Top 20 favorite books/authors?

Question

What are you top 20 favorite books/authors?

It doesn't have to be 20. It can be more or less. I just like to see variety.

Answer 1

1. Milan Kundera

Answer 2

1.  Chuck Palahniuk  ("Fight Club", "Survivor")

2.  Kurt Vonnegut  ("Slaughterhouse Five")

3.  Tim O'Brien  ("The Things They Carried")

4.  Oscar Wilde  ("The Picture of Dorian Gray", "The Importance of Being Earnest")

5.  Jane Austen  ("Pride and Prejudice", "Sense and Sensibility")

6.  Chuck Klosterman  ("s*x, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs")

7.  Mark Twain  ("The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses")

8.  Emily Bronte  ("Wuthering Heights")

9.  Lewis Carroll  ("Alice's Adventures in Wonderland")

10.  Douglas Adams (The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Trilogy of Five)

11.  William Goldman ("Princess Bride")

12.  Rudyard Kipling  ("The Jungle Book")

13.  J.D. Salinger  ("The Catcher in the Rye")

14.  Jake Wizner  ("Spanking Shakespeare")

15.  Anthony Burgess  ("A Clockwork Orange")

16.  J.K. Rowling  (Harry Potter series)

17.  Flannery O'Conner  ("Wise Blood", "A Good Man is Hard to Find")

18.  Joesph Heller  (Catch-22)

19.  J.R.R. Tolkien  (Lord of the Rings triology)

20.  Truman Capote  ("In Cold Blood," "Breakfast at Tiffany's")

Honorable mention:  I've just started reading "The Gun Seller" by actor Hugh Laurie (House).  I had no idea he was a writer, but so far the book is hilarious, and extremely well written.

Answer 3

The Wind-up Bird Chronicles / Dance, Dance , Dance - Haruki Murakami

Oryx and Crake / The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood

Cat's Cradle / Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas / Songs of the Doomed - Hunter S Thompson

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Geek Love - Katerine Dunn

Fight Club - Chuck Palaniuk

The Riders - Tim Winton

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Enduring Love / Atonement - Ian Mckewan

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe - Carson McCullers

The Winter of Our Discontent/ East of Eden - John Steinbeck

The Virgin Suicides - Jeffry Eugenides

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Plus various other incredibly geeky sci fi novels growing up.

It's nice to see some contributions here that aren't mentioning hot teen vampires. Much appreciated.

Answer 4

Mark Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee, Tom Sawyer, Roughing It.

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor, Giles Goat Boy

Thomas Pynchon, V, Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest

Tim Gauteraux, The Clearing

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park

Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (If you like free verse poetry.)

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Willa Cather, My Antonia

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Richard Wright, Native Son

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

By the way, some of the other answerers have provided some excellent suggestions. Thanks for a good question.

Answer 5

1.Stephenie Meyer

2.Sarah Dessen

3.Paulo Coelho

4. LIzzie Wilcock

Answer 6

Lol.

1) the protrait of a lady - henry james

2) midsummer night's dream - shakespeare

3) falling angels - tracy chevilleir (sp?)

4) anna karenina - tolstoy

5) anne of green gables - lucy maud montgomery

6) anthem -ayn rand

7) 1984 - orwell

8) animal farm - orwell

9) sense and sensibility - jane austin

10) jane eyre - charlotte bronte

11) The lord of the rings trilogy - j.r.r tolkien

12) the age of innocence - edith warton

13) franny and zooey - jd salinger

14) the crucible -arther miller

15) little women - lousia may alcott

16) to kill a mockingbird -

17) betrayl - pinter

18) le miserable - victor hugo

19) much ado about nothing - shakespeare

20) christine - stephen king

Answer 7

1. The Count of Monte Cristo

2. Gravity's Rainbow

3. Frankenstein

4. Huckleberry Finn

5. Neuromancer

6. A Confederacy of Dunces

7. The Crying of Lot 49

8. A Farewell to Arms

9. The Kite Runner

10. Catch-22

11. To Kill a Mockingbird

12. Alice in Wonderland

13. The Phantom Tollbooth

14. The High King

15. 1984

16. The Alchemist

17. Lord of the Flies

18. The Good Earth

19. The Bridge Over the River Kwai

20. The Man In the High Tower

Answer 8

I have enjoyed all these recently!

Children/Young Adult

Last Chance by Sarah Dessen

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Inkheart and Inkspell by Cornelia Funkt

Ingo series by Helen Dunmore

Whistling for the Elephants by Sandi Toksvic

The Book Thief by Markus Zusack

Adult

No! I don’t want to join a Book Club by Virgina Ironside

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir......and her other books

The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Neffenigger

Best of Fathers by Anne Baker

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood

Cell by Stephen King

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Swimming with the Fishes and Swimming without a net by MaryJanice Davidson

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Mr Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

My Legendary Girlfriend by Mike Gayle and his others

Mr McGreggor, The Last Lighthouse Keeper, Animal Instincts, Only Dad, Rosie, Love and Dr Devon all by Alan Titchmarsh

Pillars of the Earth and the sequel World Without End by Ken Follett

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

Classics

Lord of the Flies and The Inheritors by William Golding

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift

Animal Farm - GeorgeOorwell

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Tarka the Otter - Henry Williamson

War and Peace - Tolstoy

Anything by Jane Austin

Series

Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz

The Arthur Trilogy by Bernard Cornwall starts with Winter King

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

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King starts with The Gunslinger

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon starts with Cross Stitch

Answer 9

"Soul Mates and Twin Flames," Elizabeth Clare Prophet,

"The Great Divorce," C. S. Lewis,

"Expecting Adam," Martha Beck,

"A Wrinkle in Time" series, L'Engle,

"Testimony of Light," Helen Greaves,

"The Overachievers," Alexandra Robbins,

"The Giver," Lois Lowry,

"The Neverending Story," Michael Ende,

"Bridge to Terabithia," K. Paterson,

"Johnny Tremain," Esther Forbes,

"Freakonomics," S. Levitt,

"West with the Night," Beryl Markham,

"The True Story of the Bilderberger Group," Daniel Estullin,

"Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei," Weinberger,

"Light Is a Living Spirit" and "The Yoga of Nutrition," O. M. Aivanhov,

"Tintin" series, Herge,

"The Little Prince," Saint-Exupery,

"Good Masters!  Sweet Ladies!", Laura Schlitz,

"When Invisible Children Sing," Dr. Huang,

"The Master of Lucid Dreams," Dr. Olga Kharitidi,

"Watch Your Dreams," Ann Ree Colton.

Answer 10

1. Stephen King

2. Dean Koontz

3. James Patterson

4. Michael Crichton