What are your top five books?

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Aaron

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I thought this would be a fun topic in light of the posts about top 5 tobaccos and whatnot. So lets hear it. What are your top five favorite books currently?

Mine would be:


Sherlock Holmes volume 1
Sherlock Holmes volume 2 (yeah I know, I know)
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Master and Margarita
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
 
The Stranger - Albert Camus
Trout Bum - John Geirach
Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck
The Longest Silence - Thomas McGuane
Mere Christianity - CS Lewis

Currently reading The Hobbit by Tolkein, a very fun little book 8)
 
Puff, The Stranger is a really good book. I enjoyed reading not too long ago. 8)
 
I love Camus' writing style. Grab a copy of Resistance, Rebellion and Death, a fascinating read!
 
Richard Brautigan - The Hawkline Monster - A gothic Western
Neal Stephenson - The Big U, Cryptonomicon, (OK anything by him)
John Barth - Letters
Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog (ok everything she has written too)
Douglas Montgomery - Response Surface Methodology
:study:

It might actually be easier to list the top 50 or 100
 
Aaron":c4pcdv7p said:
I thought this would be a fun topic in light of the posts about top 5 tobaccos and whatnot. So lets hear it. What are your top five favorite books currently?

Mine would be:



The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
Aaron, that is an outstanding book!!!
 
Great thread, Aaron!

Loneseome Traveler -- Jack Kerouac
Trout Fishing in America -- Richard Brautigan (an often overlooked American CLASSIC, IMHO)
The Hobbit -- JRR Tolkien
The River Why -- David James Duncan
The Sea Wolf -- Jack London


(In no particular order)
 
The dreaded top 5. I reserve the right to change this list on a whim.

1. Hemingway--The Sun Also Rises
2. Denis Johnson--Already Dead: A California Gothic
3. Don DeLillo--The Names
4. Leonard Cohen--Beautiful Losers
5. Henry Miller--Tropic of Cancer
 
Huckleberry Finn - It's a deeper social commentary than most people realize.

The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Lonesome Dove - McMurtry

Leaving Cheyenne - McMurtry

Careless Whispers - Carlton Stowers

Stan41
 
Fantastic thread Aaron!

1. The Lord of The Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien (I have read this every winter for the past 30 years, worn out about 5 paperback sets) For Tolkien enthusiasts The Encyclopedia of Arda
2. The Treasured Writing of Kahlil Gibran: Kahlil Gibran
3. The Road: Cormac McCarthy (any thing by him will do)
4. The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck
5. The Year of the French: Thomas Flanagan

Too many books for even 10 lifetimes! I hope there are well lit libraries in 'the next place'.
 
Wow, really tough question. I'll see if I can't pick 5 of my favorites without too much mental contortion. Of course, this is subject to change :)

1. The Bible
2. The Elegant Universe, Brian Green
3. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4. The Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis (yes, I'm counting them as a 1)
5. The Complete Sherlock Holmes (I know, cheating)

-Andrew
 
In no particular order:

1.The Lord of The Rings- J.R.R. Tolkein
2.No Great Mischeif- Alistar McLeod
3.Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut
4.Rant- Chuck Pahalniuk
5.Ham On Rye- Charles Bukowski

as for series
The Dark Tower, Chronicles of Narnia, The Drizzt stories by R.A. Salvatore and many more
 
Five favorites of many:

Goodbye to a River - John Graves
John MacNab - John Buchan
A Hunter's Fireside Book - Gene Hill
Fishless Days, Angling Nights - Sparse Grey Hackle (Alfred Miller)
PrairyErth - William Least Heat Moon
 
Good lists! :lol:

1. Stephen King - The Green Mile
2. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
3. Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
4. Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (pretty much anything by HST could easily make the list!)
5. Iain Gately - Tobacco

and so, so, so many more...
 
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson (well, anything by Gibson)
Le Morte D'Arthur - Thomas Mallory (tough to get through - it's a project of mine)
Moby Dick - Herman Melville (even tougher to get through - another project that's failed several times)
Iron Coffins - Herbert Werner
 
I agree with the endorsements of The Master and Margarita, Brautigan, Bukowski, Hemingway, Vonnegut and Doyle.

Choosing a favorite five is all but impossible. Imagine being dropped in the Chicago Art Institute and told, "Pick the best five artworks here." Still, I'll name some of my perennial favorites:

1) To Kill a Mockingbird. IMHO, no one needs to try to write the Great American Novel. It's already been done. How much do I love this book, you ask? Well, my daughter's name is Scout. (She has a more traditional first name as well, but Scout is one of the names on the birth certificate, and we've never called her anything else.)

2) The Fountainhead. Yes, Rand's work is lacking subtlety in the same way a jackhammer to the forehead lacks subtlety. No, she couldn't read philosophy. Yes, her own philosophy is riddled with flaws. But the novel still stands as one of the best paeans to individualism, excellence, and passion ever written.

3) Ecclesiastes. I'm not a religious guy, but some works are genuinely timeless. The gorgeous prose and universal observations in that work make it one of the best things written by anyone, ever.

4) Locke- Second Treatise on Civil Government. This is not a beach read, but the foundations of liberal democracy are all here.

5) Plato-Pheadras. Too much to cover in one paragraph. Just read.
 
In no particular order

1. For whom the bell tolls, Hemingway
2. Memory, sorrow and thorn trilogy, Tad Williams
3. The chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander; from my younger days
4. The old man and the sea, Hemingway
5. The Stand, Stephen King
 
My Top 5 novels......

To Kill a Mockingbird
Where the Red Fern Grows
Catcher in the Rye
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Caine Mutiny

The Godfather and anything by Mark twain would be right up there also.
 
The Master and Marguerita, Bulgakov, I can agree with
Gates of Fire, Stephen Pressfield, as a convicing historical
My Father's Tears, John Updike, for a farewell short story collection
Snow, Orhan Pamuk, for international flavor from a recent Nobel Winner
Gone Over, Chacko & Kulcsar, as the recent best and best spy novel I've read since le Carre's early stuff.
 
1. Lord of the Rings (including The Hobbit) - Tolkein
2. The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens
3. A Civil War Narrative - Shelby Foote
4. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
5. The Sea Wolf - Jack London
 
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