What are your 5 favourite books?

[Green_Manelishi]

1) The Bible

2) My Utmost for His Highest (the only devotional I re-read keep year to year)

3) A Dictionary (to help me with my spelling)

4) A Thesaurus (to hopefully expand my vocabulary)

Sadly, I don't spend enough time in any of them.

5) whatever other book(s) I happen to be currently reading at the time which is usually 2 or

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3 at the same time. The three I am next "picking up":

• Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim and Mauborgne)
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Drucker)
• The Upside of Adversity (Hillman)

When I am finished with those three I'll start re-reading some of my under/grad school stuff as well as the ever growing list of "books that I want to read"

 

[zen_man]

Wife's top five books:
1.Shogun and any James Clavell novels
2.The Spirituality of Imperfection
3.The Prophet
4.Just starting to read Haruki Murakami but LOVING this first one!
5.Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer
(and I did love a Million Little Pieces- regardless of the controversy)
(oh, and another one, Choke by [SIZE=-1]Chuck Palahniuk)
(and Lust for Life by Irving Stone)
[/SIZE]
These are not in any particular order except for Shogun....alltime favorite book!

Buck's fav's:
1.The Prophet and the Sacred Heart both by Kahlil Gibran
2.The Spirituality of Imperfection
3.The Tao Te Ching
4.I'm lost from here. The last 7 years, I've been reading alot of dry techie books.
But now I want to read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Thanks for the recommendations

 

[Vie]

Five favourite books is way too hard! I'll list my five favourite writers (mostly fiction):

Alice Munro

Italo Calvino

Orhan Pamuk

Vladimir Nabokov

Umberto Eco

Almost making the list: Sybille Bedford, Haruki Murakami, Bruce Chatwin, Margaret Atwood and Pat Barker.

Five favourite/indispensible non-fiction books:

Agnes Martin's Writings.

The Chicago Manual of Style.

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst.

Reef Fish Identification - Tropical Pacific (Allen, Steene, Humann, DeLoach).

James Hamilton-Paterson's Three Miles Down.

 

[TSandM]

Shogun was fabulous, too. I did a term paper in college on the man on whom the story was based. Except for the love interest, Shogun is a true story.

 

[olmic]

Five favourite book is way too hard! I'll list my five favourite writers:

Alice Munro

Italo Calvino

Orhan Pamuk

Vladimir Nabokov

Umberto Eco

Almost making the list: Sybille Bedford, Haruki Murakami, Bruce Chatwin, Margaret Atwood and Pat Barker.

Italo Calvino's "If on a Winternight a traveller" was fantastic, but compared to that, I was disappointed when reading "Mr Palomar" and "the Invisible Cities" (I'm guessing the English titles). Any others of his which are up to level with "If on a winternight..."?

I only read Pamuk's "Snow" which really was breathtaking (in a scaring way!).

Murakami of course - made it on to my own list.

Chatwin - they are quite difficult to read!! But Songlines is amazing.

I forgot Paul Auster, Ian McEwan, Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robert M. Pirsig, Kazuo Ishiguro (Unconsoled, Remains of the day), Chuck Palahniuk ... etc. The list is endless!

 

[Vie]

Italo Calvino's "If on a Winternight a traveller" was fantastic, but compared to that, I was disappointed when reading "Mr Palomar" and "the Invisible Cities" (I'm guessing the English titles). Any others of his which are up to level with "If on a winternight..."?

Not really, imho. If on a winter's night a traveller is probably the most interesting one.

I only read Pamuk's "Snow" which really was breathtaking (in a scaring way!).

Am quite fond of My Name is Red.

I forgot Paul Auster, Ian McEwan, Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robert M. Pirsig, Kazuo Ishiguro (Unconsoled, Remains of the day), Chuck Palahniuk ... etc. The list is endless!

Arrgghhh, I forgot W. G. Sebald and Borges!! Auster and Marquez are great choices. I prefer Graham Swift to Ian McEwan. I loved Kundera when I was younger... Ishiguro is very, very interesting but would not make my list. Palahniuk is a lot of fun. Have never read Pirsig - will try to do so. I just don't get Thomas Pynchon at all...

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Favorite Authors:

Haruki Murakami - "Norwegian Wood," "A Wild Sheep Chase," "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles," "Sputnik Sweetheart," "Dance, Dance, Dance," "The Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World," etc. His style reminds me a lot of J.D. Salinger.

Eiji Yoshikawa - "Musashi," "Taiko"

Antoine de Saint-Exupery - "The Little Prince," "Wind, Sand, And Stars," etc.

William Gibson - "Burning Chrome," "Virtual Light," "Neuromancer," "Mona Lisa Overdrive," "Count Zero," "All Of Tomorrow's Parties," "Idoru," etc.

Karin Slaughter - "Like A Charm," "Kisscut," "Indelible," etc.

Craig Clevenger - "The Contortionist's Handbook"

Danny Leigh - "The Monsters Of Gramercy Park"

So many more....

 

[Ber Rabbit]

"The Power of Nice" Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
"Dead Men Do Tell Tales" William R. Maples and Michael Browning
"The Hot Zone" Richard Preston
"What Cops Know" Connie Fletcher
Stephen King/Richard Bachman short stories
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Wayward Son]

Can't really narrow it down to 5. Mostly, when I read for fun, it's scifi/fantasy. What I'll happily take off the shelf any time:

Anything from Heinlein, Clark, Asimov, Card, Herbert. The Harry Potter books. There is a wide assortment of scifi/fantasy authors on my shelves, I have hundreds of books, mostly paperback but a fair bit of hard cover as well. What I'll grab depends largely on what I'm in the mood for. If I'm tired & feeling lazy I'll often reread something I enjoy rather than tackle something new. Other times I feel more like being more engaged & will buy something new & take a chance.

I read LOTR but found that while I like the stories, I don't much care for how Tolkien writes. I didn't read them until recently, so in my early 40's. I've heard that this is common, people who read it the 1st time when they're younger like it better than people who read it the 1st time when they're older, so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

[TSandM]

This is a great thread. I see several people listing books I really like along with things I haven't heard of, and gives me a lot of motivation to go out and get some new books!