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I would like to hear what are the best books you have read so far this year?
There are so many good ones, and personally, I find it hard to put just a few, but I would love to hear all your favourite reads for 2005!:)
The Best books of 2005:What are your favourite books you have read this year?...............
Some of my favorites that I have read this year are Narcissus and Goldmund,Light in August,Barrabus, Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, but the my two favorites I've read this year are The Glass Bead Game and Samuel Beckett's trilogy:Molloy,Malone Dies, and The Unnamable.
Time travellers wife, The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, The Hyperion Cantos...
there were others but these are the ones I can think of that are definetly 2005 :D
Actually the craze of reading books has gripped me this year thats why my favourite books are those which i read this year specially Mill on the floss, Wuhtering Heights, Bridge to Terabithia, Vanity Fair and Pride and Prejusdist. (on some places I did not like it but it was good)
This year I have not done so much readings. The best ones are: 'A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' by Joyce, 'The Day after Tomorrow' by Allan Folson, 'A Farewell to Arms' by Hemingway.
Yikes, difficult to say . . .
Fiction books: Anna Karenina and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Middlemarch by George Eliot, The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence, The Black Sheep by Honoré de Balzac, Diary Of A Dope Fiend by Aleister Crowley, and, what I read now, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I can see as one of my favorite books of the year (if not one of my favorites of all time).
Non-fiction books: The Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre, Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson, Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant, and Sex, Time, and Power and Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain.
As for poetry, the list would extend too far.
My favourite reads for this year, so far, were:
Girl with a Pearl Earring-Tracy Chevalier
The Age of Innocence-Edith Wharton
Frenchman's Creek-Daphne DuMaurier
Rebecca-Daphne DuMaurier
The Ghost Writer-John Harwood
The Enchanted April-Elizabeth Von Arnim
House of the Seven Gables-Nathaniel Hawthorne
Where Angels Fear to Tread-E.M Forster
And all my usually beloved classics, by the 19th century Brits!
Tamsin - Peter S. Beagle
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
Amber Chronicles - Roger Zealzny
My Antonia - Willa Cather
Circle of Friends - Maeve Binchy
The Giver - Louis Lowry
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
Bridge to Terebithia - Katherine Patterson
I have to say that Sons and Lovers is one of the best books I have read so far this year.
Bless your heart, sub!Quote:
Originally Posted by subterranean
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence I would have to call one of my favorite novels of all time!
This calls for a dancing banana - :banana:
Sons and Lovers was an interesting book. I loved the 'son' parts but the 'lover' parts bored me to tears. I am thinking of giving the 'lover' parts a retry since I read the book nearly three years ago and my tastes have evolved a great deal over that time.
Favourite books of the year? Hmmm......there's been too many!
Off the top of my head
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
A Passage to India - EM Forster
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Jewel in the Crown - Paul Scott
Life Isn't all Ha Ha Hee Hee - Meera Syal
Birdsons - Sebastien Faulkes
Poems of Christina Rossetti
Why, thank you Mono. Indeed it's a great novel :nod:
Quote:
Originally Posted by mono
A Passage to India
Life of Pi
Complete Novels of Carson McCullars. My favorite was The Clock Without Hands followed closely by The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Here's My Top 10 so far in no particular order; Henry James A Life by Leon Edel;Author, Author by David Lodge;The Turn of the Screw by Henry James;The Finishing School by Muriel Spark; As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann; Havoc,In Its Third Year by Ronan Bennet; Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem;The Child That Books Built by Francis Spufford; Ghostwritten by David Mitchell and Last but definitely not least,Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which deserves to win the Man Booker prize.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- JK Rowling
Wuthering Heights- Bronte
The Da Vinci Code- Dan Brown
I have seen the movie, yet have not read the bookQuote:
Originally Posted by Natalie
I agree that this is a very fine book :nod:Quote:
Life of Pi
Tomas Man - "The Magical Mountain", I don´t know if it is really called like that in Englisch, cause I red t in German, and it is called "Der Zauberberg".
German is by the way not my mother tongue.
Best books read this year were mostly by Pearl S. Buck.
Dragon Seed (sequel not as great)
Peony
Pavilion of Women
The Living Reed
Also
My Indian family - by Hilda Wernher (simply wonderful)
Zanna's Gift: A Life in Christmases - by Scott Richards (short, sweet, teary)
from the earth to the moon by jules verne, such a humourous book and the description so vivid!
as well,frankenstein by mary shelley, a fantastic gothic novel with great intensity
and lastly,the hobbit by tolkien. bilbo is such an amusing and funny character!
Dracula, Bram Stoker; Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte; The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown; The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, all by H.G. Wells; The Lost World, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; hmmm..... hopefully lots more to come..
Thanks,
April
My Friend Leonard-James Frey
Tropic of Cancer-Henry Miller
? - Life of Pi
Mark Haddon - The curious incident of the dog during night-time
Jules Verne - Journey to the center of the Earth
H.G. Wells - Time Machine
much to my surprise...
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
I am in love with Jonathan Livingston Seagull (R. Bach), To Kill a Mockingbird (H. Lee) and The Great Gatsby (F.S. Fitzgerald). Lol. http://clicksmilies.com/s0105/liebe/love-smiley-019.gif
I am on a Murakami kick: Sputnik Sweetheart and Kafka On the Shore top my list from my recent reads. I also enjoyed Wilkie Collins' "The Woman in White." It is one of those fantastic, page-turning mysteries. Ishiguro's latest "Never Let Me Go" was probably one of the most moving books I have ever read. Other enjoyable recent reads:
Ian McEwan's "Saturday" (Good but not of the stature of "Atonement")
Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things" (A disturbing look at a dysfunctional relationship)
Jonathan Coe's "House of Sleep" (A very strange book about sleep disorders and odd coincidences)
Middlesex by Eugenides
Wise Blood by O'Connor
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood
J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye never made the list, Scher? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Jack, I've been wanting to read this book, yet still can't get a copy :(.
How is it in your opinion? I mean I know you considered as one of the best books you ever read, but maybe you can share some of the high points..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack_Aubrey
Nope. Although it is a good book, I was not very moved by it personally.Quote:
Originally Posted by mono
Sorry to disappoint! :D
The Giver by Lois Lowry scared me and also gave me hope that through one person others can have a chance at life.The Perilous Land by Tolkien was enchanting and touched deep into my heart. I loved leaf by niggle.
"faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for though not yet beheld" Holy Scripture.
Regarding my previous post:
Now I have a copy in my hand and I'll read it fast and see whether it can be included in my list for this year :)Quote:
Jack, I've been wanting to read this book, yet still can't get a copy
Fates Worse Than Death - Kurt Vonnegut
He says what he thinks, and describes his father so sweetly.
By the way, anyone care to share about F Scot Fiztgerald (sp)? I know that some of his works are included in the list of best novel ever written.
Hands down I'd have to say Anna Karenina. I can't even remember what all I've read this year though! And that was my fifth read thru on AK, I think everyone should read it!
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Old man and the sea,
As i lay dying,
huck finn,
the sound and the fury,
diary of anne frank, (surprisingly)
the things they carried,
hocus pocus,
slaughter house 5,
ham on rye
and innumerous short stories.
I'm going to have to add to the two I posted about earlier as I've read more since and they would def be included on my "best books I've read this year" list:
Girl With a Pearl Earring
The Traveler
Both fantastic books - I had seen the movie for Girl with a Pearl Earring and still thoroughly enjoyed the book - outstanding - and The Traveler just deals with such interesting privacy issues that it's a stand-out to me.
Just had to add those!
:idea: