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All Time Top 10 Favourite Books


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No Particular order:

 

Apathy and Other Small Victories - Paul Neilan

The Contortionist's Handbook - Craig Clevenger

Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk

House of Leaves - Mark Z Danielewski

Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

Songbook - Nick Hornby

The Raw Shark Texts – Steven Hall

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

 

Mentions:

The Teseract - Garland

The Haunting of Hill House - Jackson

Sexing the Cherry - Winterson

Inspecting the Vaults - McCormack

High Fidelity - Hornby

A Light in the Attic - Silverstein

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The Shining - Stephen King

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

Flowers In The Attic - VC Andrews

America Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger

Death of A Salesman - Arthur Miller

The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams 

Ordinary People - Judith Guest

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How was ELaIC? I never got around to reading that, but have loved everything else he's done.

I liked it even more than EiI. Though it's pretty heavy at times...

 

Also of interest, his brother Joshua Foer wrote a great non-fiction book, Moonwalking with Einstein, which is about memory (and entering a memory competition, plus the existence of 'mental athletes'). 

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I liked it even more than EiI. Though it's pretty heavy at times...

 

Also of interest, his brother Joshua Foer wrote a great non-fiction book, Moonwalking with Einstein, which is about memory (and entering a memory competition, plus the existence of 'mental athletes'). 

 

Sounds pretty intriguing! Will have to pick them up when I get some downtime next.

 

Thanks for the recs!

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  1. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - McCullers

Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway

Ask the Dust - Fante

Women - Bukowski

Lives of the Monster Dogs - Bakis

Journey to the End of the Night - Celine

Confederacy of Dunces - Toole

Let It Come Down - Bowles

The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway again

Harry Potter series - Rowling

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  • The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - McCullers
  • Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway
  • Ask the Dust - Fante
  • Women - Bukowski
  • Lives of the Monster Dogs - Bakis
  • Journey to the End of the Night - Celine
  • Confederacy of Dunces - Toole
  • Let It Come Down - Bowles
  • The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway again
  • Harry Potter series - Rowling
Somehow I still haven't picked up any Hemmingway. Soon. Soon...
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Somehow I still haven't picked up any Hemmingway. Soon. Soon...

 

He is deceptively easy and yet really difficult if you squeeze out all of his symbolism. For books, I would start with Old Man and the Sea. One of my favorite works by him is actually the short story, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place". I've read an reread that many times.

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He is deceptively easy and yet really difficult if you squeeze out all of his symbolism. For books, I would start with Old Man and the Sea. One of my favorite works by him is actually the short story, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place". I've read an reread that many times.

Noted!
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1Q84 - haruki murakami
a confederacy of dunces - john kennedy toole
atlas shrugged - ayn rand
of mice and men - john steinbeck
philip k. dick books - any of them
starship troopers - robert heinlein
the count of monte cristo - alexandre dumas
the great gatsby - f. scott fitzgerald
the hobbit - j. r. r. tolkein
the mistborn trilogy - brandon sanderson
 
lone wolf and cub (manga) - kazuo koike
the sandman (graphic novels) - neil gaiman 
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1Q84 - haruki murakami

the mistborn trilogy - brandon sanderson
 
the sandman (graphic novels) - neil gaiman 

 

I honestly couldn't choose a Murakami book, so I just picked one at random. 1Q84 is so fucking good.

 

I've considered these books quite a bit but never picked them up yet.

 

So close to making my list. I didn't want to have too many graphic novels in it though and Akira just edged it out. Black and White is probably my number one graphic novel(manga, whatever) of all time though.

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English major and former high school English teacher (9 years) here. This is my (mostly predictable) list of top 10 books:

 

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

The Trial - Kafka

The Stranger - Camus

Forty Stories - Donald Barthelme

Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov

Moby Dick - Melville

A Light in August - William Faulkner

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

The Complete Enderby - Anthony Burgess

 

Yup...mostly dead white dudes. Except for the living white dude. 

 

I might need to revise this in a day or two after thinking on it some more. 

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The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

Last Exit To Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr.

1984 - George Orwell

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Requiem For A Dream - Hubert Selby Jr. 

A Good Man Is Hard To Find/Everything that Rises Must Converge - Flannery O Connor

Macbeth - Shakespeare

To Kill A Mockingbird/Go Set A Watchman - Harper Lee

The Star Shards Trilogy (Scorpion Shards/Thief of Souls/Shattered Sky) - Neal Shusterman

It - Stephen King

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The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

Last Exit To Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr.

1984 - George Orwell

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Requiem For A Dream - Hubert Selby Jr. 

A Good Man Is Hard To Find/Everything that Rises Must Converge - Flannery O Connor

Macbeth - Shakespeare

To Kill A Mockingbird/Go Set A Watchman - Harper Lee

The Star Shards Trilogy (Scorpion Shards/Thief of Souls/Shattered Sky) - Neal Shusterman

It - Stephen King

 

Dang, you're the first person I've heard say anything positive about Go Set a Watchman. I gave up after about 20 pages. 

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the mistborn trilogy - brandon sanderson

 

 

I've considered these books quite a bit but never picked them up yet.

 

if you enjoyed wheel of time and could make it through all of them, then i highly recommend the mistborn books. major epicness in a surprisingly unique fantasy world packed into three books for a much quicker read. would also recommend sanderson's new stormlight archive series. two books in and pretty enjoyable so far.

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if you enjoyed wheel of time and could make it through all of them, then i highly recommend the mistborn books. major epicness in a surprisingly unique fantasy world packed into three books for a much quicker read. would also recommend sanderson's new stormlight archive series. two books in and pretty enjoyable so far.

I'll check it out! I did WoT straight through with no problem, so I'm in!

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Dang, you're the first person I've heard say anything positive about Go Set a Watchman. I gave up after about 20 pages.

From my understanding, isn't the reason it was never published in the first place due to Harper Lee considering it to be a first draft for TKaM?

I haven't read the new one, to be fair, but not sure how much interest could be garnered from that.

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Dang, you're the first person I've heard say anything positive about Go Set a Watchman. I gave up after about 20 pages. 

 

Honestly, I loved it. It is a great book about recognizing how human your heroes are. I think a lot of people got pissed because Atticus wasn't portrayed as a "hero" in it but for me that just made him a better character. I guess I get why people aren't into it but I couldn't put it down while reading it. 

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From my understanding, isn't the reason it was never published in the first place due to Harper Lee considering it to be a first draft for TKaM?

I haven't read the new one, to be fair, but not sure how much interest could be garnered from that.

Yeah, the original TKaM was just a small side story within GSYW and her editor thought the story within was stronger. Mockingbird has always been one of my favorite novels, but Go Set is just hard to read.

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