What would be your favorite novel?

Pups · May 29, 2008

and why? also which book have you read that you just couldnt put it down?
and of course the worst book you have ever read, and it was painful just to complete it.

alleycat · May 29, 2008

I couldn't really say what my favorite novel is (one day I might say something by Maugham, one day something by Twain . . .). It's funny though that I don't remember the titles of two of my favorite novels. I read them back when I was young and they were the first "adult length" books I read. One was about a family of foxes told from a young fox's POV, and the other was a book about the Trojan war told from the Trojan's side. I just don't remember the titles. I wish I did.

Inkdaub · May 29, 2008

Lord of the Rings is easily my favorite book and the one I have read the most times by a huge margin.

Kustova's 'The Historian', which in some ways isn't really very good, was oddly unputdownable. Zafon's 'The Shadow of the Wind', which is really very good, was quite unputdownable as well. But I read these books several years ago and I want to name a recent read. Lynch's 'Lies of Locke Lamora' and Rothfus' 'Name of the Wind' were both hard to put down.

The worst books I have ever read were those which I couldn't even force myself to finish(and I can read some awful stuff and quite enjoy it). Twelve Hawks 'The Traveler' comes to mind. I tried to finish that slop at least three times and failed each and every one.

sabo10 · May 29, 2008

When you say "favorite", do you really mean just one?

I have a ton of favourites, although number one would probably be "Catch-22". It's as good as its reputation. I also liked "Trainspotting" because reading it in your head is so much fun. I suppose it's true to say that I like darkly comic works.

I also read a ton of rubbish. If I bought as much as I could read I'd be bankrupt, and the result is I accept any old books that are going. When my workplace was throwing out abandoned books, I took them all. I took a book from my friend that she said was absolute trash (she was right) and couldn't finish.

...Probably the worst (that I finished) was "Cradle And All" from James Patterson. I like thrillers, but the pacing was forced rather than fast. Scenes stopped half-way through so that they could be spread over two chapters that were a page long each. A character was introduced and then disappeared. The virgin/whore dichotomy was elevated to new heights. Teen pregnancy fetishism. Misogyny on a massive scale.

It's my own fault for being all about the free books.

CaroGirl · May 29, 2008

What do you mean "would be"? Under what conditions? Or do you simply mean what IS my favourite novel?

Hmmm. That's tough because comparing the worth of great novels is sometimes like comparing apples and oranges. I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany for a lot of reasons. I also loved A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry). It's definitely one of my all-time favourites.

The book that stands out as impossible to read was Foucault's Pendulum (Eco), not because it was bad but because it was so obscure and arcane I didn't know what the hell was going on.

sheadakota · May 29, 2008

The Lord of the Rings- I was fifteen the first time I read it and have read it at least 15 times since then. I remember feeling that hoplessness Frodo felt in Mordor, and Sam's faithfulness. It was the first time a book drew me in and made me a part of its world.

IBleedWords · May 29, 2008

I know you only asked for one, but...

By a long margin, my favorite book is Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. I also loved Dry and Sellevision, also by Burroughs.

Right behind those is Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible.

Yep, I'm a bestseller junkie, but I don't mind. They're bestsellers for a reason.

Other contemporary favorites include: The Lovely Bones, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

Growing up, my favorites were: The Outsiders, Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War, My Side of the Mountain, Where the Red Fern Grows, Gone with the Wind, The Hounds of the Morrigan, and Little Women, among hundreds of others.

And while I read the whole thing, I had a hard time getting through The Historian. It dragged and dragged. It's one of the only books I've read that I wouldn't consider "good" that I have actually completed.

James81 · May 29, 2008

"A Separate Peace" by John Knowles

I've read this book more probably hundreds of times.

sabo10 · May 29, 2008

CaroGirl said:
The book that stands out as impossible to read was Foucault's Pendulum (Eco), not because it was bad but because it was so obscure and arcane I didn't know what the hell was going on.

Ah... really? I love most of Eco's work, Foucault's Pendulum included. I'm not so keen on his full-on philosophy essays, however.

Nakhlasmoke · May 29, 2008

Tender Is The Night - Fitzgerald.

Just watching as these people tear their lives and other's apart as they slide from their pedestals. I can't tell you how much this book means to me.

C.bronco · May 29, 2008

Just one...
(I've loved a lot of books!)

Watership Down by Richard Adams. I spent the next few weeks on the lookout for rabbits.

tehuti88 · May 29, 2008

I don't know that I have a favorite novel; I don't read much fiction. My favorite books though are "The Manitous," "The Island Of The Anishnaabeg," and "Daily Life Of The Egyptian Gods," as all of them are such wonderful and lifelike retellings of the myths that I like to write about, myself. Anything that can make a subject of interest of mine spring to life, and teach me something I didn't already know, is fantastic in my book.

Worst...? Again I'm not sure of just one. I do recall that I had to read part of "Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance" in high school though, and detested it; it seemed like so much insane babbling to me, and not even entertaining insane babbling at that. Oh, and "The Turn Of The Screw." I'm sorry to whoever likes classics. But James can't seem to just come out and say something already. I actually had to ask the teacher what the heck he was blithering on about; I couldn't tell it was a ghost story!

Oh yes. And anything by Hemingway. I read only one novel of his and that was more than enough. I will never read him again. Run-on sentences and "Dick-And-Jane"-style writing, anyone?

DeleyanLee · May 29, 2008

Favorite Science Fiction: "The Gods Themselves" by Isaac Asimov

Favorite Fantasy: The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gaveriel Kay

Favorite Romance: "Flowers from the Storm" by Laura Kinsale

Favorite Thriller: "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown

Favorite Non-ficion: Ripper Notes magazine

The ultimate rip my eyes from their sockets if I have to read one more word: Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Harper K · May 29, 2008

Mine's The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner. I've read it many times, and I'm sure I'll read it many more. It has a very big place in my life.

My favorite novel in the genre I write (contemporary YA) is Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You.

I have pretty good intuition about books I will and won't like. I've never had the urge to read James Patterson, Dan Brown, or Nicholas Sparks. I'm pretty sure I'd wind up hurling their books across the room. This one time, though, I picked up a book I thought I'd LOVE, and I turned out to be very, very wrong. That book is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. I just loathe it. I won't even begin going into the reasons for that, because every time I do it basically turns into a lecture series.

Phaeal · May 29, 2008

One favorite? Are you nuts?

The following are books I reread constantly, some of them once a year:

The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
Salem's Lot, The Shining, Pet Sematary, Needful Things, Stephen King
The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Franny and Zooey, J. D. Salinger
Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, & Persuasion, Jane Austen
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The First Men on the Moon, The Food of the Gods, The Time Machine, H. G. Wells
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
Dodsworth, Sinclair Lewis
The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Bleak House, Great Expectations, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
The Way We Live Now, the Palliser novels and the Barsetshire novels, Anthony Trollope
1984, George Orwell
Relic, Reliquary, all those Pendergast novels, Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, M. R. James
The Lucia novels, E. F. Benson

The book I struggled through, struggled mightily, was The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James. God, what a loathsome, depressing book. But then James is probably the most brilliantly stultifying writer in history.

Recently I tossed these books after a few paragraphs: The DaVinci Code and Eragon. Just couldn't deal with the unfelicitous prose.

Charlie Horse · May 29, 2008

Hard to chose among my top five. In no particular order they are:

1. Lord of the Rings
2. Good Omens
3. Catcher in the Rye
4. Prayer for Owen Meany
5. Breakfast of Champions

zegota · May 29, 2008

Chuck Palahniuk's Choke is pretty amazing.

Shadow_Ferret · May 29, 2008

Pups said:
and why? also which book have you read that you just couldnt put it down?
and of course the worst book you have ever read, and it was painful just to complete it.

First, I have never finished any book I disliked. I see no reason to torture myself so. If I don't like it after the first few pages I put it down and pick something else up.

Second, I can't say there really has ever been a book I couldn't put down. I have to put it down. I'm a very slow reader. I have to stop to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom.

Lastly, I've had many favorite books over the years. It would be easier for me to name my favorite authors. Robert E. Howard. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Nelson DeMille. Walter Gibson. Lin Carter. Robert Silverberg. Alan Dean Foster. Michael Moorcock. Alexander Dumas. Henry Miller.

James81 · May 29, 2008

zegota said:
Chuck Palahniuk's Choke is pretty amazing.

That's a great, funny book.

But Chuck doesn't come to mind as someone who belongs in THIS thread. He's entertaining and all, but a bit forgettable.

Danger Jane · May 29, 2008

Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I was fifteen when I read it, even more impressionable than I am now, and it changed everything for me. I never realized a novel could be like that. I love Virginia Woolf :e2headban

Worst book, The Amulet of Komondor. Fricking laughable.

Worst RESPECTED book, Madame Bovary. Partly because it was taught by a woman who would do ANYTHING to convince us that Emma was not immoral, but that's just because...her life and temperament (and intelligence) match up to Emma's perfectly. She's just a fool.

So I absolutely hate Madame Bovary.

DeleyanLee · May 29, 2008

Oh, forgot my favoritest classic novel: The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

Kate Thornton · May 29, 2008

Among the Favorites: anything by William Gibson, Robert Heinlein or Carl Hiassen

Hollan · May 29, 2008

Wuthering Heights and Crime and Punishment are my faves in classic lit.

The Secret Country Trilogy for Fantasy

Ender's Game for Sci-fi

King Dork for YA

Books I couldn't stand but finished anyway? Wolf Moon. Hated it, but kept reading, hoping it will get better. It didn't. I hate when I do that.

zegota · May 29, 2008

James81 said:
That's a great, funny book.

But Chuck doesn't come to mind as someone who belongs in THIS thread. He's entertaining and all, but a bit forgettable.

I'd definitely agree if the title was "What's the best novel?"

But as it stands, for some reason, Choke just appeals to me a way that the rest of Chuck's books don't, really. I will admit that I felt odd posting it among the literary masterpieces, but I guess I was feeling particularly pop-culture or something.

Anyway, I'll go ahead offer To Kill A Mockingbird as one of the best pieces of fiction every written, in my opinion.

Telstar · May 29, 2008

Most of the works of the authors in my signature.

What would be your favorite novel?

Still around

wrapped in plastic

Living the dream

part of the human equation

Great Scott Member

yes

I have plans...

Mackinac Island Fanatic

Writing Anarchist

here's to the girl on the go

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

Speaking in metaphors

Fantastic!

Court Jester

Great Scott Member

Writing Anarchist

Still Happy to be Here. Or Anywhere

Stage name = Chainsaw Sally

Fantastic!

I create people