# Favorite Book



## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

So, I am not sure if I am resurrecting an old thread. I bring this up because books have always been a huge part of my life, and have a lot to do with who I am as a person. So, my question is, as you have probably gathered from my thread title what is your favorite book.

I don't know if I am one of the lucky few who can single out one book. But mine is Pride and Prejudice. It stinks that I am so obsessed with the thing and have nobody to talk about it with! I feel like the struggle is real!

So, what is yours?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Nothing so lofty for me.

As a typical baby boomer it would come as no surprise to choose _The Lord of the Rings_. Not so lofty I may have said, but those who would dismiss it as escapist need to read Tolkien's treatise on what he calls the sub-creation -- and perhaps they should also stop listening to Wagner's Ring Cycle if they're still dismissive.

The sub-creation idea goes hand in hand with my own thoughts on creativity and its necessity. I have observed independently of Tolkien that if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, creativity is the sincerest form of worship*. Tolkien lived by this with humility and stated as much in his treatise (which I believe was called "On Fairy-stories," but it may have been another. (See Professor Corey Olsen "The Tolkien Professor" podcasts for detailed discussion.) Tolkien's great sub-creation has always been among the most moving and inspiring for me. This in spite of its popularity.

*I hasten to add here that I am by no means religious -- far from it actually. Yet creativity or its attempt has always felt like a form of worship to me.


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## gurthbruins (May 12, 2010)

'Lord Raingo' by my favourite novelist Arnold Bennett.


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## Templeton (Dec 20, 2014)

Mine would be 'Of Human Bondage' by W. Somerset Maugham, closely followed by Dickens's 'David Copperfield', Thomas Wolfe's 'You Can't Go Home Again' and Arthur Koestler's 'Darkness at Noon'.

All capture the various essences of life for me, whether these be good or bad and all have helped me enormously throughout life.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I need to let the books I've read in the last year or so gel. I was pretty much astounded by every one I read. Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd made a very strong impression on me, as did Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke. Old Mortality by Sir Walter Scott is a runner up.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Crime and Punishment.

Because Raskolnikov is sort of a depressed, hypocritical, lazy, insecure, and cowardly university student, kind of like... um... me.

And it ends with him getting the hot crazy Christian chick in the end, proving that in great literature, the moral is that no matter how bad life gets, as long as you have a hot chick by your side, everything will be okay.

But, of course, if you don't have that, then life is eternally horrible.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I love A Tale of Two Cities. Can't beat the opening sentence, nor the famous last, from Sydney Carton.

I'd like to believe that this magnificent novel was the inspiration for building the Eurostar pathway between London and Paris.

When I finally decide to leave TC, it will be with "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done." :tiphat:


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> Crime and Punishment.
> 
> Because Raskolnikov is sort of a depressed, hypocritical, lazy, insecure, and cowardly university student, kind of like... um... me.
> 
> ...


That is an interesting take on things. Lately I find myself pretty much bombarded with the title of this book. Whatever I read online, this book somehow gets mentioned, and last night my best friend confessed having read it lately. Maybe I should just go read it too?...

As for my favourite book, it's the same one as Weston's


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

The problem here is that sometimes there are several that come to mind and then try to choose. I really like Douglas Adams Hitchhiker trilogy, anything by Issac Asimov fact or fiction, of course the Lord Of the Rings series, Several books about Zen Buddhism come to mind. If I had to pick just one, it would be the story, "The Glass Flower" by George R R Martin.


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## haydnfan (Apr 13, 2011)

A first course in general relativity by Bernard Schutz. It was the book that I first learned the theory from. It is very readable with excellent exercises that illuminate the material without being too easy nor too hard.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I've always liked "To Kill a Mockingbird". After reading through the responses on this thread, I realize that I must read more!


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Oblomov. We've just started the big 'Talmud' tome of "The Precipice", Goncharov's last novel, which has the same intriguing feeling of being 'real'...


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

A single favorite? Always hard to narrow down.

of the "classics":
William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front
Agatha Christie - Ten Little Indians
Ovid - Metamorphoses
James Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

from the more "popular" collection:
Cormac McCarthy - The Road, and No Country for Old Men
Philip K Dick - The Man in the High Castle
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
Haruki Murakami - The Elephant Vanishes, and other stories
Paul Auster - City of Glass

Non-fiction: 
Alex Ross - The Rest is Noise
Jeanette Walls - The Glass Castle
Robert Fink - Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

SarahNorthman said:


> So, I am not sure if I am resurrecting an old thread. I bring this up because books have always been a huge part of my life, and have a lot to do with who I am as a person. So, my question is, as you have probably gathered from my thread title what is your favorite book.
> 
> I don't know if I am one of the lucky few who can single out one book. But mine is Pride and Prejudice. It stinks that I am so obsessed with the thing and have nobody to talk about it with! I feel like the struggle is real!
> 
> So, what is yours?


There are oodles of novels that I like and reread constantly. But head & shoulders above the rest is my favourite author Jane Austen - and out of her books, I too would choose *Pride & Prejudice*.

You are obviously a young person of very good taste. :tiphat: Talk to me all you want!


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

It's hard to choose just one book, but I can go by books that I've read more than once. Certainly one of my all-time favorites is *The Trial* by Franz Kafka.

Another one that also happens to have "Kafka" in the title and that I also read twice and love is *Kafka on the Shore* by Haruki Murakami.

*The Magus* by John Fowles is also a contender.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

My favorite is An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

*Satanic Verses* by Salman Rushdie.

*To the Lighthouse* by Virginia Woolf

*Ulysses* by James Joyce

*Ficciones* by Jorge Luis Borges


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Piwikiwi said:


> *Ficciones* by Jorge Luis Borges


I love the story I read from that collection.

I suppose I'd better explain those three favorites.

In *Far From the Madding Crowd* I love Hardy's metaphor heavy descriptions of nature and physical places; I could just hang onto one stunning sentence after another. The main character, Gabriel Oak is a character to aspire to be like, ultimately. Solid as oak and faithful, as his name suggests, and though he wasn't always so pronouncedly virtuous in that regard, he got there. The contrasts to his character in Sergeant Troy and Farmer Boldwood give me a sense of what not to aspire to, and yet make me uncomfortable in how I can identify with them. Bathsheba Everdene is an amazingly strong female character, and she goes through absolute hell. There are sexist passages in the narration of this book, but I feel them very much redeemed by how compassionately dealt with Bathsheba ultimately is, and that I really learned something about the plight of women then, and even now. A woman reading this book who takes some of the narrrative passages out of context might very much disagree with me, but in context she most probably would not because this story shows more strongly than it tells. In spite of himself and the opinions he sometimes expresses, Hardy was just too good at trusting his imaginative instincts not to follow a story down unexpected and very real seeming roads.

Reading *Childhood's End*, I got shivers and nightmares as I was nearing the end. 2001 Space Odysee gave me that wonderful sense of grandeur, but Childhood's End was that much more potent for me. Its quite disturbing and yet quite cool, the direction it ultimately took. The book is basically broken into two halves and I sort of dawdled through the first half, enjoying the details, and was forced to pick up in the 2nd because it was so enthralling. I'll say that after reading Emerson, this almost seems like a science fiction interpretation of transcendentalism, gone aury. Think "The Oversoul."

*Old Mortality* by Sir Walter has that comfortable historical novel feeling that I like, but what its really about is moderation with the weight of radical opinion in both directions. Its a story of how to be a complete romantic hero with a middle road perspective. John Burley is a fascinating character, a very disturbing fanatic and yet humanly portrayed. Henry Morton, the main character is certainly too good to be true, but that's used to good effect in the overarching themes of the story. I felt it very pertinent to our times, and to all times when there is political and personal strife based on religion, and old grudges.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Terry Pratchett - Nightwatch.


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

QuietGuy said:


> I've always liked "To Kill a Mockingbird". After reading through the responses on this thread, I realize that I must read more!


To Kill a Mockingbird is a fantastic book. It definitely helped my love of books along in my youth.


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> There are oodles of novels that I like and reread constantly. But head & shoulders above the rest is my favourite author Jane Austen - and out of her books, I too would choose *Pride & Prejudice*.
> 
> You are obviously a young person of very good taste. :tiphat: Talk to me all you want!


Oh well thank you! I definitely have a tendency to become completely consumed by a stories world. Really what I love about Austen is that her characters don't conform to the society of the time. I like that the women of her stories are more spirited and have more will and gumption. Even the men in the story don't conform to society in the ways they probably should have. I feel that there is also fantastic character development in the book. Some more obvious than others, and I think we all know who they are.  I also like the fact that I can imagine what times were like back then in certain aspects. Its so fascinating and different from things today. It really is the best book in my collection. If you could only see the stars in my eyes.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

What about other Austen novels?


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Piwikiwi said:


> *Satanic Verses* by Salman Rushdie.
> 
> *To the Lighthouse* by Virginia Woolf
> 
> ...


_Ficciones_ was excellent! I love anything by Borges.

And I really need to read The Satanic Verses or anything by Rushdie. That's next on my to-read list


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

Dr Johnson said:


> What about other Austen novels?


Meaning have I ever read any other Austen novels? Or what do I think of them.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Both.
.......................................


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

TxllxT said:


> Oblomov.


The ultimate Germanophile Russian story, I like it too


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Caveat: I don't often reread books, so my choices can be a little shaky; I'll compensate by mentioning more than one.

In Viriconium by M John Harrison (a strange black comedy set in an imaginary city; part of an omnibus called 'Viriconium')

The Green Pearl by Jack Vance (the 2nd part of a quirky fantasy trilogy with no parallel)

Short stories by Borges

Short stories by Katherine Mansfield


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Infinite Jest - DFW


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Novels:
Pynchon - Crying of Lot 49
Richard Powers - Galatea 2.2

Probably some others that just don't come to mind right now.

Non-Fiction, I couldn't even make a top 10. Too many.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

*Shakespeare ~ King Lear*

If drama is not allowed, then:

*Dante ~ The Divine Comedy*

If poetry is not permitted, then:
*
J. D. Salinger ~ Franny and Zooey*


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Balthazar said:


> *Shakespeare ~ King Lear*
> 
> If drama is not allowed, then:
> 
> ...


A kind of; Something for Everyone :tiphat:


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## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I have read many classic books from War & peace to Pride & prejudice to Crime & punishment and even books without an and symbol. But my favorite book remains a childhood favorite which is Ender's Game, and the entire series that spawned from that by Orson Scott Card. That captured my imagination from a young child and still stays with me, even knowing the author is a mormon homophobe who I would disagree with on almost every issue. I still love his writing, and have read almost all of his books. They are thoughtful, challenging, insightful... It surprises me that somebody who has... such a limited view of the universe as the mormon teachings gives can write such amazing novels, yet he has. And while as a person I do not really like him at all, he has written so much that I love. A strange position to be in.

I'm also a fan of such classics as the Divine Comedy, the Bible (as an atheist), The tale of Two Cities, Lolita, Don Quixote... So many books that it's hard to pick a single one as my favorite. But I have to keep with the one that has inspired me the most. Ender's Game, and the series' that spawned from that book really have inspired my imagination like nothing else has.

Other book series' I love: The Sword of Truth, The Wheel of Time, Dragonlance in general, R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt novels (Though they may be deemed cheap fantasy, I love them), and of course the Lord of the Rings books. I'm a huge fan of fantasy, and none of it would have been the same without Tolkien. Also Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's collaborative works such as the Death's Gate Cycle are amazing. Also Robert Heinlein's A Stranger from a Strange Land is a classic. There are so much to name, but i feel I've named my favorites enough, so I shall stop here.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Balthazar said:


> *Shakespeare ~ King Lear*
> 
> If drama is not allowed, then:


_I have full cause of weeping, but this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, Or ere I'll weep--O Fool, I shall go mad!_

Words of life, to live by.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Tristan said:


> _Ficciones_ was excellent! I love anything by Borges.
> 
> And I really need to read The Satanic Verses or anything by Rushdie. That's next on my to-read list


Midnight's Children is even better but I liked the plot of The Satanic Verses better. A word of caution: almost all of Rushdie's book for adults tend to get a but dull in the middle of the book but the writing is good enough to put up with that.


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

Avey said:


> _I have full cause of weeping, but this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, Or ere I'll weep--O Fool, I shall go mad!_
> 
> Words of life, to live by.


Anything is allowed.


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2015)

Realising Genjokoan
Shohaku Okumura.

seems to have the most scribbling in.
terrible habit.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

_Oliver Twist_ by Charles Dickens has been my favorite novel since age 13.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

_The Holy Bible_ is my favorite-it's the only truly essential book there is. I read 'The Painted Bird' by Kossinski awhile back and though it's a well written book from an objective standpoint, it also proved to be a complete waste of time-there's nothing constructive or useful about it. I regret having read it.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

Alright - I will just start by saying that, in terms of affecting my life, the Bible and the Book of Mormon have had the biggest impact.

That being said, I will now delve into my pleasure reading, or reading for entertainment. I won't limit myself to one - that would be impossible. But here is my list:

Fantasy - The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. I read them as inseparable. Yes, one reads more like a children's book (which it was), but it is the prologue to the masterpiece. I have read both of these books more times than I can remember, and they continue to spark my imagination.

Also in this category, I will list Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin. This book, and the subsequent ones, have left me entertained for hours upon hours, contemplating the complexities and mysteries. Masterful storytelling, even if Martin is quite the troll to his fans.

Sci-Fi - Asimov and Clarke and Heinlein never did it for me. It was always Frank Herbert's Dune. If I like sci-fi today, it is because of that book.

Classic - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens. This book has an unnatural ability to actually stir real emotions in me. I can't help but be moved by it, in a way that no other work of fiction has ever accomplished.

Mystery - Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None. I admit that I haven't read a ton of mysteries, because most feel uncompelling to me. But this one delivers. It is suspenseful. The mystery is masterfully designed. Sheer genius. 

Non-fiction - this is a very broad category, I know, but for me, there was one book that spawned my love of non-fiction. Prior to my purchasing and reading this book, I had never read a non-fiction book that hadn't been assigned to me by a teacher. I bought this, and it showed me that non-fiction could be every bit as enthralling to read as fiction. It is a book on history, and a book on war. It is Mr. Lincoln's Army, by Bruce Catton - the first in his Army of the Potomac Trilogy. The whole trilogy is excellent - after reading this one, I bought the other two. 

Alright - I'll leave it there.

Well, maybe one more category:
Drama/Theater - this is actually a tie, between Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Antigone.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

If I'll have to mention just one it might be Plato's The Republic.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

There's no way I can choose just one...


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