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The best book you ever read?

To Kill a Mockingbird and For Whom the Bell Tolls
 
Best piece of writing I've ever come across is What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The book that got me into literary fiction is On the Road. Kerouac was the first one to transport me to another place and time and make me feel kindred spirits with another human character. I liked reading before then, but it definitely started my love affair with fiction.
 
I haven't read it in a long time but probably The Stranger.

I really liked Freedom but know a lot of booknerds hate Franzen
 
vadimivich said:
Slaughterhouse 5 is absolute garbage. I'll go on a 5 page rant on how a bunch of drug addled baby boomers decided that was a great work and shoved it down the throats of the rest of us if you want, but I'm assuming nobody wants to read that anymore than I want to read that horrible piece of shit again.

Fan of The World According to Garp, White Noise, The Yiddish Policeman's Union and Gravity's Rainbow if we're talking mostly post-war 20th century American novels and A Good Man is Hard to Find for collections of short stories. I don't love everything by either Chabon or Pynchon, but they are probably the best American authors of the second half of the 20th century.
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I would love to hear the Slaughterhouse Five rant. Do you feel the same about the rest of Vonnegut? I find it a compelling anti-war treatise with his characteristic sardonic and caustic wit.

And I don't understand the hype around Chabon. He's a very talented writer, but I'm not sure he belongs in the top 10 since 1950. Bukowski, Nabokov, Capote, Kerouac, Miller, Baldwin, Carver, Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams more contemporary writers like Pynchon, Roth, David Foster Wallace, Wolfe, etc. Just my opinion there.
 
TownieDeac said:
I would love to hear the Slaughterhouse Five rant. Do you feel the same about the rest of Vonnegut? I find it a compelling anti-war treatise with his characteristic sardonic and caustic wit.

And I don't understand the hype around Chabon. He's a very talented writer, but I'm not sure he belongs in the top 10 since 1950. Bukowski, Nabokov, Capote, Kerouac, Miller, Baldwin, Carver, Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams more contemporary writers like Pynchon, Roth, David Foster Wallace, Wolfe, etc. Just my opinion there.
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Dude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Updike?

As for the initial question, my list, always subject to change: 1. Great Gatsby
2. Lolita
3. All the King's Men
4. Sound and the Fury
5. East of Eden
 
Another vote for To Kill a Mockingbird. I also really like Innocents Abroad and Huck Finn.
 
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OldGoldBeard said:
Dude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Updike?

As for the initial question, my list, always subject to change: 1. Great Gatsby
2. Lolita
3. All the King's Men
4. Sound and the Fury
5. East of Eden
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GGM isn't American, but Updike is a huge miss on my part.
 
Never was the type of a kid to grab a book, but my favorite book in school was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The first book I read out of college, that was for pure enjoyment was The Firm which made hours on a commuter train fly by and thus made me realize the joy of reading. I also enjoyed The Perfect Storm because I have always loved the NE shoreline, and watching the fisherman come into port. I loved the description of the crew stocking the boat with supplies. Amazing all the crap they cram in there for a long trip.
 
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Strickland33 said:
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
My Antonia by Willa Cather
The Human Stain by Phillip Roth
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

all come to mind. I wish I had the time to read more fiction.
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Please explain. I was an English major and HAD to read this book. It's part Little House on the Prairie and part You Go, Girl. This book made me want to become an accountant.
 
TownieDeac said:
GGM isn't American, but Updike is a huge miss on my part.
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Steinbeck is a bro too.

Mine might be 100 Years of Solitude or Lolita.

I was a late bloomer when it came to literature. Cat's Cradle was one of my entry points.
 
Coach O said:
Please explain. I was an English major and HAD to read this book. It's part Little House on the Prairie and part You Go, Girl. This book made me want to become an accountant.
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I don't know what to tell you, but here is what I love about it. Cather's prose, particularly her descriptions of landscapes, time, people, work, and family are pretty incredible. This book reads the way Days of Heaven looks. The way that Cather plays around with sentimentality and nostalgia is also impressive, IMO. The coming of age story is also amazing, as the class and immigration boundaries are subtle, yet palpable throughout. Finally, it's a prairie story that situates America against itself and the fact that the nation changing. I think it can be read on the level of prairie love story and modernist allegory. I don't read alot of fiction anymore, but I revisit this book every few years. Cather really is one of the great, albeit forgotten, 20th century luminaries, IMO.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
Steinbeck is a bro too.

Mine might be 100 Years of Solitude or Lolita.

I was a late bloomer when it came to literature. Cat's Cradle was one of my entry points.
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love steinbeck, i was thinking most of his stuff was pre-1950, but it looks like 2 of my favorites of his, east of eden and the winter of our discontent, were post '50
 
For a pure page turner - The Third Option by Vince Flynn

(and thanks for the reference to the Screwtape Letters - a friend recommended awhile ago, but I couldn't remember the title)
 
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