a-novel-thread-your-five-fave-novels/222028.md?page=5)