What is your favourite book of all time?

Question

Mine is To Kill A Mockingbird. Read it about 11 times. I think it's such a beautifully written book. Whats yours and why.

Answer 1

World According to Garp.

By John Irving

was supposed to read it in gr. 11 English class. Watched the movie instead. Four years later I read it on the train, and loved it. The differences between the book and movie, I couldn't believe that I passed the exam. Love that book, and highly recommend it.
I just read it for the 6th time. (I write in the back the date that I read a book {when I own it})

Answer 2

Watership Down.

Two reasons:

1. It brings back great memories of being a kid - I remember my favourite teacher reading it aloud to us on Friday afternoons throughout the Summer Term of 1983, and we also had a Guide Camp with the book as a theme the same year.

2. It's a really good book. Given that it's about rabbits, it's amazing how you feel for the characters and the plot. I can read it as an adult and still enjoy it. And yeah, I still cry at the ending and I'll be 35 next month.

Answer 3

I also love TKAM. Other favorites:
Inherit the Wind- so funny, and such an interestin gplotline! I loved the characters and the book really drew me in
Harry Potter- I have a soft spot in my heart for these books, I really feel like I know the characters!
A Raisin in the Sun- It's a really great book. A bit provocative, but interesting a nd fuunny and meaningful.

Answer 4

I love To Kill a Mockingbird! It is an amazing book!
i also like the Harry potter Books
Rebecca
Where the red Fern Grows

Answer 5

Well I would have to say I'm making my mind up between the Lilac Bus and the Van... not that I have a thing with vehicles on 4 wheels, but...

I'd pick the Lilac Bus because it's interesting read. It tells the story of very different people, completely different stories but brought together by coincidence - well basically by the fact that they go to their home town every week-end and decide to go with the same bus. The bus driver's story is the most touching one - I love it!

Now, the Van is just a great story! It's about 2 friends who buy a chipper van, get rich, but then realize that things aren't as easy as they looked. And they lose all the money they got again... I believe.

Basically, what it comes down to is that I like novels that are about everyday life... mainly because I already write out-of-the-ordinary stories myself, I don't want to read the same thing that I write...

Answer 6

I can't answer this one - I have lots.
Jodi Picoult - My Sister's Keeper. This book is gripping from the first page and covers delicate issues - is it right for a parent to have another baby to help save the life of the sibling? Amazing read...
Cecelia Ahern - PS I Love You. This book is ace! Sad, happy, funny and brilliantly written. About a girl who is trying to come to terms with a partner's untimely death. Emotional read!
Ben Elton - Inconceivable. A funny and witty book about a couple having trouble conceiving a baby and the journey through IVF. Very well written and very funny in parts.

Answer 7

Since I've been on the planet for awhile and have read quite a bit, it's hard to name just one. It's easier if I separate it by ages/time periods. I'll limit it to fiction.

Ages 6-10: The Hardy Boys mysteries - started a lifelong love for mystery & adventure stories

Ages 10-15: The Call of the Wild by Jack London. Adventure value plus have always liked dogs.

Ages 15-19: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Loved the picaresque characters & it remains one of my favs. Have read most of his other stuff since.

Ages 19 to about 30, when I was influenced the most (for better or for worse!): On the Road by Jack Kerouac with Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse a close 2nd. These remain 2 of my favs, even as my perspective has changed on their lives & writings, particularly Kerouac. I've read most of what they wrote plus several biogs of Kerouac. I don't think either was anywhere near the greatest writer of all time, but I have a deep affection for both. RE: Kerouac, I think you either "got him" or you didn't. He was much more than he has often been characterized & caricatured, i.e., as an avatar of sex, drugs & life as "kicks."

Since age 30, no author has affected me in such a way and I can't name just one book. Some of my favorite novelists of late are Tom Wolfe, Scott Turow & Anne Tyler (plus several mystery/detective novelists) in additon to the aforementioned older favs plus Hemingway & Twain.

Answer 8

Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses is my favorite book. I like lots of things by him but this is the one I like best. No writer can match him for his use of language, his written conversations are brilliant and the imagery beautiful. To show you what I mean, here is a tiny excerpt from his book, The Orchard Keeper:

"In the relative cool of the timber stands, possum grapes and muscadine flourish with a cynical fecundity, and the floor of the forest -littered with old mossbacked logs, peopled with toadstools strange and solemn among the ferns and creepers and leaning to show their delicate livercolored gills-has about it a primordial quality, some steamy carboniferous swamp where ancient saurian lurk in feigned sleep."

Goodness, how does one write like that? A simple description of a forest. That man writes like the very devil.

Answer 9

I wish I could say that my favorite book was "great literature" (I did love "All's Quiet On The Western Front" and "Red Badge of Courage") but my favorite book of all time is "The Stand" by Stephen King, I have read it quite a few times. I love it because Stephen King knows how to write the way people actually "feel" and it is about a worldwide devastating event that I could actually see possibly happening.

Answer 10

I have four. Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters - has to do with archaeology, romance, mystery and is quite funny. The 2nd is The MoonSpinners by Mary Stewart, very romantic and set in Greece. The 3rd is Shattered Silk by Barbara Michaels (pen name of Eliz. Peters), I can read about vintage clothes over and over. The 4th is the book I feel made me a reader - The Six Stone Faces, by Norman Dale (children's book). I can read any of these over and over.