Since I’ve never actually started a polling thread and because nobody knows who I am, I figured I’d try. So, what do you all consider the best book you’ve ever read?
There is no way I can answer this, because I would have to break it into categories: best history book, best scifi/fantasy, best science book, etc etc etc
But the one author I enjoyed the most in the past few years has been Haruki Murakami. I cannot recommend his books enough - hip, clever, witty, absolutely unlike any author I have ever read. I especially liked “Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”, but just about anything he writes is great.
Hands, down, I would have to say John L. Flyyn’s CINEMATIC VAMPIRES: The Living Dead on Film and Television, from The Devil’s Castle (1896) to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), published by McFarland & Co., Jefferson, N.C., 1992.
As far as reading for entertainment, it’s a tie between each and every Wheel of Time book Robert Jordan has written. I absolutely love that series!
Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love.
::trying to maintain straight face::
The Bible is the greatest story ever told.
::nope, didn’t work::
snicker
For me, The Lord of the Rings. Yes, it has three volumes, but that was done by Allen and Unwin, JRRT’s original publisher, merely for monetary purposes. It was always regarded as a single work by its author.
or anything by Forsythe. He is excellent!
Hmmm . . . I just can’t decide between “Platinum Girl,” “Vamp” or “Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway” . . . They’re just all so BRILLIANT.
Do you mean “best” in the sense of “Book you’d read over and over and over” or “best” as “Greatest Social Redeeming Value”?
I assume you mean the former. My two best choices for that have already been taken – Lord of the Rings and Day of the Jackal. If I had to choose another one I might go with The Great Escape.
Oh, yeah, there’s always “Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon”. But I’ve read that so many times lately that I’m always looking for something else.
I realize that literary snobs all over will groan at this, but I find I can keep coming back to Stephen King’s “The Stand” again and again. I think it’s a great book; entertaining, interesting, compelling characters, thought-provoking ideas, etc.
The Wheel of Time is a damned good nomination, I must say.
Say, I’m not even a big sci/fi or horror reader! Go figure.
The entire Vampire Chronicles by Ann Rice, expect for Tale of the Body Theif-hated that one.
Also, going back to the days of my youth-Go Dog Go.
I forgot some others that tie with Ann Rice and Go Dog Go.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Anything by Kafka and Camus
If I have to be honest with myself and ask which are the books that I have read and re-read the most often, it would be the three novels written by Alexandre Dumas concerning d’Artagnan and his friends:
Les trois mousquetaires
Vingt ans apres
Le vicomte de Bragelonne
Besides being great adventure novels, they are also a magnificent description of the power of friendship, and also how friendship can succumb to the petty ambitions and intrigues of life. After following our four heroes throughout their tumultuous lives, I almost cried the first time I read of their successive deaths in the last book.
The best book I have ever read, as far as being thought-provoking and exercising my mind, would probably be “Godel, Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter.
For the SF amongst you I’d put forth “Earth” by David Brin.
But really I have to betray my fandom leanings and say “To Kill A Mockingbirg” by Harper Lee.
The book I enjoyed reading the most, in a scholarly way, was The Great Gatsby. The one I enjoyed the most just for the heck of it was The Fifties by David Halberstam.
Of course, I haven’t read any of Eve’s books yet.
CalMeacham, I ment best as in whatever you want to define it as. To some it might be the best in terms of literary and scholarly technique, or it may mean whatever entertained you the most.
CrankyAsAnOldMan wrote:
I love “The Stand” too, and I am not a big fan of horror or sci/fi. I’ve read it several times, though.
My latest favorite (and since Cogitoergosum said we could define “best” ourselves, I choose “touched me most emotionally”) is Shaara’s “The Killer Angels.”
Catch-22