Mine is *to kill a mockingbird*. I was “forced” to read this for school when i was 14 (i’m now 62). I was the only kid that enjoyed it, and i will be forever grateful to my english teacher for starting me on a lifetime of reading.
I loved that it was written from an 8 y.o girls perspective about racial injustice in the deep south of america,and about her white lawyer father defending a black man for allegedly raping a white woman.
EDIT: thank you to everyone who has responded to my post. So many of you, and so many books for me to check out.
Your responces have reinforced my belief that readers are passionate about their books.
All hail the written word!
by boscolliam
39 Comments
the tin drum
Shogun
Lord of the Rings OR War and Peace, honestly cannot decide help
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I love philosophical scifi.
Hatchet by Gary Paulson. loved the outdoors ever since I was a kid because of it.
“A Christmas Carol”.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. It’s still the best prose I’ve read on a subject difficult to capture fully on paper. And she nails it.
Holes by Loius Sachar. A great story that wraps itself up very nicely, speaks volumes about crime and punishment in the U.S. relative to children in a very understanding and nuanced way, and overall has a well written story and great pacing. The movie was great too.
I keep coming back to The Great Gatsby, but it varies. Gatsby was a novel assigned to me in high school that I didn’t appreciate at the time, as I was too logical and naive and stupid to appreciate the nuance of language and timeless themes that the written word could provide. I had to read it later, after college, to get a true appreciation for its expression of the banality of American excess and universality of yearning for the past when we all know the past is lost forever.
The Pale King and The Brothers Karamazov still beckon me for rereads on occasion as well.
Going Postal. Terry Pratchett is my favourite author, and this was one of his best books, both very funny and entertaining and full of sharp social satire and insights.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series; specifically So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
What a glorious, fun series
Don Quixote. I have read it 4x, once proud to my kids, yes, all 900 pages. It’s a marvel.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, just the best whimsical fantasy book ever
Master and Margarita. It’s still one of my fav books
The Count of Monte Cristo
Catch 22
I love how he is able to rationalize the ridiculously absurd. A poignant parody of the military industrial complex that stands the test of time.
Contact by Carl Sagan
Lonesome Dove, East of Eden, and Bleak House to name a few.
howl’s moving castle! when i started reading it, i never would have imagined i’d love it more than the movie. it’s really entertaining and imaginative. the only thing that made me sad was the fact it wasn’t as romantic as the film, but i’d been set up to expect that, anyway
I’d say Shogun, Name of the Wind and Replay are up there for me.
Replay isn’t as popular but if you haven’t read it, you need to. It’s a great book.
The Name of Rose
I think it’s always going to be Watership Down.
This a tedious book that I do not recommend unabridged but Les Miserables. My grandmother challenged me to read it, write her a report with a promise week in London to see the show and go to museums, then a week in Paris to see the history. Who would say no? I ended up using that story to get into specialized theatre conservatories for college, spent a semester in London. Had amazing career opportunities. All from slogging through a classic. It’s a tough read but so worth it.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I’ve read other great books since finishing the behemoth almost two years ago but I simply cannot find anything else that rivalled the amazement and wonderment I felt when I read JS&MN. Still searching for other books that can give me the same high ever since.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. We were given the choice of choosing one book to analyse in literature class and i couldn´t find any book that draw my interest, so i ask my aunt which one she would recommend, and i choose that one. It is about a firefighter in a dystopian future where the government prohibits books or any form of art, to avoid people from thinking or feeling. Short story, i did the school exposition, i got an A and i discovered one of my all time favorite books.
The best book I was forced to read in school was “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The worst was “Captains Courageous”. Luckily the latter was so bad the teacher even gave up on it and told us to quit reading it.
Frankenstein
East of Eden – Steinbeck
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Read it in high school for the love story. With every reread I love it even more for the depth and development of its characters, the social commentary, and the downright hilarity of Jane Austen’s roasts.
Jane Eyre. Read it three times and named my daughter after her.
Moby Dick. But coming in a close second is Anna Karenina and even though I’m only 90% done with it, and it tends to run on for hours and hours on tangents, Les Miserables. Funny, but all three of those tend to run on for hours and hours on tangents and I just now realized it.
Also, special shout out to Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy – the only book I have ever finished and flipped back to page 1 and started reading again.
The Hobbit. I love the adventure and how it’s paced. It’s the perfect length
The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
I had a very unique experience while reading this book. It is not only a novel, but a way of life!! The writing is so beautiful! It is so poetic or leaves an agreeable mark on the soul!
I love many many books from fantasy to sci-fi to non- fiction. But this one has a unique place in my heart!!
I also loved ” Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.
Really emotional and life inspiring!!
John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”.
Dune. I’ve no words to describe the enjoyment the story produced on me.
Crime and punishment as of now, but I’m currently reading The Brothers Karamazov and am even more fascinated by Dostoyevsky.
The Grapes of Wrath
„It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.“
Opens your eyes about capitalism and also will make you see how history repeats itself. We are still fucking the planet so hard, that what was the promised land in the book for people fleeing an ecological catastrophe is now itself destroyed by endless droughts