What's your Favorite Book

Bevypoo

Active member
I love to read and am always looking for new material to read. I'm very open minded and read just about any type of book. I'm looking for people to list their favorite books and a short reason why its their favorite.

Ill Start ....

Book: How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie
Reason: I reread this book once a year. I frist read it when I was 18 and now Im 38. It has been a strong backing to my success in my personal and business life. Im not much into the self help motivational books but this one is different when you read it everything just makes complete sense.

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The series

"A Child Called 'It'"
"The Lost Boy"
"A Man Named Dave"

I thought these books were very sad to read, not many books I have read ever got me interested, but these did.
 
Hmmm, not sure I could pick a favourite, I've read thousands.

Maybe something by Heinlein or possibly Niven?

I quite liked Peter F. Hamilton's series too, Stephen Donaldson does some interesting stuff but his Covenant series was way too depressing.

Brian Lumley's Necroscope series was, err different, but it did get way freaky in the last few books. And that's saying something considering the subject matter.

L. Ron Hubbard is just flat out weird - the guy who invented Scientology so he could avoid paying tax on money he earned from his writing.

If you're not a fan of Sci-Fi or fantasy, don't bother checking any of the above out :D
 
"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
"The Caine Mutiny" by Herman Wouk
"Franny and Zooey" by J.D. Salinger

Those are a few that jump to mind, though I'm sure there are others. I tend to like mysteries and true crime, but there are very few real standouts in those genres.
 
Can't name a specific book, but have really enjoyed multiple-reads from;

Michael Crichton (minimal descriptions makes for excellent pace and his technical knowledge and cutting edge subjects were always good value [as were the occasional historical talkes]. Sadly missed by moi.)
Bernard Cornwell (utterly absorbing historical stories - love the Arthurian series, but have read many more and they're all equally enthralling. A definite 'gift' for storytelling.)
Stephen King (what's to say - the most maddest, horrific, but gripping storytelling - enjoyed every one I've read so far. Is he really sane?)
Stephen Fry (the only time I've come across anyone having sex with a horse - a character in 'Hippopotamus' - not Stephen Fry)

There are many others (been an avid reader for years and can't pass up a cheap paperback or the multi-deals at WHSmith ... :)) but I tend not to go into the more obscure realms of literature and use books more for escapism than education or historical research.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

I love my vampire books and this is one of the best as it's fast paced and has gore, sex and of course vampires!

Next would be Memnock the Devil by Anne Rice (again I know)

I love this book as it challenges your idea of heaven and hell and everything in between. And it has vampires lol.
 
Every night we (by we, I mean Tigratrus) read to our kids before bed. They're 8 and 9 now, but we've been doing this since they were babies. Of course, when they were younger it was board books, Dr. Seuss and some of the Golden Books, but as they've grown, we've graduated to longer novels.

Some of their favorites have been the Winnie the Pooh books, the Harry Potter series (of course), the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan plus some of his newer ones - "Lost Hero" and "Red Pyramid", the Fablehaven series, the four-series set of books from Terry Pratchett's Discworld involving Tiffany Aching (the first and best being "Wee Free Men"), and a few others. James reads for 20-30 minutes each night and does a fantastic job with voices (particularly the Scottish brogue of the Nac Mac Feegle).

They also enjoyed a book on CD we listened to on a long drive from the Skullduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy, read by Rupert Degas who has a terrific reading voice.

So, those are fun if you're into fantasy for young adults.

Susan
 
Hmmm, not sure I could pick a favourite, I've read thousands.

Maybe something by Heinlein or possibly Niven?

I quite liked Peter F. Hamilton's series too, Stephen Donaldson does some interesting stuff but his Covenant series was way too depressing.

Brian Lumley's Necroscope series was, err different, but it did get way freaky in the last few books. And that's saying something considering the subject matter.

L. Ron Hubbard is just flat out weird - the guy who invented Scientology so he could avoid paying tax on money he earned from his writing.

If you're not a fan of Sci-Fi or fantasy, don't bother checking any of the above out :D

Some excellent stuff in there. Heinlein was almost always good, same for Niven and Pournelle, Orson Scott Card even Jack Chalker (though he never seemed to be happy unless he was writing about people getting changed into new and bizzare forms).

Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy was amazing, esp since it was the first thing he published IIRC, and it was soooooo freaking huge.

David Brin's "Startide Rising" (first book in the uplift series) was one of those very rare books that actually changed the way I thought for awhile... I kept wanting to phrase things in Trinary! :p

"PHP for Dummies"

:p

I kid, one of my all time favorites is Artemis Fowl. I don't read many books, honestly.

Artemis Fowl is fun... I keep hoping our son will give one a try, but he keeps raiding my tech books instead! :)

Another great series is Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books. Lot of fun, and I think it hold the record for most plot arcs up in the air at the same time (well wheel of time probably wins that, but I find the Dresden books more general fun to read).

Ummm...

Steven Brust's early Vlad Taltoss books are awesome, before both the author and the main character got divorced. Though "Dzur" was a LOT better than other recent installments, almost as good as the first 3 or 4 in the series.

Heck... There's just too dang many good authors/series to list! :)
 
Our daughter is just 7 months old and we too "read" books with her every night :D
Keep it up, Brogan - it makes a HUGE difference. Our son taught himself to read at about 4y0 and our daughter, though slower to pick it up, is a voracious book inhaler, with a tremendous vocabulary and extraordinary imagination.
 
Making nightly reading part of the routine pays off big time down the road, it make so much of a difference in so many different ways... :)

Good on ya Brogan!

An early favorite with our son was "Mr. Brown can moo, can you?" he LOVED the page with Thunder and Lightning, called it the "Boom Boom" part and made me read it repeatedly :).
 
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