What's your favorite book?

[Liv'poolFaninAZ]

Now that I've gotten to learn a bit about all of you by your music, what you do for a living, and what you eat! time to learn wher your heads are at!

My favorite book of all time is the Catcher in the Rye, but I swear i'm not a Psycho.

[usscouse]

Jeez, I've read so many books over the years and they all become favourites for a while. One book stands out though, I even found it on a super sale and bought 6 copies for kids on my soccer team.(The ones that read that is :rolleyes: ) It's an excellent bildungsroman. Now it's their Fav. I'd recomend it to all kids, whatever their ages. I read it some time in my 50's..:rolleyes:

"The Power of One" Brice Courtenay. 1989.

[Twenty26Six]

Jeez, I've read so many books over the years and they all become favourites for a while. One book stands out though, I even found it on a super sale and bought 6 copies for kids on my soccer team.(The ones that read that is :rolleyes: ) It's an excellent bildungsroman. Now it's their Fav. I'd recomend it to all kids, whatever their ages. I read it some time in my 50's..:rolleyes:

"The Power of One" Brice Courtenay. 1989.

If that is what I am thinking of [white child raised in South African apartheid climate] then I've watched that movie more than a few times.


Off the top of my head...
Books I've read [and liked] in the past two months...

Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert [Excellent]
Soul on Ice Eldridge Cleaver [Ok]
Fever Pitch Nick Hornby [Good]

[SiriuslyCold]

Now that I've gotten to learn a bit about all of you by your music, what you do for a living, and what you eat! time to learn wher your heads are at!


insidious psychological profiling! :p :D :D

Can we have more than one favourite?

Non SF
The Prophet - Khalil Gibran (read (http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibtable.html))
Illusions (Adventures of a reluctant messiah) - Richard Bach (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Bach#Illusions:_The_Adventures_of_a_Reluctant_Messiah_.281977.29)
The Tao of Pooh (http://www.spiritsite.com/writing/benhof/) - Benjamin Hoff

SF
Ender's Game (http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/endersgame/endersgame.shtml) - Orson Scott Card
Excession (http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/books/excess.html) - Iain M Banks
Earth - David Brin (sample (http://www.davidbrin.com/earthsample1.html))


Incidentally, anyone on http://www.bookcrossing.com/ ?

[AndSomeAreAngels]

My favorite book that I've read in the last year has been American Tabloid by James Ellroy. It's the first in an historical fiction trilogy (the second being The Cold Six-Thousand and the third as of yet unreleased) about the American political underbelly of the late fifties through early seventies. Tabloid starts in 1958 and ends the day before the JFK assassination and Six-Thousand starts on the day of the assassination.

It's an incredibly engaging book. Ellroy (who wrote L.A. Confidential among many others) is a hawk for research, and it is a very complex, multi-layered novel.

I highly reccomend it to everyone, although it is the essence of a hard-boild crime novel. Some of it is incredibly graphic, disturbing, and very dark. It is really incredible though and a pretty quick read, despite being 750 pages or so.

[ghazi]

Alright here's the MUST READ list according to Ghazi if you're looking to laugh till you piss your pants.

Catch 22- Funniest book ever written. Period.

A Confederacy of Dunces - i laughed so hard while reading this that more than a dozen random people in various airports and planes asked me what the hell i was reading. (Interesting, the author committed suicide having never been published. His mom found the script, got it published and it won a friggin Pulitzer. How weird is that?)

Thank you for Smoking - hysterical book by Christoper Buckley who was George Bush Sr's chief speech writer, and is the son of William F Buckley. his personal politics aside, Buckley rips on everyone and everything, just like we do. This book is about a PR person for the Tobacco industry and his troubles with his life, his career choice and some hilarious situations he gets himself in (like being on Oprah opposite a kid dying of cancer).

[ghazi]

My favorite author, other than Poe, is Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club.

I hate what Fight Club has become to hundreds of thousands of testosterone injected and intellectually stunted people all over the world, but the irony is that Palahniuk actually made this book as a criticism of such people. . of course they'd probably never understand this.

The book, like many of his other books, deals with the struggle of the modern man to find his place, meaning and worth in this society. With no Great War to define us, few nuclear families to raise us, and a barrage of advertising that tells us that our worth is tied to a label, how the fcuk do we rediscover what our essence is.

The book is written in a very swift minimalist style, and yet Palahniuk manages to pack single sentences or phrases with more punch than other writers can squeeze in a chapter. Some scenes will have you talking about them years later.

If you have two hours, read this book and forget what the FIght Club "scene" has become. This book is brilliant.

[Twenty26Six]

My favorite author, other than Poe, is Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club.

I hate what Fight Club has become to hundreds of thousands of testosterone injected and intellectually stunted people all over the world, but the irony is that Palahniuk actually made this book as a criticism of such people. . of course they'd probably never understand this.

The book, like many of his other books, deals with the struggle of the modern man to find his place, meaning and worth in this society. With no Great War to define us, few nuclear families to raise us, and a barrage of advertising that tells us that our worth is tied to a label, how the fcuk do we rediscover what our essence is.

The book is written in a very swift minimalist style, and yet Palahniuk manages to pack single sentences or phrases with more punch than other writers can squeeze in a chapter. Some scenes will have you talking about them years later.

If you have two hours, read this book and forget what the FIght Club "scene" has become. This book is brilliant.

You sold me. Good post.

[usscouse]

If that is what I am thinking of [white child raised in South African apartheid climate] then I've watched that movie more than a few times.This is the one. I tried watching the movie after reading the book and gave up. Apartheid isn't the issue and the story line was so changed.


Off the top of my head...
Books I've read [and liked] in the past two months...

Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert [Excellent]
Soul on Ice Eldridge Cleaver [Ok]
Fever Pitch Nick Hornby [Good]Fever Pitch was a good one.
"High Fidelity" is another of his I like. I even liked the (Hollywood) movie (yes me!) The set was changed to the US but the storyline was well done and the cast exceptional. With John Cusack,Tim Robbins, and Jack Black

[usscouse]

My favorite author, other than Poe, is Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club.

I hate what Fight Club has become to hundreds of thousands of testosterone injected and intellectually stunted people all over the world, but the irony is that Palahniuk actually made this book as a criticism of such people. . of course they'd probably never understand this.

The book, like many of his other books, deals with the struggle of the modern man to find his place, meaning and worth in this society. With no Great War to define us, few nuclear families to raise us, and a barrage of advertising that tells us that our worth is tied to a label, how the fcuk do we rediscover what our essence is.

The book is written in a very swift minimalist style, and yet Palahniuk manages to pack single sentences or phrases with more punch than other writers can squeeze in a chapter. Some scenes will have you talking about them years later.

If you have two hours, read this book and forget what the FIght Club "scene" has become. This book is brilliant.Ya sold me also! I wouldn't go near the movie because of just seeing trailers everywhere. (Punks punch 'em up)

"I can order from the library on line" he said, showing off!

[Twenty26Six]

"High Fidelity" is another of his I like. I even liked the (Hollywood) movie (yes me!) The set was changed to the US but the storyline was well done and the cast exceptional. With John Cusack,Tim Robbins, and Jack Black

It wan't Tim Robbins... it was Susan Sarandon's husband [whose name escapes me atm] who plays the overly eccentric "new b/f".

Movie was good. I especially like the part where he daydreams the guy getting his teeth knocked out by the desk phone. I can't recall how many times upon initially seeing it we stopped the DVD and rewound to see it again. I nearly pissed myself.:D

[usscouse]

It wan't Tim Robbins... it was Susan Sarandon's husband [whose name escapes me atm] who plays the overly eccentric "new b/f".

Movie was good. I especially like the part where he daydreams the guy getting his teeth knocked out by the desk phone. I can't recall how many times upon initially seeing it we stopped the DVD and rewound to see it again. I nearly pissed myself.:D
That "was" great, wasn't it.

Oh, and Susan Sarandon is married to Tim Robbins... Unless you know something the tabloids don't... :)

[Twenty26Six]

That "was" great, wasn't it.

Oh, and Susan Sarandon is married to Tim Robbins... Unless you know something the tabloids don't... :)

Yea, for some reason I am getting a different mental picture for Tim Robbins [keep it G rated people]. I'll stop thread-jacking now. :mad:

[kopiteinkc]

Currently just finished reading Joe McGinnis, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro.

Fascinating, enjoyable read.

And all Liverpool fans should read "Faith of our Fathers"

[Twenty26Six]

And all Liverpool fans should read "Faith of our Fathers"

I'll endorse that... it was a good book.

[kaisermohr]

Not sure I have a favorite but a good book I finished recently was "When I Was Cool (My Life at the Jack Kerouac School)" by Sam Kashner.

It's a memoir about Kashner's time spent with the Beats at the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in the 70's. An hilarious and touching reflection on his time in Boulder with his boyhood idols Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Corso.
Kashner shows up the first year at the school to find he is not only the first student but the only one that year. He becomes their pupil, friend, confidant, and babysitter and finds these literary icons are more frail and human than he had expected. A funny and fast read for anyone interested in the Beat writers.

[liverbird]

Sometimes a great notion
Ken Kesey
the great late twentieth century novel of the American dream

[usscouse]

Sometimes a great notion
Ken Kesey
the great late twentieth century novel of the American dreamIsn't it funny the way books are as subjective as views on life. I've heard so many people say exactly what you said LB. I've even lived in that area and my brother in law is a logger there. But "I" couldn't finish the book!

It's got to be my bad....I'm definitely outvoted on it.

Now Kerseys "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" ........:D

I read that one night in a pup tent somewhere about 12,000ft up in the Sierra Navadas. The flashlight/torch kept jogging off my shoulder when I laughed out aloud.

[wemess0]

I'll echo what USscouse said earlier ... about every time I read a great book, it becomes my favorite book until I read another one.

But if I had to pick just one, I'd say All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.

The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and From Here to Eternity would get honorable mentions.

[usscouse]

Reading for entertainment.... Two authors have kept me going for years, they manage (or one did until he died couple of years ago) to churn out a book a year that I looked forward to. Sure they had a formulae but they still kept you engrossed.

Dick Francis: (The one who died had.) Even though all his stories had a different "Hero" and cast, all his stories involvedthe horse racing scene in England. He was outstanding in character developement..he did good people! Along with an interesting main plot.

Bernard Cornwell. He does historical novels with Richard Sharpe as the central character and follows Wellington in his battles with Napoleon's army. Good history, good yarns, lottsa bood and guts.