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Your most recommended books -list


frankie

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Some favorites, so far

Jane Austen - Pride and prejudice

Karin Boye - Kallocain

Albert Camus - The stranger

Agatha Christie - And then there were none
Agatha Christie - The murder of Roger Ackroyd

Roald Dahl - Matilda

Hans-Ulrich Horster - Child 312

Franz Kafka - The trial

Stieg Larsson - The girl with the dragon tattoo

Camilla Läckberg - The angel maker's wife

Michelle Magorian - Good night Mr Tom

William Shakespeare - Hamlet
Tom Sharpe - Riotous assembly
Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö - The locked room

August Strindberg - The father

Hjalmar Söderberg - Dr Glass

Gellert Tamas - The laser man

Voltaire - Candide

Edited by emelee
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Fiction- Adult

 

Birdsong- Sebastian Faulks

The Thursday Next series- Jasper Fforde

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts- Luis de Bereniéres

Life After Life- Kate Atkinson

Brooklyn Bites short story collections- Scott Stabile

Shades of Grey- Jasper Fforde

Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides

The Elegance of the Hedgehog- Murial Bradbury

 

 

Fiction- Children's/Teen

 

Harry Potter- J.K. Rowling

His Dark Materials- Phillip Pullman

Remembrance- Theresa Breslin

Eva- Peter Dickinson

 

None-Fiction

 

The Lucifer Effect- Phillip Zimbardo

Living Dolls- Natasha Walker

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Green

 Nice to see Peace Like a River mentioned.It was a beautiful book, wasn't it ?

 

Hi Julie. Yes,it was,and my favourite read in 2009. I'm surprised Leif Enger hasn't written more.

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Green

 He did write another ,which I haven't read :

 

51UpV7VWCEL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-stic

 

I did read this Julie,and it's o.k but was very slow and  not really a patch on Peace Like A River. Don't mean to put you off! :smile:

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Here is my list from a couple of years ago.

 

Top 40 Fiction
Jane Austen Emma
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice
John Banville The Book of Evidence
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
Italo Calvino If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
John Connolly The Book of Lost Things
Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens Great Expectations
Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities
Alexandre Dumas Count of Monte Christo
Mark Dunn Ella Minnow Pea
Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex
Michel Faber The Crimson Petal and White
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Jonathan Safran Foer Everything is Illuminated
George Grossmith Diary of a Nobody
Joseph Heller Catch-22
Susan Hill The Woman in Black
Jack Kerouac On the Road
Jack Kerouac The Town and the City
Ken Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon
Stieg Larsson The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird
Erich Maria Marquez All Quiet on the Western Front
Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind
Vladimir Nabokov Lolita
George Orwell Animal Farm
Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
Mary Shelley Frankenstein
John Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men
Bram Stoker Dracula
Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces
Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray
Tim Winton Cloudstreet
Markus Zusak The Book Thief

Top 10 Young Adult
Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden
Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Suzanne Collins Hunger Games (trilogy)
Norton Juster The Phantom Tollbooth
John Marsden Tomorrow, When the War Began (series)
A. A. Milne Winnie the Pooh
Walter Moers The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear
Lucy M. Montgomery Anne of Green Gables
J. K. Rowling Harry Potter (series)
Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Top 13 Non-Fiction
Bill Bryson Down Under
Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods
Byll Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything
Truman Capote In Cold Blood
AB Facey A Fortunate Life
Tim Flannery The Explorers
Tim Flannery The Birth of Sydney
Anne Frank The Diary of Anne Frank
Helene Hanff 84 Charing Cross Road
Steven D. Levitt Freaconomics
Sylvia Plath The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Andrew Solomon The Noonday Demon
Martin Toseland A Steroid Hit the Earth

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  • 1 year later...

Commemorating a decade of membership and discussion in online book forums: my best-of-the-best books I have enjoyed.

 

A Decade of Reading

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
Look at the Harlequins - Vladimir Nabokov
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
The Waves - Virginia Woolf
The Sea - John Banville
Stoner - John Williams
Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
The Lover - Marguerite Duras
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger
The Stream of Life - Clarice Lispector
Light Years - James Salter
The Hunters - James Salter
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Dreams of my Russian Summers - Andrei Makine
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Casanova in Bolzano by Sandor Marai
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Universal Baseball Association - Robert Coover
Your Face Tomorrow (3 v) - Javier Marias

 

Spy, Detective, Terrorism
The Untouchable - John Banville
Harlot's Ghost - Norman Mailer
The Smiley Series - John LeCarré
I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes

 

Sci Fi
Malevil - Robert Merle
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
Contact - Carl Sagan
Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
The Martian - Andy Weir

 

Islam
Orientalism - Edward Said
From Beirut to Jerusalem - Thomas L. Friedman
Mohammed, a Prophet for Our Time - Karen Armstrong
The Truth About Mohammed - Robert Spencer
American Islam - Paul M. Barrett
Onward Muslim Soldiers - Robert Spencer

 

Lit Crit
Post-Modernist Fiction - Brian McHale

 

Short Story
The Lost Decade - F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

Drama
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - Edward Albee

 

Poetry
The Classic 100 Poems
- William Harmon, ed.

 

Biography
Salinger - David Shields

 

Inspirational
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - John Donne

 

Thank you, everyone, for your friendship and an enjoyable experience.

Sincerely

Paul

Edited by Paul
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Thank you

 

You are most welcome, iceypik.  I hope you enjoy your time here as I have mine.  There are nice people on this forum and a whole world of books to enjoy.

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Harry Potter! :D :D

Jurassic Park- Michael Crichton (and also The Lost World)

The Secret of Crickley Hall- James Herbert (much better than the TV adaptation!)

Eragon- Christopher Paolini (again, much better than the film)

What Has Nature Ever Done For Us? Tony Juniper

Any book by Roald Dahl

Last Chance to See- Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series- Michelle Paver

Innocent Traitor- Alison Weir

Murder Most Royal- Jean Plaidy

Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII- David Starkey

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  • 2 weeks later...

Without a doubt, Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews is sidling onto my list of best books in a decade of reading.  A spy thriller with a highly trained cat secretly tracking a very educated mouse, the suspense carries from page to page in a way that I can't recall from other espionage books I have read.  Matthews is a master of the craft, having had a career with the CIA, and the detail on every page into both personal psychology and espionage tradecraft is absolutely remarkable and new to this reader.  He ranks with the masters and is very highly recommended to anyone.

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I'm not sure I've ever seen this thread before, where have I been? :roll:

 

Okay, disclaimer: I read a lot of trash, so even my best picks are not without flaws! My 'Best of 2015' are really great reads, but as they're selected from a narrower range, they may or may not be quite as amazing as my Always picks. :lol: I'll come back and update this with more!

 

Best of 2015:

 

Off To Be The Wizard  - Scott Meyer (Gaming fantasy/humour)

The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes - Anna McPartlin (Drama/Fiction)

To Rise Again At A Decent Hour - Joshua Ferris (Weird semi-philosophical fiction, definitely also an all-time favourite.)

The Martian - Andy Wier (sci-fi)

 

Best of Always:

 

Adult:

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

The Magicians - Lev Grossman

Vlad - C. C. Humphreys

Flowers For Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Perfume - Patrick Suskind

The Painted Man - Peter Brett

Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion

 

Young Adult:

A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

Unwind - Neal Shusterman

The Shell House - Linda Newbury

Paper Towns - John Green

 

Childrens:

The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams

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I like a good spy thriller, so I've added it to my wishlist.

 

Hi Bobblybear, I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did.  It definitely is a thriller to the very last page, even if I think a few parts are rather too theatrical for me to imagine happening.

Happy reading

Paul.

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I'm not sure I've ever seen this thread before, where have I been? :roll:

 

Okay, disclaimer: I read a lot of trash, so even my best picks are not without flaws! My 'Best of 2015' are really great reads, but as they're selected from a narrower range, they may or may not be quite as amazing as my Always picks. :lol: I'll come back and update this with more!

 

Best of 2015:

 

Off To Be The Wizard  - Scott Meyer (Gaming fantasy/humour)

The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes - Anna McPartlin (Drama/Fiction)

To Rise Again At A Decent Hour - Joshua Ferris (Weird semi-philosophical fiction, definitely also an all-time favourite.)

The Martian - Andy Wier (sci-fi)

 

Best of Always:

 

Adult:

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

The Magicians - Lev Grossman

Vlad - C. C. Humphreys

Flowers For Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Perfume - Patrick Suskind

The Painted Man - Peter Brett

Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion

 

Young Adult:

A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

Unwind - Neal Shusterman

The Shell House - Linda Newbury

Paper Towns - John Green

 

Childrens:

The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams

Nollaig, Glad to see your list, especially with its inclusion of The Martian and Flowers for Algernon as points of contact with my own list.  They should be on everyone's lists.

Book Thief continues to puzzle me however.  It appears at the head of almost every list I see for best book of year etc, and seems to be enormously popular.  But it eludes me and leaves me flat, if not actually annoyed. I guess I just don't see in it what so many other people do.  But opinions will differ, so no big deal I suppose.

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Book Thief continues to puzzle me however.  It appears at the head of almost every list I see for best book of year etc, and seems to be enormously popular.  But it eludes me and leaves me flat, if not actually annoyed. I guess I just don't see in it what so many other people do.  But opinions will differ, so no big deal I suppose.

 

Its been many years now since I read it so I don't remember it too well, but I know I loved Death's narrative style, and I became very invested in the characters.

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Its been many years now since I read it so I don't remember it too well, but I know I loved Death's narrative style, and I became very invested in the characters.

 

Thanks for the reply, nollaig.  I'll look at it with a new eye. :)

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Paul - I didn't like The Book Thief either.  So you're not alone.

 

As for my favourites, I've read so many books I don't think I could list the best.  Before I go to Sleep by S J Watson is definitely up there.  The best book I've read recently was A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison.  I read this last year, and I still think about it a lot.  A very moving story.

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Book Thief continues to puzzle me however.  It appears at the head of almost every list I see for best book of year etc, and seems to be enormously popular.  But it eludes me and leaves me flat, if not actually annoyed. I guess I just don't see in it what so many other people do.  But opinions will differ, so no big deal I suppose.

 

You're definitely not alone there - I'm another one who would put it nearer the bottom than the top of my ratings.  But then, I'd many apparently popular books there!

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You're definitely not alone there - I'm another one who would put it nearer the bottom than the top of my ratings.  But then, I'd many apparently popular books there!

 

Good to hear from you willoyd.  We are a verrry small minority as far as I can tell. :)

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Paul, willoyd, bookmonkey....y'all can add me to the list of extreme dislike(rs) of The Book Thief

 

I suspect there are more that are not fond of the book, but given the overwhelming praise for it are somewhat cowed by the tsunami and feel a bit shy of mentioning their dislike. 

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