What's your favorite book of all time?

[Sarahfeena]

I'm not sure I have one very very favorite. It might be Anne of Green Gables, though. Definitely a top contender.

[Marsilia]

A Wrinkle In Time, though I have a few that I point at as books that shaped my reading habits for the rest of ever.

[Orual]

Jane Eyre. I have no idea why this is, as there are no elves, dragons, sword-fights, or even a single spaceship in the whole book.

[Marsilia]

How did you stay awake through that, Orual? It sounds positively horrible!

[What Exit?]

No surprise, Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit. (By J.R.R. Tolkien)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Anson Heinlein is next on my list.

I do love A Wrinkle In Time. I have reread it often since I first read it.

Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre are in that category of books I will probably never read. Am I missing something? Are they that much better then Little Women or anything by Dickens? Or are they just not for me?

[Orual]

Well, I can't stand Little Women, and the only Dickens I tolerate is A Tale of Two Cities, so yes, I do think Jane Eyre is better. Is there any 19th century literature that you like, Jim?

[Oliveloaf]

[Sarahfeena]

I never liked Little Women, either! I thought I was the only female-type who didn't.

[Elendil's Heir]

Ooo, that's a toughie. If I had to pick just one, it would probably be Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin, a great sf satire/adventure.

In my next breath, though, I'd say that I also really, really like First Among Equals by Jeffrey Archer, a British political thriller; Aztec by Gary Jennings, a historical novel; Imzadi by Peter David, a Star Trek novel; Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Glory Road, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Time for the Stars, all terrific sf; Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and Tool of the Trade, ditto; and of course Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, classic high fantasy. I just finished Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, a big novel about magic in Regency England, and it just might become one of my all-time favorites, too.

[OneCentStamp]

From a comment thread on my Goodreads, attached to W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (*****):

Melaney: No review for one of your favorites? Oh well, at least there are no spoilers. I started this last night. I'm always curious about your five-star books.

Ben: I read it when I was 22 and it changed the way I think and feel about the world, and myself, to an extent that is rivaled only by Atlas Shrugged. If it's possible for a book to be harrowing at the very same time that it makes you feel less alone, Of Human Bondage is the book that did that for me. I don't think it's at all hyperbolic to suggest this book may have saved my life.

Because of that, the book still feels incredibly raw to me, and that's probably why I've never gotten around to writing a review. Since reading a book is a collaborative effort between the reader and the author, any review I wrote would be a review of myself (in a very dark time) as well as it.

I'll be interested to see what you and Tristyn (artifex) think of the book, as you're reading it for the first time during a very different and later period in your respective lives.

Oh, and I don't want to spoil anything for you, but Rosebud is his sled.

[Sarahfeena]

OCS, this is a total hijack, but I'd love to hear some of your thoughts about Atlas Shrugged and how it changed your thinking. Would you talk about it in another thread, maybe?

[Oliveloaf]

I read what I later realized was a licensing rip-off, "Atlas Smirked." It wasn't very good.

It was also like 96 pages, which seems short.

I read the Odyssey as penance. (I really did read the Odyssey. I found this an incredible chore, but am glad I finished it. What an amazing
collection of cultural references that work is.)

[What Exit?]

Well, I can't stand Little Women, and the only Dickens I tolerate is A Tale of Two Cities, so yes, I do think Jane Eyre is better. Is there any 19th century literature that you like, Jim?

I love Twain and oddly enough Sir Walter Scott who Twain hated. I like Poe but would not say I love him. Arthur Conan Doyle is a master. Lewis Carroll of course. There are others, but that should give some idea.

Verne and Wells I like also, strange oversight by me.

Robert Louis Stevenson is fairly good and I love the ideas of his books more than the writing but the writing is tolerable, unlike Dickens.

FTR: James Fennimore Cooper is the worst ever. He wrote books I should like and they are terrible.

[Orual]

There are two good results of the works of James Fenimore Cooper: the Last of the Mohicans movie and Twain's essay on how much he sucks.

Jane Eyre is a a coming-of-age story with a heavy dose of Gothic moodiness. I have always found it very engaging/affecting, but there are a lot of people who don't care for it.

[The Original An Gadaí]

I haven't read it in ages but I Married A Communist was my favourite for some time.

[PixieBob]

"Without Remorse" by Tom Clancy. I'm a lowbrow when it comes to books. Somebody here needs to be or you guys won't have any way to know how excellent your tastes are. I volunteer.

[What Exit?]

I like a lot of the early Tom Clancy books. The end of the Cold War though lessened his stories. But I've read most of his books and loved many of the early ones. But none are my top favorites.