I'm curious what your Top 5 reads of all time are...with one caveat - no classics allowed. (As much as I love them, I'm looking to add top quality books to my TBR, and I thought eliminating classics would bring more variety.)

Here's to all of us adding the best of the best to our TBR! (yeah, like we really need more, but there's always room for that Next Best Book!)

I'll start with mine, in no particular order:

1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

2. Prodigal Summer: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver

3. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

4. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Oooo, only fiction? I'll pick my YA favorites:

1. The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray (no surprise)

2. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

3. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

4. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

5. Oooo only five? Hmmm....

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson

Can be anything, GEmma, fiction, non-, whatever!

Hmm alright then!

1. The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray

2. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

3. Diet for a New America

4. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

5. How could I forget: Abundance of Katherines by John Green

It's harder than I thought without the classics! :)

In no particular order:

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!: A Novel by Fannie Flagg

Prep: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Tara Road by Maeve Binchy

The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand

They're not all great literature, but there's something I loved about each one of them that has made me think of them long after I finished.

The Kite Runned by Khaled Hosseini
Private Series by Kate Brian
Someone like You by Sarah Dessen
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowlings

That was tough!

1.Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
(And the Dalemark Quartet (The Dalemark Quartet, Volume 1: Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet, The Dalemark Quartet, Volume 2: The Spellcoats and The Crown of Dalemark) and the Chrestomanci series (The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1: Charmed Life / The Lives of Christopher Chant and others), and Fire and Hemlockand Dogsbody by the same author.)

2. The Otori Series - Lian Hearn. Consisting of:
Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass for His Pillow, Brilliance of the Moon, The Harsh Cry of the Heron, Heaven's Net Is Wide

3. The Roth Trilogy by Andrew Taylor (omnibus edition: Fallen Angel/Requiem for an Angel) Starting with The Judgement of Strangers

4. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

5. Atonement: A Novel - Ian McEwan or The Constant Gardener - John le Carre or Memoirs of a Geisha.

See, that's five there for you!

Of non-fiction and I don't read much, apart from when at uni and had to read sociology books by people who really need to learn how to get to the flaming point...

1. Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self - Claire Tomalin

2. The Diary of Samuel Pepys - you can get a selection of or buy the whole 10/11 volumes of the complete diaries. Very interesting character, is our Pepys. Naughty man. He hid some cheese in his back garden during the fire of London. Man after your own heart, Laura.

3. Jane Austen: A Life - also by Tomalin - who I really like as she makes you feel like you're their friend and you're there alongside them rather then just telling you about some distant figures life.

Great call on The Constant Gardener! That's one of my favorite reads ever.


Okay, so top 5 Contemporary Favs (of today)(in no particular order):

1. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
2. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
3. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
4. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
5. Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

(G)Emma....I am reading Just Listen right now. i just finished the first chapter so I will have some more done tonight.

Now. I only have two...because I only have a top four favorite book list, and two are classics.

1. Eye Contact by Cammie McGoven...My all time favorite book. It is about a boy who has autism, but he is also the only witness in a a murder case, and it is really good.

2. Wicked Lovely by Mellisa Marr...yet another young adult novel...but still an outstanding one.

Awesome Andrew! I hope you like it!

Hmm, without classics? Let's see...

1) Harry Potter series
2) The Pact-Jodi Picoult (actually anything by her could really make the list
3) Goodnight Nobody-Jennifer Weiner
4) Time for Andrew-Mary Downing Hahn (YA or younger, but I've loved it since I was 10)
5) The DaVinci Code-Dan Brown

Hey Jessica, are you feeling better?

hmm very hard.

1--EC&IL
2--Twilight
3--Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger
4-- The Things They Carried--Tim O'Brien
5--The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
Enders Game - Orson Scott Card
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
The Thornbirds - Colleen McCullough
East of Eden - John Steinbeck

Call me stupid, but what is EC&IL?

ooh i accidentally switched the letters around..i meant extremely loud and incredibly close!

I'm always doing that Jamie.

No classics, eh?

Uh...

Dissolution by C.J. Sansom
The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George

OOh, A Great Deliverance, that's a great one, Susanna. I love Eliz. George!

Many of these are new titles for me. Looking good!

Poisonwood Bible
Jitterbug Perfume
Charlotte's Web
Time Travelers Wife
The Girls

Hmmm. Top 5, With No Classics:

The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers.

The False Inspector Dew, by Peter Lovesey.

Temple, by Matt (aka Matthew) Reilly.

Nazareth Hill, by Ramsey Campbell.

Kentuckiana, by Johnny Payne.

Harry Potter
Queen by Alex Haley
Twilight
Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

Its virtually impossible to list, but here goes my sincere try:

Simple Truth by David Baldacci
Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Day of The Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

However, I've many great reads waiting in my tbr shelf. So, this list is totally dynamic.

Geez! Of all time, but no classics? Huh. What is a classic, anyway?

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist
Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

It will be the top five that comes in my mind now, so tomorrow I can even be thinking about a different top five.

The Loop by Nicholas Evans

A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East by Tiziano Terzani

Prodigal Summer: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver

The Ten Trusts: What We Must Do to Care for The Animals We Love by Jane Goodall

Tre metri sopra il cielo. by Federico Moccia


But I can make so many top five lists.

Sorry, had to resave this under the TNBBC Top Lists folder.....

As far as mine:
1-Blindness -Saramago
2-Death of an Ordinary Man - Duncan
3-Dexter series- Lindsay
4-Gil's All Fright Diner - Martinez
5-The Stupidest Angel - Moore
6- Odd Thomas series - Kootnz

Sorry tryed to limit it to 5....
A good mix of the serious, the funny, and the best series out there IMO.

FICTION

1. The World According to Garp by John Irving

2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

3. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

4. Blindness by José Saramago

5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky


NONFICTION

1. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

2. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

3. School of Dreams by Edward Humes

4. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

5. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Everything is Illuminated
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The World According to Garp

Sorry, Lori, I meant to put it there and forgot. Bah. Thanks for moving it.

I've not read many of these, so it's just like one giant TBR list. Great to have the non-fiction titles as well, thanks!

I see lots of Irving. I have picked up many of his and never finished one. Has anyone else had this issue come up with his stuff?

1: The Road Cormac McCarthy
2: A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving
3: White Noise Don Delillo
4: Zombie Joyce Carol Oates
5: Life of Pi Yann Martel


Laura, I had the same issue with World According to Garp. I forced myself to finish and suffered for it. A Prayer is better, I think. Although it is hard to get into. and a bit slow at time through-out, the pay off at the end is so well worth it!

Thanks, Sarah! That's the one I most recently put down. It was interesting, but it just wasn't moving fast enough. Sometimes in these situations, I find audio works better. Maybe I'll try that.

Ouch, I put World according to Garp betwee my almsot worst books....
It was jsut realllyyyy long, most of it was boring, but I did like some aprts. But was wondering why it is concidered a really good book!

Wow! The World According to Garp is one of my favorite books of all time and I never found a boring moment in it. In fact, I always thought that it had a ton of events that take place and the characters were fabulous.

But, everyone has there faves and least faves. I was just listing mine.

Charity, especially big part of the beginning for me was soooooo don't even know what it was. I dragged myself through that part. I think maybe I disliked most what was written or told by the mother.

Oh well, different strokes for different folks, I guess. Jenny's story at the beginning was one of my faves.

Oh great Charity, I seem to dislike the parts you liked!!! :-))))

Forgive me for being a HUGE Irving fan but I get especially alarmed when someone makes a blanket statement that he is boring or wonders why others consider it a great book. Anyone that I know that hasn't liked Irving can't stand the way that he constantly goes into back details instead of staying with his main story. For those of us that do like him it is what makes him a great author. If you don't want to wade through those sub stories of sub stories, well, you won't like him, but I think there is substantial evidence, based on his vast readership that his work is good. So wouldn't it make more sense to just say he doesn't work for you? And maybe someday you will pick it back up and actually like it. I've said it before but I have put three, yes three, Irving books on hold to finish them years later and liked them all.

I guess I am generally more forgiving of books than others. I can usually find a redeeming quality of something that has made it to the publishing stage. Take Memory Keepers Daughter as an example. The book drove me nuts at times but I could understand that others liked it and I could see why. It just didn't work for me.

End of rant.

Good choice Charity! Reading Cider House Rules definitely pushed World According to Garp and all things Irving at the very top of my wishlist for Christmas.

My top 5 would be
1. The Road Cormac McCarthy
2. Blindness(thank you Lori) :) Saramago
3. Cider House Rules John Irving
4. Music of Razors Cameron Rogers
5. City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin

Thanks, Sherry, I was curious about yours. Between #4 and #5, which is the best (they are the 2 I don't know)?

Hi Jeremy - I like Irving enough to have picked up several of his books. I think it's been a "right book, wrong time" thing for me. I'm gonna keep trying him, because I like the all over the place stuff, and because he's one of the greats so. You just have to. That's how I see it.

Laura,it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges I'm afraid. I think that City of Angels is probably more mainstream,a mystery spanning 2 turbulent decades of pre-war Germany. Music of Razors is unusual,involving Angels and closet monsters and a little boy and girl battling some overwhelming terrors. It was one of my favorite reads,but definitely not easily defined.

Thanks Sherry. Yeah the Road is on your list, and I don't know if I would ever even attempt that one, so...I'm sure it's good but the subject matter just keeps me away I think.

Here are mine:

1. BEAUTIFUL LIES - LISA UNGER

2. PRIVATE PEACEFUL - MICHAEL MORPURGO

3. BEFORE I DIE - JENNY DOWNHAM

4. THE ALCHEMIST - PAULO COELHO

5. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS - KHALED HOSSEINI

The Road was a beautiful book for me. I have never been as affected by the ending of a book like I was this one.

Beach Music-Pat Conroy
Blindness-Jose Saramago
Pillars of the Earth-Ken Follett
The Secret Life of Bees-Sue Monk Kidd
Timequake-Kurt Vonnegut

Damn, I forgot all about The Road when I was making my list. That is def one of them!!!!!!

Charity and Jeremy, and Sherry, I have A Prayer For Owen Meany but havent gotten to reading it yet. Depending on how I feel about that one, I want to read Garp as well....

I have 17 books on my "favorites" shelf and I think only two of them are classics. Hmmm...

Fair and Tender Ladies
Peace Like a River
Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel
Someplace to Be Flying
Ursula, Under

Ask me again tomorrow! :-)

The Kite Runner
Year of Wonders
For One More Day
Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World's Worst Dog
The Stand

Very very tough, these are what they are at the moment, please note these may change daily, weekly, monthly, yearly :)

Like so many of you, my list could change at a moments notice, but for now, in this moment, my five favorite contemporary fictions (in no particular order):

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Micheal Dorris
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

The mists of Avalonwas the frs tbook I wrote in my first TBR list and that was about six years ago, still didn't read it...