# Your favourite 5ish books and what you are currently reading. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 27, 2002, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810 "2002-08-27T18:42:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mattymillhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mattymillhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mattymillhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/21 "2002-08-28T23:31:22Z")
very tough to do off the top of my head, but i’d have to say: 1. the Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (is that cheating?) 2. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac 3. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 4. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles 5. Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell in case an anthology is cheating, my first alternate would probably be A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers. i just started reading The Winter Zoo, by John Beckman. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/22 "2002-08-29T01:26:28Z")
1. _To Kill A Mockingbird_, by Harper Lee 2. _The Poisonwood Bible_ by Barbara Kingsolver 3. _A Fine Balance_, by Rohinton Mistry 4. _A Tree Grows In Brooklyn_, By Betty Smith 5. _The Pillars Of The Earth_, by Ken Follett I have _A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius_, by Dave Eggers to be started next. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/23 "2002-08-29T01:35:58Z")
1.) Flowers for Algernon- Daniel Keyes (Charlie- movie made off the book, about a mentally retarded man that is experemented on and turns into a Genius before he reverts back) 2.) Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole (Hilarious, Ignatious is the main character, and what a character.) 3.) To Reign in Hell- Steven Brust (The war in heaven with a twist) 4.)Whose Song is Sung- Frank Schaefer (Beowulf done in the perspective of an outcast dwarf) 5.) Ship of Fools- Richard Paul Russo (A space faring generation ship tries to find land, but discovers something frightning out in space, and within themselves. Dark and dreary, not for those that like happy feel good books) ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/24 "2002-08-29T01:35:58Z")
1. _To Kill A Mockingbird_, by Harper Lee 2. _The Poisonwood Bible_ by Barbara Kingsolver 3. _A Fine Balance_, by Rohinton Mistry 4. _A Tree Grows In Brooklyn_, By Betty Smith 5. _The Pillars Of The Earth_, by Ken Follett I have _A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius_, by Dave Eggers to be started next. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/25 "2002-08-29T01:50:09Z")
1.) Flowers for Algernon- Daniel Keyes (Charlie- movie made off the book, about a mentally retarded man that is experemented on and turns into a Genius before he reverts back) 2.) Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole (Hilarious, Ignatious is the main character, and what a character.) 3.) To Reign in Hell- Steven Brust (The war in heaven with a twist) 4.)Whose Song is Sung- Frank Schaefer (Beowulf done in the perspective of an outcast dwarf) 5.) Ship of Fools- Richard Paul Russo (A space faring generation ship tries to find land, but discovers something frightning out in space, and within themselves. Dark and dreary, not for those that like happy feel good books) ---
**Author:** ![glass\_onion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@glass\_onion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glass_onion)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/26 "2002-08-29T10:04:11Z")
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Series, the five of them(in fact any Douglas Adams) A Clockwork Orange Nineteen Eighty Four ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/27 "2002-08-29T14:59:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dolores Claiborne \* > 4. The Talisman - Stephen King > \*\* I haven’t worked out my list yet, but you’ve hit on one of my pet peeves here: **The Talisman** is not by Stephen King, nor is **Black House**. They’re by Stephen King **and** Peter Straub, who IMHO is a better writer. I guess it’s nit-picky, but when two people put in a lot of work into something, and people tend to only give one person the credit for it… ---
**Author:** ![bristlesage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@bristlesage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bristlesage)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/28 "2002-08-29T19:28:24Z")
Oh, **Ukelele Ike** , you’re the best. The Master and Margarita is fantastic. I’m calling it number six for me. Favorite book: Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould Rest of the top five, in no particular order: How to be Good, Nick Hornby. A great postmodern novel that actually tells a story. Just incredible. Telling the Truth about History, Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob. They attempt to reconcile postmodern/deconstructivist ideas with the traditional idea of history as fact. Very interesting take on a big issue in historiography. The Plague, Albert Camus. A philosophical treatise with characters you care about. Very moving, an important work, and yet easy to read. 1984, George Orwell. The most frightening book I’ve ever read. ---
**Author:** ![dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorkusmalorkusmafia/32/7266_2.png) [@dorkusmalorkusmafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorkusmalorkusmafia)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/29 "2002-08-29T19:37:36Z")
I am amazed that The Stand is on so many people’s lists. I knew Stephen King was a popular author I just never could get into him. I would have also put the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy in the top 10. That was a very good series. ---
**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:** [August 29, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/30 "2002-08-29T20:08:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bristlesage \* > **Oh, Ukelele Ike, you’re the best…** As I look over everyone _else’s_ lists, I’m inclined to agree with you. [insert smiley of your choice here] ---
**Author:** ![WSLer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@WSLer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WSLer)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/31 "2002-08-29T23:01:34Z")
I’m currently reading LotR at work on my breaks, I just started The Two Towers. I’m also working my way through The Books Of Magic series of TP’s and then I’m going to be starting The Dreaming TP’s, then the John Constantine Hellblazer TP’s, followed by the JSA TP’s and somewhere along the way I will finish up james McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom and Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative 3 volume set. ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/32 "2002-08-30T03:28:52Z")
Gosh… hard to pick favorites out of so many good books… here’s one attempt: - Stephen King’s _Dark Tower_ series (4 books so far, plus mention in a number of others) - Dan Simmons’ _Carrion Comfort_ - Maragret Atwood’s _The Handmaid’s Tale_ - Richard Adams’ _Watership Down_ - Kurt Vonnegut’s _Breakfast of Champions_ - Tolkien’s _Lord of the Rings_ (the trilogy, which was intended as a single book) - Susan Cooper’s _The Grey King_ - Marion Zimmer Bradley’s _The Mists of Avalon_ - Clive Barker’s _The Thief of Always_ - Patricia Cornwell’s _From Potter’s Field_ Sorry, couldn’t keep it to five… there are so many more too! Anyway, I’m in between books right now. I just finished Neil Gaiman’s _Coraline_ about 20 minutes ago (it was wonderful!), and next I’ll be reading _The Athenian Murders_ by Jose Carlos Somoza. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/33 "2002-08-30T04:21:15Z")
Five-ish, huh? OK, fiction only: [ul] [li] **_The Master and Margarita_, Mikhail Bulgakov** [/li][li] **_Tristram Shandy_, Laurence Sterne** [/li][li] **_Let Us Build Us a City: Eleven Lost Towns_, Donald Harington**. (not exactly fiction, but not exactly non-fiction either)[/li][li] **_The Crying of Lot 49_, Thomas Pynchon** [/li][li]**_The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas_ (a.k.a. _Epitaph of a Small Winner_), Machado de Assis**[/li][li] **_Pale Fire_, Vladimir Nabokov.** [/li][li] **_The Killer Inside Me_, Jim Thompson** [/li][/ul] It pains me to leave off George Macdonald Fraser, Patrick O’Brian, John Banville, Tom Sharpe, P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, James Joyce, Mark Twain, and Dawn Powell, among others. There are books by each of them that I re-read with pleasure nearly as often as the ones on my list. ---
**Author:** ![shagadelicmysteryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ea924/32.png) [@shagadelicmysteryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shagadelicmysteryman)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/34 "2002-08-30T05:22:20Z")
My favorite 5ish books are (in no particular order): _The Sun Also Rises_ by Hemingway _1984_ by George Orwell _The Giver_ by Louis Lowry _Hearts in Atlantis_ by Stephen King _A Farewell to Arms_ again by Hemingway. _The Theif of Always_ by Clive Barker _The Illiad and The Odyssey_ by Homer (no, not Simpson) I also like any book in the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy. 🙂 I am currently reading _Crime and Punishment_ by Fyodor Dostoevsky and _On the Road_ by Jack Kerouac ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/35 "2002-08-30T18:05:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > \*\* > > I haven’t worked out my list yet, but you’ve hit on one of my pet peeves here: **The Talisman** is not by Stephen King, nor is **Black House**. They’re by Stephen King **and** Peter Straub, who IMHO is a better writer. I guess it’s nit-picky, but when two people put in a lot of work into something, and people tend to only give one person the credit for it… \*\* You’re right, of course. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![evolutionbaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e9bcb4/32.png) [@evolutionbaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evolutionbaby)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/36 "2002-08-30T18:23:28Z")
hmmmm. Well… Mine will probably be the low-browest of them all, but… here goes. 1. High Fidelity (Nick Hornby) 2. Ishmael and other related books (Daniel Quinn) 3. Nine Stories (JD Salinger) 4. The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran) 5. oh… too many choices to narrow it down to just one… sorry. ☹ What I am reading now? Birthing from Within (England Horowitz), which I don’t love but was recommended by my midwife, and The Hundred Secret Senses (Amy Tan) which is very good. ---
**Author:** ![theotherangel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df788c/32.png) [@theotherangel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theotherangel)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2002, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/37 "2002-09-01T01:12:13Z")
1. Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien) 2. The Great Book Of Amber (Roger Zelazny) 3. The Earthsea Quartet (Ursula Le Guin) 4. The Honor Series (David Weber) 5. Anything by Tanith Lee (Can’t pick just one) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2002, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/38 "2002-09-01T03:36:35Z")
In no order: The Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut Shibumi by Trevanian The Devil Drives - an autobiography of Sir Richard Francis Burton. How Things Work The Stars my Destination by Bester Cosmic Banditos by Weisbecker ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/39 "2002-09-07T06:00:41Z")
Franz Kafka **The Trial** Joseph Heller **Catch 22** Douglas Adams **The Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy** Edgar Allen Poe **Complete Stories and Poems** Gabriel Garcia Marquez **One Hundred Years of Solitude** G. K. Chesterton **The Man Who Was Thursday** (I just read this, after it was mentioned in this thread. I had to leave the library because I couldn’t stop laughing! It is already one of my favorite books.) I am currently reading Dostoyevsky’s **Notes From Underground** and Calvino’s **If on a Winter’s Night A Traveler** , and I like both so far. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Dead\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecb155/32.png) [@Living\_Dead\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Dead_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810/40 "2002-09-07T10:33:29Z")
“Will There Really Be A Morning?” - **Frances Farmer** “Invisible Monsters” - **Chuck Palahnuik** “The Bell Jar” - **Sylvia Plath** “Alice in Wonderland” - **Lewis Carroll** “Complete Short Stories” - **Dorothy Parker** (cheating, but what the hey.) And right now I’m reading “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-5ish-books-and-what-you-are-currently-reading/125810.md?page=3)