Books, Movies, Music & Entertainment - Top 3 Books you've Read in your Life, & WHY

Stephen King's opus for sure.
It ties everything together...

Hearts in Atlantis
The Talisman
Salem's Lot
The Shining
Rose Madder
Insomnia
The Regulators
etc., etc.

SK is seriously underrated... but then again, so was Willie S., in his time.

I've been a huge fan of King in the past. Have read at least 20 of his novels/short story collections. My only problem with him and one of the reasons I haven't read him in years is that is stories tend to be great 3/4 of the way through and fizzle at the end (ie., The Stand, It, Insomnia, to name a few). Not all of them mind you, but enough that I don't invest the time in them anymore.

I've been a huge fan of King in the past. Have read at least 20 of his novels/short story collections. My only problem with him and one of the reasons I haven't read him in years is that is stories tend to be great 3/4 of the way through and fizzle at the end (ie., The Stand, It, Insomnia, to name a few). Not all of them mind you, but enough that I don't invest the time in them anymore.

I think you have captured something here about King's work. I was drawn into his novels, even though I usually felt let down at the end... After getting to know the characters, and the build up, it just seemed like there needed to be a more meaningful climax to the story. For example, in The Stand, it seemed like it was setting up to reveal some great personification of evil and massive clash of good versus evil, or at least some gut wrenching conflict, and then there was just an ending that I can't even recall... Bringing in characters that had such vivid backgrounds and specific character traits for an ending that could have (as I recall) just as easily used generic supporting characters from almost any novel or short story.

1984 by George Orwell. Read this when I was 12 and I've distrusted/disliked authority ever since. I re-read it every other year or so and discover something new every time.

Childhood - The Biography of a Place by Harry Crews. A dry-eyed account of growing up dirt poor in the rural South during the worst of the Great Depression. Helped me to understand my parents and to know that within living memory people starved to death in this country. If you have ever read any Crews you know his style is, well, unique. This is very different: dispassionate and almost detached. A wonderful short film was made of this called "The Rough South of Harry Crews."

Old Times on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. A short version of this turns up in most anthologies of Twain and the full version is hard to find but well worth it. Published late in his life, it's Twain at his best - you can just hear him telling these stories after dinner over a glass of good whiskey. For the city version of this, try HL Mencken's "Baltimore in the '80s" by which he means the Baltimore of the 1880s when he was a young man on the make. Both of these books are American writing in its naturalistic glory - fun, vernacular, and full of opinion and wit.

I think you have captured something here about King's work. I was drawn into his novels, even though I usually felt let down at the end... After getting to know the characters, and the build up, it just seemed like there needed to be a more meaningful climax to the story. For example, in The Stand, it seemed like it was setting up to reveal some great personification of evil and massive clash of good versus evil, or at least some gut wrenching conflict, and then there was just an ending that I can't even recall... Bringing in characters that had such vivid backgrounds and specific character traits for an ending that could have (as I recall) just as easily used generic supporting characters from almost any novel or short story.

Bingo. He's great at developing the characters and getting you hooked on the plot. Then when he reaches the end it's as if he's run out of gas and has trouble closing. I loved The Stand and have read it more than once but just having the "Hand of God" come down at the end and set off a nuclear bomb to do in the bad guys seemed like a cop out.

1) "Of Mice and Men", read it in high school and it just stuck with me.
2) "Choke" by Chuck Palunchuk, very disturbing and funny in a weird way.. All his book sare like that. He wrote "Fight Club"
3) Anything by Charles Bukowski. Rather raw and rude but you can't put him down.

Stephen King's opus for sure.
It ties everything together...

Hearts in Atlantis
The Talisman
Salem's Lot
The Shining
Rose Madder
Insomnia
The Regulators
etc., etc.

SK is seriously underrated... but then again, so was Willie S., in his time.

See I find SK overated. Everyone I know raves about his greatness. I just don't see it. His early works were good and I have tried the dark tower series. But I don't jump for joy whenever I see one of his books (let alone his movies)...

to point of thread, I don't have a top 3 really. I have fleeting fancies in novels, I have ones I have reread and hated and ones i reread and REALLY enjoyed the second time. I usually peruse threads/sites like this and find recommendations that intrigue me.

I also have a really bad memory, (might be why I am fleeting with books) but I tend to forget books over time. So anything I thought was awesome before, I might not remember now. Ce La vie.

1984 -- Orwell's utopian purgatory.
Call of the Wild -- Jack London -- best book I ever read during my "animal story" phase, and just as good last winter when I re-read it after 25 years....
The Foundation Trilogy -- Asimov -- cerebral sci-fi!
Mutiny On The Bounty -- mental visions that sprang from that text are still in my head after decades....
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -- Jules Verne was the master!

hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is my all time favorite, it is so different from everything. Cats Cradle was my first Kurt experience so naturally thats up there. And lastly the autobiography of big foot. Its stupid but HILARIOUS

Mutiny On The Bounty -- mental visions that sprang from that text are still in my head after decades....

My mother gave me the "Bounty Trilogy" for my birthday ages ago and it's a book that has survived my many moves and homes. If you haven't read "Men Against the Sea" and "Pitcairn's Island" they are well worth looking for and I understand the full trilogy is being republished again this year in one volume.

A vastly under-rated work of literature. The movies don't do them justice.

I read a lot of books but most of them are trash novels so...

1. Trash novels of any sort - they are easy to read and far better than pasting my eyes to the television. Most recent trash read was The Lovely Bones.

2. Louis Lamour - Any of them. Typical cowboy stories written with amazing imagery and style. The Quick and the Dead is my personal favorite.

3. For the time being... Poisonwood Bible- Tragic, captivating, slightly depressing but still couldn't put it down and loved it. Makes me sound kinda masochistic.... :bang:

I was also one of those kids in high school who was actually looking forward to read for english class. So basically the usual suspects like Great Gatsby, Huck Finn, Cats Cradle, Mockingbird. Basically the kind of titles that you drop in a conversation if you want to sound smarter than you are. I do that.

Off the top of my head and subject to change five minutes from now:

LUSH LIFE, Richard Price
LONESOME DOVE, Larry McMurtry
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY, Michael Chabon

Grapes Of Wrath
Friday Night Lights
Into The Wild

I have read the Grapes Of Wrath and Friday Night Lights more times than I can remember. I'm sure Into The Wild will be re-read many times as well, but it was just recently read for the first time. Maybe it was the times in my life that I first read each, but no doubt, those are my favorites.

And Where The Red Fern Grows. First time a book made me cry.

Roadie comes in a close 5th ;)

1. The Terror: Dan Simmon's has never been one of my favorite authors but I love this book. It tells about what happened to the HMS Terror which dissappeared in 1845 but with a bit of supernatural and horror. When you read it you feel sorry for the crew beacuse he does a great job of describing the sorrow, pain, fear and torture of being stuck on a boat in the middle of the Antarctic, being stalked by some giant bear thing (I am only half way into the book) and they have no food.

2. The Sword and the Shield: A very in depth and informative history of the KGB written by Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB officer who handled all of the records in the KGB archives. When he defected he gave the U.S every single bit of information possible about them and also turned it into a book many years later. Of course Russia denounced him as a dillusional old man suffering from dementia.

3. Black Hawk Down: I loved the movie and the book is the best Modern Warfare novel of all time. It gives a great visual of the actually operation in Mogadishu.

Honourable mentions:
Anything from H.P Lovecraft
Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain, Prey & State of Fear

1984 -- Orwell's utopian purgatory.
Call of the Wild -- Jack London -- best book I ever read during my "animal story" phase, and just as good last winter when I re-read it after 25 years....
The Foundation Trilogy -- Asimov -- cerebral sci-fi!
Mutiny On The Bounty -- mental visions that sprang from that text are still in my head after decades....
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -- Jules Verne was the master!

Tripped over this thread again, and realized I didn't follow what the OP wanted; no 'elucidation'.

So,...
"CALL" was one of the first animal stories that really pulled me inside the story; I've read some of London's other stuff, and it just doesn't grab me like this did. Buck was, for me, the first "reluctant hero".

"TRILOGY" was a sleeper for me; stumbled over it after a book-on-tape caught my eye at the base library in Germany when I was in the Army. Shatner was reading the first chapter of the epic, which Asimov didn't even write until 30 years later. But the sweep of the story just took me with it.

"MUTINY" was a suggested read in high school, one of the VERY few that caught me. The 'archaic' linguistic style of the writing intrigued me, and the story was just too good -- another reluctant hero, sure.

"LEAGUES" is a classic that no child should reach adulthood without reading; yeah, a little dry with all the classifications of fish, but it just comes across as so ridiculously...possible.

"1984" was a scare novel, a Cold War prophecy that is eerily close to coming true today, with all the monitoring devices/software built in to everything. Instead of the gov't, it's the financial empire that is 'Big Brother'....

I am only going to list 2
First the bible forget about the religion part and read proverbs first alot of good stuff to live by like "seek wisdom rather fine gold" read psalms and song of solomon , ecclesiastes Alot of good advice to live by even if you choose not to get into the religious stuf
The travelers gift it is fiction but the table in the next to last chapter gets me (You will just have to read it)

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
This is a book everyone should read at least once. It is written by a Jewish Austrian psychologist who spent time in 3 of the worst concentration camps. It has an amazingly positive tone, and from a perspective of an observer of behavior so it gives incredible insight that isn't found in most other books about the camps. Amazing.

I can't even think of another 2 books because of how good this book is.

The Red and the Black, by Stendhal. The greatest novel ever written, although you wouldn't believe that if you stopped reading in the early chapters, as I did the first time I picked it up. Julien Sorel, the antihero-protagonist, is my favorite character in literature. Published in 1831, this novel has everything: fascinating characters, a coherent plot, a fast pace (once Sorel gets his first job), sex, gore, and an ending that is both inevitable and shocking. Read it in either the Signet Classics edition (Parks translation) or the Modern Library paperback edition (Raffel translation).

Crime and Punishment, by Dostoevsky. A philosophical successor to The Red and the Black, Crime and Punishment takes Julien Sorel all the way into the dark side through its protagonist, Raskolnikov. Dostoevsky, figuratively-speaking, takes you by the scruff of the neck on page one and runs you full speed down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood at three o'clock in the morning. This is the Dostoevsky novel to read because of its characters, plot, and unity. It was my favorite novel before I read The Red and the Black.

(a tie) 1984 and The Great Gatsby. I suspect 1984 has lost its mojo among potential readers who believe they don't need to read it, that it's obsolete or, worse, they're already living in a post-"1984" world, as if private security cameras or internet cookies or Social Security numbers had anything to do with Big Brother and life in Oceania. Thanks to the passage of certain Congressional acts in the past seven years, 1984 speaks to us right now in ways the uninitiated can't fathom. 1984 is a wake-up call. And besides, it's well written. Which brings me to The Great Gatsby. There's only one reason to read The Great Gatsby, and that is Fitzgerald's virtuosity in his use of language. It's a masterpiece on that basis alone. I've read it a dozen times, usually when I instinctively need reminding of what excellent writing looks like.

...
(a tie) 1984 and The Great Gatsby. I suspect 1984 has lost its mojo among potential readers who believe they don't need to read it, that it's obsolete or, worse, they're already are living in a post-"1984" world, as if private security cameras or internet cookies or Social Security numbers had anything to do with Big Brother and life in Oceania. Thanks to the passage of certain Congressional acts in the past seven years, 1984 speaks to us right now in ways the uninitiated can't fathom. 1984 is a wake-up call. And besides, it's well written. ...

You are far from the first to mention 1984. But when it comes to a wakeup call I'd say Brave New World is a far better read. In 1984 we the reader see the nastyness from the start. Not so in Brave New world where the title comes from a comment somethign like 'What a Brave New World with such wonderful people in it.'

Of course I could be wrong, after all I am a bit of a savage.

You are far from the first to mention 1984. But when it comes to a wakeup call I'd say Brave New World is a far better read. In 1984 we the reader see the nastyness from the start. Not so in Brave New world where the title comes from a comment somethign like 'What a Brave New World with such wonderful people in it.'

Of course I could be wrong, after all I am a bit of a savage.


I recall reading Brave New World once a very long time ago and also recall that I liked it. I don't know why it never entered the part of my library that I re-read at least once. I'll give it another look.

Lessee, almost all my faves have been mentioned ... Cormac McCarthy, Lonesome Dove, even old mouldering Harry Crews got a nod. And East of Eden, for cripe's sake -- a book no one seems to love but I do. Wendell Berry didn't get mentioned, but I wouldn't expect him to.

Still, no one mentioned Walker Percy. What is life without Percy? Speak up for Percy!

I prefer Non-fiction, or fiction based on true events (as close to non-fiction as possible!)

1. Roots by Alex Haley - This was a very thought provoking book, gave me a lot of insight to what went on back then... what the slaves went through, how their heritage got all screwed up, etc. Hard to describe ny feelings about it afterwards. Maybe the best bookI've ever read. A million times better than the TV series. Don't even watch that - read the book!

2. A Time to Stand by Walter Lord - Book is about events leading up to the Alamo and shortly after. A must read for all Texans. I shed a few tears in one place in the book.

3. Texas by James Michner - A thorough history lesson on Texas.

I think I have too many top three:

Top three books that changed my life:
Tolkein, Lord of the Rings: Got me reading. First thing I dived into after comic books, read it three times straight between the 4th and 5th grade. Read it a couple time since then--good for nostalgia, but does not age well...
Wilson & Shea, The Illuminatus Trilogy: Directly led to my current career path. And the sheer mind-f*ckery of it is off the scale--this one will twist you.
Shah, The Book of the Book: A revelation, the most enlightening and spiritual book I've ever read, a metaphysical masterpiece: 'If the thickness of books determine the value of their content, this one should assuredly be even thicker.' - attributed by Yasavi, first publisher of The Book of the Book.

Favorite Philip K Dick books:
The Valis trilogy: Valis, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, The Divine Invasion. Again, sheer mind-f*ckery of the highest order by the master of the craft. This stuff is the zenith of his craft, post pink laser beam, and just screams wierdness. There are some books that are wild enough to influence dreams, these three do it for me.

Favorite scifi/fantasy authors:
Borges
Calvino
Herbert

Favorite Haruki Murakami books:
Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World
Wind-Up Bird Chronicles
Pinball, 1973
Sort of a modern Borges. But Japanese. Again, more uncomfortable making, grey area metaphysics wrapped up in cool, realistic style that only makes the strangeness that much more unsettling. Wind-Up Bird Chronicles compares favorably to a Lynch film.

Other Favorite books:
Love in a Dead Language
Confederacy of Dunces
House of Leaves

Authors I'll buy on first release:
Christopher Moore
Jonathan Lethem
Chuck Palahniuk(sp?)

Other worth a top three of their own:
A.S. Byatt
T.C. Boyle
Arturo Perez Reverte

Guilty pleasure:
The Destroyer series
Terry Pratchett
Carl Hiaason

Also ran:
Salman Rushdie
Umberto Eco
Terrence McKenna

I am NOT Otaku!:
Peter Tasker
Isaac Adamson
Akutagawa Ryunosuke

Top three books I have that you've never read:
Etidorpha
1000 Chairs
The Equinox, Vol. 1

Books started, never finished, hope to someday:
Little, Big
Ulysses
The Bible

I have a degree in English, taught English for a number of years, wrote novels no one read or published, wrote some short bike bits that karstens published, I've read so many damn books that I think it was a symptom of some psychological upset then I gave up reading altogether and won't read a novel if you paid me...

You know what book jumped into my head when I saw this post?

The Good War by Studs Terkel. Man, I loved that book. Read it 3 times. Would read it again. He captured a mood in that book that still astounds me.

I get in an elevator a few years ago and this old man gets on and I'm pissed because I'm late and he's holding me up. The elevator descends and the rushing air makes a funny whistle and the old man starts singing "I heard a lonesome whipperwill"
I look and see the old man is Studs Terkel and I finish the lyric for him as i am well versed in Hank Williams
"he sounds too blue to cry"

We smiled, made a deep, quiet connection and then parted.

The book is an easy read. Check it out of the library.