I also like Stefan Zweig
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I also like Stefan Zweig
It's impossible for me to name a favorite book. But, going by which books I have read the most, I'd have to say Gone With the Wind, Pride & Prejudice and The Three Musketeers.
Not far behind would be everything else by Dumas and Jude the Obscure.
I think everyone has his7her favorite. It is more effective than others. More special. I like into the wild which is my favorite
I have about 20 books that are equally my favorites so I'll list them here:
(1) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
(2) The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
(3) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
(4) Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
(5) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
(6) The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
(7) The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
(8) The Histories - Herodotus
(9) Paradise Lost - John Milton
(10) Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
(11) The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
(12) The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
(13) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
(14) Moby Dick - Herman Melville
(15) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
(16) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
(17) Confessions - St. Augustine
(18) A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
(19) Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
(20) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Ok I'll admit I might like some more than others, but I do LOVE all of these books. It's just SOOO hard to pick one! lol
They are all great booksQuote:
Originally Posted by Adolescent09
After all these years, it's still Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
A clichè, I know, but I was very young. It made quite an impression and sill has a certain power over me, not to mention its charm.
The Iliad
Pride and prejudice.
Don Quixote is my favoite novel and at some points I find myself a Don Quuixote, a romantic in fact. I always have been a dreamer and I found my meaning of living in dreams. I know a dream is a dream and most of them never materalize and yet I always love to dream and imagine and fantasize and things are close by do not appeal to me and like this famous hero I always dream of distance things.
I read Doctor Faustus. LOL could you help me out? I was strugglin'. At times it seems to meander without much plot, and the symbolism was startlingly difficult to grasp at times. But near the end it became progressively more fast paced, sardonic, moving, and overall well worth your time. I only read the John E. Woods translation, however. Have any of you noticed any differences in quality between the Porter and Woods translations? I own both versions of The Magic Mountain, and intend on reading them concurrently some time this year, along with Woods's versions of Buddenbrooks and Joseph and his Brothers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Climacus
One question about it: was the depiction of the intellectuals and poets gathering to discuss mass psychology and the need for totalitarian regimes meant to be as bitterly sarcastic as it came off? XD And do you have any idea of what was symbol and what wasn't? I've heard interpretations as different as Leverkuhn's disdain and Zeitblom's kinder feelings for Bavaria symbolizing their respective views on traditional societies to Leverkuhn himself representing the modern homosexual. XDDD I loved the book tho. Mann understood music like few others, and his discussion of Beethoven's fugal works was especially poignant.
As for my favorite novels, I'd say without a doubt that the works I've read by Faulkner and Joyce have been the ones to affect me the most. They pushed me out of my shell and into the adult world. I will be forever grateful for their impact on my philosophy. If I had to choose a favorite book on music, it would be Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise.
Life is quixotic kind of *meeting point of dissociated *ideas, themes and the like and to find a resonant * association or harmony *is a stupid idea. That is why I like this book and the writer has so magnificently plotted the story bringing dissonant ideas strikingly together *
Good book
I really enjoyed The Iron Heel by Jack London. That book really made me think about the differences between the upper and lower classes and how society functions.
Well, I'm still reading but my favourite book so far is one that I read when I was very young - Silas Marner by George Eliot
Good choise.
I Just love Harry Potter series and you know the reason is that this film is just out of imagination.:thumbs_up:
My favorite book, and it's in close competition with many others, is The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis. Im really not quite sure why i like it so much, but i just think theres something great about it.
My favorite book is "The Tempest". This book,all parts are excellent, the author is "William Shakespeare". I had read more and more times.
Uptaded. What can I do to make my thread sticky please help???? :)
When I was a boy I would have found this an easy question - The Hobbit. I read it at least a dozen times. My second favourite would have been easy too - Watership Down. I read that about eight times.
As an adult, the only book I can remember reading more than once was Larry McMurtry's Dead Man's Walk, which was one of the Lonesome Dove series. It was the best of the four in my opinion.
I second this; though I've yet to attempt Finnigan's Wake.Quote:
Originally Posted by hanzklein
I have so many, but Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is up there.
Sherlock Holmes (all of them).
Moby Dick.
Uptadet
The Tale Of Genji. Though I think Ulysses is actually better, somehow I'm more fond of Genji.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lykren
I've long wanted to read Genji.
Did you use the Royall Tyler translation?
I read the Waley translation for the first half, then switched to the Tyler. I infinitely preferred the latter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Menard
I read or tried reading most of the books listed here; my current favorite, tho, because I try to read it once a year, is something called Savannah Blue, by William "Rollerball Murder" Harrison.
I've read Heart of Darkness & Ulysses several times but along w/ the unabridged audiobook. Joyce I think was meant to be heard as much as read. I've read The Tempest & the KJV Holy Bible several times the same way.
Either the Sound and the Fury or Anna Karenina.
One of my favourite fiction books is Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's "The Illuminatus! Trilogy". It's probably not to everyone's taste, and it's hardly sterling prose, but I certainly enjoyed reading it. women sexual health
Hello I'm new, but I'd like to add my favorite books.
Lolita is number one of all time. For me it's the only book I can pick up and open at random, and the prose automatically elevates me. I treat it like the box of Jumanji.
I also have a special relationship with The Kreutzer Sonata, being that I suffer from Othello syndrome. I get Pozdnyshev.
100 Years of Solitude.
Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was pretty amazing.
Anna karenina
ANGELS AND DEMONS and The Alchemist are my all time favourites ever :)
The Complete Sherlock Holmes. I've reread that many more times than any other. I'm getting way too old for anything else to catch up unless I succeed in my plan to live to 206.
The Brothers Karamazov
http://rippleeffects.files.wordpress...s-children.jpg :yesnod:
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is a distant second.
I also very much enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird by Lee
Read it, it is a remarkable work, the character of Genii in particular has at once an ultra modern and timeless feel, much like Achilles. Tyler translation is the way to go. Also Heian aristocratic society is simply fascinating, and the book provides a great introduction to a society which is alien, yet possesses many of the traits of a modern post 1960's society which I previously had thought to be solely modern mores.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Menard
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
Yeah, aside from the literary aspect, I'm also fascinated by the culture of the time and Japanese culture in general so I feel I'll be getting a lot out of it from a literary and historical aspect. Just gotta finish the 30 odd un-started books on my shelf and I think I'll start the 1200+ page trip!
Anyway, as for a favourite book, I think it'd be near impossible to choose one, so I'll do a top 5:
Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass (Pretty much started my love for poetry and haven't looked back since)
Jorge Luis Borges - The Aleph and Other Stories (could have easily been Ficciones or Dreamtigers)
Shakespeare - Julius Caesar (The Shakespeare play that sticks with me the most for whatever reason.)
Collected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke trans. Edward Snow (Utterly stunning)
Samuel Beckett -Waiting for Godot (I find everything in this work. Pathos, humour, wit, tragedy, memorable characters, the sharpest dialogue, wordplay)
Runners up:
Cormac McCarthy - Suttree (Don't have a novel yet, and this would probably be my favourite novel)
Vladimir Nabokov - Pale Fire (I'll eat up anything Nab writes, but this would be the one I'm most impressed with)
Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (probably the poet I come back to the most)
James Joyce - Dubliners (Beautifully written short story cycle, full of wry humour and tender sadness)
Alexander Dumas - Count of Monte Cristo (I know Dumas isn't the greatest writer, but for pure and utter sheer joy whilst reading, this holds a special place in my heart. Also, along with Voltaire, was one of my first entries into the world of Classics and helped me discover even greater authors)
Special mention: The Book Of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. This is already a near all time favourite, the only reason I left it out was that I haven't actually finished yet. Still gotta bit left but it's such an incredibly beautiful book that has moved me in ways very few other works have.