What are your top five books?

[n4mgr]

1984 - George Orwell (Boy, this one seems to have come true, one of my all time favorite books)
War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
Any and everything Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas, père
Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne

 

[wiley coyote]

The Bible (KJV)
Life of Johnson--Boswell
Philosophical Investigations--Wittgenstein
Critique of Pure Reason--Kant
Walden--Thoreau

 

[Anonymous]

After much deliberation, I concluded:

-A Farewell to Arms (Hemingway)
-Oblomov (Goncharov)
-Master & Margarita (Bulgakov)
-The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
-Leaves of Grass (Whitman)

And I must give an honorable mention to Le Guide Culinaire by Escoffier & friends, the bible of all things tasty.

Toon

 

[PipedJimmy]

Ha ha wintermute I have had the same problem with 'Moby Dick' studied it in my 'Writing America' literature class and have to confess it is one of the greatest and most potent works I have selectedly read lol but have never got through it all!
Le Morte D'Arthur is a great book though, its definitely worth getting through, its one of those books that humbles you in a most gentlemanly and religious fashion.

Anywho, currently and in no order

1. Tom Brown's Schooldays - Thomas Hughes
2. 1812 Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow - Adam Zamoyski
3. The Harry Potter Series (sorry it had to be said)
4. Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne
5. His Dark Materials trilogy - Phillip Paulman

and damn wiley coyote! that's an impressive list!

 

[Hunter5117]

My best measure is the ones that I have re-read the most except for the last which was just plain fascinating if you are into this sort of thing.

No particular order.

1. Complete works of Sherlock Holmes - Doyle
2. Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Tolkein
3. Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein
4. Huckleberry Finn - Twain
5. The God Particle - Lederman - only made it through this one once so far but fascinating recount of particle physics in layman terms.

 

[Raid]

Moby Dick - Melville
East of Eden - Steinbeck
Mikael Karvajalka - Waltari
Sense of snow - Peter Hoeg
Saramago - almost whole production

 

[Anders And]

1. Almost anything by Ray Bradbury
2. Shalimar the Clown, Salman Rushdie
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
4. Kallocain, Karin Boye
5. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

 

[petertschantz]

Bible - ESV for me
For Whom the Bell Tolls - EH
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (not a novel, but an impressive collection
Death in the Long Grass - Peter H Capstick (not great literature, but great stories for those with a fascination with safari)
On the shoulders of giants - Stephen Hawking, et al.


Off the cuff 'best 5' lists are tough, but these are defintely 5 favorites

 

[DoverPipes]

Do Hustler / Penthouse / Juggs / Cheri / and Big & Busty count as "books" ?

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

The Lord of the Rings trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien - absolutely superlative!
Harry Potter seven volume set - J.K. Rowling - also superlative, but in the realm of fantasy Tolkien doesn't have a rival with Rowling or anyone else
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954 - 1963 - Taylor Branch, a civil rights trilogy, the first volume of which won the Pulitzer
Black Reconstruction 1860-1880 - W.E.B. DuBois
The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx (the movie with Kevin Spacey and Judy Dench is great, too)

 

[Eric]

The Bible
The Lord of The Rings & The Hobbitt
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
My Lady Nicotine

Those are the ones I'm always re-reading.

 

[Amenhotep04]

Not necessarily in this order:

1. The Star Rover by Jack London
2. Experience and Nature by John Dewey
3. The Quest for Certainty by John Dewey
4. Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
5. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

:farao:

 

[bruins]

sun also rises--hemingway
lolita--nabokov
birthday boys--beryl bainbridge (really anything by her)
a sport and a pastime--james salter
blood meridian--cormac mccarthy

jesus, that leaves out many many necessary books...oh, and btw, death to the kindle and its like.

 

[Vercer]

Hmm, to narrow it to five I'm going to have to cheat some and list series as single books.

In no particular order:

1) Lord of the Rings series (JRR Tolkien)
2) Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein)
3) Neuromancer (William Gibson)
4) Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein)
5) The Discworld books (Terry Pratchett)

Yeah, mostly sci-fi and fantasy. Heinlein is a good read for social commentary in additons to great sci-fi though.

 

[Jack Straw]

Off the top of my head, these are the ones that have stuck with me the most:

East of Eden - John Steinbeck (probably my favorite)
Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Wheel of Time (series) - Robert Jordan
Phenomenology of Spirit - Georg W. F. Hegel
1984 - George Orwell

 

[taja-big dog]

Pipe smokers and readers on the same site....this is good stuff.

1. Great Expectations - Dickens (The master of character)

2. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (Best book/movie combo ever?)

3. Tinker,Tailor,Soldier,Spy - John LeCarre

4. The Great Gatsby - F.Scot Fitzgerald

5. Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy

 

[momus]

Cormac McCarthy-the Road
Herman Melville-Moby Dick
Umberto Eco-The Name of the Rose (nothing like a 14th century detective novel)
C.S. Lewis-Till We Have Faces
Henry Fielding-Tom Jones

 

[pasq0321]

Hmm, there are so many to choose from, but I think I like these best-

Lord of the Rings- JRR Tolkien
Into Thin Air- Jon Krakauer
My Wicked Wicked Ways- Errol Flynn
Jurassic Park- Michael Crichton
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant- Stephen Donaldson

Great idea for a thread.

 

[whiskeywillow]

I love The Lord of the Rings and Sherlock Holmes collections probably more than anything else, but I'll omit them from my list simply because they've already been repeated so many times and I like a little variety.

In no order:

- The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
- Old Man's War by John Scalzi
- Dubliners by James Joyce
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

 

[talrmn35]

Let's see here...

Fahrenheit 451
Brave New World
1984
Deep Thoughts (by Jack Handy)
Mastering the art of French Cooking

With nods to Bible KJV, Chronicles of Narnia, and all things Sherlock Holmes.