Books, books, books, books?

Question

I just started reading, and I need to know what I've missed; I'm almost finished with Koontz' "from the corner of his eye"... it's held my attention fairly well so far. I also liked "animal farm" by george orwell. throw me a few "must" titles; I mean, like, the very best of the best... like, 5-star stuff. 'not really into "romance" or anything, but I dig suspense, fantasy, or stuff to do with music. thanx in advance!

Answer 1

Stephen King:  Best Book ever  The Stand, also right behind it is the Dark Tower series that consists of 7 books.  A must read!!!!

Answer 2

Try some of these:

Neil Gaiman is an amazing author! Any of his books are good. Try Neverwhere first.

Edgar Allen Poe is a really good author. Check out his poems and short stories.

William Shakespeare is good too. He's written other things then just romance!

Any books by Scott Westernfeld or Neal Shusterman are really good too.

The Abhorsen Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen) by Garth Nix

The Maximum Ride series (The Angel Experiment, Schools Out Forever, Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, The Final Warning) by James Patterson

His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman

The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding

Holes by Louis Sanchar

The Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini

The Chronicles of Narnia (7 books) by C.S. Lewis

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Sight and Fell by David Clement-Davies

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

The Alex Rider series (starting with Stormbreaker) by Anthony Horowitz

Looking For Alaska by John Green

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

The Earthsea series (starting with A Wizard of Earthsea) by Ursula K. Le Guin

Answer 3

OK, couple of my favorites, based on the fact you liked Animal farn and Dean Koontz.

Fantasy

Anything by David Eddings - Start with The Belgariad

Anything by Raymond E Feist - Start with "Magician"

Anything by Robin Hobb - (Farseer trilogy and Liveship Traders trilogy)

Sci-Fi

Ray Bradbury - "Farenheit 451"

Anything by Micheal Crichton - "Jurassic Park", "Timeline"

Anything by John Whyndam - "Day of the Triffids", "The Kraken Wakes", "Web"

Terry Pratchett is awesome to. Try to read them in order though, it's not nessessary, but the characters develop a lot from book to book.

Also, Charles Dickens was brilliant. David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations were my favorites

Answer 4

The Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The Vanishing by Bentley Little

The Mailman by Bentley Little

The Shining by Stephen King

It by Stephen King

A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz

Mad River Road by Joy Fielding

Answer 5

the kite runner-Khaled Hosseini

Shantaram-gregory david roberts

To kill a mocking bird-Harper lee

Answer 6

Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park, Timeline, Prey

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Answer 7

Try some of these

Cell by Stephen King

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Inkheart and Inkspell by Cornelia Funkt

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Lord of the Flies and The Inheritors by William Golding

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

Eragon series

Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz

The Arthur Trilogy by Bernard Cornwall starts with Winter King

Anything by Stephen King, John Saul, John Connolly, James Herbert and Alexander McCall Smith

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind starts with Wizards First Rule

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King starts with The Gunslinger

All the Harry Potter books

Answer 8

Some of these aren't neccessarily the "best" of their genre but you probably should give them a go. After that you can expore the areas you like more

Fantasy

Tolkien

Susan Cooper

Vance

Eddings

Donaldson

Sci Fi

Wyndham

Arthur C Clarke

Asimov

H G Wells

Heinlein

Espionage/Suspense

Le Carre

Ludlum

Tom Clancy

I know there are lots of others, these are just a few that occur to me now and I have read all of them. I've ignored a few blockbuster authors as you would have to be living under a stone not to have heard of them.

Answer 9

Well, as you are enjoying Dean Koontz right now, I recommend that you continue- his work only gets better, the best of which would be his Odd Thomas books.  

Stephen King is a great choice, and just as prolific as Dean Koontz with a great selection to choose from.  I highly recommend The Dark Tower series of books if you are just starting out with his work.  It's a seven book series starting with The Gunslinger.  Great stuff!

If you like Animal Farm, how about 1984 by the same author?  

Last one to get you started, you've probably already read it, but I recommend Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (DaVinci Code comes after this).  I really like Angels & Demons, better written than DaVinci Code in my opinion, though I haven't really enjoyed anything by Dan Brown beyond those two books.  I read a few chapters of Deception Point and wound up taking it to the Half Price Book Store to exchange it for something I would really like!

Good luck and happy reading!

Answer 10

A lot of such books - and I mean best of the best - are classics more often than not (take your example of Animal Farm). For example, since you liked Animal Farm, you are just going to love 1984, again by George Orwell. You might love Alexandre Dumas - Three Musketeers, Ten Years Later and Twenty Years After. These are just preliminary examples - but the point is that many of them are classics.

You may want to try out some classic booksites on the internet - the good news is that many of them are free. For example, I like this one:

http://www.webliterature.net/literature

- And you can search also inside the site. There are some other sites too, mostly smaller than this one.

You can read (buy - no site will give you for free) books by Milan Kundera - particularly "Immortality" - that has changed many a life.

Answer 11

Here are some of my favorites:

Catch-22. (Joseph Heller)

A brilliant, hysterical satire set in WWII, as told through the viewpoint of a sardonic bombardier. My favorite book of all time.

And Then There Were None. (Agatha Christie)

One of the best mysteries I've ever read. Christie is a master of the genre and the surprise ending alone makes it completely worthwhile. Full of suspense.

The Hitchhiker's Guide series. (Douglas Adams)

Witty, laugh-out-loud funny, and full of loveable characters like Marvin the clinically depressed robot, Zaphod Beeblebrox the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie, and intergalactic hitchhiker Ford Prefect. It only gets funnier with every book in the series.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. (Ken Kesey).

Better than the movie...and the movie won Best Picture. ;]

Jurassic Park. (Michael Crichton)

I loved this book, and, having seen the movie as a child, found it to be so much better than the movie version. So many things are different and so many characters have completely opposite personalities than Disney had it that you certainly won't feel like you're just reading the movie script. It left me asking, "What were the directors thinking?" because the book as it would have made a significantly better movie. Also, the book is much gorier, but never too much so.

Lord of the Flies. (William Golding)

A classic allegory. A bit graphic and extreme because the characters are children but I enjoyed it nonetheless. With this one, however, most either love it or hate it.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite authors. I have a big anthology of his best poems and stories and I'd recommend any one of them.