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Your Top 10 books!


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For now and not in any particular order, these are my choices.

 

Winter in Madrid by CJ Sansom

The Siege by Helen Dunmore

Heidi by J Spyri

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini

Little Women by Louisa M Alcott

Falling Angels by Tracey Chevalier

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates

 

 

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Not in any particular order:

 

Into the water Paula Hawkins. 

Christine Stephen King.

Lord of the Rings Series J.R.R Tolkien. 

Morganville Vampires Rachel Caine.

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 

A Monster Calls Patrick Ness 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou

The Last Tycoon F. Scott Fitzgerald 

the Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 

It Stephen King. 

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In no particular order... 

 

1. Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami
2. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
3. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
4. Memoirs Of A Geisha by Arthur Golden
5. The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa

6. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
7. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
8. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
9. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
10. The Hours by Michael Cunningham

 

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  • 7 months later...

(I measured them for the time that I was thinking around after reading them, been adult me, starting at 20 years old more or less. Some titles can be unexactly because I read them in spanish)
The Idiot - Dostoyevsky
The umberable lightness of being - Kundera
The old man and the sea  - Hemingway
Ulysses  - Joyce  
(Thomas Mann - **All of him**)
(Hermann Hesse - **All of him**)
(Jorge Luis Borges - **All of him**)
Fouche -  Zweig
A season on hell - Rimbaud
Love in the time of cholera  - Gabriel García Márquez

 

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(not in order)

 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Howard's End by E. M. Forster

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Jeeves and Wooster by P. G. Wodehouse

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones

 

So hard, I could have equally added The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, The Wind In the Wiilows by Kenneth Graham, Mister God This Is Anna by Fynn ... and so many more.

 

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This is mine, in no particular order! :)

 

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

IT - Stephen King

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

The War of the Worlds by H G Wells

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

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I developed such a headache the last time I attempted a top 10, and ended up feeling guilty toward all the great books that I didn't place in my top 10! :lol: I may leave it awhile before I make another attempt.

 

Some excellent lists here though!

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With no offense to anyone who has posted a list above, lists like this really wind me up for two reasons:

 

1. They often (but not always) come across as "Look at me! Look at what I like! Aren't I cool for what I like!" lists 

 

and - far more importantly:

 

2. They tell you absolutely nothing about why what is listed is worth investing time in!  If you really like something don't just make it a bullet point, tell people why you like it - tell people why you think it is good!

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On 23/08/2019 at 1:15 AM, Raven said:

With no offense to anyone who has posted a list above, lists like this really wind me up for two reasons:

1. They often (but not always) come across as "Look at me! Look at what I like! Aren't I cool for what I like!" lists 

and - far more importantly:

2. They tell you absolutely nothing about why what is listed is worth investing time in!  If you really like something don't just make it a bullet point, tell people why you like it - tell people why you think it is good!

 

I really enjoy reading lists like these.  Looking down the lists, there isn't one I've spotted that looks like one of those lists under (1).  As for point 2, I would agree that they don't tell anybody why you like them, and it would be even more interesting for people to add a relevant comment or two, but I find it fun to see the lists anyway, which books people enjoy most, the dynamics and variety of the selections, who chooses similar books to you, who is completely the opposite (these two give a good idea whose recommendations to follow!), etc etc. The context of a listed book is often quite informative.

Favourites are a very personal thing.  I maintain a list of 'favourites' at the front of my blog thread - these are books that I have awarded 6 stars too. What these six stars are is not a measure of 'excellence'.  They simply highlight the books which, maybe for specific, even non-literary, reasons, are particularly special in my reading.  These are the books that I would fight to retain in my library.  I hope, also, the list might help others find books that might be worth investigating further.

 

Here's further on why I enjoy these lists:

http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/13444-your-top-10-books/&do=findComment&comment=438297

 

Edited by willoyd
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Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov 

The Idiot - Dostoyevsky 

Demons - Dostoyevsky

Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse

Peter Camenzind - Herman Hesse

Demian - Herman Hesse

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea - Yukio Mishima

The Glass Bees - Ernst Junger

Tar - Wyndam Lewis

The Book Of Magic Love - Miguel Serrano

 

 

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On 4/28/2015 at 7:53 PM, chaliepud said:

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!!! 

i really love this list absolutely!

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wideacre by Philippa Gregory
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

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I wouldn't say this was in any sort of order. 

 

Throne of Glass Series

Wintersong

The Song of Achilles

ACOTAR

Rule of Wolves

Ruin and Rising 

The Plague Tales

Alice and Wonderland

Brave New World

Down Comes the Night

 

All of these books are just *chefs kiss*. 

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Hi, newbie here. Still finding my way around the site. Here's mine -

 

Life of PI - Yann Matel

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty

Harry Potter Series - J K Rowling

Cloudstreet - Tim Winton

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng

The Dry - Jane Harper

My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

A Lifetime of Impossible Days - Tabitha Bird

 

So many more I could have added. Anyway, hope to 'meet' you all as I navigate the site :)

 

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Just a fantasy and romance fan. (Thriller sometimes can work) The first 6 are a must-read.

1. From Blood And Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout 

2. A Kingdom Of Flesh And Fire by Jennifer L. Armentrout

3. A Shadow In The Ember by Jennifer L. Armentrout

4. It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

5. A Good Girls Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson

6. The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins- Reid

7. A Court Of Mist And Fury by Sarah J. Maas

8. Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

9. The Crown Of Gilded Bones by Jennifer L. Armentrout

10. House Of Earth And Blood by Sarah J. Maas

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Good topic to make first post.

 

Off the top of my head, my all time top 10 are (at the moment)

 

1 Laidlaw - William Mcilvanney

2 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

3 Harry's Game - Gerald Seymour

4 One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

5 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

6 Weaveworld - Clive Baker

7 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

8 Gorky Park - Martin Cruz Smith

9 Selling Hiter - Robert Harris

10 Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

 

When it comes to Laidlaw - really all the Jack Laidlaw books could be in the top ten.

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List of ten classic novels I liked most, each with the author's name

 

  1. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
  2. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
  3. "The Effort" by Santonu Kumar Dhar
  4. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  5. "Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville
  6. "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy
  7. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  8.  "Life Of Love" By Santonu Kumar Dhar
  9. "A Walk To Remember" by Nicholas Sparks
  10. "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
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  1. "The Lost Ways" - Claude Davis
  2. "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" - Charles Duhigg
  3. "Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones" - James Clear
  4. "Thinking, Fast and Slow" - Daniel Kahneman
  5. "Man's Search for Meaning" - Viktor E. Frankl
  6. "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" - Susan Cain
  7. "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a hmmm: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life" - Mark Manson
  8. "Educated: A Memoir" - Tara Westover
  9. "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" - Don Miguel Ruiz
  10. "The Alchemist" - Paulo Coelho

Above are 10 books that I recommend to you, hope everyone will like it.

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My favorites tend to skew young - I just seemed to find books I really loved more when I was a young reader than I do now. 
 

I don’t think I could begin to rank them lol
 

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs

Still Life by Sarah Winman

The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez Reverte

The Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

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