Anybody have a favorite book that's changed your life?
What are your favorite books to read? Genre? Non-fiction?
My top five that I read on a regular basis:
Jane Eyre - by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - by Emily Bronte
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Secret Garden - by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Two books that made me think differently:
The Book Thief - by Markus Zusak
To Kill a Mockingbird - by Harper Lee
I'm curious about other lists as I'm always looking for a good book to read.
This is a hard one to answer since I give my highest rating more easily than you, Lula. I tend to say I LOVE THAT BOOK probably too often. But here's a partial list of some of my favorites:
ReplyDelete1) To Kill a Mockingbird--so beautifully written
2) The Scarlet Letter
3) Katherine by Anya Seton
4) Charlotte's Web (Sorry Tanja!) I've read this one a million times and I'm touched by the story every time.
I'll try to figure out #5 and comment later.
Lula - haha...I think I'd pick almost those exact same 5, except I like Moonstone better than Woman in White (have strange fascination with India) and I think I would pick Persuasion over P&P.
ReplyDeleteSuzette - I can't believe you didn't pick Twilight! How many times have you read that book? We should play Twilight trivia on this blog. The Scarlet Letter is excellent lit and Katherine is probably #6 for me.
ReplyDeleteDanielle - I'm reading The Moonstone this year. I've always thought The Woman in White was a cleverly written mystery and I love that evil fiend the Count!
Persuasion is my second favorite Austen novel. Anne's sister Mary is one of the best written hypochondriac's in literature. Did you see the PBS version last year? They changed it a lot from the book, but I still liked it immensely.
I don't know how you narrow it.
ReplyDeleteThe book thief
Katherine
Twilight (yes I will admit it, I enjoyed this book a lot)
The Wednesday letters
A company of swans
left to tell
Secret life of bees
The time travelers wife
The hiding place (one of favorites as a teenager)
Religious books
Gethsemane and the two that follow this one
Kingdom and the Crown series
Yes, I love Twilight but it's in a different category for me. I have a few books that I love but I get a little tetchy (I think I've mastered that word) when others don't like them, so I just don't talk about those books much. For example, my #5 could be "These Is My Words" by Nancy Turner, but if you read it and don't like it, I don't want to hear about it.
ReplyDeleteI am still reeling off Rebecca--that could be my #5.
There's nothing wrong with liking Twilight girls. Half the women on the planet like that series.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of - These is my words. What's it about?
Tanja - I like Time Traveler's Wife as well. Excellent book. I've never heard of the Wednesday Letters. Crap I like this blog! I'm learning all kinds of new stuff.
These Is My Words is the fictionalized story of a real woman named Sarah Agnes Prine. She was a pioneer in Arizona, the story starts in the late 1800's and goes into the 1900's. She was an incredibly strong woman who dealt with a lot of adversity. It's written as a diary and there are no quotation marks which is interesting. There are two other books that follow her story in later years but I've never been able to read them. It's been a year now and I still can't get over it. I've said too much.
ReplyDeleteI also very much enjoyed Poisonwood Bible, Cold Mountain (although I find the movie too intense) and The Red Tent (intrigued by the spin on those very few bible verses). I didn't see the PBS Persuasion, and I DO NOT like that one that came out a few years ago, I feel like it sucked the book dry.
ReplyDeleteI hope I didn't bring you to tears talking about that book pinkie girl. If I read it I'll try not to do a perfidy. Right? Did I use that right?
ReplyDeleteDanielle - Yes, I don't like the older version either. I felt little chemistry between the two main characters. I thought Capt Wentworth was way toooo old for the part. What was he fifty?
Thought I'd contribut to your book list. Here's my 2009 list:
ReplyDelete1.)The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2.)The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
3.)Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
4.)1984 by George Orwell
5.)The Republic by Plato
6.)Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7.)The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
8.)The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
9.)For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
10.)The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
11.)The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12.)Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
13.)How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie
14.)Call of the Wild by Jack London
15.)The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
16.)Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
17.)Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
18.)The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer
19.)Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
20.)Walden by Henry David Thoreau
21.)Lord of the Flies by William Golding
22.)The Master and Margarita by by Mikhail Bulgakov
23.)Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
24.)Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
25.)The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
26.)Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
27.)White Noise by Don Delillo
28.)Ulysses by James Joyce
29.)The Young Man’s Guide by William Alcott
30.)Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
31.)Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond by Denis Johnson
32.)Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
33.)Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
34.)The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry by Christine De Pizan
35.)The Art of Warfare by Sun Tzu
36.)Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
37.)Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
38.)The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
39.)The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
40.)The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
41.)East of Eden by John Steinbeck
42.)Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
43.)The Thin Red Line by James Jones
44.)Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
45.)The Politics by Aristotle
46.)First Edition of the The Boy Scout Handbook
47.)Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
48.)Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
49.)The Crisis by Winston Churchill
50.)The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer
51.)A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
52.)Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
53.)Animal Farm by George Orwell
54.)Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
55.)The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
56.)Moby Dick by Herman Melville
57.)Essential Manners for Men by Peter Post
58.)Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
59.)Hamlet by Shakespeare
60.)The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
61.)A Separate Peace by John Knowles
62.)A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
63.)The Stranger by Albert Camus
64.)Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe
65.)The Pearl by John Steinbeck
66.)On the Road by Jack Kerouac
67.)Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
68.)Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
69.)Foucault’s Pendulum - Umberto Eco
70.)The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
71.)Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
72.)Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
73.)Paradise Lost by John Milton
74.)Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
75.)American Boys’ Handy Book
76.)Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
77.)King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
78.)The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
79.)A River Runs Through It by Norman F. Maclean
80.)The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
81.)Malcolm X: The Autobiography
82.)Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris
83.)The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
84.)All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarq
85.)The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
86.)Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch
87.)The Strenuous Life by Theodore Roosevelt
88.)The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
89.)Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
90.)The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
91.)The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
92.)To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
93.)The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden
94.)The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
95.)The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
96.)The Histories by Herodotus
97.)From Here to Eternity by James Jones
98.)The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
99.)Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
100.)Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those were in no particular order by the way...
ReplyDeleteWow, that is quite a list! I can tell you love history. I just finished A Confederacy of Dunces. It was very good.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't leave your name. I was trying to guess if you're a man or a woman based on your choices. I'm going with male?
Am I wrong?
How many have you read so far? Do you want to contribute some reviews here? Always looking for more people. Email me if you're interested.
Impressive list.
Oh Sorry, it was just Chris. :) I've read most of these at one point or another, but want to reread since the kids will be getting into these soon for school. Good to be prepared! I'm starting 'The Hobbit' with them this week.
ReplyDeleteI love The Hobbit. I'm serious about you writing reviews. Your book list is excellent, but no Lord of the Flies? You didn't have to read that in high school? Maybe I'm the only one. A weird book.
ReplyDeleteNo, you are not weird - it is probably one of my favorites. Check again up at #21... LOL. Too many high school books still seem fresh in my mind aside from the basics; "Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.." et cetera. Too many quizzes on iambic pentameter..
ReplyDelete