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Your Top 10 books!


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Ok, I have a tough one for you - as we're 10 years old in July, I want to know your Top 10 books... of all time! To make it easier, you don't have to give them any order, you can include a series as one selection, and it's up to you what criteria you use.

 

So the challenge is set - tell us your Top 10 books!

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Great question!

 

Without thinking too much about it and in no pariticular order:

 

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

The Stand - Stephen King

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

A Song of Ice and Fire - GRR Martin

Gentlemen B*stards - Scott Lynch

Tales of the Ketty Jay - Chris Wooding

IT - Stephen King

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Red Country - Joe Abercrombie

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

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Here goes......My current (subject to change as time passes) top ten are;

 

Gone To Soldiers by Marge Piercy
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
Neuromancer by William Gibson 
Judas Child by Carol O'Connell 
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie 
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Septimus Heap Series by Angie Sage
The Tiffany Aching Series by Terry Pratchett 

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Mine are currently (in no particular order):

(but honestly, it's so hard to narrow it down :D..)

 

Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson - The Wheel of Time series

Peter F. Hamilton - The Night's Dawn series

Diane Chamberlain - The Midwife's Confession

Jodi Picoult - My Sister's Keeper

Stephen King - IT

Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic series

Sinéad Moriarty - Emma Huntington series

David B. Coe - The Lontobyn Chronicles series

James Clemens - The Banned and the Banished series

Ann M. Martin - The BabySitter's Club series

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To make it easier, you don't have to give them any order, you can include a series as one selection, and it's up to you what criteria you use.

 

Nope, that didn't make it any easier  :giggle2:

 

After much agonising . . . 

 

 

A Fire Upon the Deep / A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought series) by Vernor Vinge

Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Replay by Ken Grimwood

The War of the Worlds by H G Wells

The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Reality Dysfunction / The Neutronium Alchemist / The Naked God (Night's Dawn trilogy) by Peter F Hamilton

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

The Winter King / Enemy of God / Excalibur (The Warlord Chronicles) by Bernard Cornwell 

 

 

 

And now I'll go and fret about all those I had to drop from the list (especially David Gemmell and Alastair Reynolds  :hissyfit: )   :D

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And now I'll go and fret about all those I had to drop from the list (especially David Gemmell and Alastair Reynolds  :hissyfit: )   :D

 

Awww  :empathy:  You can always go and post here :lol: To make amends. 

 

Great topic, Michelle, I will come back later with my own answers. It might take a while... 

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I've cheated a bit and slipped a couple of series in. If that's not allowed I'll restrict it to the first book in each series, which I've written in, and book 3 of HP below)

Most of these are subject to change, so ask me again in 6 months time!

 

Lord of the Rings -  JRR Tolkien

Different Seasons - Stephen King

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

The Kite Runner  - Khaled Hosseini

Saga of the exiles (Book 1: The Many-coloured Land)  - Julian May

Pride & Predjudice  - Jane Austen

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

It - Stephen King

The Wind in the willows - Kenneth Graham

Harry potter series - (...and the Prisoner of Azkaban) JK Rowling

Edited by ian
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Gone With the Wind- Margaret Mitchell

Valley of the Dolls- Jacqueline Susann

For Whom the Bell Tolls- Ernest Hemmingway

The Good Earth- Pearl S. Buck

A Scanner Darkly- Phillip K. Dick

Man's Search for Meaning- Viktor E. Frankl

Night- Elie Wiesel

The Thorn Birds- Colleen McCullough

Hiroshima- John Hersey

Prozac Nation/ More, Now, Again- Elizabeth Wurtzel

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Aaagh, I have 15! :o  I'm going to write them in order of how great I thought they were and will see how it goes! :)

 

Human Traces - Sebastian Faulks

The Language of Flowers - Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

The Light Between Oceans - M.L Stedman

Me Before You - Jojo Moyes

Jellybird - Lezanne Clannachan

Night Road - Kristin Hannah

Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks

 

That was sooooo hard!!! 

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Wow, lots of great and varied lists here!

 

Here's mine, in no particular order:

 

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

Catch-22 Joseph Heller

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Harry Potter JK Rowling (entire series)

The Devil in the White City Erik Larson

 

 

Ack, that was so difficult! The first eight spots were filled very quickly, but narrowing the rest down for the last two spots was difficult.

 

I can't wait until BCF turns 20...then I won't be so restricted!  :giggle2:

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To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

East of Eden – John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

For Whom The Bells Toll – Ernest Hemingway

Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

The Border Trilogy – Cormac McCarthy

 

 

Some that I hate to leave off the list, but that may change by the time BCF hits 15 yrs old.:

 

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Dr. Zhivago – Boris Pasternak

Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling

The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman

The House of Spirits – Isabelle Allende

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A little bit of thinking required for this one!

 

I *think* mine would be:

 

The Children of Cherry Tree Farm by Enid Blyton

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Suzanna Clarke

Quartet In Autumn by Barbara Pym

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Mapp and Lucia by E. F. Benson

Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith

The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Findings by Kathleen Jamie

 

 

The order is just based on when I read them going from oldest to most recent, and I've limited myself to one book per author, otherwise it would have been a whole list of Ali Smith and Jane Austen.

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So difficult and this won't be entirely accurate but it's close enough :D

 

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen  

Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford 

Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkein

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

 

Would have also included Crime and Punishment, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol, Dracula, The Book Thief, I Capture the Castle, Gold, The Night Circus and the Thursday Next series if I could have stretched it out further and on another day .. any of these (and more) could replace any of the above. It's too hard  :blush2: 

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This was really difficult. The first four were easy but then it got really really tough going :D

 

(The first four are my favorites, and they are in a chronological order of reading, and then the next 6 titles are in their own chronological order:)

 

Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities

Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair

Augusten Burroughs: Running with Scissors

Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind

Sofi Oksanen: Purge

Garth Stein: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Mary Roach: Stiff

Dai Sijie: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Tobias Wolff: This Boy's Life

Graeme Simsion: The Rosie Project (and the series) 

 

Subject to change should one ask me the same thing in a month.... 

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This is really tough, but I'll give it a try! In no particular order, my top ten books are:

  • The Stand by Stephen King
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis (with the exception of A Horse and His Boy - I'm not keen on that one)
  • The Plucker: An Illustrated Novel by Brom
  • The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre
  • Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  • The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
  • Ronia, The Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren
  • A Room With A View by E M Forster
  • The Princess Bride by William Golding
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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

 

 

 

This is going to be on BBC soon - a new TV series! Looking forward to seeing it. I've been meaning to read the book, but the programme looks pretty awesome!

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Ooh, this was very difficult, but here's my list (in no particular order)

 

The Stand - Stephen King

IT - Stephen King

The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet

Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Life of Pi - Yann Mantell

 

I've read all of these more than once, bar The Grapes of Wrath, which I read for the first time last year. There are a few on there that I plan to re-read soon, namely The Pillars of the Earth and A Short History of Nearly Everything, and maybe The Stand (which I have read a ridiculous number of times).

 

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My top 10 are . . .

  • The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
  • The Empire trilogy by Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts
  • The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
  • The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
  • The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
  • Magician by Raymond E. Feist
  • Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
  • World War Z by Max Brooks
  • The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson

 

This was so hard! If you asked this again in six months I wonder how many of us would have completely different lists? :D

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This is going to be on BBC soon - a new TV series! Looking forward to seeing it. I've been meaning to read the book, but the programme looks pretty awesome!

I cannot wait!! I'm going to make a cake ready for the launch :D 

The book will get a lot of promotion (and a new cover :D) which is great .. it deserves to be widely (or wildly :D) read imo.

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10 International:

Riotous assembly - Tom Sharpe

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

1984 - George Orwell

Matilda - Roald Dahl

Crime and punishment - Fyodor Dostoyewsky

Child 312 - Hand-Ulrich Horster

And then there were none - Agatha Christie

Hamlet - William Shakespeare

Candide - Voltaire

The process - Franz Kafka

 

 

10 Swedish:

The locked room - Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö

The father - August Strindberg

Doctor Glas - Hjalmar Söderberg

Statsrådet och döden (The minister and death) - Bo Balderson

The dying detective - Leif G.W. Persson

The laser man - Gellert Tamas

The girl with the dragon tattoo - Steig Larsson

Seacrow island - Astrid Lindgren

Kallocain - Karin Boye

Women and apple trees - Moa Martinson

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wow you don't realize how many books are your favourite until you have to choose...

 

The tomorrow series - John Marsden

Matilda - Roald Dahl

Inkheart - Cornelia Funke

Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte's web - EB White

The Thursday Next series - Jasper Fforde

Jack West Jr series - Matthew Reilly

The Troy game series - Sara Douglass

Outlander series - Diana Gabaldon

 

There are probably another half a dozen that I would add if I could but these were the first to come to mind.

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I'm probably going to end up coming back and editing this post several times, but for now...

 

  • Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
  • The Importance Of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde (yes, it's a play, but one of my favourite 'stories')
  • Inkheart - Cornelia Funke
  • The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
  • Paper Towns - John Green
  • The Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
  • A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness
  • The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
  • The Magicians - Lev Grossman
  • Out Of Nowhere - Gerard Whelan

Oh god that was hard. There are another 6 books I had to really fight myself on, but the above are all books/stories I've re-read multiple times, and I took that as my final deciding condition. I *might* replace The Book Thief with either To Rise Again At A Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris or with Off To Be The Wizard by Scott Meyer. Or even with The Painted Man by Peter Brett. But I've only read each of those once, and they're sort of favourites-in-waiting.

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Only ten.........?  :D  OK, here goes.

 

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Look At the Harlequins! by Vladimir Nabokov

The Untouchable by John Banville

Malevil by Robert Merle

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

Outlander (the series) by Diana Gabaldon

Fortune's Favorites (one of the Masters of Rome series) by Colleen McCullough

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The Importance Of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde (yes, it's a play, but one of my favourite 'stories')

Now I see you've put a play on your list, I'm thinking of updating my list already! :lol: Maybe I should've included Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw … :unsure:

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Now I see you've put a play on your list, I'm thinking of updating my list already! :lol: Maybe I should've included Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw … :unsure:

 

I considered Picture Of Dorian Gray just to include a novel, but I figured meh, it's not my favourite Oscar story, Earnest is. So meh! :P

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