Best Books

[antmanb]

I always find it hard to chose favourite books of all time because i can only ever really bring to mind the ones i've read most recently.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was the most amazing book i read in 2006 - it is such a moving tale that made me cry on several occassions.

The Story of the Night by Colm Toibin is also another book that really touched me.

....can't think of any more right now though there are loads.

Ant

 

[Kwanford Wife]

"To Kill A Mockingbird" -- because as far as I'm concerned, everyone just HAS to. I don't know one person who has read this and NOT absolutely loved it. I re-read it myself this past year for the first time in [obscenely high number] years and was just once again blown away.

This so funny, because I am the only person I know who simply doesn't get To Kill a Mockingbird... I've been told by my husband not to say this in public because it makes me look stupid & evil, but I don't like this book. I've even re-read it several times because I'm convinced that I'm simply missing something, but I've never changed my mind...

Toni Morrison is the same for me as To Kill a Mockingbird... Just don't like her stuff...

As for the Bible, I've never read it cover to cover - mainly because I attended Catholic School & was raised Southern Baptist and there is only so much fire & brimstone coupled with guilt that I can take... But my favorite books are found within the Old Testament... the people were so human in both their heroics and failings... a heathen like me can appreciate their struggles, faith, and ultimate spirtiual victories so much better than in the New Testiment... But that probably has more to do with my obsession to put the NT into a historical context vs. a spiritual one... For example, in a historical context Paul's letters were focused on encouraging communities to prepare for the End Times which he thought were imminent vs. my Sunday morning preacher who used Paul's letters as a way of guilting a middle class community into giving more than they could afford to the "building fund"

As for the DaVinci Code (an excellent piece of FICTION...) one thing I will say is that it motivated me to research outside of the accepted tradition... and I've learned a lot about early Christians, the modern structure of the church & all of the beliefs floating around that are in no way supported by Bible... a good example of this would be the reluctance of the religious right to support environmental policy...

Isn't it funny that Jesus was executed in large part because he offended the temple leaders by being too radical & condeming the church greed, but the modern version continues to do the same things but uses Jesus & His teachings as a weapon upon those that Jesus would've embraced?

 

[IS79]

I most certainly will forget some books I really love in my list right now...

I think most of Dostojevskij's work is amazing. I think I loved the Idiot most, but others are great, too.
Then I like Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, it's such a complex work.
Maupassant's Bel Ami is just a masterpiece of literature.
Then I think a great portrait of the German history in the 1930s is Klaus Mann's Mephisto

Beside this classical literature I'd say that the Harry Potter books are really entertaining. And I love to read some biographies as well. Especially those big works about political leaders can be fascinating.

 

[Kwanford Wife]

And I love to read some biographies as well. Especially those big works about political leaders can be fascinating.

Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a great read and example that bios on historical figures don't have to be the common cure for insomnia...

 

[Mathman]

This so funny, because I am the only person I know who simply doesn't get To Kill a Mockingbird... I've even re-read it several times because I'm convinced that I'm simply missing something, but I've never changed my mind...

To me, the key is not to get wrapped up in the social commentary, etc., and instead to read it like a love letter from Harper Lee to her father.

After Mockingbird Harper Lee never wrote another word. She didn't have to. She had said it all.

 

[Ptichka]

For me, two books are my absolute favorites - Bulgakov's Master & Margarita and Rusdie's Satanic Verses.

I think most of Dostojevskij's work is amazing. I think I loved the Idiot most, but others are great, too.
Then I like Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, it's such a complex work. Maupassant's Bel Ami is just a masterpiece of literature.
Then I think a great portrait of the German history in the 1930s is Klaus Mann's Mephisto

Cool list. I like all of your choices except for Maupassant. I used to like him, but the last time I re-read Bel Ami I was quite disappointed.

Toni Morrison is the same for me as To Kill a Mockingbird... Just don't like her stuff...

I do like Toni Morrison a lot, but I just don't get Anne Rice - and her fans tend to be quite vocal. BTW, To Kill A Mockingbird used to be one of my favorite books when I was a teen.

 

[JonnyCoop]

I don't get Anne Rice, either; I think you just have to be on that "wavelength" or whatever it is you want to call it.

re. Toni Morrison -- I can understand why some may not care for her. Much as I love "Paradise" (with both "Tar Baby" and "Song of Solomon" almost on that par IMO) , some of her other stuff, like "Beloved" and "Jazz" -- quite frankly, I just have no clue as to WHAT is going ON about half the time. Symbolism, allegory, etc, etc, all are very well and good, but sometimes she gets a little too muddled for my taste. There's actually parts of that going on in "Paradise" as well (one of the reasons why I started re-reading it more than once), but the overall story just sweeps me in every time.

 

[Kwanford Wife]

To me, the key is not to get wrapped up in the social commentary, etc., and instead to read it like a love letter from Harper Lee to her father.

After Mockingbird Harper Lee never wrote another word. She didn't have to. She had said it all.

Excellent! I've looked at Mockingbird every which way & back again but NEVER from the perspective of a daughter's love letter to her father & all that means... I shall re-read over the weekend and report back. Thanks Mathman... I bet your students love you...

 

[Kwanford Wife]

Ptichka & Johnny ~

I will totally agree that Anne Rice is an aquired taste... I have a theory that most of us Rice fans played Dungens & Dragons as kids and were vastly disappointed about Santa Clause... But, if you ever want to get her another try ~ read the Witching Hour series on the Mayfair Witches... excellent triliogy w/ complex characters and views of good vs. evil. That series will hook you on her talent... the Vampire books are more about her bank account...

 

[Tonichelle]

Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a great read and example that bios on historical figures don't have to be the common cure for insomnia...

Spielberg owns the movie rights and was in pre-production sometime ago when it was put on the back burner due to the 4th Indy movie finally moving forward. At the time Liam Neeson was set to play Lincoln (I don't agree with teh choice, but that's probably because I don't really care for Neeson lol)

just thought I'd share... Spielberg rules all!!!! (oh and go Southern Baptists while i'm all about being random )

 

[Kwanford Wife]

Spielberg owns the movie rights and was in pre-production sometime ago when it was put on the back burner due to the 4th Indy movie finally moving forward. At the time Liam Neeson was set to play Lincoln (I don't agree with teh choice, but that's probably because I don't really care for Neeson lol)

just thought I'd share... Spielberg rules all!!!! (oh and go Southern Baptists while i'm all about being random )

Ok. Now I LOVE Liam but as Abe Lincoln??? Not buying it... and an interesting tidbit about me... I've never watched a single Indy movie... because Harrison Ford is Han Solo and nobody else... I'm sucha brat about somethings...

Yay for Random!!!

 

[show 42]

Having a degree in English Lit, I've read all the standard books assigned during English courses, etc. but have to fall back on three of my favs.......

1. Pride and Prejudice (anything by Jane Austen, for that matter).

2. The Harry Potter books........all of them.

3. The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.....

I know numbers 2 and 3 are children's books, but what can I say? I must be regressing, but I enjoy children or "young adult" books more as I age. My flight from reality, I guess.................... 42

 

[Mathman]

I think most of Dostojevskij's work is amazing. I think I loved the Idiot most, but others are great, too.

Even in translation Dostoevsky (that's the best I can do with trying to spell his name, LOL) is the all-time master of psychological suspense writing (the Brothers K is my fave). His use of language makes you believe that something incredibly profound has just happened, or is about to happen, or -- indeed -- is happening right now before your very eyes.

Unfortunately, for me, after it's over I find myself asking -- hey, wait a minute, did anything happen?

 

[Mathman]

About children's books, the one that had the greatest influence on me was The Land of Oz (sequel to the Wizard of Oz), which I read when I was six. At one point in the story the party of heros splits up, and we followed the adventures of the main group for a while, then switched back to "meanwhile, here's what the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were up to."

But here's the thing. The protagonist (a little boy named Tip) was not there (with the Scarecrow) at the time, so how did he know what the Scarecrow was up to??? I puzzled and puzzled over this and finally had the incredible insight that the protagonist and the all-seeing narrator were two different people! (Later I figured out that the author was yet a third person, and that even the narrator was not always a trustworthy guide.)

This made me look at literature in a whole new way.

 

[Spun Silver]

MM, is that the one with H.T. Wobblebug, T.E. (Thoroughly Educated) - or something like that?

Also, do you remember the guy with the head that was a pumpkin? I have been haunted by that head since my childhood!

"Oswald" is a name in my family and we have always had a thing about those books! My uncle John has a farm in Kansas called "The Land of Oz"!

But it's been a lifetime since I read those books.

 

[Mathman]

Highly Magnified Wogglebug, Thoroughly Educated.

Ah yes, Jack Pumpinhead. His biggest fear thoughout the book was that his head would rot and he would become senile. At the very end of the book the author gives us this comfort: "And they all lived happily ever after, and Jack Pumpinhead's head didn't rot for several years."

But the real distinquishing mark of this book is that it is the only work of children's literature that I know of in which, at the denoument, the hero is castrated.

That is, the little boy "Tip" was really the Princess Ozma, who as an infant had been had been transformed into a boy by the wicked witch. So at the end of the story the good sorceress Glinda takes him into a tent and, um, reverses the transformation.

As the Scarecrow cheerfully exclaimed, "Don't worry about it Tip, you're just the same -- only different!"

 

[JonnyCoop]

Never read "Land of Oz", but "Ozma of Oz" was a total trip -- lunch buckets growing on trees, an entire royal family that had been changed into tacky figurines and Dorothy had to go into this big room FULL of tacky figurines and try to figure out which one was a transformed prince or princess and she only had so much time to do it before she herself got turned into one -- oh, it was just TOO cool. I wish they'd do a movie of that one. Ironically, I can't remember ONE thing about Ozma herself.....

 

[Mathman]

Ironically, I can't remember ONE thing about Ozma herself.....

Well, naturally not. Ozma spent the whole book as an emerald grasshopper in the Gnome King's halls, until the Yellow Hen tried to eat her and the transformation was discovered.

 

[dutchherder]

As an English teacher, I've read LOTS of books, so this will be difficult.

All-time favorite book, hands down, no contest: A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving. My hubby and I were on vacation, and were driving through historic Gettysburg, which I completely ignored because I was reading the last three pages by the map light. It's one of the few books one can both laugh out loud AND cry while reading. The themes are deliciously rich without being pretentious. The characterization is well-crafted to the point that I feel as though I know the characters. Also: you will never look at armadillos the same ever again!

Favorite recent read: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. True story about a girl raised by (very) eccentric parents in punishingly poor Welch, West Virginia. I've never read anything else that so accurately captures the complicated relationship that develops between a child and her parents when the parents are bad parents and the child knows it. She loves them, but she resents them, too.

Other faves:

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan *For reading when you're at the end of your rope with your mother.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde *Hilarious!!
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens *Miss Havisham is the best villain in literature, in my estimation.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel *sexy!
All But My Life *Excellently written Holocaust memoir by Gerda Weissman Klein
19 Steps up the Mountain *True story about the DeBolt family. Bob and Dorothy DeBolt raised 19 children, most of whom were adopted, and most of whom had severe physical disabilities.
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. *His book Teacher Man is good too. Required reading for all teachers-- especially English teachers. Feel free to skip his book 'Tis
To Kill a Mockingbird

A couple of funny fluffy books:

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs. *This guy decides to read the entire Encylopedia Britannica.

The Year of Yes by Maria Dahvana Headley. *For one year, this woman vows to say "yes" to every person who asks her out. Since she lives in NYC and is moderately attractive, this is a *lot* of people.

 

[CzarinaAnya]

But since we are still listing our favorite books, I will put in a plug for the Book of Job. Any book that starts out with

“Satan, what have you been up to lately?”

And Satan replies, “Oh, just going to and fro in the Earth, and walking up and down in it.”

…right there you know you’re in for a good read, long before you get to God’s admonition to man:

“Who are you who darkens counsel with foolish words and no understanding? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the universe? Did you stretch a measuring cord across it or examine its foundations? Was it you who laid its cornerstone, on that Day when the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

(I love it when God gets sarcastic.)

He has a GREAT sense of humor. ::thumbsup: