15

[trishtrash]

Fun little survey [via hitchhiker] - rattle off the first 15 books you can think of that will always stick with you.

Comments

[maldeluxx]

Off the 'top books' list XD :

Salinger - Catcher In The Rye (yes, I'm one of those who liked this)
P.White - Voss
Joyce - Ulysses
Clavell - Shogun
Ballard - Running Wild
Tolkien - Silmarillion
Behan - Borstal Boy
Brautigan - Trout Fishing In America
Lurie - Nowhere City
Hornby - Hi-Fidelity (only book of his I like and/or am interested in)
Hawthorne - Scarlet Letter
Ende - Neverending Story
Warner - Morvern Callar
Clarke - Childhood's End

[trishtrash]

I'm always impressed when I meet someone who not only read, but enjoyed, The Scarlet Letter. That book defeated me; I didn't get halfway.

[maldeluxx]

I guess the notes coming with the Penguin version help, but I really did enjoy the subject and the language style :) Unlike, say, Henry James - now that writer writes oftentimes sentences that you forget what he was trying to say before one ends the sentence (but I have found a few among his that I did understand *lol*). :)

[edith_jones]

Someone else who has heard of and read Patrick White! I haven't read Voss yet, although it is next to me on my nighttable, but I loved The Solid Mandala and Riders in the Chariot so very much. He is a brilliant writer.

Can you tell I like HP? ;)

[gothayesd51708]

Jane Eyre
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
Watchmen
Water for Elephants
Of Mice & Men
Angela's Ashes
The Outsiders
Frankenstein
Hamlet
Night
The Hobbit
Pride & Prejudice

Re: Can you tell I like HP? ;)

[androbard1364]

I love your list :P I haven't read a lot of those, though. Only the HP books, Of Mice and Men, and The Hobbit. I'm working my way up to Hamlet :)

Re: Can you tell I like HP? ;)

[gothayesd51708]

Thank you! :)

Re: Can you tell I like HP? ;)

[edith_jones]

I couldn't get even a few pages into Water for Elephants although all reports tell me that it's a wonderful book. And I am impressed that you've managed to read Frankenstein; I couldn't read that one, either.

Do you enjoy The Lord of the Rings as well as The Hobbit? I know very few people, other than me, who prefer The Hobbit to LOTR. It's always seemed a better story to me, if shorter and more compact.

[edith_jones]

1. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
2. Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose
3. M.M. Kaye - The Far Pavilions
4. Patrick White - Riders in the Chariot
5. C.S. Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6. Guy Gavriel Kay - The Fionavar Tapestry
7. Nelson Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom
8. Rian Malan - My Traitor's Heart
9. Bill Bryson - In a Sunburned Country
10. Alice Walker - The Color Purple
11. Mordecai Richler - The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
12. Jose Saramago - Blindness
13. H.P. Lovecraft - Tales of Horror and the Macabre
14. Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance
15. Donald Johanson - Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind

These aren't my absolute favourite 15 books, but they're all books that I loved, and are the first 15 that jumped into my head.

[maldeluxx]

Jose Saramago - Blindness

How was it good? :)
Have you read "Seeing" yet?

[edith_jones]

It was very dark. [Which is appropriate, I guess, for a book called Blindness!] Never before have I read anything with such dystopic ideas; even the craziest of cyberpunk has never taken me to this level of maniac terror. The book is not horror, though. There is no blood and gore. It is a world gone mad, which is more frightening than any knife-wielding psycho that I can think of.

I tried Seeing but didn't like it at all. Generally I love Saramago's books but didn't like this one. Baltasar and Blimunda is actually my favourite book of his, and I give it a hearty recommendation. Have you read Seeing or any others of Saramago's works? What was your opinion, if so?

[maldeluxx]

I haven't read anything from him yet, but I'm planning to read at least "Blindness" at some point. :)

[anotherplay]

1. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
2. Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. The Laws - Connie Palmen
4. Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
5. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
6. Wicked - Gregory Maguire
7. Eine Frau in Berlin - Anonyma
8. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
9. Alice in Wonderland - Carroll Lewis
10. Little Women - L.M. Alcott
11. De reis van de dwerg - Henny Fortuin
12. Sisi's Winterlied - Lucas Zandberg
13. Collected works - Heinrich Heine
14. Volte Face - Nancy Huston
15. Fear of flying - Erica Jong

I didn't exactly love all of these books (Fear of Flying, for example), although I do adore most of them, but they are books that I still think about every so often.

[edith_jones]

You've read some really interesting books there; have you read them in Dutch [I looked at your profile] or in English? I haven't actually read Rebecca, but I love it all the same; it's one of the few audiobooks I've ever tried and Mel Gibson was reading it - he has a lovely voice.

I've often wondered how people can read The Bell Jar more than once. It's the most depressing book I've ever read and made me feel rather like jumping out a window, and this on a sunny June day. What attracts you to it?

[anotherplay]

I've read most of them in Dutch! The two dutch novels I have obviously read in Dutch and The Laws is an original Dutch novel too, it's just that it has been translated. There are some examples though. I've read Harry Potter both in English and Dutch, same goes for Little Women. Wicked isn't translated, so I've read that in English twice. Heinrich Heine and Eine Frau in Berlin I've read in German, although I have also read translations of Heine.

Rebecca is my love. I love that book so much, I really need to re-read it soon. I want to read it in English, although I am very fond of the Dutch translation too. (The translations are actually pretty good, I find. I mean, something always gets lost in translation, but still)

I can relate too so many aspects in The Bell Jar, even though it is very depressing indeed. I have also read Plaths journals and I felt the same connections when I read those. It's not exactly the suicidepart, but more... We think about the same things, in the same way, in sort of the same words. I also adore Plath's

[anotherplay]

examples = exceptions

[youngdj]

1. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Tom Robbins
2. Great Expectations - C. Dickens
3. Like - Ali Smith
4. Hood - Emma Donoghue
5. Written on the Body - Jeannette Winterson
6. Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (series) - Douglas Adams
8. Pride and Prejudice - J. Austen
9. Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
10. Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
11. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
12. Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
13. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
14. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
15. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood