What are the 5 best books you've ever read?

[KiwiKate]

Such a fabulous thread! I'm posting this to bump the thread up to the first page and invite new contributions. Most of the classics listed are indisputable -- no arguments from me though to include them all would make the list very long -- so I'm just going to list some of the books off the top of my head that made an impression on me over the years:

The Chosen -- Chaim Potok

On the Beach -- Nevil Shute

The Good Earth -- Pearl Buck

in the Garden of Beasts -- Erik Larsen

Still Alice -- Lisa Genova

I read all of the above books before joining my current, amazing book club, so I could go on and on talking about the almost 50 books we've read and discussed since 2020.

[GeoffD]

I’ll go with my comfort books that I have re-read a number of times.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Dune by Frank Hebert

Captain From Castile and Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger

Shogun by James Clavell

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

[LookinForMayberry]

[quote=Jess5;1883022]
The Bible
Tolstoy's War & Peace
Hesse's Sidhartha
Dr Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves
Baring's The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image

[RubyandPearl]

#1 would have to be War and Peace, wonderful wonderful, deserves the regard it has.
I took a winter to read it. Prince Andrew is so noble, even foolishly so at times. When he's wounded at Austerlitz, looking at the sky as a great inverted blue bowl is still a vivid memory.

When Natasha and Andrew meet on the train I cried through the whole scene, page after page. My husband finally asked me if I was okay.

And then just as I was reading Natasha's Christmas in the country on the family estate and the thrilling nighttime sleigh ride with her brother our neighbors came by with an old sleigh they just bought for Christmas!

Pulled by their truck, not horses, they invited us to take a ride. We grabbed coats, blankets and a bottle of bourbon and climbed aboard. We lived in the country, snow on the ground, bright wolf moon in a clear winter sky, they pulled us fast across fields of snow.

It was so romantic, I felt like Natasha in old Russia. Really nice adjunct to the read.

[pikabike]

Hard to narrow it down to only five, but these come to mind:

Brian Doyle’s Mink River, absolutely my favorite.
David Guterson’s Snow Falling On Cedars
James Galvin’s The Meadow
Larry McMurtry’s All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers
Jim Lynch’s The Highest Tide

I cannot possibly pick only five favorite nonfiction books.

[LauraC]

Since it is 15 years since I gave my list, I would like to amend it.

5 Favorite Nonfiction books:

1. The Hot Zone - Richard Preston
2. The Big Sort - Bill Bishop
3. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer - Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin
4. While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within - Bruce Bawer
5. Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China - John Pomfret


5 Favorite Classics:

These are my 5 favorite classics:

1. Lord of The Flies William Golding
2. Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
3. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
4. Stranger In A Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
5. Animal Farm - George Orwell


5 Favorite Novels:

1. Salem's Lot - Stephen King (scariest book I ever read when I read it - long before vampires were being done by everyone)
2. Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
3. The Charm School - Nelson DeMille
4. The 6 Days of The Condor - James Brady (the movie was a big disappointment because it hacked off 3 days from the book)
5. Lost Boys - Orson Scott Card (not the vampire movie one - totally different book)

Favorite writer overall: Agatha Christie

[RubyandPearl]

Originally Posted by LauraC

Favorite writer overall: Agatha Christie

Yes I like Agatha too, much prefer Miss Marple to Poirot.