What is your favourite book, or author?

Question

Please don't give answers such as Hary Potter, Lord of the Rings, Catcher in The Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, War and Peace etc etc etc.

All great books, but I'm looking for some recommendations I may not have read already!

I'm terrible at remembering books, but some recent favourites are 'Shantaram', 'A Fine Balance', 'The Remains of the Day'. I generally like books about people, rather than epic and unbelievable thrillers.

A brief explaination of what the book is about would also be nice!

Answer 1

Try Anita Diamante's "The Red Tent"..very very good stuff.
She has another one called, "The Last Days of Dogtown" which is also good but I would say read The Red Tent first.

I like books about people too so I mostly go for stuff that talks about their lives and interactions with others...

How about "The Secret Life of Bees"? (excellent..but avoid her other one "The Mermaid Chair" cuz it sucked).

"The Perks of Being A Wallflower" is excellent.

Anything by Amy Tan is really really good too..especially "The Joy Luck Club".

"Brick Lane" is pretty darn good too.

"Cane River" is excellent.

Geez..I could give you loads..I had better stop. LOL

Answer 2

I like the series Hyperion, by Dan Simmons:
1. Hyperion (1989)
2. The Fall of Hyperion (1990)
3. Endymion (1995)
4. The Rise of Endymion (1997)

Set in the far future resplendent with drama and invention. On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing--nothing anywhere in the universe--will ever be the same....
Raul finds he has been chosen to take the One Who Teaches into the future and protect her until her destiny is fulfilled.

And I like the series Earth's Children, by Jean M. Auel:
1. The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980)
2. The Valley of Horses (1982)
3. The Mammoth Hunters (1985)
4. The Plains of Passage (1990)
5. The Shelters of Stone (2002
A series of historical fiction novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals.

Answer 3

Some of my favorites:
Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury
Slaughterhouse-Five by Vonnegut
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
The Mists of Avalon by Bradley
Dangerous Angels by Block
Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion by Austen
Interview with the Vampire by Rice
I Capture the Castle by Smith
any of the short stories or poems by Poe, particularly The Fall of the House of Usher
The Sound and the Fury, Absalom!, Absalom!, or any of the short stories by Faulkner
The Song of the Lioness quartet by Pierce
Nothing Like the Sun by Burgess
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
Play it as it Lays by Didion

Answer 4

Maximum Ride is a good one, its written by James Patterson, its about six kids who where raised in a lab called the School and were genetically engineered to be 98% human and 2% bird, but escaped and now two years later these other creations called Erasers, they're part human and part wolf so they can transform at will at any time, are after them to bring them back to the School, for who knows what, while they're on a mission to find their parents and who they are.

Answer 5

lately its a childrens book called "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate DiCamilo.

Its reletively short about 100 pages or so. It tells the tale of a proud toy Rabbit and its fall from and return to grace...think the velveteen rabbit with more dimension....

If your looking for a good book about people, try reading "The Rule of the Bone" by Russell Banks....Its a comming of age tale about a kid that runs away from home.

"Different Seasons" by stephen king is a collection of 4 novellas... you might recognize the shawshank redemption...

Answer 6

Favorite Book(s): The Twilight Series (It's about romance, but there are many points in the book which wants to make you read more, it's a vampire/human relationship, pretty sweet)

Author: Stephanie Meyers.

Answer 7

Have you read Howard's End? I'd also recommend Picnic at Hanging Rock, Wide Sargasso Sea, and The Camel Bookmobile. Sorry -- I don't know the authors off the top of my head. And Les Miserables (unless it's included in your "etc." list). Whatever you choose, enjoy*

Answer 8

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
- about an Indian family's search for a husband for the daughter

Answer 9

Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer are the most extraordinary books on earth!! They are my absolute favorite books, and i love them just as much as i love Edward (if you read the books, you'll understand who I'm talking about,lol). I couldn't live without them, they seriously changed my life. I'm going insane waiting for Breaking Dawn to come out!!
heres the descriptions btw:
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/newmoon.html
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/eclipse.html

Answer 10

Wally Lamb's "she's come undone"

She's Come Undone
Wally Lamb
Announced in January 22, 1997

"Mine is a story of craving: an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that began, somehow, in 1956 on the day our first television was delivered..." — Dolores Price, She's Come Undone

She's Come Undone is a deeply affecting, often hilarious novel that centers around one of the most extraordinary characters in recent American fiction: wisecracking, ever-vulnerable Dolores Price, whose life we follow through her fortieth year. When we first meet Dolores in 1956, she is four years old, innocently unaware that the delivery of a television set will launch her tumultuous personal odyssey.

Through one thousand and one television nights, Dolores feeds herself the fantasies of melodramas and sitcoms and tries to understand the many faces of love and betrayal: her father, driven by lust and longing to leave his family; her mother, an emotionally fragile woman who battles mental illness; Grandma Holland, lace-curtain decent, peppery and proud, aching with unspoken feelings; and Jack Speight, the handsome upstairs neighbor whose ultimate betrayal will throw Dolores's life severely, nearly permanently, off-course.

What follows—obesity, sexual ambiguity, self-delusion, and madness—is the precursor to a radiant rebirth. It is not without labor pains, this new awakening. A surrogate family that includes an ancient Polka Queen disc jockey suffering from Parkinson's disease, the 6' 10" proprietor of Existential Drywall (motto: Responsible Work for Authentic Individuals") and her former high school guidance counselor Mr. Pucci, helps Dolores find happiness in small moments.

As endearingly familiar as Chiquita Banana jingles, Hula-Hoops and I Love Lucy, as mysterious and haunting as the cries of whales, She's Come Undone makes us laugh and wince with recognition and reminds us that despite the pain we endure and cause, we must find the courage to love again.