[detritus]

So, what are Your top twenty books of all time, and not just of the fantasy genre? Oh and for the sake of the list series count as one book.

For me (in no order aside from #1)

1- Lord of the Flies - William Golding

The Road - Cormac Mccarthy
The Magus - John Fowles
A Song of Ice and Fire series- George R. R. Martin
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov
The Plague - Albert Camus
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Beach - Alex Garland
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson
Brighton Rock - Graham Greene
Inferno - Dante
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Dune - Frank Herbert

[Salt-Man Z]

Dude, why you gotta make me think?

In no particular order after the first two:
Shardik - Richard Adams
Gap Cycle - Stephen R. Donaldson
Treason - Orson Scott Card
Ender Quartet - Orson Scott Card
Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson
Acts of Caine - Matthew Woodring Stover
Sphere - Michael Crichton
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
Mordant's Need - Stephen R. Donaldson
Chronicles of the Black Company - Glen Cook
Maia - Richard Adams
Wyrms - Orson Scott Card
Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
R. Daneel Olivaw Mysteries - Isaac Asimov
Faded Sun Trilogy - C. J. Cherryh
The Worthing Saga - Orson Scott Card
Dune Chronicles - Frank Herbert
Ilium/Olympos - Dan Simmons

Honorable mentions:
Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons
Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien

[teholbeddict]

I don't know why you keep tortuting me with these lists! It's really difficult and I hate doing them! Despite my complaining here it is in no particular order

1) Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
2) The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
3) Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
4) The Devine Comedy - Dante Aligheri
5) The Odyssey - Homer
6) The Aenid - Virgil
7) The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
8) The Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson
9) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
10) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
11) Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson
12) The Sarantine Mosaic - Guy Gavriel Kay
13) The Riddle Master Hed Trilogy - Patricia McKillip
14) A Song of Ice and Fire - George R.R. Martin
15) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
16) Paradise Lost - John Milton
17) Chronicles of the Black Company - Glen Cook
18) The Crimson Petal and the White - Michael Faber
19) The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
20) Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkein

[Mentalist]

20, you say?
no particular order

Dumas - Count of Monte Christo
Dumas - 20 years later
Dumas - Ascanio
Louis Boussenard - Captain Break-neck
Louis Boussenard -Diamond thieves
Sir Walter Scott- Ivanhoe
Jules Verne - Mysterious Island
Sergei Lukyanenko - Deeptown trilogy
Nick Perumov - "Chronicles of the rift" series
Steven Erikson and ICE- the Malaz novels
Majne-Reid (sp????) --"White Chief"
Majne-Reid -"Headles Horseman"
Majne-Read, "Oceola, chief of the Seminoles"
Alexander Kazantsev -"Burning Island"
Brothers Strugatsky - "The doomed City"
Brothers Strugatsky -"Hard to be a God"
GG Kay - "Sarantine mosaic"
Sergei Lukyanenko - The Watch books
Nick Perumov - "Ring of Darkness" trilogy
Nick Perumov - "Cronicles of Hjorward"
Taras Shevchenko -"Kobzar"

Special mention -
Cooper's 5 Natty Bumppo books
Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Dorward
Andzhei Sapkowski's "Witcher series"
Nikolai Gogol -"Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"
Sergei Bulgakov - "White Guard"

.... I can go on and on....

[amphibian]

1) Blood Meridian
2) Crime and Punishment
3) Dune
4) Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
5) Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72
6) The World According to Garp
7) Freakonomics
8) A Fire in the Sun
9) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
10) Grapes of Wrath
11) Sherlock Holmes
12) Neuromancer
13) Assassin's Gate
14) The Great Gatsby
15) A Man in Full
16) The Moviegoer
17) The Book of the New Sun
18) Shalimar the Clown
19) US Guys
20) The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Only the first two and the last two are set in concrete. The others could be shifted around some.

[detritus]

amphibian, on Jan 13 2009, 04:22 AM, said:

1) Blood Meridian
2) Crime and Punishment
3) Dune
4) Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
5) Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
6) The World According to Garp
7) Freakonomics
8) A Fire in the Sun
9) Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
10) Grapes of Wrath
11) Sherlock Holmes
12) Neuromancer
13) Assassin's Gate
14) The Great Gatsby
15) A Man in Full
16) The Moviegoer
17) The Book of the New Sun
18) Shalimar the Clown
19) US Guys
20) The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Only the first two and the last two are set in concrete. The others could be shifted around some.

Great list.

[amphibian]

mandog, on Jan 13 2009, 01:55 PM, said:

Great list.

Except for me forgetting Huckleberry Finn. Take out The Moviegoer and put that one in. Sorry, Walker Percy, but Twain's gotta be on there.

[HoosierDaddy]

You said top 20 books and yourself and other people are listing entire series as 1 book. That's ridiculous. If you like MbotF then put all 8 of them in the top 20 otherwise people will end up writing:

1. MBotF
2. ASoIaF
3. WoT
4. Riftwar Series
5. Harry Potter series

etc., etc.

[detritus]

HoosierDaddy, on Jan 13 2009, 09:34 PM, said:

You said top 20 books and yourself and other people are listing entire series as 1 book. That's ridiculous. If you like MbotF then put all 8 of them in the top 20 otherwise people will end up writing:

1. MBotF
2. ASoIaF
3. WoT
4. Riftwar Series
5. Harry Potter series

etc., etc.

My list, my rules brother. I made a point to add that at the top to count a series as a book.

[HoosierDaddy]

Fair enough, although it doesn't require the same amount of dissection otherwise it would have.

[Aptorian]

Why is that ridiculous?

[Mentalist]

hmm
I think this would work better as "best authors" list, tbh.

[HoosierDaddy]

Aptorian, on Jan 13 2009, 04:41 PM, said:

Why is that ridiculous?

Because I have poor reading comprehension and didin't see his counting a series as 1 book. Which, I don't really think you should do... but it explains why people were doing it.

[Cold Iron]

Ok, out of the 155 odd books I have read (thanks facebook) I would say the following were especially brilliant (in no order)

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
1984 - George Orwell
Twelve Angry Men - Reginald Rose (ok it's a play, shoot me this thing is better than Shakespeare)
DHG - SE
MOI - SE

The following books I would say are not brilliant, but changed my life in some way:

Heliconia Trillogy - Brian Aldiss
Rage of a Demon King - Raymond E Feist
Assasin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb
Holy Blood Holy Grail - Michael Baigent et. al.
Z for Zacharia - Robert C O'Brien
The Book of Five Rings - Miyamoto Musashi
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The Weather Makers - Tim Flannery
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Hatchet - Gary Paulson
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success - Deepak Chopra
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - JRRT
While the Billy Boils (a collection of short stories) - Henry Lawson

This post has been edited by Cold Iron: 13 January 2009 - 10:14 PM

[Stalker]

If we are going by series are 1 entry, my list will be sick. In no particular order...

1) Malazan Book of the Fallen- Steven Erikson
2) Cormac Novels- Neil Asher
3) Culture Novels- Iain M. Banks
4) ASoIaF- GRRM
5) Lord of the Rings- JRR Tolkien
6)Revelation Space Novels- Alastair Reynolds
7) Iliad/ Odyssey - Homer
8) Ilium/Olympos- Dan Simmons
9) Into Thin Air- Jon Krakauer
10) The Three Musketeers- Alexandre Dumas
11) Henry IV, Part 1- William Shakespeare
12) Barsoom Series- Edgar Rice Burroughs
12) Dune (the first few only)- Frank Herbert
13) The Black Company- Glen Cook
14) Farseer Books- Robin Hobb
15)Band of Brothers- Steven Ambrose
16) Malaz Novels- ICE
17) Posleen Series- John Ringo
18)The Sword of Truth series- Terry Goodkind (this is a joke, but I had to throw it in).
19) Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
20) Ender Books- Orson Scott Card

The list is very series intensive, there are many standalone type books that I like too but I'm at college and this is the list of stuff that I liked enough to remember, with one exception.

[Soulessdreamer]

Must reads

Enders Game
Starship Troopers
Grunts - Mary gentle
The Imortals - Tracey Hickman
Shards of Honour

Others

Alive
Paksanarion
Cryptonomicon
Earth - David Brin
Legend of Gird
Snow Crash
Nuromancer
Orbital Decay
Moonrise & Moonwar - Ben Bova
Jumper
Stupid White Men
Lord of the Flies
Ringworld
The Hobbit
wizard and glass - Steven King

Series

Malazan Book of the fallen (havent read the novellas or ICEs yet)
Black Company novels
Alien trilogy
Discworld novels
Uplift trilogies
Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy
Conquers trilogy - Timothy Zhan
Vorkosigan novels
Hammer and Cross trilogy - Harry Harrison
Legacy of the Aldanta Novels
Robot novels - Issac Asimov
Honorverse novels
LOTR (as much as I enjoyed the story I hated the actual prose, syntax and pacing)

graphic novels/comic books

Johnny the Homocidal Maniac & Squee
The Watchmen
V for Vendetta

TTFN

[LadyMTL]

Oh geez...I've read so many that it's almost painful to try and come up with a top 20 list. And of course, the list may change as I keep reading too! Anyway, here they are, in no special order (series will be condensed), they're not all fiction either:

1. Roots by Alex Haley
2. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. A Song of Ice and Fire by GRRM
5. Malazan Books of the Fallen by SE
6. LOTR by JRR Tolkien
7. A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
8. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
9. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
10. Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway
11. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
12. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (ok, I know it's a play but it is awesome regardless)
13. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
14. The Shining by Stephen King
15. The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
16. The Odyssey by Homer
17. The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
18. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
19. Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
20. The six wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

This post has been edited by Maia Irraz: 14 January 2009 - 05:35 PM

[Bauchelain the Evil]

No particular order

Malaza Book of the Fallen-Steven Erikson
A Song of Ice and Fire-George R.R Martin
THe Three Musketeers-Dumas
Twenty Years Later-Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo-Dumas
Le petit prince-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull-Richard Bach
Lies of Locke Lamora-Scott ynch
Name of the Wind-Patrick Rothfuss
Lord of Light-Zelazny
Creatures of Light and Darkness-Zelzny
The Winter King series-Brandon Cornwell
Tales of the Werewof Clan-H.Warner Munn
10.000 A.D-A.E Van Vogt
History of Rome-Indro Montanelli
The name of the rose-Umberto Eco
The Quiet man and other Stories-Maurice Walsh
First Man in Rome series-Coleen McCullogh
The Song of Troy-Colleen McCullogh

[Apocalypse Now]

1. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
3. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
4. 1984 - George Orwell
5. Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
6. The Malazan Book of the Fallen(series) - Steven Erikson
7. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
8. A Song of Ice and Fire - George R.R. Martin
9. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
10. The Stranger - Albert Camus
11. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
12. The First Law trilogy - Abercrombie
13. The Black Company series - Glen Cook
14. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
15. V - Thomas Pynchon
16. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
17. The Crucible(play) - Arthur Miller
18. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
19. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
20. In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust

[Soulessdreamer]

OMG


How could I forget He Died With A Felafel In His Hand and The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco by John Birmingham I laughed so hard reading these I almost busted my bunghole

TTFN