From what I can remember the most popular books within the last year or so have been Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, William Young's The Shack, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, and the trilogy by Stieg Larsson. For the all time list, I think The Bible and The Qur'an are the top sellers.
So many! There's no way I can pick a favourite out of all the books I've read, but there are several that have stuck with me over the years... What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson The Man Who Turned Into Himself by David Ambrose The Green Mile Series by Stephen King Ice Station by Matthew Reilly Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen Tomorrow, When The War Began (entire Series, plus The Ellie Chronicles) by John Marsden The New Optimum Nutrition Bible by Patrick Holford (non-fiction, pretty much saved my life) Yep, I could go on for a long time here!
Not a bad work of fiction. I read many books that I really enjoyed, hard to tell which one I liked best.. I'll go with 1984 .
Ooh! Alright, you don't have to mummymunt. But I am going too! ...The Bible is not a work of fiction.
Some of my top favourites- 1984, Coming up for air, Keep the aspidistra flying - G Orwell The Island of Doctor Moreau - H.G. Wells East of Eden - J Steinbeck Les Miserables - V Hugo On the beach - N Shute The Mayor of Casterbridge - T Hardy The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - M Twain David Copperfield - C Dickens Jeeves in the offing - P.G. Wodehouse Theatre - W. Somerset Maugham The picture of Dorian Gray - O Wilde Roses on credit - Elsa Triolet Third girl- A Christie
My favorite was "The Dungeon" atttibuted to Joseph Jose Farmer. It takes some getting into, but it is an amazing read.
I loved The Time Machine by H. G. Wells proven by my username. Some other books I loved: Red by Ted Dekker, great book to read if you like parable/alligory(forgot the difference) The Giver by Lois Lowry, she has a way with endings Dekker is currently my favorite living author but will probably change because there's so much to READ and I agree the Bible is not fiction actually it's a beautiful story
Regardless if it is or isn't, can we all refrain from talking about the bible on this thread please. Some people can be easily offended by this sort of thing. I'm beginning to think Ulysses by James Joyce is a strong contender for the title of 'Greatest Novel ever Written'.
1984, for sure. Followed by A Sound of Thunder (it's a short story, but whatever. It's one of my favorite stories ever. period).
Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey. Kesey in his prime, before the electric kool-aid acid test. Great character develop, compelling plot, wonderfully descriptive. Fun use of language.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The most unique work of fiction I've read by some considerable distance. It uses a dual-layered narrative and the most unreliable of unreliable narrators. The physical layout of the book itself changes to reflect the story it's telling, at times, e.g. one chapter has a character lost in a labyrinthine and you have to keep jumping back and forwards to different pages, out of order and the words on the page read 360 degrees rather than just left-to-right. At the start of the book, the narrator, Johnny Truant basically tells us that 50% of the book we're about to read is completely fabricated (in the internal logic of the prose, I mean) but yet because he's not psychologically sound, we can never be sure to believe him. It's just very, very clever and challenging to read at times but equally rewarding. Highly recommend.
Very hard to choose one definitive answer but recent favourites include: Iain Banks, The Bridge; F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (read it before the recent movie); James Kelman, Not Not While the Giro and I'm also enjoying James Joyce's Dubliners at the moment.
I guess my favorite series would be The Gentlemen Bastards Sequence written by Scott Lynch, and of them probably the first book: The Lies of Locke Lamora. Even though the newly released Republic of Thieves really blew my mind. Scott is just a brilliant writer telling an Ocean's Eleven-esque dark fantasy story, so ingeniously presented, enthralling and filled with dark humor it's hard to put down. Other than that I also loved "The Night Watch" books by Sergei Lukyanenko, and The Trial by Kafka.
I have Ulysses sitting on my 'to do' shelf. By all accounts, his finest work and one I've heard referenced often. It is to my eternal shame that I haven't got to it yet. So many books, so little time.
