What is your favourite book. Hands down. Tell us why.

[applegrove]

I love Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance". I hear Westerners go through a transformation when they visit India and learn incredible things about humanity through the terrible poverty. This book does that for you too. It takes place in India. It follows three characters who seem to have so little, yet they have so much.

[Dystopian]

1. The Grapes of Wrath...

I've read it three times...
There are other books, but I connect with this one.
Poverty and the love of the land....
I learned and lived that from my beloved parents.

Tom Joad.

I will never leave here....until I leave.

You are always reading..... beautiful.


peace~

[applegrove]

2. You are so kind.

[OmahaBlueDog]

19. I love Steinbeck

I love his descriptions of California, especially around Salinas. I love the richness and realism of his characters. Every one of his books - even the maligned "Winter of Our Discontent" - are worth reading.

[kentauros]

3. No favorite right now.

They change throughout my life. But, most have had something to do with cooking, whether as reference or as cookbooks. Such as:

Rose Levy Berenbaum's The Cake Bible and A Passion for Chocolate.

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking

Edward Espe Brown's The Tassajara Bread Book

:D

[GoCubsGo]

11. I love McGee's book, too!

Any book that mixes food and science appeals to me. I also really like "You Eat What You Are" by Thelma Barer-Stein. It discusses the foods traditions of different cultures around the World. Fascinating stuff. Both explain why I also love Alton Brown and his "Good Eats" show. He mixes food, science and anthropology.

[RushIsRot]

4. Cache Lake Country by John Rowlands

Reading this book caused me to be introduced to my favorite author, Henry David Thoreau and his masterpiece, Walden.

[EastTennesseeDem]

5. "The Road" by McCarthy

I picked it up one day and did not put it down until I was done. My mind was utterly blown and my guard against personal attachment I tend to have for fictional characters was let down. A life-changing read.

But "A Confederacy of Dunces" comes damn close, albeit for totally different reasons. Brilliantly written. It had me in stitches the whole time.

I know it's been in production hell for decades, but I don't think "Confederacy" would work on film. J.K. Toole's writing style is responsible for about 80 percent of its effect.

[Arugula Latte]

20. The Road is harrowing and amazing.

[AsahinaKimi]

6. It had to be this one!

I still have it somewhere, packed away. We played that game for hours and hours, and I loved
every second of it. Its a gamer book, btw for role playing.

[quickesst]

7. The Masters of Solitude

..simply becauee it's the first time I felt I was part of the story. I could read this novel day and night, and only wish I was there. Thanks.
quickesst

[7wo7rees]

8. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

You don't know until you read it. It changed me into a listener when I coulda been a talker. Tall order.

[pokerfan]

9. I god, I'm not partial to westerns but...

It has everything, life and death, heroes and villains, good and evil, passion and regret, great characters...

[Xipe Totec]

10. Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man

It was one of about a dozen assigned books for a course in the history and philosophy of chemistry.

I read it in one night, cover to cover, over 30 years ago. It influenced me profoundly.

30 years hence, I still draw strength and inspiration from it.

[clyrc]

12. I love too many books to have one favorite

I honestly can't think of one that is my hands down favorite. I do have three favorite authors- Tanith Lee, Dorothy Dunnett, and Lionel Shriver. But there are so many other authors I love, too. I don't have a favorite book like I don't have a favorite food- there are just so many fabulous examples of both out there.

I read "A Fine Balance" and it made me sob. Seriously it was hard to get over that book.

[Joe Fields]

13. I have three all-time favorites;

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, By Hunter Thompson, and Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain.

[NightWatcher]

14. Fear & Loathing, good one. I also like to reread The Monkey Wrench Gang by Ed Abbey

Neither are considered "high art" although F&L is high throughout.

I find them both to be inspiring, MWG more as of late

I have a tendency to stick with authors more than just singular works. I love how HST made himself a major part of each story instead of merely an outside reporter. Abbey too, lived the life he wrote about. In the same vein, I can pick up any of Ernest Hemingwsy's more auto-bio pieces.

[Ineeda]

15. For me

nothing can beat 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. It truly stands the test of time and Atticus Finch is the most human and admirable character I've come across.

[Brickbat]

16. I have several I can't do without, but I'll list two.

USA, dos Passos.

Possession, A.S. Byatt

[Amerigo Vespucci]

17. Kerouac, "On The Road"

Due, in a large part, to this passage:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

Before starting my own business in 2001, I spent far too many years of my life around co-workers in the corporate world who were heartless, soulless, lifeless.

Emerson said it best:

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

What that means, to me, is that you can think like Keroauc in that passage above and still work for a living. It's not a matter of extremes. You don't have to be a sheep in a cubicle and you don't have to be a bum. You can choose the people you surround yourself with. They don;t have to be one dimensional or lacking in talent, lacking in love, lacking in joy. You get to choose. Every waking moment of every day is a choice we make.

You can be the person you are and make money by doing it, but you will work your ass off and make personal sacrifices you never imagined.

And it will be worth it.

:toast:

[madmom]

18. I have several also, but I think the top of the list would be..

The Source by James Michener. It started my love for all things ancient , not from a religious point of view but from the historic aspect. I read a lot of historical fiction, but it has to be pre-Columbian. I think this is also where my daughter got the desire to study archeology. She is also an avid reader, and when she was younger and ran out of books of her own to read, I started throwing these at her, she kept coming back for more.

[givemebackmycountry]

21. I think there is a difference between my "favorite"" and the one I've read the most often...

Fear and Loathing and a collection of Bukowski short stories my be my favorites.
This is the book that I have read the most often:



There are moments in this book that are laugh out loud funny, and then there are moments where Brautigan is ripping your heart out.
I can see why he committed suicide.
He had to be a tortured soul to write some of the darker moments in this book.

[Bluzmann57]

22. Tom Sawyer

Always and forever.
I grew up a "River Rat" and in fact, got busted by my parents and other parents as well for trying to pull the "fence whitewash" thing. And for trying to sail a raft on the mighty Mississippi.
I'm sure that this is not the most "intellectual" choice, and I KNOW it's not the pc choice because of certain characters in the book and the way that Clemons described them, but I DON'T CARE! I love the story and always will.

[bookworm65t]

23. Death -A Life by George Pendle

this is one of the funniest books I've come across in a long time. Death writes his memoirs (with the help of a ghostwriter, of course), and there are tons of puns and jokes everywhere. His love of puppies and kittens is especially hilarious! You end up rooting for the guy.