All About Books discussion

What are your top 10 books of all time? Use your own definition of what makes the list but let us know which books you think are the best!

I have a hard time narrowing down to just ten! But here is my first instinct... not in order (at least for now).

The Lord of the Rings
The Three Musketeers
The Gate to Women's Country (or maybe The Margarets)
The Moving Toyshop
A Tale of Two Cities
The Code of the Woosters
Vanity Fair
The Reluctant Widow or maybe Frederica (some Georgette Heyer though)
The Franchise Affair
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Seems like I have left a lot off the list but that is 10 (with a bit of cheating as I counted a trilogy as one book).

Gosh, that's a hard one. The best aren't always the best written or most literal but the ones that somehow struck a nerve or chord, make me think or were just plain entertaining.

In no particular order:
1. Infinite Jest
2. The Sound and the Fury
2. The Sparrow
4. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
5. Island of the Sequined Love Nun
6. Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls
7. Middlemarch
8. Whitethorn
9. Hey Nostradamus!
10. Dune

Ask me again tomorrow, I'll probably have different books then. :D

Oh how could I have left off The Sound and the Fury?!

Here's my list:

01.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
02.Father's Day Murderby Leslie Meier
03.Dirty Rotten Tendrils by Kate Collins
04.The Pumpkin Muffin Murder by Livia J. Washburn
05. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer
06. The Target by David Baldacci
07. Hell's Corner by David Baldacci
08. Death of an Outsider by M.C. Beaton
09. Hush Now, Don't You Cry by Rhys Bowen
10. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

The ones that make the list either move me deeply or have a unique creative element. Here's my list (not in any order):-

Les Misérables
Anna Karenina
The Importance of Being Earnest
Pereira Declares: A Testimony
The Plague
The Wind in the Willows
The Lord of the Rings
L'Assommoir (The Dram Shop)
City Of Broken Promises
Le Petit Prince

Only ten?! I don't think I can do this. Impossible. You need funny books, sad books, interesting books......

That's an extremely difficult proposition! In my current frame of mind I think I'd pick these:

Fiction
The Lord of the Rings - even with the songs and Tolkien's meanderings it's still an amazing read
The Wind in the Willows - because it's wonderful whether you're a child or (supposed to be) an adult
Great Expectations - for all the Dickensian wordiness it's an astonishing read and he writes characters that are somehow both pastiches and incredibly compelling.
Lord of the Flies - just because. It's chilling and extraordinary.
A Christmas Carol - 'god bless us, every one.'
Small Gods - because it's the one of the best Pratchett book, and also the finest book on religion I've read.

Non-fiction
Silent Spring - horrifying, eye-opening and pivotal.
How To Be Wild - because I connected so deeply with so many things Simon writes about in this book.
A Brief History of Time - because it was such a landmark book and gave such a fresh perspective on the universe.
Germany: Memories of a Nation - wonderfully written and absolutely enthralling. A fascinating look at various aspects of the history and culture of Germany.

I am just going to comment on those books you guys love and I do too:

The Wind in the Willows
The Little Prince
Pereira Maintains

Ok, I will add one that has to be here

I and Thou

but there are so very, very many more.

10? Leslie, you know that you're asking an impossible question!

Let me see what springs to mind....

Catch-22
Middlemarch
Brave New World
Frankenstein
Rebecca
Lolita
Animal Farm
A Room of One's Own
If This Is a Man: And, the Truce. Primo Levi
All Quiet on the Western Front

I'd have a completely different list if you asked me tomorrow!

Pink, you've got another two wonderful books there:

Lolita
All Quiet on the Western Front

Oh, this is such a difficult one. I was really considering which authors I wanted to be on the list, and then trying to decide what books of theirs! And when it came to it I have no space for Carol Shields in the 10 so maybe I could have 11?!

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which I have to include for my favourite first sentence of any book
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
The poems of Tony Harrison
The poems of W.B. Yeats
The poems of Antonio Machado
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi, which has the most chilling final sentence I have ever read.

“Willingly or not we come to terms with power, forgetting that we are all in the ghetto, that the ghetto is walled in, that outside the ghetto reign the lords of death, and that close by the train is waiting."
Primo Levi

Um for me its a mixture of indie and mainstream:
1. The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales is my pick for fave short story collection.
2. Ready Player Oneis my fave 80s reference video game fantasy.
3. The Child Thief is my fave version of Peter Pan.
4. The Thief of Always is my fave clive barker YA novel.
5. Beasts of New York: A Children's Book for Grown-Ups is my fave indie animal book.
6. The Cause is my fave indie thriller.
7. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is my fave Judy Blume book.
8. Keepers of Arden: The Brothers, Volume 1 is my fave indie dark fantasy series.
9. My Life With The Walter Boys is my fave YA family novel.
10. The Blue Castle is my fave classic romance.

these are what I like right now but I like all the books I read.

In no particular order and in my current frame of mind:

Fiction:
1. A Prayer for Owen Meany--John Irving
2. A Little Life--Hanya Yanagihara
3. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World--Haruki Murakami
4. The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders--Robertson Davies
5. Middlemarch--George Eliot
6. The Blazing World--Siri Hustvedt
7. The Great Gatsby--F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. Anna Karenina--Leo Tolstoy

Nonfiction
9. Man's Search for Meaning--Viktor E. Frankl
10. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End--Atul Gawande

In no particular order and as others have said this could be different on another day . Hard to choose !

The Great Gatsby
Anna Karenina
The Goldfinch
Peace Like a River
Snow Falling on Cedars
A Little Life
Code Name Verity
The Street Sweeper
The Taming of the Shrew
Time and Again

So many more and maybe some I loved more but for now this is the list .

1. Wuthering Heights
2. The Diary of a Young Girl
3. Tropic of Cancer
4. Tipping the Velvet
5. Rebecca
6. Lolita
7. Waiting for Godot
8. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
9. Ham on Rye
10. The Golden Notebook

Like other people have said ask me tomorrow and this could change but these are all books that have had an impact on me in some way.

Leslie wrote: "Oh how could I have left off The Sound and the Fury?!"

LOL! I left out Lord Of The Rings....but you added that one, so all is good. :D

1. Frankenstein
2. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
3. The Diary of a Country Priest
4. Waiting for God
5. Death Comes for the Archbishop
6. Silence
7. The Stranger
8. A Model Childhood
9. Collected Fictions
10. The Scarlet Letter

I have not included any of the Sigrid Undset's books. For, I love almost all the books that I have read and will read.

I should have included Diary of a Young Girl !

I thought about including it too.

I should have included If on a Winter's Night a Traveler instead of one of my nonfictions.

Notice we all seem to be having immediate second thoughts.

As I read everyone else's lists, I kept saying "Oh, I should have picked that"!

Me too , Leslie ! I Thanks for the thread . It's fun to see what everyone lists .

Ok so, I may not fit in this group because I think the only books mentioned above that I've read are any of the Harry Potter books. I haven't heard of most of the books listed and I haven't really read any "classics". Anyway this is my top 10...
1. Taking Chances/Stealing Harper by Molly McAdams
2. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
3. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
4. Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz
5. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
6. Wait for You by J. Lynn (Jennifer L Armentrout)
7. Better Off Dead by H.P. Mallory
8. The Butterfly Effect by James Swallow
9. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
10. Cross Country by James Patterson

I don't know about not fitting in, I think that's one of the great things about this group, that we're an eclectic mix! I could easily have put The Time Traveler's Wife on my list too :)

I think within my own collection its pretty eclectic, but I know there are many genres I haven't read and I will most likely never read horror.

Leighanne, don't worry about your list being different! That is the fun of the group. I have read several of yours (& have others on my TBR), they just didn't make it to the top 10. Actually, I might have an almost completely different list if I was to write one right now!

I really liked The Time Traveller's Wife, too.

I once saw a movie called The Butterfly Effect. It was good.

Leighanne, it's nice to see everyone's lists so different. That's the biggest fun in making lists.

I'm not a horror fan either, or fantasy, or sci-fi, or chick lit....there's lots of genres that I don't typically read, though I'll give them a try.

Like many others my top 10 varies

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (if Leslie can cheat by including all 3 I will and I read it in one volume!)
2. Anna Karenina
3. Half of a Yellow Sun
4. The Handmaid's Tale
5. Wyrd Sisters
6. 1984
7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
9. The Beach
10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Can I share The Handmaid's Tale, 1984 and I know Why the Caged Bird Sings as my favourites too, this isn't cheating the 10 book limit is it? ;)

My top ten varies but there are some so firmly fixed there I can't imagine them moving.

They are: (not in any particular order)

The Lord of the Rings
Frankenstein
Rebecca
Jane Eyre
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever
To Kill a Mocking Bird

So hard to choose just four more out of so many I love, but I'll go for:

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
The Time Traveller's Wife
The Great Gatsby
A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls is another brilliant book. Ah!

Leighanne wrote: "Ok so, I may not fit in this group because I think the only books mentioned above that I've read are any of the Harry Potter books. I haven't heard of most of the books listed and I haven't really ..."

Don't worry about not fitting in, we all have our own individual tastes and that's what makes this group so wonderful. We get to see what other members like and may be inspired to read something new and out of our comfort zone.

My top 10 are (in no particular order)

1- Mrs. Mike - I adore this book, my first fictional crush! I read this in my early teens and I wanted to move to Canada and marry a mounty when I finished reading. I try to read at least once a year.
2- Little Women - it's the first book that made me cry
3- One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey
4- Term Limits
5- Winter Garden - have tissues if you read, it's heartbreaking
6- Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
7- The Brotherhood of the Rose
8- Harvest - a real nail biter
9- Something Borrowed
10- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Pink wrote: "Can I share The Handmaid's Tale, 1984 and I know Why the Caged Bird Sings as my favourites too, this isn't cheating the 10 book limit is it? ;)"

Can I squeeze in 1984 too? :D

I'm now reading To Kill a Mockingbird and liking it a lot. Also have If on a Winter's Night a Traveler and The Handmaid's Tale on my to-read list.

How could I have forgotten The Handmaid's Tale???

Terri wrote: "How could I have forgotten The Handmaid's Tale???"

Me too! I vote we should be allowed a new list of 10 books at least every week ;)

Sounds good to me, Pink! :)

How could I have forgotten To Kill a Mockingbird?!?

Heather wrote: "Like many others my top 10 varies

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (if Leslie can cheat by including all 3 I will and I read it in one volume!)
2. Anna Karenina
3. [boo..."

Glad to see Half of a Yellow Sun in your top ten list. I've bought it a few days ago for my kindle. Will read it soon.

As many have already said, it's difficult to make a list with only 10 books!

1) [book:The Idiot|107844] by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3) Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
4) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
5) The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels by Ágota Kristóf
6) Youth Without God by Ödön von Horváth
7) Il sangue di san Gennaro by Sándor Márai
8) The Life Before Us by Romain Gary
9) The Bhagavad Gita
10) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

but I also love everything by Tiziano Terzani and the short stories by Guy de Maupassant.

dely, I am still breaking my head over a list of ten, but quite a few of your list are very likely to go onto mine as well! Definitely Agota Kristof's trilogy! Sometimes I feel like a broken record because I recommend especially the first novel of the three so very often ;)

Jenny , love your description "breaking my head " !
Every time I read someone's list , I think of a another .

Next week I might add The Time Traveler's Wife too !

Another group I'm in has an ongoing thread where members add 5 star reads . And another group has a thread where we list our favorite at the end of each month .

Angela M wrote: "Jenny , love your description "breaking my head " !
Every time I read someone's list , I think of a another .

Next week I might add The Time Traveler's Wife too !

Another group I'm in has an on..."

Oh I like the idea of listing a favourite book at the end of each month. Maybe we could do something like that here?

Gill , in that group there is a thread called Favorite Books of 2015 . Anyone wanting to participate adds their titles each month by editing their first message and then posting to the thread that you have added whatever book you chose for that month . It's great because you have your top twelve list at the end of the year and can see what books others have loved .

Maybe one of the mods can set up a thread ? I'll copy my list from the other group . I'd point you to it but it is a small (16 people) private group and not visible.

Jenny wrote: "dely, I am still breaking my head over a list of ten, but quite a few of your list are very likely to go onto mine as well! Definitely Agota Kristof's trilogy! Sometimes I feel like a broken record..."

It's not at all easy above all if we read new good books and then must decide among these and the one we have read in the past. Have you already read something by Tiziano Terzani? I think you will like him, above all his last books: Noch Eine Runde Auf Dem Karussell and Das Ende Ist Mein Anfang (sorry English speaking friends, there are no English editions)

To recommend only the first part of Kristof's trilogy is a blasphemy! :D

Gill wrote: "Angela M wrote: "Jenny , love your description "breaking my head " !
Every time I read someone's list , I think of a another .

Next week I might add The Time Traveler's Wife too !

Another group..."

Yes I like that idea, too!!

Angela M wrote: "Gill , in that group there is a thread called Favorite Books of 2015 . Anyone wanting to participate adds their titles each month by editing their first message and then posting to the thread that..."

Angela, you (or anyone else) can set up a thread -- you don't need to be a moderator to do it.

Great ! I'm not at home now and only have my phone but when I get home I'll set it up .

Leslie wrote: "Angela M wrote: "Gill , in that group there is a thread called Favorite Books of 2015 . Anyone wanting to participate adds their titles each month by editing their first message and then posting t..."

I started a thread in the Book Chat folder called Favorite Books of 2015 and have started by creating my list .