What are your favorite books?

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I'm looking for all kinds of good books: mainstream fiction, science fiction, non-fiction - bring 'em on.

-- ann monroe (monroe@chorus.net), February 16, 2000

Answers

fiction: Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me by Richard Farina, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. non-fiction: anything by Joseph Campbell or Mircea Eliades, The Mythic Past by Thomas Thompson, King Leopolds Ghost by Adam Hochschild, In The Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen ( a must read.. really frightenening story of FBI abuse of power).....sorry can't pass up opportunity to reccomend books... mostly read about history and religion myself but occasionally pick up classics... Joyce and Orwell recently .......

-- Dean Cullen (deancullen1@msn.com), February 17, 2000.

my absolute favorite book in the world is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This is my comfort book and I read it whenever I am in need of comfort... I might add, I am reading it right now.

After that, I like these writers (among others) quite a bit:

Stephen King, Dean R Koontz, Tad Williams, Anne McCaffrey, David Brin, Stephen Brust, Steve Miller & Sharon Lee, David Eddings, and Robert Asprin.

KT

-- KT Hicks (kt_hicks@yahoo.com), February 17, 2000.


i hardly ever read mainstream fiction, because my genre of choice is science fiction. here are some favorites, categorized for your pleasure:

science fiction:

- anything by tim powers, but especially The Anubis Gates
- nearly anything by charles de lint
- other favorite authors: connie willis, john varley, spider robinson, and there are more, but i can't think of any at the moment.

non-fiction:

anne lamott, Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird. she writes fiction, too, but i don't like it as much.

literature:

pretty much anything by ernest hemingway
The Stranger by albert camus
Siddhartha by herman hesse
Hamlet by william shakespeare
The Great Gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald
Sister Carrie by theodore dreiser



-- ann monroe (monroe@chorus.net), February 18, 2000.

I guess I'm a book whore. I read whatever is close to the nightstand, usually science fiction or adventure. Right now, I'm working through Orson Scott Card's works. I'm finishing the Alvin Maker series now, and I have one more book to finish the Ender series. My favorite book in the past couple of years is The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. My son (10 years old) and I swap books. He now reads Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler, and I read Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling. I love both series.

-- Rick Nelson (nesenrik@bellsouth.net), February 18, 2000.

Fiction: High Fidelity - Nick Hornsby Written on the Body - jeannette winterson the passion - j. winterson hallucinating foucault - patricia duncker

literature: the crying of lot 49 - thomas pynchon autumn of the patriarch - gabriel garcia marquez the good soldier - ford madox ford lolita - nabokov the sun also rises - hemmingway name of the rose - umberto eco naked lunch - william s burroughs visions of cody - jack kerouac house of the spirits - isabelle allende

non-fiction madness and civilization - michel foucault history of sexuality - michel foucault beyond good and evil - nietzsche nicomachean ethics - aristotle colored people - henry louis gates jr.

children's books the phantom tollbooth a wrinkle in time the dark is rising (it's a series, very good stuff)

-- Diego (drafael@hotmail.com), February 19, 2000.



Hey, Diego, The Phantom Tollbooth is a great book...

Personally, I have a soft spot for Heinlein...But also Roald Dahl. I like Faulkner over Hemingway and Dylan Thomas better than Joyce. For all time favorite books, though, it has to be "Prettiest Girl in Town" by Charles Bukowski.

So, so many good books....

-- Ed (Edward_Charbonnier@sunlife.com), February 22, 2000.


I love reading, usually science fiction and horror. In science fiction my favorites are David Eddings, and Robert Jordan, Pierce anthony is also an awsome writer. I also love the writings of anne Rice, especially the books about Lestat. In non-fiction my favorite is Maya Angelou, she writes very emotional books.

-- Jenny (PertPoet@aol.com), March 16, 2000.

my favorite books are revisited children's books. and folktales, too. there's this book of collected folktales by Italo Calvino that i read when i was little that is really kind of fun to go through again now.

i also enjoy poetry, especially by T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath.

if you never read any margaret atwood books...her writing is great.

i also recommend encyclopedias. it's fun to just open one up randomly and read about something completely bizarre.

or maybe i'm just a little silly. :) i have fun with it, anyway.

-- libzie, sublord of molecular biology and getting it together (libzie@yahoo.com), April 05, 2000.


Poetry: Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg

Literature: "Dharma Bums" by Jack Keroac, "Siddartha" by Herman Hesse

Science fiction/fantasy: anything by Anne Mcaffrey, Marior Zimmer Bradley, and Sarah Zettel. I know Sarah Zettel, she's in my tai chi class :)

Zen books: anything by Thich Nhat Hanh, "Tap Dancing in Zen" and "Stumbling Torward Enlightenment" by Geri Larkin. Geri Larkin goes to my temple and her books as well as her teachings are incredible.

-- Amy (joijoijoi@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000.


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