TOP 10 books you could not live without...

[Ta2grrl]

"Foucault's Pendulum " Umberto Eco
"The Hogfather" Terry Pratchett
"Timeline" Michael Crichton
"Sophie's World" Jostein Gaarder
"Cathedral" Nelson DeMille
"Name of the Rose" Umberto Eco
"Vampire$" John Steakley
"Mort" Terry Pratchett
"Dark Tower Series" Stephen King (which is more then one novel I know but....cut me some slack!!)
"Armour" John Steakley

Whats yours...??

XXX

[JoeK32880]

Well, I rarely read a book more than once. I've certainly read more than ten that I've really enjoyed and have enriched my life in some way though that I certainly can't imagine having lived without reading. I guess by that logic. . .

Winnie-the-Pooh. AA Milne. The first one, before Tigger. Maybe my favorite book of all time.
Hard Times. Charles Dickens. First Dickens I read. Got me into him big time.
Timequake. Kurt Vonnegut Same as above, but with Vonnegut.
Truman. David McCullough. Maybe the bets book I ever read, began my love of history and biography.
Matilda. Roald Dahl. A book I loved so much as a kid and probably the Roald Dahl book I remember most, and I've read them all.
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire. Timothy Zahn. The first "real" book I ever read (over 400 pages!), it's really pretty amazing in its own right.
To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee. I read it twice back-to-back. The best thing I got from school.
Mr. Popper's Penguins. Richard and Florence Atwater. My favorite book as a real little kid and maybe the first one I ever read.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. JK Rowling. I don't know. Just 'cause. I like these books.
On the Road. Jack Kerouac. I admit, I went through that phase.

Those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure The Outsiders has a place on there somewhere. Many other books too, if I had a list of everything I read.

[Donald M.]

I could never choose just ten. If my life counted on it, I'd say **** it, time to die.

[z0mbie_aut0pil0t]

In no order...

Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
The Wheelman - Duane Swierczynski
Jinn - Matthew B.J. Delaney
Year Zero - Jeff Long
Sock - Penn Jillette
Backroads - Tawni O'Dell
The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypse - Robert Rankin
The Henry Thompson Trilogy - Charlie Huston (I'm counting all three as one)
The Joe Pitt Casebooks - Charlie Huston (It's ongoing but the rule above applies here as well)

[howyadoin]

Let's see if I can do this without checking the bookcase first. In no particular order:

1. Dune - Frank Herbert
2. Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank
3. Islands in the Stream - Ernest Hemingway
4. Travels with Charlie - John Steinbeck
5. The World According to Garp - John Irving
6. Night Shift - Stephen King
7. Summer of 42 - Hermann Raucher
8. Neuromancer - William Gibson
9. The Lonely Silver Rain - John D. McDonald
10. Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

[Ta2grrl]

I'm almost positive I've had this discussion here before but it always amazes me when Stephen King is on everyone's list of writers to read...

I mean I love the guy but...I don't know...he always seems so...pulpy...??

And yet here he is on 2 lists out of 4 and also on the list of "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (It)...

Weird...

Love his stuff...can't explain it...maybe shouldn't try...

Oh and I would probably drop "Armour" and add "Hocus Pocus" Kurt Vonnegut...

XXX

[JoeK32880]

I've only recently gotten into King, having read The Gunslinger in preperation for the Dark Tower comics. Since then I've picked up Cell and The Colorado Kid because they were available at the grocery store I shop at before work. I really want to get into his classics some day though.

But either way, by the criteria of my list he wouldn't make it anyway. All mine are stuff I read growing up. I suppose if I read a really, really amazing novel it could make it, but I've encountered no such beast, sadly.

[howyadoin]

I'm almost positive I've had this discussion here before but it always amazes me when Stephen King is on everyone's list of writers to read...

I mean I love the guy but...I don't know...he always seems so...pulpy...??

He's certainly turned out some crap over the years, but the good stuff's really good. The guy can write.

Plus, I've been reading his books since I was 16. "Constant Reader"? That's me.

[Hombre]

1. Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

2. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

3. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

4. East of Eden - John Steinbeck

5. Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe

6. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

7. Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo

8. The Cider House Rules - John Irving

9. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

10. Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell

[Chiasm]

Amazed and pleased that no one has put the Bible on their list yet. :evilsmile

In many cases it would be hard for me to sort out one book from a series so I'm going to cheat a bit at times. I'm also not going to list ten because listing ten would cheapen just how much I like those at the top by making them seem comparable.

1. Hyperion / Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons. Two books but one long story so I'm counting them together.

2. The Waste Lands (Dark Tower Series) - Stephen King. This is the book that really got me into the Dark Tower and in my mind was the best of the series.

3. Imagica - Clive Barker. Very weird, very complex, very long, very warped, very good, and did I mention very long.

4. Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons. Best horror story I've ever read and the book that got me into Simmons and led me to Hyperion.

5. The Great and Secret Show / Everville - Clive Barker - Two books and a another journey into the weirdness that is Barker.

6. The Stand - Stephen King. First book of his I ever read and I never get tired of it.

[Chiasm]

He's certainly turned out some crap over the years, but the good stuff's really good. The guy can write.

Plus, I've been reading his books since I was 16. "Constant Reader"? That's me.

Me too. I've read (or listened to on audio) everything he's ever put out at least once and in a few cases like some of the Dark Tower books three or four times. Most of its good if not great IMO and while some of its bad but even the bad stuff is usually sort of entertaining.

[ACertainMrDoe]

Very difficult. I chose some I read years ago and still remember fondly - they may not be the best I've read, but definitely those that made the biggest impression on me.

Crystal World - J.G. Ballard
The Dreaming Jewels - Theodore Sturgeon
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers
Complete Works - E.A. Poe
"Orient" hexalogy - Karl May
Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
First and Last Men - Olaf Stapledon
Tarzan of the Apes - E.R. Burroughs
Conan of Cimmeria - Robert E. Howard

Plus anything by Lucius Shepard!

[Shellhead]

I love to read, but I can't grasp the idea of books that I can't live without. By now, I have read most of my favorite books at least three times each, so I could certainly survive if I never read them again. If anything, I need to find new (or at least different) books that I want to read.

[Matthew E]

This isn't so much ten books I couldn't live without as it is ten books that have been important to me in different ways.

Not in order.

The Heart of Rock and Soul - Dave Marsh
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract - Bill James
Early Autumn - Robert B. Parker
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
The Wrong Stuff - Bill Lee
13th Gen (Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?) - Neil Howe and Bill Strauss
Right Ho, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis

Edited to add: I probably should have put 'Lord of the Rings' in there. Probably in place of the Connie Willis book, which is one of my favourites but not as important to me as the Tolkien was.

[i_mmmchocolate]

Tough question, if someone forced me to pick at this very moment, I'd go with:

Don Quixote -Cervantes

Ex Libris -Anne Fadiman

Fame and Obscurity -Gay Talese

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell -Susanna Clarke

The Picture of Dorian Gray -Oscar Wilde

Spain's Men of the Sea -Pablo E. Perez-Mallaina

Fever Pitch -Nick Hornby

Babylon Revisited: And Other Stories -F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Horse and His Boy -C. S. Lewis

Prince Caspian -C.S. Lewis