What's your favorite book?

[greatfool66]

Cryptonomicon is amazing and it defies categorization. Snow Crash was interesting but this one is way better

 

[azazyel]

Originally posted by: ChaoZ
Ender

I'm reading those right now but in all honesty the best series ever is...


The Malazan Book of the Fallen By Steven Erikson


These book are the best ever but they're not easy reads! It took about 300 pages before I started to understand what's going on. I did a review on Amazon for it that might explain what I mean.

Also here's a list of the books I've read in the past 2 years.

http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/users.pl?login=azazyel

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Imp
"Interview with the Vampire" - Anne Rice. Pretty well written, and becomes 10x cooler after having watched the movie.

i read the book first. still loved the flik tho. this series is my fave still. i ant decide which would be my fave out of it however, i like them all.

 

[edro]

"A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking

 

[agentbad]

Originally posted by: Imp
"Interview with the Vampire" - Anne Rice. Pretty well written, and becomes 10x cooler after having watched the movie.

Originally posted by:Wuffsunie
How could you POSSIBLY consider that favorite book?! It was the biggest case of literary blue-balls I've ever had! I got to the ends, and there was no payoff! Zip, zero! Louis has a whole load of nothing as his motivation for the recitation of his life's story by the time the end has rolled around. Really, that's what pisses me off the most about that book. It was an interesting story, sure, but had no motive behind it, at all.

Kind of hard to have closure if you are an immortal and don't have "there can be only one" mentality. Therein lies the point as you are mortal you need an ending since we are taught from a young age that our lives on this earth are not forever.

If you haven't read Enders Game that is my current favorite though it will probably change in a month or so when I find something new. Be warned if you do get this book you won't be able to put it down so get a back up for when you finish it in one stretch.

 

[Tylanner]

mouse and the motorcycle

 

[Gamingphreek]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Mere Christianity (<- Still reading)

-Kevin

 

[pontifex]

I don't know how people pick a favorite anything. there's so much great stuff out there and there's so much I haven't even read or heard about that it might change later on.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee
"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Heinlein

thats what i was gonna post

 

[dennilfloss]

East Of Eden.

 

[jandrews]

Originally posted by: StevenYoo
Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson

followed by

Song of Ice & Fire series by George R.R. Martin

but the series isnt over yet how can you say for sure!

 

[jandrews]

hmm hard to say but I will still have to go with 1984, I have read hundreds of books since I first read it but still none compare to that feeling of dystopia and hopelessness you get when you read that book. Just when you think the main character succeeds and outsmarts his enemy they get him in the end. Also, the most important thing is it shows that even your own mind can be taken from you. When people are imprisoned they often hold on by saying they can take everything but they will never have my mind or my thoughts and this book shows a possibility in which they will own your mind and thoughts which means you own nothing of yourself, quite depressing.

 

[jjones]

While there's some great fiction noted here, I have to go with Tolkien's LotR trilogy. Those books I've read more than any other and continue to be my favorites. Aside from the great story, I think it has much to do with the age I read them (age 14-15), the music I was listening to when I first read them (lots of Yes), and the drugs I was doing (quite a bit of LSD).

My second favorite would be Heinlein's, Time Enough For Love.

 

[Chryso]

A Song of Ice and Fire by Geroge RR Martin.

 

[TecHNooB]

I stayed up late reading Valley of the Horses and Mammoth Hunters... for those of you who can guess why--

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Descartes
The best book I've read in recent years is Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

I just finished this recently. Absolutely fantastic.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Charlottes Web

 

[Deeko]

The Dark Tower series...either Gunslinger or Waste Lands

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee

Originally posted by: shortylickens

Originally posted by: Vic
Heh. Probably not. Heinlein does strike particular western taboo nerves in his later books, and he made made it all too clear that he was doing it on purpose. That tends to piss some people off.
But that was Heinlein's sarcasm. He liked to shove people's noses into their closed-minded societal taboos. Like the way you'd find out at the very end of a book that the hero wasn't white (as in Starship Troopers and the The Cat Who Walks Through Walls).
So if one is offended by the remarkable amount of sex in To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Heinlein's question would have been, what business of yours is it if it's all between consenting adults?

Once again, I'm lost.

Right in the beginning of Starship Troopers he refers to himself as Juan Rico and says he's from Buenos Aires. Only his mother called him by the nickname Johnny. And there was no Carmen Ibanez in the book, it was Carmencita.
The MOVIE made them a couple of white kids, and turned Dizzy Flores into a female and Rico's love interest.

The Cat who walks through walls was great but I honestly dont remember much of it after this many years.

Well I think Vic is right as far his understanding of Heinlein's views about various taboos, but maybe not right in the examples he gives.

Col. Colin Campbell, the hero or The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, was certainly white. This can be inferred from the fact that he receives a replacement foot from Lazarus Long which matches him in all particulars other than the fact that it is obviously from a different person than his other foot. I don't know if Lazarus Long's ethnicity is described in TCWWTW, but it is in Methuselah's Children, where he was described as a white man with an artificial tan. It may not mean much but the cover of the book also has a picture of a white man with an eyepatch (who could only be Col. Campbell) and a woman in a spacesuit (Gwen Novac/Hazel Davis).

Text

Sorry, I missed this and didn't reply earlier.

Juan Rico was from the Philippines. He never says he's from Buenos Aires (that's the movie, in the book the city just gets wiped out while his mother was visiting relatives there), and near the end of the book he reveals that his native language is Tagalog (Filipino).

Colin Campbell/Richard Ames was mullato (white on Lazarus Long's side, black on Uncle Jock's side). The way he was able to tell the difference with the replacement foot was due to the pigment difference (otherwise the feet were said to be identical), and he reveals he has dark skin at the end of the book.

You should read them both again. Don't trust movies and book covers. And BTW, my wife's cat is named Pixel.

 

[timosyy]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I'm going to have to give some of the books mentioned in this thread a read.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: timosyy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I'm going to have to give some of the books mentioned in this thread a read.

I have to say this is the one I have re-read the most.

 

[PepePeru]

the lorax

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Clausewitz "ON WAR"
SUN TZU "THE ART OF WAR"
Machiavelli "THE PRINCE"

Thomas B. Costain "THE BLACK ROSE"
David Webber "HONOR" series.
My pick for all time favorite is the Hornblower series by C. S. Forester

 

[ThePresence]

I can't pick a favorite.
There are too many books I love.

 

[Farang]

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. To me, really nothing compares.