What is the best book you've ever read (beside the WOT series)?

[ivke]

I just wanted to know what is your favourite book (beside books from WOT series).

 

Mine is Arch of triumph by Erich Maria Remarque.

[Thorum]

I immediately think of three books, and cannot choose between them:

 

Valhalla rising by Clive Cussler. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla_Rising_(novel))

Sorry by Zoran Drvenkar (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/books/review/sorry-by-zoran-drvenkar-book-review.html?_r=1&ref=books)

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash)

[ivke]

Snow crash seems like something I would like. I'll try to find and read it.

[Suttree]

Best Fantasy book/series:

 

White Luck Warrior-R. Scott Bakker "Prince of Nothing & Aspect Emperor Series"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Nothing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aspect-Emperor

 

Literature

 

Blood Meridien-Cormac McCarthy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian

[Sakaea]

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

 

And I can't pick just one of the books, so it's my other favorite series.

[moldham]

Have to go with Harry Potter such a big part of me growing up must have read them all ten times.

 

I still love reading them (not as much as WoT though lol)

[Jaedan_edhel]

Tough one. I've got a few favourites from different genres but for Fantasy, I'd find it hard to choose between Tolkien's 'Silmarillion', 'Rose of the Prophet' (trilogy) by Weis and Hickman, 'Vampire of the Mists' by Christie Golden; I'm strangely fond of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. There's also Dragonlance and Melanie Rawn... Thank the gods for Kindle - at least in a fire I can now rescue all the books I can't live without.

 

I'm about two-thirds of the way through 'Game of Thrones' (and have been for about 6 months) and can't quite decide whether I like it or not.

[Arinth]

Outside of fantasy...

 

1. Catch 22

2. 1984

3. Catcher in the Rye

4. Lord of the Flies

5. Fahrenheit 451

 

Fantasy: Steven Erikson's Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice.

 

 

[condonmc]

Redwall by Brian Jacques

 

The Great Sioux Trail by JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

 

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

 

Promise of the Witch King by Ra Salvatore

 

 

and all the wheel of time books it all started with redwall though......that series guided me through some tough times as a child and gave me an escape.

[John E. Kelley]

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

[brujah]

THE MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN

 

BOOKS ONE THROUGH TEN

 

-STEVE ERIKSON

[Thorum]

THE MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN

 

BOOKS ONE THROUGH TEN

 

-STEVE ERIKSON

Guess that makes it a hundred times more important than the other ones?

 

Probably not, just more anoying...

[balefired-ed2]

Fantasy-

ASoIAF 1-3

First Law trilogy +Best Served Cold+ The Heroes

Prince of Nothing + Aspect Emperor

Earlier Malazan books, the later ones were not that enjoyable to me.

 

 

Non-Fantasy-

1984

Brave New World

Guns, Germs, and Steel

A Mighty Fortress

Capitalism and Freedom

Why the West Rules, for Now

[Tiinker]

Anything Peter Hamilton

[Arinth]

Balefired, did you like 1984 or brave new world more? The similarities and differences are both pretty interesting.

[balefired-ed2]

Balefired, did you like 1984 or brave new world more? The similarities and differences are both pretty interesting.

 

1984. I felt like I knew Winston Smith better than any character in Brave New World. Also, I felt the ending was more powerful, as in 1984s dystopia there is no room for individual agency, unlike Brave New World where free thought, while discouraged, will only get a person exiled to live and think as they choose.

[Masema]

My favorite book of all time is actually one that came out recently. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. This book is absolutely amazing. It made me laugh, cry, and smile. This book effected me in so many ways. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to have one of the best reads of their lives.

[Arinth]

Yeah I agree with 1984. Really showed how scary an unchecked government can become where they can even turn kids from their parents.

[JDM]

The only fantasy I have read thus far has been The Morgaine Saga by CJ Cherryh so it is the best lol. I read the Hobbit years ago, but I can't really remember it. I definitley need to read it again as well as the Lord of the Rings. Tonight I will begin the WOT so I am very excited. I guess the best book(s) I have read thus far would be On the Road by jack Kerouac and The Catcher in the Rhye by J.D. Salinger.

[Hallow]

For Fantasy series it has to be the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

 

Overall, probably 1984.

[peacesells]

Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever 1st trilogy. (Reading the last trilogy now and it's kinda of painful. I'm skipping tons of text in it.)

 

The sword of Truth trilogy (The first trilogy is great. The subsequent books range from very good to preachy.)

 

Another fine Myth. (Just all out completely fun books. Robert Asprins Phule series is great too.)

 

The Blue Adept series (IMO Piers anthony's best stuff. As far as what I've read of his. He's written way more than I can read.)

 

The Rift War Saga (Raymond Feist's first series was great!)

 

The Empire Trilogy by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurtz based on the same world as the rift war saga was pretty close to being even better.

 

Shogun. Amazing book. Could not put it down.

[Sid]

A Storm of Swords, GRRM

[Paul H]

That's a very tough question, but I guess I'll go with a classic and say Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

[Thorum]

That's a very tough question, but I guess I'll go with a classic and say Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

 

You liked it? That would be the first time I hear someone claiming Huckleberry Finn being a good book. Interesting, yes, but oh so hard to get through...

That's a surprise from someone on a fantasy-book-based forum

[Paul H]

You liked it? That would be the first time I hear someone claiming Huckleberry Finn being a good book. Interesting, yes, but oh so hard to get through...

That's a surprise from someone on a fantasy-book-based forum

Well, first, I would say that I'm even more of a Mark Twain fan than a fantasy fan. I have read almost every single book and short story that Twain published in his lifetime, as well as a few that were published later. I just love his humor, his prose, and his light-hearted way of looking at life (in his earlier books -- though he also wrote some very dark books late in his life).

 

You mentioned that you found Huckleberry Finn to be hard to get through, but that wasn't my experience at all. I'm guessing that the dialog -- and particularly the various dialects used -- were probably what you found most difficult. In my case, it probably helps that I grew up about three miles from the Ohio River, and only about 50 miles from the Mississippi River. So for me, some of the dialects in the book aren't radically different from the way that I have heard actual people speaking. On the other hand, I see that you are from Brussels, and I'm assuming that's not Brussels, Illinois. :-) So it would be understandable if the dialects in the book seem a lot more bizarre to you than they do to me.