Your Top 5 List is...

[Xerxes82]

In no particular order...

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets - David Simon
Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert
This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Leviathan Wakes - James SA Corey (Frankly the entire series is amazing, but the first is my favorite)

And a current one,

The Book That Would Not Burn by Mark Lawrence (eagerly awaiting the second book in this story!)

1) A trilogy.. Cheating? The First Law by Joe Abercrombie, read my thoughts about it here.

A good choice. The original trilogy was good but kind of a slog. I just couldn't get into some of the characters. But the more recent Age of Madness trilogy was AMAZEBALLS. I laughed, I cried, I raged at the author for killing my favorite fucking character. Asshole.

 

[Wriggle]

( & now I regret all 5 choices and need to change them )

 

[SherlockianMan]

No Arthur Conan Doyle?

I mostly think of the Sherlock stories as short stories.

 

[SherlockianMan]

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

The Gormenghast series is criminally under-appreciated these days.

 

[SherlockianMan]

In no particular order...

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets - David Simon
Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert
This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Leviathan Wakes - James SA Corey (Frankly the entire series is amazing, but the first is my favorite)

And a current one,

The Book That Would Not Burn by Mark Lawrence (eagerly awaiting the second book in this story!)


A good choice. The original trilogy was good but kind of a slog. I just couldn't get into some of the characters. But the more recent Age of Madness trilogy was AMAZEBALLS. I laughed, I cried, I raged at the author for killing my favorite fucking character. Asshole.

I keep meaning to read The Book That Wouldn’t Burn. Have read pretty much everything else by Lawrence.

 

[vagrantx]

A good choice. The original trilogy was good but kind of a slog. I just couldn't get into some of the characters. But the more recent Age of Madness trilogy was AMAZEBALLS. I laughed, I cried, I raged at the author for killing my favorite fucking character. Asshole.

Heh, I'm the other way around. I love the original trilogy, I really like the three stand-alones, and Age of Madness was good but not great.
I'm really excited to see what he's working on at the moment, supposedly a whole new IP!

 

[MissLabelled]

Your Top 5 Books

Kathy Acker - Blood And Guts in High School
Leslie Feinberg - Stone Butch Blues
Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God
James Baldwin - Giovanni’s Room
Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho

 

[Cat]

Ugh!! Seeing several of my favourite books being mentioned does indeed make my little heart squeal of happiness!!
Okay, removing Danish authors from my list, and keeping with the internationals:

(In non prioritised order)

• Collected Short Stories - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Castle - Franz Kafka
• A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami
• Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronté
• Tao Te Ching - Laozi

 

[Bry1313]

2) American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis.

Do you like Phil Collins?

Also my sister went to college with Ellis.

 

[__Nathan1968]

Top 5 Books

Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth. I’m going to include the remaining World Without End and Column of Fire as a three for one here.

Jimmy Buffett - Where is Joe Merchant.

Erik Larson - Devil in the White City

Joseph Boyden - The Orenda

Sinclair Lewis - It Can’t Happen Here.

 

[Photog1rl]

Charlotte’s Web-E.B. White
The Pillars of the Earth-Ken Follett
Where the Sidewalk Ends-Shel Silverstein
Little Women-Louisa May Alcott
Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen

 

[Bry1313]

Hmmmm, books

1) Fellowship of the Rings - Tolkein
2) Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
3) Se questo è un uomo (If this is a man) - Primo Levi
4) Team of Rivals - Goodwin
5) Catch 22 - Heller

That list is subject to change at any moment

 

[Bry1313]

Top 5 Books

Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth. I’m going to include the remaining World Without End and Column of Fire as a three for one here.

Jimmy Buffett - Where is Joe Merchant.

Erik Larson - Devil in the White City

Joseph Boyden - The Orenda

Sinclair Lewis - It Can’t Happen Here.

I almost included the Ken Follet book

 

[Wriggle]

There's numerous mentions of American Psycho and To Kill a Mockingbird which are both on my shelves waiting to be read, so I should probably read them next.

There's also a couple of Pride and Prejudice mentions - as non British readers, do you see it as the comedy she intended it to be or as a lovely romantic tale?

 

[MissLabelled]

That list is subject to change at any moment

I was going to add this type of caveat to mine as well.

 

[RichardParker1]

Well my top one might be obvious. I have to think on the other four. I enjoy seeing all your lists. So many good picks.

 

[Wriggle]

It takes a person with far bigger cajones then me to just say here is my definitive top 5 and it's not going to change tomorrow.

I'm too fickle.

 

[Cat]

It takes a person with far bigger cajones then me to just say here is my definitive top 5 and it's not going to change tomorrow.

I'm too fickle.

I think that goes for most of us? No?
- It could depend on the weather, whether or not you are hungry.. or lovestruck..
What kind of genre, what kind of story that will captivate you, in that moment you sit down with the book in your hands.

Saying that this is my definite top 5 list, forever-ever...
Not sure that is something demanding huge nosser, or if in fact it is just being willfully naïve.
But then again, I might be wrong.

 

[Wriggle]

I think that goes for most of us? No?
- It could depend on the weather, whether or not you are hungry.. or lovestruck..
What kind of genre, what kind of story that will captivate you, in that moment you sit down with the book in your hands.

Saying that this is my definite top 5 list, forever-ever...
Not sure that is something demanding huge nosser, or if in fact it is just being willfully naïve.
But then again, I might be wrong.

I cOuld have given a totally different top 5 books the second after I posted mine.

 

[Dubinsky]

In no particular order:

Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien.
Young Men And Fire, by Norman Maclean.
The Big Necessity, by Rose George.
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, by Siegfried Sassoon.

 

[Cat]

I c

I cOuld have given a totally different top 5 books the second after I posted mine.

Yup!

And that is probably the beauty of well written books, the ability to remind of us the joy we felt when reading them.

Making a Top 5 is mostly just fun and games, adding a dash of book-snobbish showoff'ness.

 

[Wriggle]

I want to do a top 5 nonfiction books
A top 5 poetry books etc.

 

[Dubinsky]

I want to do a top 5 nonfiction books
A top 5 poetry books etc.

I mixed fiction and nonfiction.

I have many more than five favorites, so I just picked the ones I return to most often. I didn't overthink.

 

[13Fantasies]

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

Bulgakov is a great pick

 

[13Fantasies]

Hmmmm, books

1) Fellowship of the Rings - Tolkein
2) Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
3) Se questo è un uomo (If this is a man) - Primo Levi
4) Team of Rivals - Goodwin
5) Catch 22 - Heller

That list is subject to change at any moment

Catch-22 is a great pick