# Your Ten Favorite Books? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 3, 2000, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451 "2000-05-03T13:44:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/21 "2000-05-03T17:56:54Z")
Pugluvr, you MUST find the sequel, “But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes,” written the following year and JUST as hilarious (it’s Lorelei’s telling of her friend Dorothy’s life). Also with Ralph Barton drawings! Two side-trips here: There’s a great bio of Ralph Barton, called The Last Dandy, by Bruce Kellner—fascinating, tragic life. And I also have my suspicions that Anita Loos’ two Lorelei Lee books MAY have actually been ghosted by her writer husband, John Emerson. Anita Loos NEVER WROTE ANYTHING FUNNY AGAIN after those two books. ---
**Author:** ![Michi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@Michi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/22 "2000-05-03T18:04:11Z")
Darn it, only three come to my mind immediately: Watership Down, Maia, and The Stand. I’ll come back when I think of the rest. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/23 "2000-05-03T18:14:43Z")
Eve, thanks for the tips. I have indeed read “But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes,” and in fact cannot read “Blondes” without immediately chasing it with “Brunettes.” I was hasty when I said you were the only other person I had heard of who read them. My husband has read them, too, and we use a lot of Dorothy-isms between ourselves. When we see a bad actress, we say, “She can only do three emotions – Joy, Sorrow, and Indigestion.” When we see someone with horrible taste in clothes, especially socks, we say, “Fun is fun but no girl wants to laugh all the time.” A trashy chick boasting about how young she is? I’ll say, “She’s putting one over on you. No one can get such dirty knees in just eighteen years.” I didn’t know about Ralph Barton’s biography. I’d like very much to read it. I’ve seen a few non-Gentlemen cartoons of his, and he was brilliant. Didn’t he commit suicide at a young age? That’s about all I know about him. ---
**Author:** ![Gazoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ce73a5/32.png) [@Gazoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazoo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/24 "2000-05-03T18:19:33Z")
Well, let’s see what I can come up with (in no particular order): 1. To Kill a Mockingbird 2. A Separate Peace 3. Jurassic Park 4. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 5. The Straight Dope (first one) 6. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe 7. Tom Sawyer 8. A Time to Kill 9. Moby Dick 10. The Shining (Man at first I thought it would be tough, but now I see I’m leaving off several I’d like to have with me) ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/25 "2000-05-03T18:22:06Z")
“Fun is fun but no girl wants to laugh all the time.” —Oh, is THAT where I stole that phrase from? I use it all the time, and here I thought I’d lifted it from Mrs. Parker. The Ralph Barton bio is pretty easy to find through those internet book-searches. He did indeed shoot himself, at the age of 40—in his Art Deco penthouse apartment, of course. He led a very Jazz Age life. ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/26 "2000-05-03T18:24:01Z")
Tough, tough call. _The Lord of the Rings_ Tolkein _Cat’s Cradle or Slaughterhouse Five or Bluebeard_ Vonnegut _Peter the Great_ Robert Massie _Red Star Over China_ Edgar Snow _Nine Stories_ J.D. Salinger _The First Deadly Sin_ Lawrence Sanders _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ Gibbon _Charlotte’s Web_ E.B. White _Riding the Iron Rooster_ Paul Theroux _The Great Shark Hunt_ Hunter S. Thompson Just off the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![Demo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demo/32/8472_2.png) [@Demo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/27 "2000-05-03T18:25:32Z")
> [@](#): > > The Bible (I’m not religious, but it’s chock-full of good drama.) > > Tao Te Ching. (see above) The Tao Te Ching is chock full of good drama? Drain, I’m reading The Sound and The Fury right now and digging it big time! Sophie’s Choice is one of my faves too. ---
**Author:** ![Sake\_Samurai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sake\_Samurai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sake_Samurai)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/28 "2000-05-03T18:34:34Z")
1. “The Sound and the Fury” 2. “The Golden Bough” 3. “The Simarillian” 4. My bound collection of H.P. Lovecraft 5. “The Golden Bowl” 6. “Dune” 7. My bound collection of Lord Dunsany 8. The Collected Poems of Paul Celan 9. “Autumn Sonata” by Georg Trakl 10. “How to Get the Hell off a Desert Island” ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/29 "2000-05-03T18:50:35Z")
So this **is** a desert island list? 'Cause that means I’d select slightly differently, going for larger, more complex stuff than I might otherwise, if I were strictly selecting favorites. I’m assuming that _oeuvres completes_ are disallowed, though I will stretch that rule with omnibus collections of Twain, Wodehouse, and Perelman. How about: [ul] [li]_The Tempest_, William Shakespeare (it has to be either that or _King Lear_, and being on a desert island it seems appropriate, not to mention less depressing)[/li][li]_Ulysses_, James Joyce[/li][li]_Tristram Shandy_, Laurence Sterne[/li][li]_The Master and Margarita_, Mikhail Bulgakov[/li][li]_Ulysses_, James Joyce[/li][li]The Viking _Portable Mark Twain_, ed. Bernard de Voto[/li][li]_Ulysses_, James Joyce[/li][li]_The Most of P.G. Wodehouse_[/li][li]_The Most of S.J. Perelman_[/li][li]_The Southpaw_, Mark Harris[/li][/ul] Sigh. No Pynchon, no Melville, no Nabokov, no Dorothy Parker, no Dawn Powell, no Machado de Assis, no Ariosto, no Chaucer, no Keats, no Yeats, no Wallace Stevens, no Heaney, no Walcott – no poetry at all (except for Shax.) – this is impossible. No Jim Thompson, no Raymond Chandler, no James Cain, no . . . \. ---
**Author:** ![MysterEcks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@MysterEcks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysterEcks)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/30 "2000-05-03T18:58:37Z")
Not necessarily in order… “Time Enough For Love,” and associated stories (the Future History, “Methusela’s (sp?) Children,” “The Number Of The Beast,” “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls,” “To Sail Beyond The Sinset”), Robert A. Heinlein. “Lucifer’s Hammer,” Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. “Red Storm Rising,” Tom Clancy. “Footfall,” Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. “The Stand,” Stephen King. The “Xanth” books, Piers Anthony. The “Hitchhiker” books, Douglas Adams. The World Almanac. A good set of encyclopedias. The Bloom County/Outland collections, Berk Breathed. Alright, so I cheated…I don’t know how long I’ll be on that island. ---
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/31 "2000-05-03T20:03:10Z")
Assuming that these are the only books I get to read and that I can’t have ones entitled “How To Get Off That Desert Island” or “How To Pick Up Chicks On A Desert Island” or “How To At Least Connect To The Internet While On A Desert Island”, I would take, in order: 1. The Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which, for you non-Mormons, are _The Bible_, _The Book of Mormon_, _The Doctrine and Covenants_ and _The Pearl of Great Price_. No non-religious disclaimer here – I’m taking them primarily for their religious content 2. _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, Pirsig. 3. _The Passion of the Western Mind_, Tarnas. 4. _Women, Fire and Dangerous Things_, Lakoff. 5. _The Scarlet Letter_, Hawthorne. 6. _Bleak House_, Dickens. 7. _Pride and Prejudice_, Austen (MY favorite). 8. A toss-up – either _The Grapes of Wrath_ or something by Twain (_Joan of Arc_ maybe?) or _Billy Budd_. 9. Something by Thomas Hardy. I really, really like his writing but it depresses me. This would be for when I decided life on a desert island is no longer worth living but I need something to help me decide to do away with myself. I guess I’d have to vote for the most depressing of the lot, _Jude the Obscure_. 10. _The Dialogues of Plato_. On a desert island I might actually read them instead of read about them. ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/32 "2000-05-03T20:20:21Z")
Oh, this is so fun! I love to read, but no one else around me (even other English majors) can relate. Top Ten, in decreasing order of my adoration level: 1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith. My all-time fave. 2. The Poisenwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver. 3. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens. 4. The Little Prince, Antoine St. Exupery 5. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells. 6. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden. 7. Insomnia, Steven King. 8. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving 9. The Norton Anthology of American Literature 10. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison. I feel as though I forgot a thousand, but these are the cream of the crop. I just finished Invisable Man by Ellison and it blew me away! I recommend it. When I came to college, I brought a bookshelf and five boxes of books. Sadly, two boxes went home right away (no space) and only two fit on the bookshelf, so I have one box in the closet, but I alternate! I have three bookshelves full at home too. =) ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/33 "2000-05-03T21:02:39Z")
No, I really didn’t mean to list _Ulysses_ three times. What’s more, I actually read over the list a couple of times and previewed it before posting without realizing that’s what I’d done. Apparently, that stuff I’ve been blowing out of my nose the last couple of days included a substantial portion of my meager complement of brain cells. Let’s try again. [ul] [li]_The Tempest_, William Shakespeare (it has to be either that or _King Lear_, and being on a desert island it seems appropriate, not to mention less depressing)[/li][li]_Ulysses_, James Joyce[/li][li]_Tristram Shandy_, Laurence Sterne[/li][li]_The Master and Margarita_, Mikhail Bulgakov[/li][li]_Moby Dick_, Herman Melville[/li][li]The Viking _Portable Mark Twain_, ed. Bernard de Voto[/li][li]_The Canterbury Tales_, Geoffrey Chaucer[/li][li]_The Most of P.G. Wodehouse_[/li][li]_The Most of S.J. Perelman_[/li][li]_The Southpaw_, Mark Harris[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/34 "2000-05-03T21:15:47Z")
Well, I actually just discovered the joys of reading only a year and a half ago so my experience is quite limited but here goes (in no particular order other than the order at which time they enter my mind as an interaction with the time of when I’m ready to type the next entry): 1. The Hitchhiker “trilogy” (Douglas Adams) - if everyone else considers them all 1 entry then so do I. BTW I’m currently reading Dirk Gently and it seems to have finally picked up half way through it but it is no Hitchhiker. 2. Steppenwolf (Herman Hesse) - I have since come to view Herman Hesse as being overly self-indulgent but when I first read this one I was blown away. 3. 1984 (George orwell) 4. Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegurt) - a cross between Douglas Adams and George Orwell in my mind. 5. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dosteyevsky) (sp.?) May even be #1 but I’ll just leave it as one of the top 10 for now. In attempting not to duplicate authors on this list I’ll leave off The Karamozov Brothers reluctantly. 6. The Castle (Franz Kafka) Though I haven’t read the completed version. (i.e. Kafka died before its completion and it was eventually completed by Thomas mann). he unfortunately died during the most climactic part to point. I’ll leave off The Trial for same reason as #5. 7. Flatland: A romance of Many Dimensions (Edwin A. Abbott) A brilliant satire about a square living in a 2-D world who travels to a 1-D world (lineland) a 0-D world (pointland) and then finally to the 3-D world. Very clever book and only 80 pages. 8. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (Ken Kesey) After I read this back in high school I read the Electric Koolade Acid Test and became a huge Ken Kesey fan. 9. Jitterbug Perfume (Tom Robbins) I’m not sure this is really in my top 10 but it happens to be popping in my mind at this time and it was very good. 10. The Razor’s Edge (W. Sommerset Maughn) again, not sure about the top 10 but I can’t think of others offhand and I enjoyed this book a great deal. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/35 "2000-05-03T21:28:49Z")
In no particular order: 1. Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfield’s Broadway 2. Platinum Girl: The Life and Legends fo Jean Harlow 3. Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara Now if I could just remember who wrote them. ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/36 "2000-05-03T21:38:31Z")
ooops,I forgot about: the immoralist by Andre Gide. Also, while I’m at it The Princess Bride was also a great read. ---
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/37 "2000-05-03T22:08:27Z")
_I know who **Spud** wants to be on a desert island with!_ ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2000, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/38 "2000-05-03T22:53:47Z")
Wow, eclectic lists! I thought I was the only one with multiple personalities! Here’s MY faves: 1. The Bone People by Keri Hulme. A beautiful, incredible, powerful, gorgeous, joyful, heartbreaking piece of perfection. I highly recommend it. 2)Emma by Jane Austen. 3)Catcher in the Rye. Salinger. Who doesn’t love this book? 4)Catch 22 by Heller. It amazes me how a book can be horrifying and hilarious all at once. 5)Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The first time I read it I was screaming at the book, “Go, girl! Yeah! Tell that St. John freak where to stick it!” 6)Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Good for raising a little righteous indignation. 7)A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare. 8)The Cartoon History of the Universe by Larry Gonick. Accurate and easy to read, and in my opinion a lot more informative than the goofy history book my 3rd grader uses. 9)The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. All of’em. 10)Watership Down by Richard Adams. It shows how rabbits REALLY are. They’re not cute fluffy little bundles of adorableness. You piss off a rabbit and he’s gonna fuck you up. Oh, I forgot Dracula. And Bastard Out of Carolina. And Farenheit 451. And It. And…somebody please stop me! ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/39 "2000-05-04T00:27:40Z")
George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series – **A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings** , and (coming in October), **A Storm of Swords**. **Blood Dance** and the forthcoming **The Bottoms** by Joe Lansdale. That’s five, I’m not cheating. It gets harder now. **The Stand** Larry McMurtry’s **Lonesome Dove** series – there are four, so that makes 10, but since I was careful not to cheat, McMurtry’s **“Anything for Billy”** is coming along too. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2000, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451/40 "2000-05-04T00:52:27Z")
I don’t know if I could take ONLY 10. I love to read but I’ll try. In no particular order… 1)_Elvenbane_ Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey 2)_Masterharper of Pern_ Anne McCaffrey (I love all the Pern books but that one is my favourite I’ve already read it a few times…) 3)_Anne of Green Gables_ Lucy Maude Montgomery 4)_Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc_ Mark Twain 5)_Restoree_ Anne McCaffrey 6)_Complete works of Shakespeare( or if only one is allowed its a toss up between R&J, Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew)_ 7)_The Horsemasters_ Joan Wolf 8)_Complete works of Edgar Allen Poe_ 9)_Readers Digest World’s Best Fairy Tales Compilation (2 books so sue me)_ 10)_the Shadow Moon/Dawn/Star trilogy which is an extension of the movie Willow_ Yah… Those ones I would drag with me anywhere because I have read them several times each and I always enjoy them. (Well Maybe I should read more of Poe and Shakespeare but the rest I have read completely) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ten-favorite-books/18451.md?page=3)