Your 5 favourite books

[Bii]

Not sure if this has been posted before, but how about sharing your 5 favourite books? What are they, and why do you like them?

Mine are:

1. The Magic Toyshop - Angela Carter, because there's a kind of dark, magical quality about it, everything's kind of a bit dirty and degraded but within that there is still love, and joy and companionship.
2. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami - this is just strange! It's kind of philosophical, kind of science-fiction, kind of fantasy and kind of mystery/detective novel rolled into one. A work of genius!
3. The Time Traveller's Wife - just about the best love story I've ever read. Makes me cry every time.
4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - I avoiding reading this for years because I found the cover art too disturbing (a line drawing of a pigs face with a tear of blood running down it). One day I plucked up the courage and checked it out and kicked myself afterwards 'cos of what I'd been missing - fool!
5. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - again what a mix! Love story, war, philosophy and adventure rolled into one.

[EitherOr]

1.The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
More like a political manifesto than a novel, it just blew me away the first time I read it. It seemed to articulate everything that I felt at the time, as well as telling a great story. The author is buried in a paupers grave about two miles away from where I live.

The rest, in no real order:

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Courage and unwavering spirit against perpetual obstacles. I barely slept while reading this.
Love on the Dole - Walter Greenwood
More political stuff; love trying to overcome poverty and oppression.
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
Beautiful, complex, and a wonderful read.
Big Deal - Anthony Holden
Out of place compared to the other four, but something I always go back and read every few months. Inspired me in many ways.

[andave_ya]

Dorothy L. Sayers-Gaudy Night
J.R.R. Tolkien-Lord of the Rings trilogy
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle-The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes


My tastes change every couple of months but these are three that I go back to and read time and again.

[kilted exile]

1) Hard Times - Possibly the greatest book I have ever read
2) Le Morte d'Arthur - The tales of my childhood
3) Rob Roy - A brilliant story
4) Less than zero - My favourite book by a modern writer
5) The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 & 3/4 - Incredibly funny.

[ejarg7]

My top 5:
1. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
2. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
4. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie
5. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

[heikemarie]

I can't choose an order but I have:
1. The Great Gatsby [F. Scott Fitzgerald]
2. A Tale of Two Cities [Dickens]
3. To the Lighthouse [Virginia Woolf]
4. Night- Elie Wiesel
5. East of Eden-John Steinbeck

What's funny is I didn't read ejarg7's post until I had typed mine all the way up :)

[THX-1138]

LOTR
1984
Fahrenheit 451
catcher in the rye
the gunslinger

[Moira]

Cannot choose the order
The Magus - Fowles
The Demons - Dostoievsky
Perhaps an island - Michael Houllebeque
Lord of the flies - Golding
Bitter Moon - Pascal Bruckner

Because they made a difference ...... at least in me they did.

[JaneEyre1986]

My top 5:
1. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
2. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
4. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie
5. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler


I like your tastes! Mine are:

1. Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
2. Pride & Prejudice-Jane Austen
3. To Kill A Mockingbird-Harper Lee
4. Gone With the Wind-Margaraet Mitchell
5. Little Women (series)-Louisa May Alcott

Those are in no specific order.

[Virgil]

I like your tastes! Mine are:

1. Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
2. Pride & Prejudice-Jane Austen
3. To Kill A Mockingbird-Harper Lee
4. Gone With the Wind-Margaraet Mitchell
5. Little Women (series)-Louisa May Alcott

Those are in no specific order.

Now how did I know you were going to include Jane Eyre? ;) :p

[AChristieFan]

1. Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Jane Eyre by Charoltte Bronte
3. Sense & Sensiblity by Jane Austen
4. House On The Strand by Daphne Du Maurier
5. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

[JaneEyre1986]

Now how did I know you were going to include Jane Eyre? ;) :p

Gee, I wonder? :p

[toni]

1. Hamlet by The Bard
I read almost all of Shakespeare's plays but Hamlet really stood out and I never tire of it.

2. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Tess' innocence, devotion to Angel Clare and views on life are remarkable. Thomas Hardy is a genius-injecting poetry in his writing which I found quite inspiring.

3. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
I just finished this book today and although I didn't quite like how the novel ends, one can't deny its power. Wharton's detailed description of old new York Society is gripping, and in the middle of it all was the love triangle between Newland Archer-May Welland And Countess Olenska.

4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
I would never read this one ever again (unless paid to do so;) ) but one can't deny Golding's powerful storytelling and imagination.:)

5. The Importance of Being Earnest or any play by Oscar Wilde
:lol: :lol:

[Bysshe]

1. The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
2. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
4. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger
5. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

I recently read Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter and loved it, so I feel tempted to add that to my list, but I don't know what I'd replace it with.

[itumodraccir]

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - Jane Austen
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY - Jane Austen
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - Gaston Leroux
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY - Oscar Wilde
JANE EYRE - Charlotte Bronte

[beat wanderer]

On the Road- Jack Kerouac
Farenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger
Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
A Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole

and the shortlist
Fight Club- Chuck Pahalinuik
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter S Thompson
The Beach- Alex Garland
Slaughterhouse 5- Kurt Vonnegut

[A Snowy Evening]

1. For Whom The Bell Tolls - Hemingway
I read it while still in love at the end of a romance. It was a beautfiul story, tragic and brief, and beautiful. I loved the characters. Robert, guapa, Anselmo, Pilar, even Pablo, because they came alive for me.

2. Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
For the way he tells the story and the innocence of the protagonist.

3. Mountain Interval - Robert Frost
A book of poems, yes, but a book nonetheless! My favorite collection by my favorite poet.

4. A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
I'm a big fan of fantasy and for me this is the best thing going in the genre. Painfully realistic characters and a great story.

5. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
I was just so pleased with myself for finishing the John Galt speech! Haha! No, I'm kidding of course. I did enjoy this book. Ayn Rand's heroes are pillars of virtue and her villains are evil incarnate.

I couldn't think of anything after the first four, so i just tacked on the last one. It's not thread of "top 4" lists.

[ejarg7]

I like your tastes! Mine are:

1. Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
2. Pride & Prejudice-Jane Austen
3. To Kill A Mockingbird-Harper Lee
4. Gone With the Wind-Margaraet Mitchell
5. Little Women (series)-Louisa May Alcott



I haven't read Gone With the Wind, but I love the movie! Maybe I should read the book ... :)


I can't choose an order but I have:
1. The Great Gatsby [F. Scott Fitzgerald]
2. A Tale of Two Cities [Dickens]
3. To the Lighthouse [Virginia Woolf]
4. Night- Elie Wiesel
5. East of Eden-John Steinbeck

What's funny is I didn't read ejarg7's post until I had typed mine all the way up :)

Great choices! :thumbs_up

[Robert Jordan]

Well from the books I've read recently I'd say:
The Sound And The Fury
The Catcher In The Rye
The Idiot
The Tesseract
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

An all time list is just too hard

[bazarov]

1. Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
2. Don Quijote - Cervantes
and then
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Eugene Onegin - Pushkin

[EAP]

The Silmarillion - J. R. R. Tolkien
A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
To Kill a Mockingbird - Haper Lee
Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement*


* - Placeholder.

[snowangel]

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott. Fitzgerald
The Custom of the Country - Edith Wharton
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

[omegaxx]

Surprise surprise, Jane Austen wins the day yet again! :p


My top 4:

1) Journey to the West
It is the story that every kid born in PRC grew up with. For a brief period in my life I thought I was too good for it. Then I realized that I was just a complete a&&hole for ever thinking that. There's a bit of the monkey in all of us.

2) The Iliad
Thou still unravished bride of quietness... To think that someone(s) 3000 years ago could come up with such a powerful and beautiful story is beyond me.

3) Middlemarch
There is no one like George Eliot. One page out of her book contains more insights and wisdom than us mere mortals can pen in a life time. I'm reading Silas Marner now: 10 pages into it and I just wish I could lie prostrate before her gravestone and sing my hymns.

4) The Sound and the Fury
How do you begin to articulate something that cannot be articulated because you have lost it? I have not read any other book that wrings my heart as much as this one.


There are quite a few books competing for top 5 so I think I'll leave the list, incomplete as it is.

[toni]

1. Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
2. Don Quijote - Cervantes
and then
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Eugene Onegin - Pushkin

Hmm... Great Russian Authors, Bazarov.

[Linda La Cagnin]

1. Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
2. Don Quijote - Cervantes
and then
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Eugene Onegin - Pushkin
Those are my favorites too; but what about "The Idiot"?

[bazarov]

Those are my favorites too; but what about "The Idiot"?
If you so insist, you can put it instead of Onegin:D But they wanted only 5, and I could name 55:bawling:

[bazarov]

Hmm... Great Russian Authors, Bazarov.
They are simply the best!

[livelaughlove]

Time Traveller's Wife
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Scarlet Letter
The Great Gatsby

[Matt the Man]

1. Eragon
2. Eragon
3. Eragon
4. Eragon
5. Eldest.


I enjoy Paolini----NOT

[Aiculík]

1. Foucalt's Pendulum (Umberto Eco)
2. Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
3. Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
4. Lord of Flies (William Golding)
5. The Scaffold (Chingiz Aitmatov) / Diary of a Country Priest (Georges Bernanos)

Just finished the last one and it immeditely made its way into my Top 5

[grace86]

These are my favorites right now and are subject to change. In no ranking order:

Crime and Punishment
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit (LOTR will probably be in here too when I finish volumes 2 and 3)
Shadow of the Wind
The Iliad

[Chigurh]

Blood Meridian
Gravity's Rainbow
The Crying of Lot 49
A Farewell to Arms
The Tunnel

[aabbcc]

In no particular order, if I had to limit myself only to five, in this moment:

M.Selimović - "Derviš i smrt" [translated as "The Death and the Dervish", however, the translation simply does not capture that certain tone of the original];
D.Alighieri - "La Divina Commedia";
J.W.Goethe - "Faust";
F.M.Dostoevsky - "The Brothers Karamazov";
W.Shakespeare - "Hamlet" [the only Shakespeare's work I really loved].

Quite a weird little mix, perhaps, but it sums up my taste in literature pretty well.

[whatsername]

Not in order:

Pride And Prejudice-Jane Austen
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince-JK Rowling
Angela's Ashes-Frank McCourt
The Lord Of The Rings-JRR Tolkien
The Horse And His Boy-CS Lewis

[Dante Wodehouse]

Not in any order other than the seperation of the top five from the Hon. Mentions.

The Illiad-Homer
I didn't like the Odyssey, but this was really great.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court-Twain
A really great satire that has a nice, inclusive group of those on the recieving end.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-Doyle
Because they was the first good murder mysteries, that's why!

The Screwtape Letters-C.S. Lewis
Brilliant method of conveying ideas.

The Inferno-Alighieri
Not the best writing, but a genius story and even more genius architecture.

Honorable Mentions-The Brothers Karamazov (very soulful work), Hamlet (Shakespeare gives his best), Jeeves and the Mating Season (never take life too seriously), and Gulliver's Travels (One of the few genuinely creative books ever [The Inferno is on that list too]).

[Bakiryu]

In no particular order except for number one.

1. Ender's Game
2. Twilight
3. the Lord of the rings
4. Pride and prejudice
5. Ender's shadow

[bazarov]

In no particular order, if I had to limit myself only to five, in this moment:

M.Selimović - "Derviš i smrt" [translated as "The Death and the Dervish", however, the translation simply does not capture that certain tone of the original];
D.Alighieri - "La Divina Commedia";
J.W.Goethe - "Faust";
F.M.Dostoevsky - "The Brothers Karamazov";
W.Shakespeare - "Hamlet" [the only Shakespeare's work I really loved].

Quite a weird little mix, perhaps, but it sums up my taste in literature pretty well.

They use term dervish on the west too; it's a Muslims name for chief of monastery. Nice choice! Balkan, I assume...

[aabbcc]

They use term dervish on the west too; it's a Muslims name for chief of monastery. Nice choice! Balkan, I assume...
Perhaps I failed to specify what I meant - by saying that translation did not capture that certain tone of the original, I meant not of the title of the book, but of the entire book regarding its contents and language; I suppose, however, that one could argue that any book is in its essence intranslatable into another language, but I still remained pretty disappointed having come across an English translation of Selimović. It cut my soul like a razor [you seem to love Dostoevsky?] :(

And yes, Balkan... :)
[I apologise for having gone off-topic.]

[bazarov]

Perhaps I failed to specify what I meant - by saying that translation did not capture that certain tone of the original, I meant not of the title of the book, but of the entire book regarding its contents and language; I suppose, however, that one could argue that any book is in its essence intranslatable into another language, but I still remained pretty disappointed having come across an English translation of Selimović. It cut my soul like a razor [you seem to love Dostoevsky?] :(

And yes, Balkan... :)
[I apologise for having gone off-topic.]

Yes, translations are very often quite strange and different from original. Yes, I am big Fyodor fan from Balkanska krčma...:D

[Orual]

This is difficult...let's see:

1) Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis
2) The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3) The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
4) The Once and Future King, T.H. White (Though I don't like it quite as well as the first three, this is the one book makes me feel exceptionally unworthy and want to give up writing forever. Don't really know why.)
5) Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[ForKnowledge]

1) The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
2) Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
3) The Stand (Stephen King)
4) The Gambler (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
5) Hondo (Louis Lamour)

[Dante Wodehouse]

Everyone seems to like Fyoder Dostoyevski.

[Orual]

Everyone seems to like Fyoder Dostoyevski.

Dostoyevsky (or Dostoyevski, or Dostoievski, or Dostoievsky--this part of Russian drives me crazy) was so brilliant in developing and portraying his characters that it's hard not to identify with his writing, I think.

[emitless]

It's hard to pick only 5 books, but here's my list, not in a order:

Mihail Bulgakov - Master and Margarita
Nikolai Gogol - Taras Bulba
Herman Hesse - Steppenwolf
John Steinbeck - To a god unknown
Joseph Heller - Catch 22

[JuniperWoolf]

This is tough...

1. The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
I loved humanity more after I finished this book. It literally changed the way I process information.

2. Call of the Wild - London
It matches my personality. I'm all about the law of club and fang.

3. Watership Down - Adams
Strong, sad, happy and adorable all in one.

4. The Metamorphoses - Ovid
INTENSE.

5. Paradise Lost - Milton
I just really loved the way it was written.

[Barbarous]

no order:
1. Don Quijote-Cervantes
2. The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman-Sterne
3. Gargantua & Pantagruel-Rabelais
4. Finnegans Wake-Joyce
5. Gulliver's Travels-Swift

of course it's subject to change in due time!

[Helga]

in no particular order, and may change in time....


Animal Farm- Orwell

The old man and the ocean-Hemingway

The Collector- Fowles

the Joke- Kundera (or almost anything he has written)

Eugene Onegin- Pushkin

[mal4mac]

As you asked for "books", I mention actual books, and not just "works":

Shakespeare - RSC Complete (Hardback - the greatest book ever, in every respect!)
Tolstoy - Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy (Perennial Classics - Bargain! But would buy the 'more complete' Everyman hardback if buying again. I want more Tolstoy in a nicer format!) (Maude translation)
Dickens - David Copperfield (Oxford, hardback - quite nice, print a bit small, maybe Everyman next time?)
Dante - Divine Comedy (Everyman Hardback - great print & paper, beautiful drawings, notes, fairly inexpensive...) (Mandelbaum translation)
Cervantes - Don Quixote (Vintage paperback - good print, very inexpensive, but should have bought Everyman hardback!) (Grossmann translation)

In summary, I'd recommed buying good hardback versions of these, you'll probably want to read them again, and hope to pass them on...

[Jeremydav]

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Trial by Kafka
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche

[The Comedian]

Okay, here goes:

1. Walden -- Henry Thoreau
2. Desert Solitaire -- Edward Abbey
3. Watchmen -- Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons
4. My Antonia -- Willa Cather
5. Lord of the Rings -- Tolkien

My rationale: these are the books that I want to re-read the minute I finish them.

[grace86]

Hi,

All five books are no doubt very vital and worth reading for the Literature lovers .

Rdgs/ Farah

What five books would you call your favorites? Please share with us! :D



...I looked back at my old post and I find that my favorites have changed...

[Katy North]

Hard to choose, but I'll give it a shot.

Classics:
Crime and Punishment -- Dostoevsky. Probably had the most impact on my psychologically.
The Great Gatsby -- Fitzgerald. Best Writing style. Ever.
Jane Eyre -- Bronte. Both this one and Pride and Prejudice are the best love stories I have ever read.
Pride and Prejudice -- Austen
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Joyce. For me, this book was hard to follow. However, I do know beautiful language when I read it. For that alone, this book hit's number five.

Modern ('cause I can't just keep it at five.)

Kafka on the Shore-- Haruki Murakami. Beautiful, simple, surreal writing style. Reading his books to me, is like looking at a Dali painting set in Japan.
American Gods -- Neil Gaiman. I love the idea of finding ancient gods in odd places all over the United States, and this book definitely delivered.
In the Garden of Iden -- Kage Baker. A wonderful love story that involves androids, time travel, and religious fanaticism.
Speaker for the Dead -- Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game is known as his best work, but this book, I think, is even more incredible. Not only is it a work of fiction, but it asks the philosophical question... what if we meet an alien race whose morality is very different from ours?
Bellwether -- Connie Willis. Wonderful short novel about a scientist researching fads.

[myrna22]

I don't have favorite books, there are so many books I love. I love Heart of Darkness and anything by Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Bowen, Iris Murdoch, or Jane Austen. Also Anna Karenina. I love mysteries by PD James, Ruth Rendell, Dorothy Sayers. I love the Children of Violence work of 5 novels by Doris Lessing: Martha Quest, A Proper Marriage, A Ripple in the Storm, Landlocked, and The Four Gated City. Too many books, not enough time. Too much to love, no favorites.

[thelastmohican]

My 5 faves (in no particular order):

East of Eden
1984
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Of Mice and Men
The Inferno

[Silverblue]

those days it would be :

1) Little Bee by Chris Cleaves

2) The neverending story by Michael Ende

3) The lover by Marguerite Duras

4) It by Stephen King

5) The duchess of Langeais by Balzac

6) A net of jewels by Ellen Gilchrist


sorry for the 6) bu i just cannot resist this book.

[bounty]

maybe I can revive the thread!

1. tom brown's schooldays--Thomas hughes (don't read the first chapter, its terrible!!)
2. watership down--Richard adams
3. mutiny on the bounty--nordoff & hall
4. kidnapped--Robert Louis Stevenson
5. the pathfinder--james fenimore cooper

(hard to pick those latter two, bunches of others are really close and a year from now I might remember them differently)

[Bicycle1711]

These really aren't in any order except the first one which is my all time favorite and will probably never change.
1.The River Why, David James Duncan
2.Around The World In 80 Days, Jules Verne
3.Walden, Thoreau
4.Travels In Alaska, John Muir but really any of his books could be on the list
5.Desert Soltaire, Edward Abbey
And Jack London
There are too many amazing books

[Trevor Gower]

I'm writing this as a sort of, "If I could only have five works for the rest of my life" post.

1) Hamlet
2) Moby Dick
3) King Lear
4) Also sprach Zarathustra (his "attack" works are more important for freeing the mind up, but this is the one where Nietzsche comes to me as a friend)
5) I haven't read War and Peace yet, but suspect that would round out the list. Otherwise, it's likely to be Homer.


If we are counting books rather than works, then I'd take collections of Shakespeare and Nietzsche, plus Harold Bloom's "The Best Poems of the English Language" so I won't have to go without Whitman, Browning, Tennyson, Stevens, etc entirely. That leaves Moby Dick, Homer, and collections of Tolstoy, Conrad, and Emerson to choose from. So far, Moby Dick and Emerson are my favorites out of that last group, but Conrad is catching up quickly and I have faith that Tolstoy will too.

[Diggory Venn]

I will go with one novel each (and a collection of short stories in the case of ACD) from my five favourite authors :-

The Woodlanders - Thomas Hardy
The Warden - Anthony Trollope
Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Shirley - Charlotte Bronte

[Marcus1]

River of Stars - Akiko Yosano
Sound of the Mountain - Yasunari Kawabata
The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
The Sickness Unto Death - Soren Kierkegaard
Phenomenology of Perception - Maurice Merleau-Ponty

[ennison]

This is a Lazarene thread I guess and all the better for that. I don't really have a top five books because they are always being jostled by new discoveries and re-readings. I am delighted and astonished to see someone mentioned Hal Clements Mission of Gravity which I read many years ago and found it full of "hard" science and just enough fiction when I was at a phase that needed that. I recommend it to any late teen science-fiction fan. One book which I reckon I would put in a top five would be The Uttermost Part of the Earth by Bridges. I have recently discovered a brilliant American called Jayne Anne Phillips. Would she knock Nostromo or Voss off their perches in my personal pantheon? Maybe. I unhesitatingly draw attention to her.

[Vota]

The Iliad
War and Peace
The Stars My Destination
Altered Carbon
The Great Conversation - a giant essay about education and its merits

[Carmilla]

Hello everyone!!

The Master of Ballantrae (R. L. Stevenson)
Adam Bede (George Eliot)
Macbeth (The Swan of Avon)
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)

:)

[Poetaster]

The Iliad
The Divine Comedy
The Oresteia
Mason and Dixon
Collected poems of Frost (Library of America)

[Pierre Menard]

Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
Collected Stories of Jorge Luis Borges
Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
Essays - Montaigne

Also in contention:

The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
Waiting for Godot- Samuel Beckett
Dubliners - James Joyce
Suttree - Cormac McCarthy

5 more that are deserving:

Collected Poetry of Rainier Maria Rilke (Trans. Edward Snow)
The Theban Plays - Sophocles
To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
Harmonium - Wallace Stevens

Actually, this is really hard:

Metamorphoses - Ovid
The Iliad - Homer
Lolita - Nabokov
Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer
Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata

And there's probably 10 more that have a claim as well (I've also tried to keep it to one book per author). Sometimes I find this question easy, but other times, after re-familiarising myself with certain works I find it near impossible to clearly choose 5.

[Ishmael]

Middlemarch
Blood Meridian
Absalom, Absalom
The Ambassadors
Moby Dick

[bounty]

Hello everyone!!

The Master of Ballantrae (R. L. Stevenson)
Adam Bede (George Eliot)
Macbeth (The Swan of Avon)
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)

:)

carmilla--have you read some of Stevenson's other famous works?

[Eiseabhal]

Phillips is a notable short story writer Ennison. I notice that theVoice of the oppressed White Man has been banned. What could he have done. By the way if Phillips was a bit more productive she would be more like a candidate for a major accolade than most Drones. But we won't go there again. Like yourself and Pierre I would find it hard to choose just five. But most of the books mentioned in the lists above are very good.

[Carmilla]

Hello bounty!!


carmilla--have you read some of Stevenson's other famous works?

Yes, I have. Here are the books I've read by Stevenson:

The Black Arrow
Kidnapped
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with The Merry Men and other tales
Treasure Island
Prince Otto and the Body Snatcher

:)

[Jackson Richardson]

Bleak House Charles Dickens
Northanger Abbey Jane Austen (although it is being overtaken by Pride and Prejudice, but I don't want to be conventional)
The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Graham (although my alternative children's classic would be Winter Holiday Arthur Ransome)
The Importace of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde
Glass of Blessings Barbara Pym

[bounty]

Hello bounty!!



Yes, I have. Here are the books I've read by Stevenson:

The Black Arrow
Kidnapped
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with The Merry Men and other tales
Treasure Island
Prince Otto and the Body Snatcher

:)

ah, im not familiar with prince otto and the body snatcher, i'll have to keep my eyes peeled.

there's a sequel to kidnapped I can recommend. its called catriona---very different in feel from kidnapped, but I was glad I read it.

[Carmilla]

ah, im not familiar with prince otto and the body snatcher, i'll have to keep my eyes peeled.

there's a sequel to kidnapped I can recommend. its called catriona---very different in feel from kidnapped, but I was glad I read it.

Thanks for the recommendation, though I knew about Catriona already, it's good to know you enjoyed it. :)

[ennison]

That's a very catholic choice Lydgate. I need to try Mitchell. I take it Ubik is Dick's novel. My youngest fellow has been reading a lot of his work recently. I like him myself - just because of his absolutely strange but clever angles on reality

[ajvenigalla]

if I had to pick just five:

1. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

[M3ll155x]

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Beloved by Toni Morrison