Your Top 5 Books

A friend of mine is trying to compose a list of 10 books to read over the summer. He's looked at "top ten" book lists on the internet, but I suggested you guys give him some ideas. The books can be fiction or non-fiction. I'd love to compile a good list for him. My first suggestions to him were:

To Kill a Mockingbird
Ender's Game
Fahrenheit 451
Flowers for Algernon

Thanks for your help!

The Neverending Story
A Sand County Almanac
American Gods
Black Elk Speaks
The Sun and Moon over Assisi

The Gate to Women's Country
A Deepness in the Sky
Relic
The Ruins
Manhattan Transfer

Lord of The Rings
Pillars of the Earth
Magician: Apprentice
27128::Complete works of Sherlock Holmes
Another vote for 825739::Ender's Game

Elantris
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Collapse
Integral Psychology
the Army of the Republic

Elantris is Sanderson's first book, and its amazing. Collapse, GGS, and Integral Psychology are all REALLY dense non-fiction but well worth reading. I haven't read Army of the Republic for a year or two, but it sticks out in my mind as one of the best dystopia novels written IMHO. The book does a good job of freaking you out and making you think, and its not really clear whether the good guys win in the end.

The Giver
Little Brother
His Majesty's Dragon
Mort
The Blade Itself

The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks
A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
The Stand by Stephen King
Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Marley and Me by John Grogan

(A selection from my 10s and 9s minus "girly" books like romances)

I second votes for Ender's Game, Flowers for Algernon, Magician: Apprentice, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Adding some readworthy non-series (this of course excludes a lot of good books, like C.J Cherryh's Company Wars series /should be read in publishing order, if you ask me, or her Chanur books) books that haven't yet been mentioned -

River of Gods by Ian McDonald
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy G Kay
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Oh, these are so tough for me.

To Kill a Mockingbird and
The Lord of the Rings are on there for sure. But the rest change for me.

Some candidates would be

The Cider House Rules
Pride and Prejudice
The Samurai's Garden

Non-fiction would be mean second list. LOL

Lord of the Rings
Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles
The Horsemen by Joseph Kessel (how in heck did that wonky WRONG touchstone come up? It's not even the same title, sigh.
Summer of the Red Wolf by Morris L. West
fifth place, tie, The Lions of Al-Rassan or Jerusalem Fire or The Merro Tree or Unbroken, or....I really hang up on limiting the list. But at least the above titles have survived the Suck Fairy (Jo Walton's term for books you read when older and the magic gets lost - your memory was better than the experience, at this stage).

Ooooh! This is always fun!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Martian Chronicles
The Illustrated Man
Dracula
and...Rebecca.

The Count of Monte Cristo (my fave classic)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Sci-Fi)
Magician (Fantasy)
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (Thriller)
Perdido Street Station (My 2nd 5* read of the year)

I'd also go with

Ender's Game
Fahrenheit 451

as well as

The Name of the Wind

I have The Lost Colony and The Leper's Bell rated very highly, though they are pretty far along in both series.

Based on the five I wouldn't mind reading again at all this summer.

Lord of the Rings
Rebecca
Strong Poison
Mistborn
Dear Mad'm (might be hard to find) nonfiction

I can't say these are definitive favorites or the best books evah, but I like 'em -

The Little Sister - Raymond Chandler
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
Needful Things - Stephen King
The Human Stain - Philip Roth
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice

Some (perhaps) more off-the-beaten-path choices:

The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Shardik - Richard Adams
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Heroes Die - Matthew Stover
The Faded Sun - C. J. Cherryh

Wow! Thank you all so much! These are great ideas!! I'm sure we can keep him very busy. :)

#4 rtkaelin - Last night right after I started this thread, I told him to add Pillars of the Earth to his list. Amazing book!

Holy Cow Clam! Three of the five boos you picked are up there for me too.
The Lord of the Rings,
Pride and Prejudice,
To Kill a Mockingbird( I just purchased the DVD for my collection of DVD's
Persuasion
The Last Lecture

The Book Thief
Boneshaker
The Painted Veil
Anything by China Mieville
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Would love to rent a cabin by the lake for the summer and read, read, read in my Adirondack chair......

Easy! I keep a permanent list in my mind of my top books.

At least, the first 3 are easy - Middlemarch, The Crimson Petal and the White, Captain Corelli's Mandolin - after that they tend to switch around a bit; right now the next 2 are probably Life of Pi and Cannery Row. Rebecca (as mentioned by several others) is always hovering pretty close too. (And I'm very excited that the brand new book of previously undiscovered short stories by du Maurier, The Doll (no touchstones yet) landed on my doormat this morning!)

If you can tell us a bit more about your friend and his interests/age/taste in reading etc I'm sure we can come up with an even better list.

Ahhh, Middlemarch! Loved it. Didn't read it until I was close to 50 though, so I can't call it a life-long favorite. I think my top 5 list would be more like a top 50...

The Planet-Strappers Raymond Z. Gallun
The Wreck of the River of Stars Michael Flynn
Merchanter's Luck C. J. Cherryh
Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein
Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

I don't usually make a list like this because my "favorite" tends to be the book I just read, or the one I am reading, or the one waiting in the wings (and I really don't know if it will be a fav, but I think it will). You see what I mean.

But this time, just for you, I'll do it:

1. All time favorite, very eccentric of me - Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treye Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber (my favorite author, also very eccentric of me).

2. I agree with all who love To Kill a Mockingbird.

3. The short but very atmospheric and suspenseful Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

4. The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron

5. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the fall of New York by Robert A. Caro. This book is a little dated but is a wonderful explanation of why one must look beyond the obvious, and the politicians, to see why things happen the way they do in our fine democracy.

ETA: I do not know why the touchstones are not working on any of my books

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
The Epic Of Gilgamesh
The Ancestor's Tale
The Hobbit
Solaris

Not in any particular order.

I want you all to know that you have created a serious problem. MY TBR list is growing by leaps and bounds. That was not the intention here, people! Are you all happy with yourselves?? **attempts stern glare**

Seriously, thank you all so much! You have not only listed books I want to read, but many that I have and love!

I just got the Kindle edition of Middlemarch and plan reading that this summer. That was on the list my friend had, too.

Cities in Flight
The Silkie
The Hour of the Horde
Childhoods End
The Mind Parasites

I re-read them about once a year

A Man on the Moon by Andy Chaikin
A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer
A Joyful Noise by Janet Gillespie
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

Why do people such ask difficult questions??

Okay. Lemme see...

1) Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama
"Harp of Burma is the story of a company of Japanese soldiers who are losing a desperate campaign against British forces in the jungles of Burma during World War II. In the midst of overwhelming challenges they discover the power of music to make even the toughest situations tolerable, and though they face inevitable defeat, singing the songs of their homeland revives their will to live." -Amazon.com
If you have an Amazon account, PLEASE click the "I'd like to read this book on Kindle" hyperlink. Here's a link to the book.

2) Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
This can can be found at Gutenberg.org

3) Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
The author takes the usual story of good versus evil and cuts out all the boring stuff. Or what he deems to be "all the boring stuff". If nothing else, it's fun to read fantasy from his point of view, though I did thoroughly enjoy the story. The series is best followed up by Polgara the Sorceress and Belgarath the Sorcerer.

4) I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
This is a good book if he wants a good sci-fi foundational read.

5) Montessori Madness! A Parent to Parent Argument for Montessori Education by Trevor Eissler
This is a book FOR parents, BY parents. Well, it's really just by one parent, with a bunch of input from others. The author isn't a teacher or an administrator; he's a pilot.
And if your friend is not a parent, but interested in education, this is still a good read. Coming from a traditional public school, I found myself simply enjoying someone who gets it, and happy that they can give their children a better alternative.

Les Miserables is an amazing work; Victor Hugo is way, way up there at the top of my list. But it's long so that might rule it out for your colleague if he wants to get through ten different titles in the summer.

Cranford is another personal delight, but it might not appeal to a male reader as much as to a female reader.

The Meaning of Everything is an ideal length for a summertime read and highly instructive. I think that's where I figured out the joy of becoming an English eccentric.

The Silmarrilion is a good summertime read. The creation story in that is one of my favorites.

The Telling is by Ursula K. LeGuin. It's very much a political statement about China and the cultural conflict between forcibly bringing a nation into the modern age while still sustaining a unique and inherently wise spiritual culture of centuries. It left an impact on me.

I'm huge into creation stories.

1) name the wind
2) lies of Locke Lamora
3) Inkheart
4) Elantris
5) The Assassin's Apprentice

If he ends up liking Elantris, I'd recommend Warbreaker, a later book by the same author that doesn't suffer from some of the first book issues that plague Elantris (though Elantris is still quite good).

I read mostly books that would appeal to women (though not chick lit...*oh the horror!*) so I asked my book junkie friend Michael for his list.

1. Transition by Iain Banks
2. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
3. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
4. Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
5. Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn

Seconding Fight Club. The book is MUCH better than the movie.

>35 DeusExLibrus: Thanks for linking Fight Club. I couldn't get it to work for some reason.

Huh, came up as the first result when I clicked "other." The site must be hiccuping again. heh.

I have Fight Club in that TBR pile over there by the chair. My son said that I really should read it.

I read Fight Club at my son's insistence. It is good, although I wasn't as wowed as him.

The classics like Pride and Prejudice and Middlemarch somehow don't seem interesting in a short list like this, so here are my top 5 non-classics;

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by Walter Mosley
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks