whilst browsing amazon i was inspired by people's lists
of favorits, or "guides" to certain subjects, that they
can make on that site.

i know there's a lot of orgers who like to read books n
so i would like to ask you to take out a few minutes to
list your top 10 fav novels.

so please keep fiction and non-fiction seperate. if you
want to list your fav 10 non-fiction reads, please feel
free to do so (in fact, i would love it) but please put
them on a seperate list from your fav novels!

This is difficult, because I find that I grow out of some novels that I absolutely swore by at certain points in my life. But I guess those novels should count, because they were part of my development. So:

1. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
2. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
3. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4. Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
5. A Wrinkle in Time by Madelaine L'Engle
6. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
7. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
8. Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
9. Generation X by Douglas Coupland
10. Possession by A.S. Byatt

people-actually-read edit
[Edited 5/11/06 10:56am]

In no particular order:

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Still Life With Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
Deadeye Dick - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
[Edited 5/11/06 7:01am]

In no particular order

1) Rendevouz with Rama - Arthur C Clark
2) Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
3) Treason - Orson Scott Card
4) Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
5) A Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis
6) Ramses the Damned - Ann Rice
7) Lord of the Flies - William Golding
8) The Lost World - Michael Chricton
9) Nemisis - Isaac Asimov
10) Son of Circus - John Irving

forgot to include my own list

01. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevski
02. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
03. The Master & Margarite - M.A. Bulgakov
04. The Moor's Last Sigh - Salman Rushdie
05. Voyage au bout de la Nuit- L.F. Celine
06. The Island of the Day Before - Umberto Eco
07. Blindness - Jose Saramago
08. One Hundred Years of Solitude - G.G. Marquez
09. House of Leaves - Mark z Danielewski
10. The Player – Fyodor Dostoyevski

Imago said:

Ann Rice is such a guilty pleasure
"servant of the bones" crossed my mind
when i was making this list.

I'm quite curious about her jesus book
now.

oh and i love Lord of te Flies, i just
read it again a few months ago. it's a
cool story.

IstenSzek said:

That book is crazy great...emphasis on crazy. I love it.

Stax said:

it's good isn't it?! although i never quite understood
who or what that 'angel' was that came to the vilage and was
killed or died and was then burried. it was just a few lines
in the entire story but it is one of the most bizarre pasages
and it bothers me still.

IstenSzek said:

I like how nobody in the village is all that surprised to see a dead angel.

How can no one list "A Catcher In The Rye"?

jerseykrs said:

you just did!

jerseykrs said:

i read it twice. liked it very much. but for the second time now
i've completely forgotten what it was about other than teenagers
getting drunk. i think i keep mixing up the storylines form this
and sylvia plath's "the bell jar"

Stax said:

yeah, that made me think that the angel must be some metaphore
or something. i kept thinking 'what the hell am i missing here
and why is no one surprised'.

ALL the doc savage books

Anx said:

confederacy of dunces!!!!! i have NEVER met anyone else who read this. it is an AMAZING book, especially considering the author's life....

XxAxX said:

it is THE funniest book i've ever read. that man had a gift for comedic dialogue.

Anx said:

it really is. SUCH a shame he didn't live to see his success.

IstenSzek said:

We shoudl makeout sometime.


Anne Rice is a guilty pleasure. Her formula (rich beautiful people who bitch too much) gets old, but she paints such a colorful picture that he feel almost like you're inside her world when she describes it.

Lord of The Flies is one of my all time favorite books. It's a great look at human nature and government at the same time.
Jack = Individualist Right winger
Piggy = Liberal intellectual
Simon = Jesus figure
Ralhph = government trying to balance the two

Beautifully done. And brutal despite using 6 to 12 year old boys.

Anx said:

Ignatius is God.

Stax said:

You know, John Waters tried to get the rights to adapt this book into a film. It would have been the only film he would have made that wasn't from an original script. I read that he would have cast Divine (as a man) as Ignatius, and Edith Massey as his mother. Can you imagine?

Imago said:

very well said

IstenSzek said:

I had to write a paper about this in highschool.
It wast he first assignement I ever was given that I actually enjoyed.
Ultimately government fails in it's ability to support the two opposing forces, becuase instead of rationally thinking out the situation and resources at hand, the pissing contest esculates, and Rome falls.
very scary.

It was also the nail in the coffin (at that time) for those who still subscribe to St. Augustine's thinking that Man was a fallen divine creature. It was had a liberal slant towards sayin--not, man is a beast, and laws prevent us from killing each other.

Imago said:

tell me more. i love it when you get all serious and scholarly

Anx said:

IstenSzek said:

All this time, all I had to do was talk like a nerd?



I'll write you a full report for some underwear pics!

Imago said:

you've got a deal!

IstenSzek said:

OMG, I am sooooo going to start writing tonight.

Imago said:

you know, they have men's public bathrooms for this kind of behavior.

Imago said:

ok, and i will start posting underwear pictures now




[Edited 5/11/06 7:53am]