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Favorite Books

SonOfOdin

SonOfOdin

Meteorite
Joined
Jun 14, 2022
Hey there,

I was wondering what type of books everyone here enjoys and was hoping to get some suggestions for my 'To Read' list (as if I don't have half a bookcase full of books I still have yet to read haha)

So I figured I'd start a thread, hopefully get some suggestions, and maybe provide some suggestions for you. Here are some of my favorites:

1. The Dresden Files Series by Jim Butcher - Modern fantasy, magic, supernatural creatures, and a funny, snarky protagonist.
2. Dark Hollow by Brian Kenne - Billed as the 'New Stephen King', I find Keene much easier to read and much more exciting. This is a dark supernatural horror-ish novel that is incredibly well-written.
3. Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin - Yes, I know, it's hard to believe he has finished books, right? ;) This is a supernatural period piece in the time of steamboats and coalminers. It's absolutely one of my favorite works by Martin, and I dare say the writing is better than his Song of Ice & Fire stuff (don't get me wrong, that's pretty great too)

Well, it's meeting time, so I need to run for now. If this takes off I might add more of my favorites in the future.
 
Oh my goodness. Where do I begin?!

Okay, I needed to narrow this down to my top three books and then one honorable mention of a series.

First, top book, favorite of all time, so far:

Swan Song by Robert R McCammon
Apocalyptic-to-post, this story is a classic tale of good v evil, humanity, and perseverance in the absence of hope. I recently re-read this for the third time [that may seem low, but I don't re-read books often, if at all] and it was just as powerful as the first time I read it.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
This is the first book-to-movie adaptation where I felt like the feeling of the book was accurate portrayed. This follows a father and son in a post-apocalyptic landscape on their way to the coast. I happened to read this after my [much younger] brother was born and it's stuck with me. The lengths the father goes to protect his child is both heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
This has been popular as of late but for a very good reason. There's a movie coming out next month, and I hope its as true to the book as The Road was. The emotions in this story... a young girl survives on her own in the marsh after her family abandons her over time in the 1960s. The book follows her coming of age, and the drama that ensues after a handsome popular young man in the town is found murdered, and the girl is accused and arrested. I could not put this book down once I started reading it, and I will likely start listening to it as an audiobook here soon because the story is just so good.

And now, honorable mention:

Sigma Force Novels by James Rollins
There are a lot of books in this collection already available. I started with Black Order, a fictional scientific thriller-adventure anchored in real-world scientific experiments conducted by the Third Reich, then went and found the first book in the series and read my way back up to present. The entire series follows a group of agents in a top secret agency that must stop super terrorists from ending the world. Sounds so hokey and cheesy written out, but I promise they are edge-of-your-seat nail-biters. James Rollins is by far my favorite author, and this series is my favorite of all time, but there are too many books in here to narrow any of them down.


SonOfOdin said:
2. Dark Hollow by Brian Kenne - Billed as the 'New Stephen King', I find Keene much easier to read and much more exciting. This is a dark supernatural horror-ish novel that is incredibly well-written.
Click to expand...

This seems right up my alley, so I'll be checking Brian Kenne out for sure!
 
I guess I'll narrow this down too.

1. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. A classic about redemption, love, and revolution. I've read a lot of classics, and even more books, but I still think this might be the greatest story ever told. Victor Hugo is one of my favourite authors. (The Hunchback of Notre Dame is fantastic too.)

2. Remembrance of Earth's Past, or The Three-Body Problem Trilogy, by Liu Cixin. A sci-fi trilogy about humanity encountering aliens, but that description doesn't really do it justice. It's unique, intriguing, and brilliant. I think what surprised me the most with this series is how beautifully written it is. I would say that Liu Cixin is probably the best sci-fi author alive today.

3. Stand On Zansibar by John Brunner. A very unique dystopian sci-fi novel. I love dystopian stories, as long as they're not YA, and this is easily my favourite. John Brunner is underrated.

4. The City and The City by China Miéville. It's a mystery with a unique twist. I was thoroughly disappointed when I discovered that China's other books aren't written in the same style, but I love this book.

Honourable Mentions.

5. Rendevouz with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. Sci-fi. There's something about how Clarke wrote this novel that filled his work with a special feeling of exploration and wonder. I'd say it's his best.

6. Out by Natsuo Kirino. A great thriller, definitely worth reading. I thought this book was hilarious, but that's likely because of my dark sense of humour.

7. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Victorian, Crime. It seems like a romance novel at first, but this book has plenty of twists that transforms the narrative.
 
The Lightning Thief for me and the other series written by Rick Riordan, it's possibly the first book series I ever read.

Harry Potter series of course by J.K. Rowling

Fablehaven Series by Brandon Mull
 
Here are a few of mine in no given order:

  • John Milton: Paradise Lost
  • Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy (often known as "Dante's Inferno")
  • Dr. Seuss: Green Eggs & Ham
  • Doug Dorst/J. J. Abrams: S
  • Chuck Palahniuk: Choke, Fight Club
  • Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
 
I feel like this is probably overtly obvious but I have a semi toxic love of The Witcher series of novels. I just felt obligated to share the obvious.
 
The Princess Bride, reading the book after watching the movie just adds so many more meta layers to it.
 
Loom said:
The Princess Bride, reading the book after watching the movie just adds so many more meta layers to it.
Click to expand...
Really? I've seen Princess Bride more than enough times, but sadly, I've never read the book. I'll have to pick it up and give it a read!
 
The Dune series by Frank Herbert. NOT the extended stuff by Brian Herbert.

The Belgariad series by David Eddings (I couldn't get into The Mallorean as much).

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien.

The Saga of the Exiles by Julian May.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (all 5 of them) by Douglas Adams.
 
1984 by George Orwell

Dune and related sequels by Frank Herbert

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and related sequels by Douglas Adams

The Lord of The Rings (in full) by J.R.R. Tolkien

Siddartha by Herman Hesse
 
Swansong goes on my list

It's hard for me to create a top ten. Maybe a top ten per genre...

A good number also aren't in English...

Anything Tolkien except The Hobbit and Tom Fuckin' Bombadil
Almost anything Lovecraft
Song of Ice and Fire
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
The Crimson petal and the White - Michel faber (dark Victorian)
The first books of the Dune saga- frank Herbert
Precious Bane - Mary Webb (country historical??)
Rebecca - Daphné du Maurier
Treasure Island - Robert Stevenson
Malpertuis - Jean Ray (dark gothic)
How Green my valley was (not the sequels, don't touch the sequels!) - Richard Llewellyn
The director must die - Dina Thala (spicy scifi)
Coup de grace - Marguerite Yourcenar (mindfuck about a German officer courting her to access her brother)
East of Eden
The Fisherman - John Langan (new Lovecraft!)
Special Forces first tome (dark+++ mm)
 
Very good thread idea! Not going to list the obvious classics, but I really love:

Digger - Ursula Vernon (kitchen sink fantasy - a wombat, a dead god, and a very strange tunnel...)

Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse (epic fantasy - first in epic trilogy sent in an uncolonized indigenous fantasy)

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison aka Sarah Monette (Fantasy of manners. half-goblin and youngest of the elven Emperor's sons ascends to the throne when his father and brothers die in a mysterious freak accident and faces significant opposition with respect to his background...his greatest weapon? Kindness and the bravery to break convention!)

The Pride of Chanur - CJ Cherryh (80's sci by the best xenofiction writer who ever lived. A respected captain of a ship of matriarchal lion aliens (who is at once very confident and also Too Old For This Shit) finds herself and her crew embroiled in a messy political battle over custody of a member of a new alien race whose appearance threatens the very fragile trading Compact formed by other spacefaring species. The new alien in question? A "human being"...)

Dreamsnake - Vonda N. McIntyre (Cozy apocalypse. A healer out of a tradition of doctors who use genetically engineered snakes to tend to the ills of the humans surviving in a post-nuclear earth is in trouble when her Dreamsnake is killed by a fearful villager. She goes on a journey to obtain a new one, and prove her teacher's faith in her wasn't misplaced. )

Who Fears Death - Nnedi Okorafor (post apocalyptic fantasy. A sorceress born of weaponized rape leaps over the conventions of her society, trains under a reluctant master and then gathers her companions in order to go on a journey to kill her father and end a war.)

Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao (I normally wouldn't list a title like this, but its Pacific Rim meets Handmaid's Tale set in a sort of quasi fantastical/historical China setting with a canon polyamorous relationship at its core. It's pretty fuckin' awesome!)

The Cloud Roads (the Books of the Raksura) - Martha Wells (of Murderbot fame) - (Science-fantasy? Science fiction with a vast, ecopunk, Star Trek feel? This book follows Moon, a member of a species of matriarchal dragon shifters as he, who grew up orphaned and alone, struggles to come to terms with that abandonment, learn about his people, and go on cool adventures.)
 
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Dune Cycle (Frank Herbert)

The Tartar Steppe (Dino Buzzati)

Kafka on The Shore (Haruki Murakami)

The Iliad/Odyssey (Homer)

Ulysses (James Joyce)

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

Musashi (Eiji Yoshikawa)

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison) (Does a short story count?)

Different Seasons (Stephen King)
 
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Glad to see so much Dune.

Iron widow is incredible, and yum MMF.

Different seasons is pretty incredible (apt pupil...)
 
I love Lovecraft, the fact that it's mostly short stories so you can just dive in and read one whenever you feel like it is a huge plus.
Other than that, I buy more than I actually get to read. I do hope to change that though, I miss reading.
These last couple of years I've been mostly buying autobiographies... sad
 
The Children of Húrin has always left a lasting impression on me -- an underrated great work of Tolkien that goes under the radar because it's not part of the two trilogies.

Other than that, for a bit more YA flair, Wolf Boy I think is the title in English. I read it in Dutch originally. It follows a prophesied young boy and his wolf companion alongside a love interest who helps him along the way. Loved the tribal setting. :)
 
Some of my favorite books!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Name of the Wind (1st Book of the Kingkiller Chronicles) by Patrick Rothfuss

The Way of Kings (1st Book of the Stormlight Archives) by Brandon Sanderson

Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
 
Stephen King's the Dark Tower Series is an often over looked love of mine.
Not only in my opinion is in itself it a great story, but also ties together every single piece of work he's ever made.
He's even self inserted into the later parts for a book of it, and the bloody main character hhaaaatteesss him for being a sniveling coward.
Quite fascinating from a fan's standpoint.
 
The Wheel of Time is my favorite fantasy series. Yes, it's long, yes it has a dry stretch in the middle, and yes, the payoff is worth it.

Most things by Kurt Vonnegut.
 
I havent done enough reading yet but I've read most of the dresden files, great series although I preferred the series before Changes, still good though.
on my list is... Codex Alera, Disc world I think, HHGTG, DUNE, LOTR, some stuff by mercedes lackey, maybe some brandon sanderson. stuff like that.
 
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