Books, book series, etc. What are your favorite, the ones that changed your way of thinking or that you can just pick up and read any day and not grow tired of them.

1. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
2. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Watership Down - Richard Adams
4. SPQR series - John Maddox Roberts
5. Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean Auel
6. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
7. Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
8. The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
9. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
10. Aztec - Gary Jennings

E: honorable mention for Stephen King, especially The Talisman and The Stand

First

1. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
2. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
3. Rainbow Six - Tom Clancy
4. Red Storm Rising - Tom Clancy
5. Point of Impact - Stephen Hunter
6. Child 44 - Rob Tom Smith
7. The War of the Rats - David L. Robins
8. The Last Citadel - David L. Robins
9. Fight Club - Chuck Palalhniuk
10. A Song of Ice and Fire - George RR Martin

No particular order.

1. The Inheritance Series by Christopher Paolini
2. Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
3. The Sea of Trolls series by Nancy Farmer
4. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
5. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
7. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
8. A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin
9. Insomnia by Stephen King
10. The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
Honorable mentions:
The Talisman and Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub. This would have made the top ten if I wasn't so indecisive.
Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. That was my childhood.

I don't read books all that much, but I've been trying to get into them more lately, but here's mine. Also, I'm terrible with Author's names so if I a book doesn't have an Author's name it means I'm too lazy to google it.

Anyway, here's mine ^^

10. Lord of The Rings/The Hobbit
9. The Mountains of Madness: HP Lovecraft Omnibus 1
8. Skellig
7. Books of Blood Volumes 1 to 6(Yes..I have a penchant for Short stories, shut up)
6. The Witcher(Currently reading)
5. Colours of Magic
4. Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy
3. Romance of The Three kingdoms
2. Songs of Fire and Ice: A Storm of Swords.
1. Monkey: A folk-Tale of China aka "Journey To The West"

Short stories are great. Stephen King has some really good ones if you like the scary stuff.

idlehands said
Short stories are great. Stephen King has some really good ones if you like the scary stuff.

The only books I've by Stephen King are The Stand and IT, while good books, I didn't think they were as special as any on my list :/. I need to check out his short stories, defo.

I love them, especially HP Lovecraft's, that guy made an entire mythos just for me. I fuckin love the Cthulhu Mythos.

Darog the Badger God said
The only books I've by Stephen King are The Stand and IT, while good books, I didn't think they were as special as any on my list :/. I need to check out his short stories, defo.I love them, especially HP Lovecraft's, that guy made an entire mythos just for me. I fuckin love the Cthulhu Mythos.

Try "Nightmares and Dreamscapes", "Different Seasons", and "Night Shift" for collections of short stories, some of his best ones are in those.

I only have one series of books to post, I've read it fairly recently and it is one of the most soul sucking and life consuming (in a good way) series I have read

In The Company of Shadows by authors Sonny and Ais

If you look it up don't judge me

10. Ender's Game.
9. Lord of The Rings/The Hobbit.
8. Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy.
7. Without Remorse.
6. A Clash of Kings.
5. Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
4. A Storm of Swords.
3. Lord of the Flies.
2. Mice and Men.
1. The Great Gatsby.

I read more comics than books but recently I tried to go back to my bookworm days so I've been revisiting some of my favorite books and adding new ones in
1) the phantom tollbooth by i forgot their name but i'm too lazy to look it up(it's a childrens book but i loved it and its super great)
2) the brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
3) oryx and crake by Margret Atwood
4) jurassic park by Michael Crichton
5)island of dr. moreau by H.G Wells
6) the blind assassin by Margret Atwood
7)Confessions of a crap artist by Philip K. Dick
8)slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
9) a hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
10) Malcolm x the autobiography

I'm only going with 5 because they're the only 5 books that immediately came to mind as being special to me

5. Battle Royale - Koushun Takami
4. The Thin Executioner - Darren Shan
3. 1984 - George Orwell
2. Burned - Ellen Hopkins
1. Exit Here - Jason Myers

The Demonata and Percy Jackson series are also gr8

There's also this one book about a kid who sets another kid on fire that I liked a lot but I haven't been able to find it again so :/

You really like your 1984.

Ugh Idle why would you do this to me? I have a compulsion to do these top ten list things but trying to judge my favorite book series against on another... I'm gonna make it easier on myself by listing series as one item and not over thinking it with long explanations.

1. A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin - Duh.
2. Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson - Tons of characters with a story that seems to span only a few years but has important shit reaching back hundreds and thousands of years. One of the most intricate and far-reaching plots I've ever seen in a series of books. First book was kinda lackluster, but it picks up real quick after that.
3. Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (who completed it after Jordan's death) - Starts of as a kind of typical "random farmboy is actually the chosen one" thing, but it gets a lot bigger and better as it goes on.
4. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett - Fuck it's hard to weigh single books against series, but it's damned good. I've got a generally higher opinion of the Wheel of Time though, so it gets the #4 slot.
5. The Stand by Stephen King - Notable for being the least fantasy type book on my whole list. It's a huge book full of great characters who develop in interesting ways, and it might've beat out Good Omens if not for the ending being kinda underwhelming in typical Stephen King fashion.
6. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - The most recent addition to my top ten. The basic premise of it is a very interesting take on gods and religion and American culture, where all the various gods of the past actually exist as people and the things modern people worship (like TV and the internet and such) also have humanized forms. It's neat.
7. Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson - Probably the coolest magic system I've ever seen. Instead of magic just being a deus ex machina tool, in Mistborn it's more like a science with real material costs and such. It's also a cool story with good characters and blah blah blah.
8. Coldfire trilogy by C.S. Friedman - This is the closest thing to sci-fi as exists on my list, but in the end it's really still a fantasy thing. It's set on some other planet way in the future, but people have lost all their tech shit and there's magic going on and such.
9. The Black Company series by Glen Cook - Like my #2 pick, this one was kinda hard to get into. It's the story of a mercenary company, called The Black Company, and it's told through the company historian dude's record keeping. It's by no means a standard fantasy thing, lots of weird shit going on, but I got into it and ended up liking it a lot.
10. Discworld series by Terry Pratchett - Fantasy-leaning comedy is best comedy. Tons of goofy hilarious crap in these books, but also some surprisingly great characters.

Honorable Mentions
Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien - Can't be a fantasy fan and not give props to LotR. Doesn't make my top ten because it really does drag ass through a lot of the books, kinda crap pacing, but it does still manage to be an interesting read anyway and without it fantasy as a genre as it exists today probably wouldn't be a thing.
Redwall series by Brian Jacques - My first foray into fantasy, courtesy of my grandmother giving me the first book (called Redwall, like the series itself) for one of my birthdays. Without this book and series being part of my young life, I feel like I would have been a very different person, so I couldn't not mention it.
Shannara series by Terry Brooks - This was the first epic fantasy (by the definition I like, not the one lots of people use that's interchangeable with 'high fantasy') series I read, and it led me to a lot of other great series through recommendations from various sources. Similar story with Redwall here, of not being high quality enough for my top ten but too influential on my younger self's reading habits to not mention.
Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind - Used to be my favorite book series of all time, before I ever read any of the ones currently sitting on my list. It felt like something new and amazing and different from everything else when I was 14 and read the first book, but it really deserves an honorable mention for the same reason as the above things for influence and leading me to other stuff. I was first recommended my current top three book series on some forum where I was discussing the Sword of Truth series with other people and asked people what other fantasy series out there I might like since loved this one, so it gets props for leading me to true greatness.

AxirTheHedgehog said
First

fuck is this 2005?

Alright... Goodness, this is hard... These aren't in order precisely, but...

1: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It was just fun to read.
2: Children Of The Mind by Orson Scott Card. This one made me think very hard, and I love books that make me think.
3: The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien. They used such complex language, but had a simple enough plot for me to understand. A lovely, if somewhat difficult, read.
4: Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. Seriously tho, who doesn't love Percy?
5: Starcrossed trilogy by Josephine Angelini. On the subject of demigods... Bit of a trash novel but it makes me feel all warm and bubbly inside whenever I read it. And it has demigods.
6: Animal Farm by George Orwell. It made me think.
7: Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. Though this reminded me very much of LOTR, I thought it was a beautiful series.
8: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. I read these books when I was six years old and I think it's changed who I am, if only because I still believe that magic is possible. But yeah, thanks, Harry, for keeping my imagination open.
9: An unpublished book by one of my friends... I was his editor for three years, and so I got to read his writings first. I don't think he's published it yet, so I'm not about to spoil the title, but this really changed my outlook on writing books from something magical to something that takes stubbornness and callused fingers and a group of loyal friends.
10: Chicken Soup for the Soul. It's rationalized death and life and love for me, and so it deserves a mention.

Golly gee, this is gonna be hard. I'm not going to assign numbers because I will think too hard about it, so just an overall top ten. I'll probably get pretty lengthy with the explanations.

The entire Ender-verse - Orson Scott Card - Most people I know have only read the first book, Ender's Game. I believe this is because its much more popular as a 'young adult' novel despite still being pretty heavy. The final 3 books in the Ender series are definitely different beasts, and really made me think about a lot of stuff. The Shadow's series is also really good, Shadows in Flight was a bit of a downturn IMO, but I think it will pick up with the next book that unites the two plot lines.

The Homecoming Saga - Another by Card, This was a great series, not to cause any spoilers, but once I figured out it was based around the Book of Mormon(my first guess was Bible, I was close!) it became even more fun to read. Im not Mormon, but I do like the... I guess you could call it gimmick, that it provided. Last book in the series was fantastic.

A Grey Moon Over China - Thomas A. Day - There actually isn't a Wikipedia article for this one for those that haven't heard of it but might be interested, so I'll summarize with as few spoilers as possible. This is a somewhat technical hard sci-fi novel with an epic scope. It depicts a bleak war-torn(not apocalyptic) near-future Earth that comes upon a limitless energy source. The results of this revelation make a huge impact on the world, but I can't go much further without spoiling plot elements. If you are interested somewhat in geopolitics, hard sci-fi, and realistic human struggle, check it out.

The Mars Trilogy - Kim Stanley Robinson - I'll be brief, great series by KSR. Its about the exploration and colonization of Mars. Very hard sci-fi, but if you enjoy that kind of stuff like I do, go for it.

Ringworld - Larry Niven - Niven is a titan of sci-fi, at least in my eyes. This is an amazing book, and its sequels are great as well.

-Of Worlds - Larry Niven - Another series by Niven, same universe as Ringworld, different time and place.

The Rommel Papers - Non-fiction, an account by Rommel himself(edited together posthumously, with a few people who were with him filling in gaps) of his time during WWII. I actually don't remember if it includes his WWI service as well, but I've read another book on that and it kinda blurs together.

Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan - Haven't actually finished it yet, but great so far.

The Passage(and its sequels) - Justin Cronin - Third book is due this year, holy shit this is amazing. Wikipedia mentions it being a 'vampire trilogy' which is a huge disservice to the books, as they are nowhere close to the spectrum of modern vampire novels, and the 'vampire' connection is tenuous at best. I recommend giving it a try, great book/series.

For a tenth, ASoIaF by GRRM I guess. I was originally not going to include it despite how much I like it, but I was having trouble narrowing down a tenth.

Disturbing lack of His Dark Materials.

ImANargleHunter said
Disturbing lack of His Dark Materials.

His Darkest Materials was a pretty solid trilogy. I should re-read that.

Growing up my grasp of the language was quite limited, so... ahem. I'm usually embarrassed to share my top books to other people in RL. But here goes!

1. Enid Blyton's works. I don't care how old I am, I will always love her and her books. One I regret losing was The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat. The book held sentimental value to me, and it also introduced me to the world of English literature. No matter what happens, this one will stay top. Nothing you can do to stop meeeeee
2. Of Mice and Men. I read this book so many times. I wish my country would use books like this in our English literature classes. It's a really good book that I wish I had read when I was in high school. Sniff.
3. The Picture of Dorian Gray. I found the ending rather unsettling and that will forever stay with me. Friends tell me to watch the movie but I refuse simply because Dorian Gray is supposed to be blonde with blue eyes. Harrumph! (I'm kidding, I'll get around to it... Someday...)
4. Alex Rider series. I followed it closely when I was in high school, and I remember being excited whenever the newest book was out. Good times.
5. A Dog's Tale. It's not really a novel, I think, and is pretty short. I'd still put it among my top list, though.

Making this list makes me realize I don't read a lot of good literature. I have more fiction in my shelves, but I don't like them enough to include in this list. Most of my books are non-fiction, though. I guess I'll fill in the last 5 with them in a spoiler.



If it makes people feel better about my lack of culture, I do have a to-read list to fill in that gap! Money issues are just about to leave me and I recently found access to free ibooks! I have Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain lined up. Then I'm ordering One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from the bookstore. I seriously can't wait.