What's your favorite book? Why?

[Radio Reevesy]

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. It's a short book, barely 3 hours reading, and its claim-to-fame is it's written as a log/diary by a boy with Aspergers' syndrome and is in a completely different writing style to anything you've read before. It makes for truly easy reading and I've recommended it to many people who aren't into reading at all or can't focus on a book, and it has always recieved high praise. Also it presents a fantastically analytical point-of-view of the world.

And The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy of course, my favourite was the 4th book. Great series.

 

[iKitsune]

I like Revolutionary Road by Yates. I loved the irony of Frank's dilemma - thinking he is better than everyone else yet he ends up a copy of his Father in the same promotion luncheon. I also admired Yates' overly detailed but beautiful style - t'was a revelation.

 

[Lockeness]

I would have to say that I have many favourite books many of which have been listed here. However I love the hunchback of Notre Dame because of its sly humor, interesting characters, philosophy and funny 18th century refrences that can be easily missed but are very funny. Victor hugo has written many great books and his ability to bring charaters together is amazing. I have many other favourite books such as anything by Chriton and LoTR. Orwell's books are also extremely good.

 

[danana]

vonnegut is just delightful. i have a particular affinity for his short story collection, welcome to the monkey house.

I did my 10th grade author project on Vonnegut, and of everything I read, I also especially enjoyed his short stories in Welcome to the Monkey House. I actually ended up doing a philosophical analysis of one of them, "Unready to Wear" (about being able to change bodies as if they're clothes) for IB Philosophy, although unfortunately it was mostly just a philosophy paper about dualism. I also enjoyed the novels I read (Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions) but I think after reading them all one after the other the fatalism got a bit tiring.

Another one of my favorites was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It had a lot of social commentary without ever feeling like it, since it was also really humorous.

 

[Playa]

The only type of reading I enjoy is short stories, and i recently read one called The Bodysurfers. The way the stories intertwined was really cool and i would thoroughly recommend it.

 

[yond]

I enjoy a mystery here and there if i have to read. Nelson Demille is a great author for them.

 

[TheMantyke]

Fahrenheit 451 is my favorite book ever. Not only was the story thought provoking and deep, but it was the first book I read that really got me into reading.

That said, I've also enjoyed Lord of the Flies, Watchmen, The Fountainhead, and The Hero With A Thousand Faces.

 

[tennisace]

Catch-22 - Heller
Brave New World - Huxley
Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
Hitchhiker's Guide - Adams (The first one was the best imo, but I love them all)
Life of Pi - Martel

The only one I would consider a "favorite" other than the ones in the list (which have already been mentioned many times in this thread) is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I absolutely love the way he told the story, and the roaring 20's just fascinates me for some reason. The disconnected narrator was pretty cool too, since the world was just rushing by past him and it essentially boiled down to almost no bias on his part.

 

[Umbreon Dan]

1984, king lear, to kill a mockingbird, tale of two cities, the power of one, a brief history of time, and the art of war always top my list. of those, the art of war is the only one that hasn't been mentioned in this thread already, but i think everyone should definitely read it at least once; it taught me loads. i actually use stuff i learned from it in pokemon battles.

in general i like shakespeare as well as douglas adams for chuckles. i've also read more than my share of chess books; my favourite was probably the life and games of mikhail tal or how to reassess your chess (silman)

edit: j'ai aimé aussi le petit prince, l'étranger par albert camus, et vingt mille lieues sous les mers mais pas en anglais :(

 

[Playa]

^Umbreon Dan you have just rattled off a bunch of books that were required reading for school. So therefore I associate them with negativity haha.

 

[Uchiha_Madara]

Gotta say the only book i ever really enjoyed is Open by andre Agassi

I'm a tennis freak, so that should explain it. I finished it faster than ive ever finished any book longer than 120 pages, on my own time...over xbox!

 

[Double Electric]

I definitely agree with Fahrenheit 451.

Also, has anyone read Exupery's The Little Prince? Remember the picture of the hat?

 

[Sy123]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
It is epic, because it lets you jump into a new world of magic and trickery. It has a great plot, and it requires a gret deal of imagination, if you havent watched the movie.
Instead of the loveydovey crap in the 6th book, we have a mixture of action, magic, sacrifice, teamwork, frienship. And to top it all off we actually do have love, in a book for me, love is essential, but not too much
Which is exactly what Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire does

 

[bearsfan092]

The thing about books (and even other things like music, movies, etc.) is that declaring an absolute favorite is nigh impossible. I do have a selection of books that I rather like, in no particular order:

1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand- No, I generally don't agree with Ayn Rand's Objectivism. All the same, it's interesting to hear the arguments presented in an intriguing plot, and I rather liked some of the characters, despite their impossible personalities.

2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky- I just finished this one, so I gotta let it digest a bit. Again, the characters win the day here. The characters are multi-layered: You won't generally be able to describe them with a single-adjective. I haven't read much of Dostoevsky, but I hear he likes to make his character's behaviors self-contradictory. He really has achieved that with odd characters like Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov.

3. The Lord of the Rings books- I think there is a degree of nostalgia involved here, but whatever. I saw the movies when I was in the 4th-5th grade or something, and proceeded to read the books in the year following that. Tolkien's universe is pretty immersive, even if I found it slightly tedious at points.

Yeah, typical English class books really. I really need to go out and get my own taste...

 

[Adm. Empoleon]

How Life Imitates Chess by Garry Kasparov is a book that I love and recommend to all chess players. Its kinda like a guide (to me) about choices in life.

Harry Potter series by none other that J.K Rowling are my favorite books of all time. Except for the 6th one.

 

[Sy123]

Harry Potter series by none other that J.K Rowling are my favorite books of all time. Except for the 6th one.

Hear Hear! :)
I also agree about how they are all good, except the 6th one ;)

 

[Lelouch]

My favourite individual book is "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", by Susanna Clarke. It's written in an imitation of the writing style popular at the time, not only the dialogue and so on but the (abundant and extremely in-depth) footnotes.

It builds an entire alternative history of England as it would have been if magic, fairies and so on played a role in the world, all through footnotes and characters' off-hand references.

Mainly, though, it deals with "present-day" England (during the Napoleonic wars), and in that time magic had faded from England and was no longer practiced; only studied - "theoretical magicians"; scholars and historians both but certainly not practical magicians.

Eventually we meet a practical magician in Mr Norrell, and from there events unfold - his entering London high society, his services to the government in fighting the French, etc.

Once that's established, Mr Norrell takes an apprentice, the titular Jonathan Strange, and from there on the novel is about the different outlooks on magic of the magicians. Mr Norrell wants to keep it an elite tool in the service of the government, as respectable as the law or medicine, subject to oversight and heavily controlled (preferably by himself) and takes a lot of persuading to accept Strange as his apprentice. On the other hand, Strange represents the chaos of English magic: summoning and working with fairies, going mad and taking up residence in a tower surrounded by eternal night and the freedom for everyone to have access to magic.

Between all that, there's also the story of a black servant to Sir Walter Pole who finds himself afflicted with the affection of a quite mad fairy, and that fairy's own relationship to the two English magicians.

I realize I'm rambling and not making the book very attractive, but everyone should read this. It's impossible to classify as merely "fantasy", "historical fiction" or anything else. Doubly recommended for English readers, especially those who enjoy classical English fiction.

In-universe reaction to the publication of this book from the two magicians:
http://www.jonathanstrange.com/copy.asp?s=2&id=11
http://www.jonathanstrange.com/copy.asp?s=2&id=12

 

[Umbreon Dan]

i own jonathan strange and mr norrell but i've never opened it o_ o

i'll take a look this summer, thanks.

 

[E=mc^2]

Lord of the rings - a classic
Hamlet - I'm probably the only few who like Hamlet >.>

Anyone read Wide Sargasso Sea? It's the MOST annoying literature book i have studied. and boring too

 

[Sy123]

How about Tommorow When the War Began
I.HATE.THAT.BOOK
We studied it last year, and I nearly failed the exam because of it. Luckily my poetry marks boosted it up ;)

 

[MrIndigo]

I actually quite liked that book, Tomorrow When The War Began. When I was in school, we had a task whereby we had to make a set of worksheets that a primary school or young high school class could use, and then make a website about it and put it online. I think ours has expired now, but we did a pretty good job on it as I recall.

I didn't read much of the rest of the series, because the genre isn't really my thing, but what I did like was the fact that while it was an Australian book, it wasn't trying to sell itself on it's Australian-ness. That's a problem I have with lots of the Australian art sectors; there's a lot of Australian films that think that they are good because they are Australian and set in Australia, instead of being an outright good film that is set in Australia (Wolf Creek, for example, is a movie set in Australia that doesn't actually need to be Australia to accomplish its goal; any remote location would do).

And I found that TWTWB did quite well with that. The fact that it was in Australia didn't really matter; it could have been anywhere, any country town, and the message and the story still would have been effective.

 

[Sy123]

Lol, I guess I havent read too many novels

Harry Potter- Read the series about 10 times (and still counting) So yeah, I love it

Matthew Reilly's Seven Ancient Wonders- I actually had doubts about this book, but it is actually pretty good

Tommorow When The War Began- As I said, I hate this book the reason I didnt like it, is because unfortunately doesnt make sense, and that nonsense is not a good story (With Respest to the Author). Sure Harry Potter is all nonsense but I like it as a story and plot, mainly because Harry Potter has a love not lust, and actually has sad things in the story, like sacrifice

Harry Potter-Action Packed, Love and Sacrifice
Tommorow When the War Began- Action Packed, Lust and the fact that pretty much everyone survives somehow, I hate that kind of story (Deus Ex Machina, and too much of it)

 

[MrIndigo]

How do you decide that Harry's feelings for Cho (or Ginny or anyone) were love and not lust? I mean, he didn't even know Cho before he tried to ask her out (lolhormones) and the characters in TWTWB had known each other for years and years and had grown up together.

I mean, it's not impossible to dislike or hate TWTWB by any means, but the love/lust distinction seems pretty a bullshit and artificial way to distinguish.

Also, what do you mean by 'nonsense'? Because I didn't think either HP or TWTWB were nonsensical, so I think we might have different definitions? I found the Matthew Reilly books more nonsensical than either.

EDIT: Actually, an Australian author you might like (I found it quite like HP in a number of ways) is Garth Nix, with the two series "The Old Kingdom" - Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen; and "Keys to the Kingdom" - Mr. Monday, Grim Tuesday, Drowned Wednesday, etc.

 

[TubaKing]

Cosmos by Carl Sagan is my favorite book. It really changed the way I see a lot of things and solidified a lot of things I believed about the universe.

 

[The 1 and Only Lady Gaga]

Harry Potter series, hell yeah I like them.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, for once the main problem for a child is to find a lunch table instead of fighting some oversized supernatural monster.