What are your top 5 favorite books? - Page 2

[Tuesday]

The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch Alexander Solzhenitsyn

To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee

Winter of Enchantment Victoria Walker

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands Jorge Amado

[_ktg_]

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Animal Dreams, and the Bean Trees (I think I like the Bean Trees more) - Barbara Kingsolver

Almost everything by John Irving

3 cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson

Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

[neetling]

I like the Alex Cross series by James Patterson. I like books with serial characters.

I really have loved everything by Lorna Landvik.

The Sookie Stackhouse books are brain candy and fun.

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb.

There's so many more but I forget authors all the time. I like Jude Devereax a lot too.

[MadiMamacita]

i was just told that I HAD to read By The Light of My Father's Smile.
It was reco'd by a writer friend of mine, and she has yet to steer me wrong

[tinybutterfly]

I forgot to mention the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis.

[Sarah W]

Originally Posted by Monarchgrrl

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

How did I not mention this one?!? Son of a Witch (the follow on book) is great too.

[LaLaLaLa]

Originally Posted by ms.shell

first, an aside, apologies to op-

from your description of the story, i really wanted to ask you if this book would be appropriate for a very advanced young reader?

I'm glad someone else stepped in to answer so you didn't have to wait for me. I concur, that it would be okay for a youngish reader. The whole first section is about how great the family's zoo is, which was interesting. Then the second part is about being shipwrecked. The family dies (not graphically; they are just gone) and the tiger eats a couple of other animals on the lifeboat before settling down, but I don't remember the book being totally horrifying. Give it a brief skim, especially the end, to see if it would be okay.

Originally Posted by Sarah W

3. Atlas Shrugged-I'm no crazy Ayn Rand fan and I have a lot of criticisms for the book, but it's still a favorite. Maybe because it's so long??

I was going to say this, but was afraid I might be kicked off the site. LOVE "Atlas Shrugged," and "The Fountainhead" grows more and more on me the more I read it.

Originally Posted by gillibean

Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli

I really liked "Stargirl," too. Have you read the sequel? I keep meaning to request it and keep not getting around to it.

Thanks, Bunnyflakes, for starting the discussion. Sorry for this unhelpful followup post.

[TEAK's Mom]

Originally Posted by MadiMamacita

i was just told that I HAD to read By The Light of My Father's Smile.
It was reco'd by a writer friend of mine, and she has yet to steer me wrong

I Alice Walker!

[Mama2Bug]

Like other posters, I'd be hard-pressed to choose only five favorites! I like YA books just as well as "adult" ones too, so my list is kind of esoteric. Here are some favorites though.

Daughters of the New World by Susan Richards Shreve
Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Girl by Blake Nelson
Wise Child by Monica Furlong (and the two that follow- Juniper and Colman)
Sold by Patricia Mccormick

[KYCat]

Doubledutch - I so agree with the books on your list that I've read that I'm compelled to read the others, but then there's that *%&(W#& Cormac McCarthy! haha One of the things that I LOVE about books is how people can see them so differently, even people with whom we seem to be on the same page. My book club read The Road and I did NOT like that book. (I started to type Hated but I do try and reign that emotion so I held back!) Most of my book club liked this book a lot, recommending it to others, etc. I was just trying to figure out how to get rid of my copy so that it wouldn't be in my home anymore. I have thought of trying it again because many people I respect do like him, but I can't stomach the idea. sigh I'm not sure why but I guess that Cormac and I simply don't communicate well.

That being said, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Nine Stories, The Grapes of Wrath, and Little Women are big favorites of mine so I'm interested in the rest of your list.

Some books that I love that haven't been mentioned are :
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

Good reading!

[Trinitty]

Atlas Shrugged
The Lord of the Rings
Pride and Prejudice
Clan of the Cave Bear (& Valley of Horses)
Twilight (Right now, I wonder if I will get it out of my system)

I like different books for very different reasons. Our home is full of books.

Trin.

[TEAK's Mom]

Originally Posted by Trinitty

[I]Atlas Shrugged

I like different books for very different reasons. Our home is full of books.

Trin.

Dp says that our house looks like the library's big sister.

[Trinitty]

That's WONDERFUL, Teak's Mom!

Dh has his PhD in English Literature and I love collecting books of all sorts as well. We have about 1500 in a two bedroom apartment.

Some day, we are going to have custom shelves in a two-story open room with a LADDER.... some day..

Trin.

[TEAK's Mom]

Originally Posted by Trinitty

That's WONDERFUL, Teak's Mom!

Dh has his PhD in English Literature and I love collecting books of all sorts as well. We have about 1500 in a two bedroom apartment.

Some day, we are going to have custom shelves in a two-story open room with a LADDER.... some day..

Trin.

Me, too!!!

[greenmom4]

I have a feeling most of mine you've probably already read:

Little House on the Prairie series
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
Eat, Pray, Love - I can't help it, I really like this one
Cowboys are my Weakness - this is a collection of short stories
Confessions of a Wicked Stepsister


Other authors I like
Alice Hoffman
Barbara Kingsolver

I read a lot of biographies, too. And cookbooks.

[Caneel]

Originally Posted by kosheng

hmmm... janet evanovich is another. pure mind-candy entertainment.

Seriously! I love that series, such wonderful, delicious, fluff for the mind. I need to read the most recent but I am saving it for a time that I can really enjoy it.

I am on an escapism kick lately -

Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart
Sex Lives of Cannibals by (I cant remember his name) - Has nothing to do with sex or cannibals. Parts of it made me laugh until I cried
The Queen Mother by William Shawcross - reads like a novel