Best books
 

What are your best loved books - past or present?

I’ve always loved David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I read this as an early teen, and it was wonderful at the time and still is a favorite.

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah on audio was a blast. You have to listen to this one! Trevor is the narrator and it is delightful and funny!

I love me some science fiction, so pretty much anything by authors ranging from Arthur C. Clarke to John Varley to Larry Niven to Orson Scott Card to John Scalzi. When not in a sci-fi mood, I'll read anything by John Sandford and Carl Hiaasen. When feeling like a classic, I'll re-read Catch 22 for the umpteenth time.

Best Books
 

One of my favorites is Sidhartha by Herman Hesse. This is a short easy to read book. I read it in high school, college, and at least once a decade after that. Amazing how my life experiences made different parts of the book stand out more each time I read it.

Sci-fi authors I enjoy are Orson Scott Card, Robert A Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Madeleine L’Engle.

If you live in Florida, you will probably be delighted by any novels by Carl Hiassen, who until recently was a journalist in Miami. Outrageously comic crime capers.

Add Isaac Asimov to the SciFi mix. I am soooo looking forward to the upcoming Foundation television show!

I read Siddhartha in high school. I bought it at a used bookstore recently and reread it. Great book! I passed it on to a friend this spring and she loved it too.

Jerusalem Jerusalem by James Carroll is an eye opener.

John Sandford - The Official Website

I enjoy John Sandford's books as well as those of Lee Child.

Hard to pick a best book.

Frankenstein maybe or The Invisible Man.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand! Very relevant to today’s world also. Highly recommend.

I have read all of James Michener books. The Carl Hiassen books as mentioned above are so entertaining. I am rereading “Roots” right now.
Give me any good mystery thriller and I love Fantasy and Vampires!. How do you pick favorite books.

Siddhartha
 

Once read, that book stays with you. It’s worth reading.

Thanks
 

Leaving for a 15 hour journey to TV tomorrow morning. Just downloaded Born a Crime from Audible. Thanks for the recommendation.

That’s one of my favorites too. Nothing beats Three Musketeers for a good read though. The Hobbit is another favorite. The Merchant of Venice is my favorite by Shakespeare, and Pride and Prejudice is my favorite by Austen.

Wendell Berry, Jaber Crow. Big fan of Hiassen also.

2 that immediately come to mind:
 

Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl...in the darkest of times, hope will sustain us.

Watership Down by Adams...entertaining adventure but also an allegory for our times.

There are so many, so a few of my favorites; The Haj, Leon Uris, To learn a little about the background of the middle east conflict between the Jews, and Arabs. Voyage of 1895, Sterling Haden, what was life like on sailing ships. The Forgotten Soldier, the best of the best of military true stories. Gisha, just good and very interesting. And hundreds more.

My favorite as a kid was treasure island even at 82 I can still remember the excitement of that book , one of my favorite authors is Jim Thompson if you want a hard boiled noir like experience read his pulp fiction crime books from the 40’s and 50’s many made into movies

Enjoy early Stephen King also James Patterson. I read alot of 'free' books on Amazon unlimited so many good books for lighter reading
My Kindle is my constant companion!

Old favorites are- Of mice and men, A raisin in the sun and a tree grows in Brooklyn.
Winter Garden, The Nightingale( by Kristin Hannah) Where the crawdads sing, A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini(same author as the Kite Runner), The space between us, Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet, and I read a lot of historical fiction about WWII and the holocaust. Ann Frank, Night by Elie Wiesel, Lilac girls , Sarah's Key, Mila 18, The Tattooiust of Auschwitz, The Boy in the Stiped Pajamas, to name a few that I have read.

Wow !! Your so smart!!!!

Best Books
 

I have always loved “Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy and “The Stand” by Steven King

Hiassen's Squeeze Me was one of the funniest books I've ever read. Laughed the whole way through.

Requiem for the Dead by Victor M. Alvarez. A great edge of your seat military thriller.

Hiassen’s Hoot is hilarious, too. He has a whole series of books supposedly marketed for young adults, but don’t be put off by the YA label. There are many excellent books by authors marketed as YA, such as After the First Death and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers (about the Vietnam War, but much more), The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, The Giver by Lois Lowry—I could go on and on.

Favorites from my youth:
The Sword and the Stone and The Once and Future King by T. H. White.
Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre by Emily Brontë.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

My son got me into reading fantasy fiction, (Rothfuss, Sanderson, etc.), and I like a good murder mystery novel.

Never took much notice of it at school, but now I love history books, fact and fiction.
Wish I had paid more attention in my formative years.

Interested in fairy tales and history? Try The Seventh Dwarf by (blush) me.

Was Snow White a fairy tale? Or might she have been a real person? This memoir by the youngest of the seven Dwarfs uncovers the mystery and fills in the story of a remarkable woman and her seven small friends in Medieval Europe. Follow the Dwarfs as they struggle to fight persecution and reunite with their families while they help a lost princess gain her Prince and her throne.

I loved "The Martian".

Amazon.com

His other books have not been as good but are well worth reading.

I have not read "Hail Mary". Yet.

Avid reader here with lots of favorites so difficult to choose. But two that Villagers might enjoy: 'The Boys in the Boat' by Daniel Brown and 'Unintended Consequences' by John Ross. Also 'Hamilton' by Ron Chernow for those who enjoy early American history but it's long.

Best Books
 

When I moved to Florida my colleagues insisted I read "A Land Remembered" by Patrick D. Smith which is the story of 3 generations of a family who were dirt poor when they came to Florida and grew into a wealthy family. I also thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend "Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean" by Les Standiford. First, I had no idea that Henry Flagler was Rockefeller's business partner behind Standard Oil. Second, the book is the story of Flagler's decision in the early 1900's to successfully build a railroad down the east coast of Florida all the way to Key West - one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken.

[QUOTE=Michread;1994565]What are your best loved books - past or present?

Self Improvement - The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Slice of America's Past - The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck
Crazy to read but worth it - The Trial. Kafka
SciFi with great story - Hyperion, Dan Simmons Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Great American Survival WW II - Unbroken, Linda Hillenbrand
Fun Fantasy - Enchantment, Orson Scott Card
Scary Realistic Bio-Warfare - The Cobra Event, Richard Preston

I’ve read several on these lists and enjoyed them.

Dracula by Bram Stoker was a favorite! I want to go on a Dracula tour. The sights and food described made me want to go to Transylvania.

I like reading about history. I'm currently re-reading "The Plantagenets" by Dan Jones, about the English kings from Henry II to Richard II.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and the 7 books that follow. Book #8 is coming out in November.

I don't have a singular favorite book. I've been into historic fiction (NON-romance) for several years now. Went through dozens of books about the Henry VIII, the Plantagenets, the Victorian Age, mostly by Phillipa Gregory but several other authors as well. The past two years I've been absorbing novels about WWII and the Holocaust. Of particular interest are stories of life in the concentration camps and the "rabbits" of Ravensbrück.

I average around 20 books per year now, but at one point in my life I was reading at least 1 book every week.

Most of my "favorites" aren't books, they're authors. I'll usually read anything they write, if I haven't already read everything they've written.

I'm also a huge fan of Robert E. Heinlein. I've read every single novel he wrote while he was still alive, several of his short stories, and the "Grumbles from Beyond the Grave," a posthumous autobiography gathered by his wife Virginia after he died, using a collection of his correspondences with his publishers/editors and others.

Douglas Adams - read most of his books and played the HHGTG game he co-created with Infocom.

Shakespeare - a fan of the comedies and tragedies, not so much with the histories.

Chaucer - Canterbury Tales - in small doses, and nothing recent. I just remember getting a kick out of trying to understand it.

Dan Brown's books - He has an interesting spin on religion and his books are pretty quick reads.

Harry Potter - read the whole series, it took me maybe two days per book to read it.

Anne Rice - she went through a whole lot of different experiences and each series she wrote reflected some of her ideas and perceptions of religion, death, and to some extent, existence in general. I loved A Cry to Heaven, especially.

Dystopia novels: Jennifer Government by Max Barry, 1984, Brave New World, Walden II, Hunger Games, Handmaid's Tale, Divergent, anything by Octavia Butler, Ready Player One/Two.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Anathema by Neal Stephenson. Cryptonomicon was fascinating but I struggled with the way it leapt from storyline to storyline, because they took place during different times of history. Insanely long book - 1172 pages.

Neil Gaiman is awesome. Terry Pratchett is amazing. Michael Moorcock's Elric saga kept me entertained on and off for a couple of years.

I have a "selected entries" of Lewis Carroll that I refer to sometimes just because I'm in the mood for his wit and rhythmic poetry.

Lastly, this stand-alone: A book called Herland, a feminist utopian novel written in 1915 by Charlotte Gilman. The book was given to me by a housemate my freshman year of college. There were around 30 of us living in a brownstone mansion that was converted into a dormitory. I was struggling with my self-esteem as a woman trying to get into radio broadcast journalism at the time and he basically thrust it at me and ordered me to read it. It helped for sure, and left a pretty big impact on me. I think I still have the book. I ended up changing my major to print journalism.

Thank you! Being you didn’t quote? :1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

Thank you for the recommendations! I like to read historical fiction as well.

Some of my favorites in history that come to mind:

The Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy - Karen Abbott
George Washington’s Secret Six, Brian Kilmeade

Another author of classic historical fiction (and non-fiction) is Morgan Llywelyn. Can't forget her! Her book Druids was the first I'd ever read in the genre. I was hooked on her writing, and on the ancient cultures of Britain. Of special interest: 1014: Brian Boru & the Battle for Ireland. This one takes you back to the Vikings. Fast forward to the 1500's and there's Grania, which (in my opinion) demonstrates the strength, integrity, and fierceness of women set out to protect and defend their families and clans from enemy forces. She was one of the first true "feminists." She is an actual historic figure in Ireland and was the head of the entire dynasty in western Ireland, and presented requests to Queen Elizabeth (I) regarding the release of her sons and half-brother in 1593.

Another of hers that I really would love to read again: Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish. Sadly it's out of print, and was never made available for download into an e-book. Some libraries might have it, I'll have to check Lady Lake's library but unfortunately this town isn't exactly known for people who love reading historical fiction unless they're "historical romance" which is a whole other genre of books that don't interest me in the least.

If you like American history books, Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose is excellent.

It's the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Quite an adventure story. One of the best non-fiction books I've ever read.

If you like sports/time travel books, If I Never Get Back by Darryl Brock is a fun book.