Kevin's Watch

It has occured to me we have threads to discuss favorite movies, music, characters from books, etc. but I don't recall ever seeing a favorite book thread. So here goes, not necessarily in this order:

Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (I'm just going to count the whole thing as one )
Mists Of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Clan Of The Cave Bear - Jean Auel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Sunbird - Wilbur Smith
Sick Puppy - Carl Hiassen
The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
Finn Mac Cool - Morgan Llewellyn

Einstein's Dreams: Alan Lightman
Watership Down : Richard Adams
the Trial: Franz Kafka
Salem's Lot: Stephen King
Animal Farm: George Orwell
Lord of the Flies: William Golding
Annotated H.P. Lovecraft
Leah, New Hampshire: Thomas Williams
the Palm at the End of the Mind: Wallace Stevens
TS Eliot: the Waste Land

off the top of my head

Hey Ducky, I just read Morgan Llewellyn's Finn Mac Cool! It was pretty good!

My list, not necessarily in order:

The Chrons of Thomas Covenant (I too am counting them as one entry)
Mordant's Need (same deal)
The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson (same deal)
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Edgar Allen Poe's short stories
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (my sentimental favorite )

Hmm, that's only nine entries (altho it's more than 20 books!). I guess
I'll save the tenth spot in case I think of another one later...

Hmmmm....

Winds of War by Herman Wouk
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by S.R.Donalddon
The Dark Tower by Stephen King
Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card
Harry Potter by J.K.Rowling
The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice
The Works of William Shakespeare (hey, I read them, okay?)
Omega by Jack McDevitt

This list is subject to change according to my ever-changing mood.

Zahir wrote: This list is subject to change according to my ever-changing mood.

Well, that would be expected! And I forgot about Winds Of War, oh and the Caine Mutiny.......

onewyteduck wrote: Well, that would be expected! And I forgot about Winds Of War, oh and the Caine Mutiny.......

Cheater! You said 10.

Mine, in no order:

Tommy's Chronicles
Pendragon Chronicles - Lawhead
LOTR
Civil War: a Narrative (Shelby Foote)
Killer Angels - Shaara
Chronicles of Narnia - Lewis
3 Musketeers - Dumas
Tale of 2 Cities - Dickens
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Stowe
Band of Brothers - Ambrose

These are off top of head as well, and I went more with how many times I've read them, as an indicator of how much I like them.

Oh wait, I thought this was novels only. Oops.

Mordant's Need (counting as one)
Amphigorey and Amphigorey II by Edward Gorey (counting his collections as one)
Lord of the Rings (counting as one)
Harry Potter Series (counting as one)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Half Magic by Edward Eager
The Wizard of Oz books by Frank L. Baum
The Stand by Stephen King
It by Stephen King
The Collected Works of William Shakespeare

Dang, I just realized there a good number of kids books on my list!

On The Beach-Nevil Shute
We Were Soldiers Once...And Young-Harold Moore
The Collected Works of William Shakespeare (good call Jenn)
Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess-Danny Sugerman
The Wounded Land-Donaldson
The Gap Cycle-Donalson
The Right Stuff-Tom Wolfe
Red Storm Rising-Tom Clancy
Wizard & Glass-Stephen King
I've never read anything unsatisfying from Phil Dick, so I'll include his entire catalog.

In a relative order:

Heart of Darkness and Other Stories - Joseph Conrad
The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin - Anton Chekhov
Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincy
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
The Man In the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
Discipline and Punish - Michel Foucault
The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien
Scandal - Shusaku Endo
Rising Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire - John Toland
If On a Winter's Night, A Traveller - Italo Calvino

Pern - McCaffrey
Harry Potter - Rowling
TCTC - Donaldson
Earthsea - LeGuin (thanks Fist!!)
A Canticle for Liebowitz - Miller
Pendragon - Lawhead
Earth's Children - Auel
Amber - Zelazny
Gunslinger - King (thanks Av, Cail, Luci, WF, etc.!)
The Hound and the Falcon - Tarr

...also good rereads anytime...

Brother Cadfael - Peters
Sister Fidelma - Tremayne
Rabbi David Small - Kemelman
Hercule Poirot - Chr-stie

Here are mine, but not in order.

TC Chronicles By SRD (counts as 1)
Eyes of Light and Darkness by Ivan Cat
Assassin Series by Robin Hobb (counts as 1)
The Madness Season by C.S. Friedman
The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Pastwatch:The redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Radix by AA Atansio (? could be wrong on Author)
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Chronicles of TC - counts as one.
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
The Story of Civilization - Will and Ariel Durant, 11 volumes
All the various Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories
Civil War: A Narrative - Shelby Foote
Cicero - Anthony Everett
The Silmarillion - Tolkien
Creation - Gore Vidal
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemmingway
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

iQuestor wrote:Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The original short story, or the expanded novel, iQ?

The short story broke my heart when I read it in my Daddy's collection of TMoF&SF. I've never read the expanded novel.

I find it difficult to do lists of favourites, but I'll pull ten good ones off the top of my head and try not to worry too much if I don't think it really represents my absolute favourites.


Vellum ~ Hal Duncan
A Clockwork Orange ~ Anthony Burgess
House of Leaves ~ Mark Z Danielewski
The Satanic Verses ~ Salman Rushdie
Perdido Street Station ~ China Mieville
One Hundred Years of Solitude ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lord Foul's Bane ~ Stephen Donaldson
The Chronicles of Amber ~ Roger Zelazny
Shriek: An Afterword ~ Jeff VanderMeer
Gormenghast ~ Mervyn Peake


I'm not sure about a few of those, but it's close enough.

Damn...I'd have a much easier time with favorite authors.
Well, here goes:

Historical Illuminatus: Robert Anton Wilson
Gap Series: Stephen R. Donaldson
Covenant Series: Stephen R. Donaldson
Watership Down: Richard Adams
Last Chance to See: Douglas Adams
High Fidelity: That one guy, and he has a new book...oh...I forget.
White Noise: Don Delillo
The Hap & Leonard books: Joe R. Landsdale
Maybe a tie between It & Dark Tower books: Stephen King
Harry Potter: I'm sure you know.
...and some other stuff.

Here's my first attempt. Not in any order. Actually screw it I'll put them in order.

1: Mervyn Peake's Titus series.
2: Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles
3: Vance's Tales of Dying Earth
4: Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
5: Camus' The Stranger
6: Erikson's Malazan series
7: Dr Strange and Mr Norrell by Sussana Clark (forget how to spell her first name)
8: Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
9: Shi Ji by Sima Qian
10: TH White's The Once and Future King
11: Glen Cook's Passage at Arms

I had to go to 11...

It's Susanna Clarke, and it's a great book. On another day it might have ended up on my list.

Cybrweez wrote:

onewyteduck wrote: Well, that would be expected! And I forgot about Winds Of War, oh and the Caine Mutiny.......

Cheater! You said 10.

No, I'll stand by my list but......

First and Last Men - Olaf Stapledon
The Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Time Machine - H.G.Wells
Das Boot - Lothar-Gunther Buchheim
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Fevre Dream - George.R.Martin
Cosmos - Carl Sagan
The Gap Sequence - Stephen Donaldson
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque