What are the 5 best books you've ever read? (encyclopedia, edition, human)

[Bevil]

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende
Angels & Demons - Dan Brown
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

and then i love every Jodi Picoult book ever written...also love the Harry Potter books

[JMadison]

A Book of Five Rings
The Art of War
The Prince
Warfighting
The West Point Way of Leadership

[part_iv]

1. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
2. 1984, George Orwell
3. Junky, William S. Burroughs
4. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
5. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

[Jess5]

Originally Posted by cellogurl23

Willa Cather wrote that there are only four or five human stories, and they keep repeating themselves over and over. With that in mind, I think I would answer this difficult question with the following:

Fiction:

1. The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler
2. The Jungle Books, Rudyard Kipling
3. Tropic of Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Henry Miller (trilogy)
4. Orlando, Virgina Wolf
5. My Antonia, Willa Cather

Non-fiction:

1. Understanding History, Bertrand Russell
2. The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler
3. The World is Flat, Thomas Freidman
4. Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris
5. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins

Poetry:

1. Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
2. The People, Yes, Carl Sandburg
3. The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot
4. Sonnets, Shakespeare
5. Collected Works: Keats, Shelly

I haven't read THE GOD DELUSION, but have heard a lot about it. Did it change your view of God? Thanks

[Tama]

Thanks for making me think about this!!

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Daughter of Time-(Josephine Tey)
Catcher in the Rye
Jane Eyre
Black Beauty

Runners-up

Catch-22
Travels with Charley
Below the Salt (Costain)
The Poisonwood Bible
Atlas Shrugged

[Jess5]

Tama, have you read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand? I thought it was even better than Atlas Shrugged.

[Tama]

Jess5 I think I will give The Fountainhead a go since I had actually forgotten about Ayn Rand until this thread reminded me. And it seems suitable to the times whether one espouses her philosophy or not.

[paxquest]

So many wonderful books that will take a lifetime to read, but these are a few that challenged my perspective, provided valuable lessons and insight, and thus qualify as "best."

Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, Hans J Massaquoi

Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl

The Prince, Machiviavelli

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Expurey

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

[Sandpointian]

Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek (1944--just as applicable today)
Animal Farm, George Orwell (so incredibly incisive)
The Magus, John Fowles (looked forward each morning--brilliant)
Capitalism & Freedom, Milton Friedman (1961 Classic and Must Read--makes Freaknonomics seem like tabloid hooey)
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (the one that got me hooked)

[Tama]

Maxquest and Sandpointian I agree about The Prince--and Animal Farm--they need to be listed.

Also Truman Capote's In Cold Blood