List your 5 favorite novels.

Chasing the Horizon

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This is hard, and I’m totally counting series as one book if they’re non-stand-alone.

Like others, no particular order.

1. IT, Stephen King
2. 1984, George Orwell
3. THE BLADE ITSELF trilogy, Joe Abercrombie
4. OTHERLAND series, Tad Williams
5. THE NEUTRONIUM ALCHEMIST trilogy, Peter F. Hamilton

Honestly, I could’ve included several other titles from King (FULL DARK, NO STARS and FROM A BUICK 8), but didn’t want him to completely take over the list, lol.
 
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mrsmig

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THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING - T.H. White
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Harper Lee
WATERSHIP DOWN - Richard Adams
Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
JANE EYRE - Charlotte Bronte
 

Mr. Sir

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Oh lord lord.

1.) IT by Stephen King

Without a doubt, the book that influenced me the most. IT is Stephen King's best work, with all its ugly and its flaws; there is nothing quite like reading about the history of a town, of getting to know Derry in all its slime and awfulness, permeating outwards from the thing that is and is not a spider.

2.) SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury

This taught me everything I ever needed to know about going in-depth, about how to make a character bigger than they are- and to address symbolism, and do it well.

3.) THE DRAWING OF THE THREE by Stephen King

Showing my age and focus here, huh? But yeah... the Gunslinger series as a whole, but nothing matches the moment Eddie stands in the field of red roses and the clouds themselves around the Tower come to attack him as cyclopean juggernauts- the revelation of the true goal they hunt for, and its sheer, impossible scale.

4.) HOW FEW REMAIN by Harry Turtledove

I love, love, LOVE alternate history stuff. I even like alternate evolution stuff, which is as nerdy a category as things get. Harry Turtledove had a tendency to get weird in his later works, but the core idea- this is what might be- remains, and his Southern Victory timeline is great for being a "the South wins the Civil War" timeline that both makes sense and doesn't pretend the South was a moral place or the "right" nation. As a Southerner myself, nothing enrages me more than my fellow Southerners pretending the slave-owning, hierarchical, racist South had any real value to itself.

5.) The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Science fiction bangers? Oh yes, please.
 

JCornelius

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JCornelius

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Jade Rothwell

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(In no particular order. Also, I counted each book series as one entry, because it's too annoying to do otherwise)

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Ivan Coyote's various short story collections
The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
JPod by Douglas Coupland
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
 

Undercover

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The Lake of Dead Languages by: Carol Goodman
The Vampire Lestat by: Anne Rice
The Distance Between Lost and Found by: Kathryn Holmes
The Unquiet by: Jeannine Garsee
We Were Liars by: E. Lockhart
 

anakhouri79

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The Persian Boy by Mary Renault

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Shogun by James Clavell

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
 

gothicangel

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The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
The Persian Boy - Mary Renault
Sunset Song - Lewis Grassic Gibbon
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
 

Saskwriter

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All right, here goes...

1 - Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
2 - A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
3 - Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
4 - Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
5 - Flanders by Patricia Anthony
 

Tchaikovsky

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Subject to change, but

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
5. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (kid's book, I know!)

The Distance Between Lost and Found by: Kathryn Holmes

Just stumbled across a synopsis of that. It looked really good, though the guy who torments the main character makes me want to lock him in a chamber of hot oil
 

corvinTX

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Pretty hard!

To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
The Sound and the Fury -- Faulkner
The Godfather -- Mario Puzo
Wuthering Heights -- Emily Bronte
The Jungle Books -- Rudyard Kipling
 

Joscco

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East of Eden: John Steinbeck
For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ernest Hemingway
The Blue Max: Jack D. Hunter
Uhuru: Robert Ruark
Flashman in the Great Game: George MacDonald Fraser
 

PandaMan

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In no particular order, these are what immediately came to mind.

SOUL MOUNTAIN by Gao Xingjian
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS by Jules Verne
ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain
THE PRINCESS BRIDE by William Goldman
ALL THE PRETTY HORSES by Cormac McCarthy
 

Tocotin

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1. The Plum in the Golden Vase, by The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling
2. The Pit, by Alexander Kuprin
3. Tulavall series of novels, by Irmelin Sandman Lilius
4. Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol
5. Nana, ​by Emile Zola
 

Night_Writer

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It's hard to narrow it down to just five.

The War of Dreams - Angela Carter
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
Canne al Vento (Reeds in the Wind) - Grazia Deledda
The Butterfly Kid - Chester Anderson
 

M Louise

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As others have said, it keeps changing -- this week's top five:

1 Bring Up the Bodies: Hilary Mantel
2 The Blue Flower: Penelope Fitzgerald
3 Petina Gappah: The Book of Memory (Zimbabwean writer)
4 The Glamour: Christopher Priest
5 The Bloody Chamber: Angela Carter

And immediately another seven or eight I like better spring to mind. *sighs*
 

ChipsAhoyMcCoy

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As some others have done, I'm including series as just one entry.

1. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
2. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
3. The Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
 

Anna Iguana

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Carrie, by Stephen King
Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison
 

indianroads

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IT by Stephen King (that first chapter is stunning)
A Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
A Childhoods End by Arthur C. Clarke
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
 

Keithy

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Ohh, this is hard.

Watership Down
LOTR - You know who
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Stephen R Donaldson
A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Earthsea Trilogy - Ursula le Guin

can we make it six please so I can squeeze in Game of Thrones?
 

indianroads

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Ohh, this is hard.

Watership Down
LOTR - You know who
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Stephen R Donaldson
A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Earthsea Trilogy - Ursula le Guin

can we make it six please so I can squeeze in Game of Thrones?

Dang! I forgot about Game of Thrones... I also like the Expanse Series.
Currently reading "The Story of Cole Younger" by himself. It's interesting so far.
 

JCornelius

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Mmm, another plausible "5 favorite" of my own :)
/.../
1 - Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
For those to whom Ray Bradbury's stuff is too short and Stephen King's--too dark...

/.../
The Godfather -- Mario Puzo
/.../
I discovered this novel late in life and have since reread it a number of times, blown away every damn time. He makes it look so easy.

/.../
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS by Jules Verne
/.../
A very important part of my childhood, together with the magnificent Robur The Conqueror, etc.

/.../
Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
/.../
I remember when this and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land were IMPORTANT BOOKS, and I was willing to gibber at strangers on the street about them:)

/.../
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
/.../
Sometimes we crave coziness and who to better provide it than the Dame? Hell, even Family Guy made a cover version of this book...
 

Qwest

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Great thread, thanks for all the suggestions.

So, so tough. Right now mine are:

1. If on a Winters Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino
2. O Fallen Angel by Kate Zambreno
3. Breath by Tim Winton
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
5. Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

A mixed bag!

I feel pretty awful leaving off Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy and VS Naipaul's A Bend in the River, they are wonderful too.
 

tone3d

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1. Lolita - Nabokov
2. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
3. The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
4. Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
5. Bright Orange for the Shroud - John D. MacDonald