Top 10 of Any Genre

[Seak]

I always see top ten lists of favorite fantasy or sci-fi, but I looked and looked, and maybe I'm still too new to really figure things out, and couldn't find a thread about your favorite books of all time.

I'll start mine out. I'm thinking favorite individual books (of any genre you can think of) of all time. I'm usually a fantasy fan, but I really love some other books as well.

1. The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRRT
3. The Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut
4. Ender's Game - Card
5. A Song of Ice and Fire - Martin
6. Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
7. The Silmarillion - JRRT
8. Magician - Feist
9. Watership Down - Adams
10. Wheel of Time - Jordan

[Randy M.]

MAINSTREAM:
Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

MYSTERY:
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

HORROR:
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

S.F.:
Davy by Edgar Pangborn
Star Light, Star Bright by Alfred Bester

FANTASY:
The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietsche by Peter Beagle


And, of course, I reserve the right to create another list with entirely different entries whenever my whim commands.

Randy M.

[Seak]

And, of course, I reserve the right to create another list with entirely different entries whenever my whim commands.

Randy M.

I think that's what keeps me reading. I hope to be able to supplant something in my top 10 every time I start a new novel.

[Aurian]

This is too hard, since my top 10 seems to change on a regular basis.

I also consider trilogies as one unit because they are generally one complete story, just published in multiple books ;-)

In random order...


Symphony of the Ages (trilogy) by Elizabeth Haydon.
A Good Dog by John Katz
Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop
Queen of the Orcs Trilogy by Morgan Howell
Poison Study, Magic Study, Fire Study by Maria Snyder
Earth by David Brin
The Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer
Jurassic Park & Lost World by Michael Criteon
Book of Joby by Mark Ferrari
Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

[AuntiePam]

The Dollmaker by Harriett Simpson Arnow -- this has been my number one book for many years. The story starts in Appalachia in the early 1940's and follows a hill country family to Detroit, where the father has found work in a steel mill. I think I'd get more people to read it but the dialect puts them off.

Heart of the Country by Greg Matthews -- historical fiction set in the American West. The hero is a misanthropic hunchbacked buffalo hunter. I'm gonna re-read this someday and see if it holds up.

Serena by Ron Rash -- a new favorite, about an evil woman (think Lady MacBeth but without her guilt) in a logging community in the Carolinas in the 1920's.

The Stand by Stephen King. I've read it three times, and I'm even coming to like the ending.

A Song of Ice and Fire -- yeah, it's cheating to count this as one book.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters -- rich historical novel with a great twist.

Eifelheim by Michael Flynn -- not quite time travel but with a time travel feel. What happens when aliens (the space kind, not undocumented workers) crash land in a Bavarian village in the mid 1300's.

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth. I've read a lot of historical fiction, but this is the first one that gave me a real understanding of the power of religion in medieval lives.

[Fung Koo]

Some of my favourite semi-recent reads, independent of genre (that I can think of today, and subject to change without notice):

You Shall Know Our Velocity! - Dave Eggers
The Swan - Roald Dahl
Mr. Norrell & Jonathan Strange - Susanna Clarke
G. - John Berger
Ender's Game + Shadow - Orson Scott Card
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Excession - Iain M. Banks
The Crow Road - Iain Banks
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Star - Arthur C. Clarke
The Rabbits - John Marsden & Shaun Tan
The Red Tree - Shaun Tan
Maus - Art Spiegelman

And on and on...

[Randy M.]

A slightly different best of ...

MAINSTREAM:
"Guest of the Nation" by Frank O'Connor
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

MYSTERY:
"The Gutting of Couffignal" by Dashiell Hammett
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

HORROR:
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" by M. R. James
"The Rats in the Walls" by H. P. Lovecraft

S.F.:
"The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke
"Fondly Fahrenheit" by Alfred Bester

FANTASY:
"The Sadness of Details" by Jonathan Carroll
"Le Peau Verte" by Caitlin R. Kiernan


And, of course, I retain the right to create an entirely different list tomorrow.


Randy

[Riothamus]

In no particular order

1.Dune-Bar none the greatest science fiction novel ever.
2.A Song of Fire and Ice series
3.Jonathan Strange and Mr.Norrell
4.Ringworld
5.The Vampire Chronicles
6.The Works of H.P. Lovecraft
7. Looking For Alaska
8.The Elric Saga
9.The Dark Tower series
10.Stranger In A Strange Land

Others that make me wish this were a top twelve:
11.The Conan Stories
12.The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

In less traditional forms of literature:
V For Vendetta
The Watchmen