List Your TOP 10 Best Books You have Ever READ.

[Renee E]

But that list changes!

[Jonathan]

Renee wrote: "But that list changes!"

This makes it very hard for me to compile a static, even valid list. Also, there are at least a dozen allegedly great titles sitting unread on my bookshelf, so my list is likely to change in the very near future! With this considered, here's what my provisional top 10 looks like, in no particular order:

Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings
Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Dan Jones, The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England
The Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler, The Art of Happiness
George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

[Colleen]

I agree with Renee. The list does change. At this moment, and in no particular order, this is what my top 10 looks like"

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Battle Cry of Freedom, James MacPherson
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust

[Kelly Brigid ♡]

My favorite books always change over time, but the current 10 at the moment, in no particular order, are:

The Lord of the Rings-J.R.R. Tolkien
Ender's Game-Orson Scott Card
Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen
The Maze Runner-James Dashner
The Sign of the Four-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Cinder-Marissa Meyer
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-Robert Louis Stevenson
The Black Cauldron-Lloyd Alexander
Cress-Marissa Meyer
The Mark of Athena-Rick Riordan

Gosh, I probably sound like such a typical teenager who reads nothing but YA dystopian novels with that list.

[Nikita]

Top Ten, not in order
1. Tiger's Destiny, Colleen Houck
2. Clockwork Princess, Cassandra Clare
3. City of Heavenly Fire, Cassandra Clare
4. The Iron Queen, Julie Kagawa
5. Angelfall, Susan Ee
6. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
7. The Fiery Heart, Richelle Mead
8. Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead
9. The One, Kiera Cass
10. Everneath, Brodi Ashton

[Jessica]

Any order. My favorite as of now.

1. Dark visions by L.j Smith
2. Tiger's Voyage by Colleen Houck
3. Eona by Alison Goodman
4. Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead
5. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
6. Ultraviolet by R.J Anderson
7. Vanished by Meg Cabot
8. Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
9. The Eternity Cure by Julie kagawa
10. My Bonny Light Horseman by L.A Meyer

[Kelly Brigid ♡]

Nikita wrote: "Top Ten, not in order
1. Tiger's Destiny, Colleen Houck
2. Clockwork Princess, Cassandra Clare
3. City of Heavenly Fire, Cassandra Clare
4. The Iron Queen, Julie Kagawa
5. Angelfall, Susan Ee
6. Th..."

Okay, now I don't feel alone :)

[Daring]

Oh man. Give me a few days to think on this.

[Nicholas]

Not in any particular order: except the first:)

Shane by Jack Schaefer
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Replay by Ken Grimwood
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Loneliness of the Gun by Bryan Haven
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Random Harvest by James Hilton

[Becky]

Ah, I did this recently on Facebook. Let's see if I can remember . . .

1. The Bible
2. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy
3. C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
4. Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness
5. Stephen R. Lawhead's Raven King trilogy
6. Stephen E. Ambrose's Band of Brothers
7. Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising
8. Todd Burpo's Heaven is for Real
9. R.A. Salvatore's The Legend of Drizzt series
10. Karen Traviss' Republic Commando series

[Renee E]

In no particular order, and may change without notice. Maybe not all books that would make it to a Best Of Literature list (although I think some of them should), but the ones that spoke to me most strongly, the ones I read and re-read and never tire of:

Letters From the Earth, Samuel Clemens
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Patricia McKillip
The Haunting of Hood Canal, Jack Cady
Rules of 48, Jack Cady
The Kingkiller Chronicles, Patrick Rothfuss
The Keltiad, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
Sevenwaters, Juliet Marillier
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Dwellers in the Mirage, A.E. Merritt
Inagehi, Jack Cady

Novel length fiction only. There's a whole separate list for anthologies and non-fiction!

EDIT: Now that I'm reading the only Jack Cady novel I haven't read yet, just put "Anything by Jack Cady" on that list.

[Eve]

A difficult challenge. In no particular order:

Tuesday's with Morrie- Mitch Albom
Time Keeper- Mitch Albom
Jack West Jr. Series- Matthew Reilly
A Long Road Home- Danielle Steel
The Percy Jackson Series- Rick Riordan
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy- J.R.R Tolkien
The Hobbit- J.R.R Tolkien
Are You Seeing Me?- Darren Groth
Inferno- Dan Brown
The Fault in our Stars- John Green

[Rebekah]

In no particular order
Harry Potter series - J.K.Rowling
Divergent series - Veronica Roth
Percy Jackson series - Rick Riodan
Heroes of Olympus series - Rick Riodan
The Hobbit - J.R.R.Tolkien
Lord of the Rings series - J.R.R.Tolkien
Narnia series - C.S.Lewis
Splintered - A.G.Howard (Wierdly awesome)
Uglies series - Scott Westerfield
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

These are only a few of the good books i have read!!!

[Amanda]

This is really hard - there are too many! Some great lists here though. In no particular order ...
Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen
Any of the Matthew Shardlake books - C. J. Sansom
Winter in Madrid - C. J. Sansom
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
So Much for That - Lionel Shriver
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Any Human Heart - William Boyd
A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness
The Island - Victoria Hislop

[[deleted user]]

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Howards End by E.M. Forster
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
John Adams by David McCullough

[Phoenix2]

1: The Hobbit Tolkien
2: Eragon Paolini
3: The lightning thief Riordan
4: The moonstone Collins
5: Beautiful creatures Garcia Kami
6: Nobody's boy Malot
7: The hunchback of Notre dame Hugo
8: Star wars survivors quest Zahn
9: The Bourne Identity Ludlum
10:The beach Garland

[Nick]

Difficult to decide which order they should be in but:

1. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
2. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
3. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
4. The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. 1984, George Orwell
8. Nation, Terry Pratchett
9. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
10. Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury

[Poindexter]

Hmm... It's hard to compare books that I really enjoy, and books that are just really well written and beautiful. But I'll attempt it, so in no particular order:

1. The Iliad by Homer
2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
3. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
7. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (if you twisted my arm and I had to choose one)
9. Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
10. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

[Noreen]

In no particular order, my current top ten would be:

1. The Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart
(The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment and The Wicked Day)

2. The Belgariad series by David Eddings

3. The Malloreon series by David Eddings

4. The Kadin by Bertrice Small

5. Indian Captive by Lois Lenski

6. Notes To Self by Avery Sawyer

7. The Measure of Katie Calloway by Serena B. Miller

8. The Outsiders by SE Hinton

9. Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel
(Loved the entire series except for the last book)

10. The Sisters of Colford Hall Series by Deborah MacGillivray

[Terra]

No particular order:

1. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Suzanna Clarke)
3. All of the Harry Potter books (I will count them as one) (J.K. Rowling)
4. All of the LOTR (Tolkien)
5. Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)
6. Good Omens (Pratchett and Gaimen)
7. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
8. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
9. The Giver (Lois Lowry)
10.Midnighters (Scott Westerfield)

[Jonathan]

Poindexter wrote: "7. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess... 9. Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie"
I'm glad to see that these two books have made somebody's top 10 list, as I'm very eager to take them both down from my bookshelf as soon as I've finished what I'm currently reading!

[Jana]

Geez....only 10 huh? Well, in no order:

Wicked / Gregory Maguire
The Enemy Papers / Barry Longyear
The Witching Hour / Anne Rice
The Princess Bride / William Goldman
All of LOTR & The Hobbit / JRR Tolkien
Anne of Green Gables / LM Montgomery
The Book of Lost Things / John Connolly
The Harry Potter Series / JK Rowling
The Chronicles of Narnia / CS Lewis
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil / John Berendt

Honestly, there are sooooooo many more. Hard to pick just 10. Had to leave off Cassandra Clare, Suzanne Collins, Lois Lowry, Diane Setterfield, L. Frank Baum and many other greats.

[CD]

The usual disclaimer of this being a current list, subject to change, etc. These are favorites, and are limited to fiction for this list.

All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow
The Spy who came in from the Cold - John Carré
Time Enough for Love - Robert Heinlein
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain
Jack the Bodiless - Julian May
Into the Out Of- Alan Dean Foster
The Year of Living Dangerously - Christopher J. Koch
Pinball - Jerry Kosinski
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

There are others that are non-fiction or fictionalized works (such as Hunter S. Thompson musings), and another 10 that are just as worthy for my list. But today, those are the ones that I'm going to list!

[Ruth]

Off the top of my head:

Watership Down - Richard Adams
Lord of the Rings Trilogy-Tolkien
Huckleberry Finn-Mark Twain
Foundation Trilogy-Isaac Asimov
David Copperfield-Charles Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
East of Eden-John Steinbeck
The Secret Garden-Francis Hodgson Burnett
The Once and Future King-T.H. White
Childhood's End-Arthur C. Clarke

Ten is too short a list. There are so many more books I could have listed.

[Michael]

My top 10 right now - in no particular order - are:

LOTR - Tolkien
Narnia Series - CS Lewis
Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
Gentleman Bastard Series - Scott Lynch
The Boys of Summer - Roger Kahn
Homecoming Series - Orson Scott Card (yes, I liked this better than Ender's Game)
And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Stephen R. Donaldson

[Julian]

Not in order, that would be impossible.

The Stand by Stephen King
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Lonesome Dove by by Larry McMurtry
The Lords of discipline by Pat Conroy
The Chrysalids by John Wyndam
Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
The Chinese Bandit by Stephen Becker
Green Ice by Gerald A Browne
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The General Danced At Dawn by George MacDonald Fraser

[Kirsten]

Renee wrote: "In no particular order, and may change without notice. Maybe not all books that would make it to a Best Of Literature list (although I think some of them should), but the ones that spoke to me most..."

Ahhh! Sevenwaters! I loved those. Just realized that there is six of them now rather than just the original 3 I had read!

[Kirk]

Julian wrote: "Not in order, that would be impossible.

The Stand by Stephen King
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Lonesome Dove by by Larry McMurtry
The Lords of discipline by Pat Conroy
The Chrysalids by John Wynd..."

Interesting to see Chinese Bandit in your list. Also one of mine. It would make a great movie.

[Kirk]

Here'a potential top 10 for me:

Jane Eyre
Pride & Prejudice
Vanity Fair
Three Musketeers
Count of Monte Cristo
Baroque Trilogy (counting 3 as one)
Lord of the Rings (ditto)
Lymond Series by D. Dunnett (counting all)
Les Miserables
Brideshead Revisited

[Irene]

It's so hard to choose!
1. Jane Eyre
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. The Thirteenth Tale
4. A Lantern In Her Hand
5. The Great Gatsby
6. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
7. Tess of the D'uburvilles
8. No Name
9. Pride and Prejudice
10. Beau Geste

[[deleted user]]

At this precise moment ...

1. The Holy Bible
2. To Kill a Mocking Bird (Harper Lee)
3. Into the Darkest Corner (Elizabeth Haynes)
4. Into the Darkness (Barbara Michaels)
5. Night Train to Memphis (Elizabeth Peters)
6. Sacred Pathways (Gary Thomas)
7. Speak (Laurie Halse Anderson)
8. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
9. What's So Amazing About Grace? (Philip Yancey)
10. Blink (Ted Dekker)

[Julian]

Kirk wrote: "Julian wrote: "Not in order, that would be impossible.

The Stand by Stephen King
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Lonesome Dove by by Larry McMurtry
The Lords of discipline by Pat Conroy
The Chrysali..."



I love Becker's Asian trilogy which also includes "The Last Mandarin" and "The Blue Eyed Shan".
Still yet to find them in ebook format.

[Harley]

Top ten adult fiction. (Since I write fiction for children, I read a lot of children's fiction. But, that top ten is a separate list.)

1. Homebody - Orson Scott Card
2. Shane - Jack Schaefer
3. Savage Journey - Allan W. Eckert
4. The Bat - Mary Roberts Rinehart
5. Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey
6. Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle
7. Time and Again - Jack Finney
8. Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier
9. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammet
10. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

[Harley]

Nicholas wrote: "Not in any particular order: except the first:)

Shane by Jack Schaefer
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Replay by Ken Grimwood
Zen..."

Glad to see Shane on someone else's list.

[Alanpalmer]

Actually my favourite books change regularly and I'm not including the really good children's Books i read as a child, although Lewis Carrol does sneak in there.
George McDonald Fraser: "The Pyrates"
Douglas Adams: "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy"
Lewis Carrol: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
JRR Tolkein: "The Lord of The Rings"
Frank Herbert: "Dune"
Terry Pratchet: "The Colour of Magic"
Isacc Azimov: "I Robot"
TE Lawrence: “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”
Alexander Dumas: “The Three Muskateers”
Jerome K Jerome: “Three Men in a Boat”

[Shawn]

Peace-Gene Wolfe
Blood Meridian-Cormac McCarthy
The Road-Cormac McCarthy
The Terror-Dan Simmons
Hyperion-Dan Simmons
Soldier of the Great War-Mark Helprin
Cryptonomicon-Neal Stephenson
Lonesome Dove- Larry McMurtry
Cloud Atlas-David Mitchell
To the Lighthouse-Virginia Woolf

[Geoffrey]

In order for the first three only
1. Brothers Karamazov-Dostoyevski
2. As I lie Dying-Faulkner
3. Crime and Punishment-Dostoyevski
4. Memoirs of a Geisha-Golden
5. The Castle-Kafka
6. Transposed Heads-Mann
7. Lafcadio's Adventures-Gide
8. Grapes of Wrath-Steinbeck
9. My Antonia-Cather
10.Lord of the Flies-Golding
11.The Plague-Camus
12.The Stranger-Camus
13.Fatal Skin-Balzac
14.Great Expectations-Dickens
15.Mill and the Floss-Elliot
16.Silas Marner-Elliot
17.And Quiet Flows the Don
18.Cry, the Beloved Country-Paton
19.The Human Stain-Roth
20.Green Eggs- Seuss

I had to add another ten as they all share spot number 4

[Alan]

1. The Iliad - Homer
2. The Odyssey - Homer
3. The Canterbury Tales - Homer
4. Great Expectations - Dickens
5. War and Peace - Tolstoy
6. The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
7. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Dick
8. Blood Meridian - McCarthy
9. The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner
10. The Plague - Camus

[Kara]

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Delta Wedding - Eudora Welty
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Love Medicine - Louise Erdrich
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
To The Wedding - John Berger
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
House of Spirits - Isabel Allende
Middlemarch - George Eliot
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

That's 11 -- sorry.

[Phil]

Time Enough for Love - Robert Heinlein
The Lord Of the Rings - Tolkien
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Good Omens - Pratchett and Gaimen
Tigana _ Guy Gavriel Kay
This Book Needs No Title - Raymond Smullyan
Hyperion (series) - Dan Simmons
A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore
The Terminal Experiment - Robert Sawyer
Callahan's Secret - Spider Robinson

[Alan]

All great recommendations from everyone. I sometimes think how easy this would be if literature was a statistics-based endeavor such as baseball, where if you're trying to find the left fielder with the highest season batting average, you can just do a search, and there you go.

Does Borges have a higher batting average than Hardy? Does Austen have more saves than Goethe? Is Hawthorne a more reliable clutch hitter than Oates?

[Pickle]

my top ten would probably change with my mood but i think my favourite's are:

1. Ubik by Philip k Dick
2. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
3. The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds
4. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
5. The Scar by China Mieville
6. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
7. Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham
8. Dune by Frank Herbert
9. Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter
10.Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

[Sara]

My top 10 (not in order):
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Ball Four by Jim Bouton
5. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
6. A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8. Persuasion by Jane Austen
9. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
10. My Early Life by Winston Churchill

[Malcolm]

Here is my top 10...for now...
1. Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Out Of the Silent Planet: C.S. Lewis
3. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen
4. Something Fresh: P.G. Wodehouse
5. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Arthur Conan Doyle
6. My Family and Other Animals: Gerald Durrell
7. Captain Corelli's Mandolin: Louis De Bernieres
8. The Broken Road: Patrick Leigh Fermor
9. Afoot In England: W.H Hudson
10. Life Of Pi: Yann Martel

[Geoffrey]

Malcolm
If you liked My family and other animals, you probably will enjoy the DRUNKEN FOREST by the same author

[Ed]

in no particular order:

life and fate
the corner
the leopard
the golden ocean
the road
the friends of eddie coyle
the light of other days
friday night lights
killing mister watson
ender's game

[Quinn]

As always, subject to flux/change/evolution/decay as time adn other things change. MY top ten books of all time today 14 November 2014 are:

1) Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner.
2) Russian Folk Tales - A Afanasiev.
3) More than Human - Theodore Sturgeon.
4) Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
5) A Thousand Nights and A Night (Arabaian Nights)
6) Foundation - Isaac Asimov
7) Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein
8) Kim - Rudyard Kipling
9) The Girl With All The Gifts - M R Carey
10) Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter

[Mahri]

1. Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
3.The Giver, by Lois Lowry
4. Tsar; The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra, by Peter Kurth
5. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg
6. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
7. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
8. Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
9. The Missing Series, by Margaret Peterson Haddix
10. Wonder, by R.J. Palacio

[Owen]

Give this one a go!

The Mark of Man

[Chloe]

1. Divergent Trilogy
2. Hunger Games Trilogy
3. Harry Potter
4. Percy Jackson
5. The Heroes of Olympus
6. The Raven Cycle
7. The Roar
8. The Mysterious Benedict Society
9. Twilight
10. The Ascendance Trilogy