r/books discussion

Mine would be Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's about a dystopian Earth of the future, with Earth brawling an alien race. The book is extremely good, and I've read it about 5 times. The movie is coming out this year, I'm so excited ! (And Asa Butterfield is playing the main character). The books also very close to #1 for me would be The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and of course the Harry Potter Series.

There actually hasn't been an all-time favorite book thread yet!

M all time favorites at this point in my life are Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe and both War for the Oaks and Finder by Emma Bull.

Mine would be Needful Things, by Stephen King, tied up with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson. If I only have to choose one though it has to be the former only because I read it first, nostalgia has sink in, and I love horror books.

This is such a tough question to answer.
I have too many "favorites"... Here are a few:
Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood
Reading Lolita in Tehran
A Song of Ice and Fire series
Harry Potter series
World War Z

Oh, I don't know if I can limit myself to one. There are so many that were amazing for different reasons.

King of Thorns, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, American Gods, anything by Joe Abercrombie, and Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West just to name a few. I still have a lot to read and still feel my "read" shelf to be small in number, so hopefully my list of favorites only grows in time.

I can never limit myself to one book, not even one genre. I love them all.

The Time Traveler's WifeHarry Potter and the Goblet of FireThe Secret GardenBoy ProofBrave New WorldThe Awakening One Hundred Years of SolitudeSchindler's List

All are a small sampling of what I love.

These books have made me laugh, made me cry, made me just grow more as a person. I also have a very long to read list and just so many more I could list. Feel free anyone to add me as your friend and compare books! :D

I have far too many to list really, because generally if I don't think a book is awesome I just don't bother finishing it (which is also why my Goodreads average score is 4.08/5.00 because if I don't like it I won't finish it and then don't feel qualified to give it a rating.

Ender's Game and Game Of Thrones are excellent though.

Also Simon Singh's science book series and Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene are very good.

Also is it just me or is the add book/author thing not working properly? :/

Also yeah feel free to add me and compare books!

Almost all of my "favorites" had me saying "Why did I wait so long to read this?"

In no particular order: (this is far from a complete list of favorites)

To Kill a Mockingbird
East of Eden
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
[Add book link feature begins to go buggy at this point in list]
Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

There are about 20 more books that should probably be on this list, but this is a start.

@Jared - Bird by Bird is great. I read it for one of my classes a couple of semesters ago!

All Time Favorite - The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Even though I just read it last month, Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey is instantly one of my favorite books I have read. I mentioned it already in another thread but I couldn't put it down.

The Wind-up bird chronicle by Haruki Murakami as well as his other one Kafka on the Shore are two of my favorite books.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Cloud Atlas, House of Leaves all are up there on the list as well.

1984, The Diary of a Young Girl, And Then There Were None, plus the entire Sherlock Holmes series.

Haha weird, I live near Burgh Island which features in And Then There Were None - it's meant to be a cool place to visit, but I've never been there yet.

I had the entire Sherlock Holmes series printed in one massive book, the text was ridiculously small - they are awesome though. I should try and read Christie as I like other detective stories including Asimov which is basically detective stories with robots so I'd probably enjoy it.

Alex wrote: "Haha weird, I live near Burgh Island which features in And Then There Were None - it's meant to be a cool place to visit, but I've never been there yet.

I had the entire Sherlock Holmes series pri..."

She is the third best-selling author (behind Shakespeare & the Bible), and rightfully so. I think that if you like Sherlock, that you will like Agatha Christie. And Then There Were None is probably the best book that she ever wrote, it does not disappoint. My life goal is to read every book she ever wrote.

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

My two favorite books. I'd have to say I liked 100 Years more, but Augie March actually changed who I am as a person, so i don't think I ever choose between them.

@Will - I have 100 Years of Solitude on my bookshelf but I haven't read it yet. Heard good things about it though!

Never heard of the second one, I'll have to look into it.

@Will @Dallas - I also have 100 Years of Solitude on my bookshelf but haven't read it. I've heard nothing but good things about it, and it showed up in about 5 CSET questions this spring, so I'm probably going to crack it open very soon. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie are high up on my list of authors whose work I hope to become better acquainted with.

@Dallas @Jared - While The Adventures of Augie March is not for everyone, I have not met a single person who did not like 100 Years of Solitude. At first the style can be off putting, but stick with it. I read about 75 pages of it and wasn't really into it. I went away on vacation and brought some other books instead. That was a bad mistake. Something clicked with me while I was away, and all I could do was think about Marquez's book.

Too date it's the only book that I've actually been sad about finishing. I wanted it to keep going so I could stay in the novel's world. You should both definitely read it this summer.

@Will - Have you read anything else by Marquez? I also hear that Love in the Time of Cholera is quite good.

@Michelle - I have a question about The Fault in Our Stars and I'm trying to find a pleasant way of putting it. Does it have universal appeal? The only reviews I've seen involve teenage girls talking about how much they cried as they read it and how it is the single greatest work of literature ever created *emphasis added, but not much.* I want to read it because I've had so many students mention the book (I do observations at a local high school. I read Twilight because they wouldn't stop talking about it a few years ago. I can talk to them about Twilight now, great, but I really had to fight to get through the book), however, I haven't heard much love from men reading the book and I'm curious as to whether you think Green had a target audience in mind when he wrote it. I have a pretty open mind about these things, and will probably read it so I can discuss it with my future students, but I'd love your opinion on the matter.

Actually, others can weigh in too. Have you read anything by John Green? Thoughts?

@ Jared - I read Love in the Time of Cholera a while ago. I remember it was well done, but I don't think I was ready for the book at that time. I hadn't read much other than fantasy stuff then, and I had never loved anyone, so I need to reread it. But that I want to reread it and didn't just write it off means a lot.

I've also read The Fault in Our Stars, and as a 21 male college student, i can attest to its greatness. Its not the greatest book ever or anything, but I think as far as YA goes it will become a classic. I've also heard good things about Looking For Alaska. Don't read Paper Towns though. I got it in a reddit book exchange and felt obligated to read it. It was terrible.

I left a book off my list because I'm forgetful. I need it to put it out there though. It became sort of popular after it came out, and it is non-fiction, which isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it made me change the way I interact with certain people, made me think about society and its pressures in a new way, and made me feel less ashamed about not feeling comfortable in certain situations. I'm talking about Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. If you don't want to commit the time necessary to read the book, look up Susan Cain's TED Talk. It's pretty good. While you're looking at TED Talks look up Sherry Turkle, and watch her latest talk as well. If you're into non-fiction, and you're interested in some of the ways technology is changing us, and you feel a little dizzy and confused when your cell phone isn't touching your body or within a 3 foot radius of your body, then you might want to check out Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. I read it for a class a few years ago and it blew my mind. If I had a favorites list that was strictly non-fiction, the two books from this post would be in the top 5, easily.

I will put myself out there as "that person" who did not like 100 Years of Solitude. I hated it completely, I am sorry to say. I started Love in the Time of Cholera and could not get very far into it.

Always a question that I love to answer, but hate at the same time. When I choose some books, and leave others out, it is almost like the ones not chosen are disappointed, and I turn to them wanting to say..."But I loved reading you. I really did!" And then I am stuck with adding 40 books....

Also very genre dependent, since I have a hard time choosing one book over another in a completely different genre. So here are my "favorites":

Fantasy:
(The Wheel of Time: Boxed Set (Not because it is the most well written. But I grew up with this series. Love it!
The Way of Kings
The Name of the Wind
The Lord of the Rings
The Harry Potter Collection

SciFi:
Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Foundation
The Last Question
Contact

General:
Flowers for Algernon
The Catcher in the Rye
Post Office
The Giver
Lolita (As uncomfortable the subject is, it is amazingly well written.)


Non Fiction:
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children
Outliers: The Story of Success

Hmmm....Sorry...I can't do it. No chance I can limit myself. (Please feel free to ignore my growing wall of favorites :) )