What is your favourite novel?
What is your favourite novel?
Robert-in-Ohio gave me the idea to do this when I saw his “Favourite Movie” article. However, here, please indicate a reason for your choice, or a story you can link with it, and don’t limit yourself to only one if you wish to add more.
To start the ball rolling, I choose Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austin. When I was in high school my grade 11 teacher made us do a book report on that novel. Previously, I had read mostly science fiction novels by Edward E. (Doc) Smith and other famous SciFi authors like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, etc. so, previous to P&P, Dune had been my favourite. I believe I have read P&P at least 20 times over the years.
When I read P&P I was so impressed by the perfection of Austen’s use of the English language (although just slightly archaic) I was totally turned on to English literature to the extent that I majored in it in university.
To bring me up to date, perhaps because of the profession from which I retired over 10 years ago, I have enjoyed and read more than once John Grisham’s novels, and I more recently have read and been enamoured by Daniel Silva’s novels that feature Israeli secret agent Gabriel Alon.
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This was a great idea Buzz. Now I have a list of book recommendation that I'm looking forward to reading!
I guess I should have posted this on some other web site.
I don't read as many novels as I used to. I don't read thrillers, mysteries, or legal novels. I used to read some science fiction. I used to love Jack Vance, who had a very unique way with words. These days most of my reading is non fiction.
Mark Twain is my favorite author. I have read a number of his novels. The best of course is Huckleberry Finn but A Connecticut Yankee At King Arthur's court was very good as well. The Pauper And The Prince also.
I also like Dickens.
One of my very favorite novels is The Winds Of War by Herman Wouk, along with the sequel War And Remembrance.
But my favorite novels would have to be One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey and another of his novels "Sometimes A Great Notion" about a rebellious logging family in Oregon. One of the great American novels.
Two more
The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck
and Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowery.
I can't choose a favorite novel. I like different ones for different reasons, and in different moods. I recently read and enjoyed Confederacy of Dunces. The author wrote people very well and very believable. There was no real hero and few to root for, but somehow it kept me interested.
Give it some time Buzz. Not everything attracts an audience immediately.
I too have a major attraction to Science Fiction (at least of the pre New Wave variety), as well as the works of Louis L'Amour (not other western writers, though; I'm attracted to the author's writing style rather than the genre).
Aside from those, my favorite novel is called Cap'n Fatso by Admiral Daniel V. Gallery. It is neither Western nor Sci Fi. It's a Naval comedy written in 1968, dealing with the crew of an LCM (Landing Craft Machinery) that the Navy lost track of in the Med at the time of the Six Day War, and it's somewhat piratical skipper, Boatswain's Mate 1st Class John Patrick (Fatso) Gioninni, an old breed sailor on his last enlistment. Between them, Fatso and his crew get into, and mostly out of, more wild and funny adventures than any other fifteen guys in the whole Navy.
I haven't read new fiction novels in quite a while . Perhaps my old favorite was Catch-22 . It also made for an enjoyable movie ...
I so rarely read fiction I'm afraid I'm going to have to think about this. A know one of my favorite books of fiction is "The American Short Story" which is a collection of various American short stories starting in the 1700's right up until the 1990's.
Though if I want to do some light reading I always reach for something by Kurt Vonnegut JR.
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck and Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (I like them both very very much)
Fifty Shades of Grey ... just kidding.
Lamb, by Christopher Moore.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams.
Fear and Loathong in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson.
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Beatrice and Virgil, by Yaan Martel
Fifty Shades of Grey
This is a Novel??????......My husband told me it was an instructional manual!
The Round House, Louise Erdrich
The Sea Witch, Jack London
Winds of War, and War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk
Plus at least a dozen others.
Good subject, Buzz. Agree with some of the choices from above. Most of my reading tends to be historical/cultural and I am working my way through the top 100 mountaineering books written. Thankfully at least 30 are written in German, Italian, and French.
Will be interesting to see everyones choices.
I read Atlas Shrugged while in university, and perhaps to counterpoint, Dean, at the moment I'm reading a book on the life of Che Guevera.
I actually liked The Fountainhead much better.
A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute, who also wrote On the Beach. It's a book of two parts, sort of. The story of a British secretary in Singapore, who is captured by the Japanese, and the story of their imprisonment and wanderings over the peninsula, then, the story of her marrying the man who sacrificed himself for her when she was a prisoner. Very powerful book!
The Captain, by Jan DeHartog. This is the story of a Dutch tugboat captain that escorted the ships on the Murmansk run in WWII. Wow! What a book!
The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. Historical fiction at its finest!
The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment, by Mary Stuart. The Arthurian Lengend, brought to life. Great books! They take the myths and make them 'real'.
Too many others to really list! I read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee just about every year, and get something new out of it, each time... Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier, the same... Every time I read it, I find something I hadn't noticed before. The Valiant Lady, by Brigid Knight-- the story of a Dutch woman during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. GREAT book-- published in 1948.
I have too many books, and love a lot of them!
"Every time I read it, I find something I hadn't noticed before."
For the same reason one should watch a movie at least twice.
Absolutely!
I read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee just about every year, and get something new out of it, each time.
Do you give any credence to the rumor that it was really written by her childhood friend Truman Capote.
No, not really. Their writing styles are very different.
To me, the sign of a great novel is that when you start reading it you can't put it down until you've finished it.
The Wind of War and War and Rememberance, who hasn't read them, I read them before they were a miniseries.
If you like that, you will like this
Once an Eagle. Anton Myrer,
Better in My opinion than War and Rememberance. If you judge the novel by the horribly forgettable mini series they produced you will miss one of the greatest historical American epics ever written.
I don't read too much fiction but a lot of the books mentioned I have had the pleasure to partake.
One that is missed?
A Bell for Adano, John Hershey.
Quintessentially American. and written so well it won a pulitzer.
And Shane is a better read than the movie.
Other than that I am a serious reader of WEB Griffin. And anything Bourne as well.
Have you ever read, The Last Convertible ? By Anton Myrer. Wonderful book!
Herman Wouk - The Winds of War & War and Remembrance
Slaughterhouse Five.
Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre are my go to books when I am waiting somewhere. .airport, doctor, etc. Favorite author is Frank Yerby, he has written many books and I have read most of them, from The Serpent and the Staff to The Voyage Unplanned.
And The Hunt for Red October. As in many cases the book is better then the movie.
Absolutely right, Randy. When I was recovering from knee surgery a friend gave me the novel "Hunt for Red October", and although I did, and still, enjoy that movie (Sean Connery is ALWAYS good to watch) I did find the novel more interesting.
I read the book first and because of other novels that had Jack Ryan in them I kept seeing Harrison Ford in my mind while reading it. When they cast Alec Baldwin I was really disappointed.
Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna and Prodigal Summer
John Steinbeck's Canary Row and East of Eden
Speaking of John Steinbeck, his The Grapes of Wrath was one of the very few novels where the movie was as good as the book. IMHO.
This is going to be a bit of a hodge podge.
All Quiet on the Western Front
War of the Worlds
Contact
Of Mice and Men
The Dogs of War
Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
A Long, Long, Way Sebastian Berry
Studs Lonigan- James Farrell
The First Man in Rome, Colleen McCullough
Bonfire of the Vanities- Thomas Wolfe
The Sunne in Splendor- Sharon Kay Penman
The Stand-Stephen King
The Idiot- Dostoyevsky
Middlemarch- George Eliot
Gates of Fire- Steven Pressfield