The Best Books You Have Read

[Ghost of D3D]

As I mentioned in another book-related thread of mine in this particular forum, I had recently picked up again on reading. This has become a kind of understatement as I have really been voraciously gobbling up books over the past 3 months or so (the end of a relationship helped and has to be credited as the catalyst for resumption of this rather good habit I dumped about 6-7 years back; no reason to watch TV or go to the movies anymore since there isn't anyone to do these with!).

I had a library of about 60+ books (all kinds, as long as they are books and not magazines) collected over a period of probably (can't really be sure when I bought/read my first book) 15 years and the past 3 months or so had seen this collection grow by 10 (I've read the first third of that 10th/last). I mention this history so that you guys will more or less understand where I stand (in relation to the question I'm asking below) when it comes to how "well read and informed" I am (4 books a year on average, dsicounting the past 3 months of course, hardly qualifies me as being "well read", I know, but the list below shows a sixth of all the books I have ever read that immediately springs to mind when it comes to "remembering books that I have read",... I'm sure you know what I mean).

The following are the books I rate as my Top Ten and they are in no particular order of importance or rating (surely this really isn't possible). Again, this Top Ten of mine is quite easy for me because I based it on the 60-odd books I bought/own; certainly this can't be as easy for folks with many more books in their collection. Thus :

1984 - George Orwell
The Bourne Ultimatum - Robert Ludlum
The Da Vinci Code (yes!) - Dan Brown
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Father and Son - Larry Brown
Blindsighted - Karin Slaughter
Jurassic Park (yes!.. read this before the film came out) - Michael Crichton
The Stand - Stephen King
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gandhi On Non-Violence - Mohandas Gandhi

I am sure someone will mention the Bible (should it be The Bible?) but, with the exception of the last (which has quite a number of "fictional" elements to it, actually), I'm talking about fiction.

Not that I think the Bible is or isn't fiction (please, let's not raise hell over this statement of mine; I'm Buddhist).

[edit] And yes, I have/finished LOTR a long time before any mention of its movie, and no, it's not one of the greatest read I have had.

Do you think it's possible for some of you to list your Top Ten (as well as the number of books in your collection, to lend a certain relevance) ? No description should be needed as I/we can just check out the reviews.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Erwin Kreyszig Advanced Mathmematical Engineering 9th Edition.
Hey Rev, why aren't you using your other account?

 

[Rune]

Probaply Ken Kesey "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" (much better than the movie) or
Louis Ferdinand Céline "Journey to the end of the night"

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

"Ringworld" - Larry Niven
"Only Forward" - Michael Marshall Smith
"Altered Carbon", "Broken Angels" - Richard Morgan
"Mindstar Rising", "The Nano Flower" - Peter F Hamilton
"Against A Dark Background", "Consider Phleabas" - Iain M Banks
"The Golden", "Life During Wartime" - Lucius Shepherd
"Accelerando". "Iron Sunrise", "Singularity Sky" - Charles Stross
"Absolution Gap", "Revelation Space", "Chasm City", "Redemption Ark" - Alistair Reynolds
"Dune", "Dune Messiah", "Children Of Dune" - Frank Herbert
"The Sky Road", "The Stone Canal", "The Star Fraction", "The Cassini Division" - Ken Macleod
"A Fire Upon The Deep", "Across Realtime" - Vernor Vinge
"Steel Beach" - John Varley
"Snow Crash" - Neal Stephenson
"Time For Bed" - David Baddiel
"A Talent For War" - Jack McDevitt
"The Forever War" - Joe Haldeman

 

[London Geezer]

Mmmm too many....

"The Sparrow" By Mary Doria Russell was amazing, i lost the sequel while reading it and only recently re-purchase it, i'll post about it when i finally finish it.

I found "Deception Point" to be the best out of the Dan Brown books, way better than The Da Vinci Code, and a bit better than Angel & Demons.

The Harry Potter books have a very special place in my heart too.

"Factoring Humanity" and "Calculating God" By Robert J Sawyer were amazing too.

I also absolutely loved "The Stand" By Stephen King, but i read it when i was 13. Very long and very satisfying!

 

[booomups]

mother of storms - John Barnes


i remember that i read that one when I was still small and innocent......
well........ i liked the "hardcore" content and i'll have to read it again some time.

One of the only books i remember by name.


and the books from the "Magic" series..... i guess they were from the card game...... well....... i liked them too.......

and everything of stephen king..........



but Lord of the Rings..... it is simpy too... too nonviolent for mankind.

 

[Gerry]

"Ringworld" - Larry Niven
"Only Forward" - Michael Marshall Smith
"Altered Carbon", "Broken Angels" - Richard Morgan
"Mindstar Rising", "The Nano Flower" - Peter F Hamilton
"Against A Dark Background", "Consider Phleabas" - Iain M Banks
"The Golden", "Life During Wartime" - Lucius Shepherd
"Accelerando". "Iron Sunrise", "Singularity Sky" - Charles Stross
"Absolution Gap", "Revelation Space", "Chasm City", "Redemption Ark" - Alistair Reynolds
"Dune", "Dune Messiah", "Children Of Dune" - Frank Herbert
"The Sky Road", "The Stone Canal", "The Star Fraction", "The Cassini Division" - Ken Macleod
"A Fire Upon The Deep", "Across Realtime" - Vernor Vinge
"Steel Beach" - John Varley
"Snow Crash" - Neal Stephenson
"Time For Bed" - David Baddiel
"A Talent For War" - Jack McDevitt
"The Forever War" - Joe Haldeman

LOL

That reads like the content of my bookcase.

You obviously have good taste.

 

[_xxx_]

The whole work of Castaneda
Walter Tevis - "The man who fell to earth"
Richard Matheson - "I am legend"
W. Faulkner - "Sanctuary"
Tolkien - "Lord of the rings"

...and many others.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett.
Dead Famous by Ben Elton
Lots of other books as well, but those two stand out as books that I could not put down until I finished them.

CC

 

[JBark]

Just about any sci-fi series, I can't stand how short a single book is anymore.

Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons - Damn this is a really, really good series. Probably my all time favorite books. In fact, I'm thinking of reading the series again, for like the 4th time.

Illium/Olympos by Dan Simmons - What a messed up retelling of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but man is it good. Just read the 2nd book recently, and I think I need to read them both again.

Foundation by Asimov - of course, right?

Night's Dawn Series by Peter Hamilton - More like a soap opera in space, really good, but the ending is kinda cheezy.

Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained by Peter Hamilton - Reading the 2nd book right now, but so far it's excellent.

The Gap Series by Stephen Donaldson - Very dark, emphasis on human suffering.

Dark Tower series by Stephen King - I think I need to go through them all again, now that I've finally got all the books.

I've enjoyed the Harry Potter books as well, especially the more recent ones. The first ones were just too "happy" for me.

Edit:
Forgot about this one.

The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe - I really, really want to like this series, but I have such a hard time following Wolfe's writing. The problem is that I love to speed read, but that just doesn't work with his writing style. I really need to read these again and force myself to take it slow.

 

[Geo]

Errm, what are we calling "books"? Those all looked like novels. Non-fiction need not apply?

At least 4k in this house. . .but maybe 1/3 are novels. The rest is history of some fashion or other.

The novels are typically sf&f, tho not all. I tend to think of science fiction as the history of the future. . .and often not all that less accurate than the history of the past.

Heinlein, Zelazny, A.C. Clarke, Steve Brust. . . Delaney, Dick, Niven & Pournelle. . .etc, etc.

Favorite non-fiction, "Miracle at Philadelphia" by Catherine Drinker Bowen. Best book ever about the constiutional convention. And "The Moon's a Balloon" by David Niven, most hilarious non-fiction not written by someone who's trying to be funny (he just naturally is).

 

[MuFu]

Probaply Ken Kesey "One flew over the cuckoo's nest"

Saw the stageplay of this last week in Leicester Square (Christian Slater, Alex Kingston et al). Was pretty good, but it didn't translate to theatre as well as I thought it might. I think they tried to force the gags a bit too much ("what gags?!", I hear you ask). Despite one or two dodgy accents, the cast was excellent however.

 

[Geo]

Euros really ought not to try distinctively American accents, generally speaking. Tho the reverse is often true too. But the single godawfullest I ever heard was London-born Adrian Paul, in episode 1 of the second season of a TV series he was in before Highlander (he joined for season 2). It was "War of the Worlds". The first ep his accent was so godawful that you could see that they'd given up on it at some point in shooting but were stuck for continuity purposes. By ep 2 he wasn't even trying, just regular voice.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

"A Brief History of Time" - Stephen Hawking
"Applied Stress Analysis Of Plastics : An Engineering Approach" - S. I. Krishnamachari
"Numerical Recipes in Pascal : The Art of Scientific Computing" - William H. Press
"Mathematics for Computer Graphics Applications" - Michael Mortensen
"A Wavelet Tour of Signal Processing" - Stephane Mallat

 

[MuFu]

Nothing will ever make up for Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

Awryt deer Mury Popeens!

 

[Geo]

Nothing will ever make up for Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

Awryt deer Mury Popeens!

Hmm. Do explicit comedies count tho? :smile: Well, for offending an entire nation I guess they do.

 

[StefanS]

Euros really ought not to try distinctively American accents, generally speaking. Tho the reverse is often true too.

What about Tim Roth? He sounds pretty American it he wants to. In fact, he's a really genius when it comes to imitating accents.



Anyway, why does every book thread at Beyond3d turns into Sci-Fi book thread. Come on, guys. You can do better. After all the majority of Sci-Fi literature is just pulp fiction. It's sooo clichéd.

Back on topic:
a few suggestions
Eco, Umberto: The Name of the Rose
Tabucchi, Antonio: Pereira Declares: A Testimony
Chandler, Raymond: The Long Goodbye

 

[pcchen]

The best fiction books I've read are Jinyong's wuxia novels. Mind you, I don't read many fiction books.
I don't read much English fictions, but I think Animal Farm is quite amusing. 1984 is too dark to my taste, though. The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy are too long for me.

 

[Simon F]

There have been lots of good fiction recommendations but can I suggest
"Godel, Escher, Bach. An Eternal Golden Braid" as a book to really exercise the grey matter?

The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy are too long for me.

Too long? I wanted it to keep going**.



**The same could not be said for "Wheel of time" series

 

[Mendel]

- The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy trilogy, "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" and of course what little got finished of "The Salmon of Doubt" ... all by Douglas Adams.

Damnit, the one time I find a nice author with funny books and I start to expect more... he has to die