Best novel you have ever read

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a mystery fiend so I tend to love series

Anne Perry WWI series that starts with No Graves Yet. I came out during the beginning of the invasion of Iraq and raised many issues about individual and state morality, role of the press and how to dissent.

I read one that I enjoyed, and mentioned it to my mother, who then filled me in on her background. My mom loves mysteries but wouldn't buy Perry's novels because she didn't want to give money to a murderer. Kind of sucked the fun out of her books for me after that.

I have heard that the movie was far more definitive than the true facts, do believe that it may have been more complex of a situation myself. I discovered that fact halfway through the series and I think made it even better. It explained why she is rarely has an ending with a clear bad guy, instead the reader is left to mull how much one's point of view determines if one is wrong.

More complex? She is an admitted murderer. You think that the mom deserved to die? Give me a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Three Junes! So excited someone else mentioned it!

A Thousand Splendid Suns

The Things They Carried.

Previous English major poster here.

The Things They Carried was also a favorite book.

I am curious about everyone who loves A Thousand Splendid Suns. I thought Kite Runner was a much better book. I read/listened to both a couple of times.

Another Tim O'Brien fan here. Love, love that book.

[Anonymous]

Wow, Life of Pi, The Red Tent, Prayer for Owen Meany, Atonement (as well as Amsterdam and the something beach one by Ian McEwan). All great books.

Others I loved by authors mentioned here are Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (I think someone mentioned it), Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy.

My other contributions are The White Hotel, A Long and Happy Life/Good Hearts by Reynolds Price, Geek Love, and Scepticism Inc. My pick of the day for beach reading would be The Princess Bride.

[Anonymous]

Oh man! I came back here after a few days and am sad no one else mentioned Zora Neale Hurston! I did go through a big Harlem Renaissance (sp?) phase with a focus on women writers at one point, so I was seriously into Hurston and Nella Larson's Passing and some other books, so I may have thought the appeal would be more universal.

Just wanted to add two more books. The first is a somewhat complicated beach read (funny, but also touching and a little bit deep): The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Alan Gurganis (excuse my spelling; I've been up way too long today).

The second, which is a quick read and also touching but in a more direct way, is Alison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It. It was my Bible for a little while during the time I was figuring out the whole working mom thing.

I guess I shouldn't fuss about people not posting about Hurston since my own list (posted earlier) looks realy weird - Irving (OWEN MEANY!), Hawthorne, Dickens, Alice Walker, Hurston, and whatever else I said. I should add Chaucer or something just to make it look even more random. I'll have to check out some others people have listed and fire up the Kindle while I'm getting ready for bed. Thanks, OP, for getting all this great book sharing started!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High school curriculum developers should take note that many of the classics remain life long favorites -- and be sure to continue teaching those! I wonder if any posters were men, and if the same question were asked to a group of DC area dads, whether the answers would be very different. I am curious about this because my husband seems to have a deaf ear for fiction, and besides the obvious choices (To Kill a Mockingbird, Separate Peace, Lord of the Flies, Old Man and the Sea), I am finding it hard to recommend books that will get me teenaged sons as excited about literature as I became at their age. Any dads want to chime in? Ah, maybe I will start a spin off.

All the men I know love the Patrick O'Brien series (Master and Commander, etc). As do I.

And if you like that - you should try the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik - like Master and Commander - except with dragons! (posits a slightly altered reality where the major superpowers of the 1700-1800s had sentient dragons that were bred for war - and there are wild dragons and sea serpents.) Rollicking good reads.

[Anonymous]

Kurt Vonnegut is a good author for teenage boys

[Anonymous]

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath --- The most amazing book you will ever read, esp if you or someone you know has issues with mental illness. It can be hard to get through but totally worth it!!! I actually have a tattoo of my favorit quote from that book "the bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head, I was open to the circulating air"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Man, how can you choose just one?

I really loved The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I read it one lonely summer spent in a strange town where I knew no one and was doing an internship which had me doing research alone in a cold basement room. Something about the mood I was in -- it just resonated with me.

I'm reading this right now! I totally get what you mean. She is so good at portraying this underlying sense of dread throughout the book. Lovely.

[Anonymous]

So hard to choose. My all-time favorite book is Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin. She was a fantastic writer and died way too young. Also loved Crossing to Safety, Pride & Prejudice. This year, Room was fantastic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So hard to choose. My all-time favorite book is Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin. She was a fantastic writer and died way too young. Also loved Crossing to Safety, Pride & Prejudice. This year, Room was fantastic.

I LOVE Laurie Colwin. I miss her, and I didn't even know her.

I can't name a favorite novel; there are too many. I haven't read A Fine Balance yet, though I have it in the stack. I'm going to read Keith Richards' Life and then Patti Smith's Just Kids before I make my way back to fiction. I'm excited to know I have A Fine Balance ahead of me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also love a Prayer for Owen Meany.

My cousin loves this. I guess I'll have to try it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So hard to choose. My all-time favorite book is Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin. She was a fantastic writer and died way too young. Also loved Crossing to Safety, Pride & Prejudice. This year, Room was fantastic.

I LOVE Laurie Colwin. I miss her, and I didn't even know her.

I can't name a favorite novel; there are too many. I haven't read A Fine Balance yet, though I have it in the stack. I'm going to read Keith Richards' Life and then Patti Smith's Just Kids before I make my way back to fiction. I'm excited to know I have A Fine Balance ahead of me.

17:24 here again. I've never met anybody who has even read her, I'm so happy to hear I'm not alone. I also miss her. I will read her cookbooks just to 'hear' her voice, it's so distinctive. One of my best friend's always teases me about how upset I was when she died.

[Anonymous]

_Winter's Tale_ by Mark Helprin. Most beuatiful prose ever written. Amazing considering the guy was a speech writer for Bush I (not shrub).

[Anonymous]

Picked up A Prayer for Owen Meany today because of this thread. Off to curl up on the sofa with it!

[Anonymous]

I love Laurie Colwin, too!

Favorite novel is Anna Karenina.

I love the Bell Jar, too. She calls bald men in the movie theater moon brains and when she goes down to the basement after she's ingested as it were, she wraps herself in her own sweet shadow. It's sad that that world, Mademoiselle Magazine, is gone.