What''s your Top Ten?

Ok here's something we haven't done or at least I don't remember doing it 8) What is the list of your top ten favorite books ever? They don't have to be the best wrote or even YA or Adult Lit. IF one one of your favorite books is The Cat and the Hat then go ahead and list it 8)

HEHEHE I have to think about my list for awhile and I thought others might need a minute or two so I'll go ahead and post this so everyone can think about it 8)

Just TEN?!?

I'm going to have to think about this for a while . . .

Oh, wow. This is going to be tough!

Can we count a series as one of top ten favorite books??

I can't put them in order of most favorite, because I really can't choose one favorite book. So in order of when I thought of them:

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
HP series (I'm counting these as one ... it's my list after all)
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Though if asked again in a couple days, my list might change. :)

LOL 8)
It's going to be a lively discussion eh?

Kerian I think we can count series as one...

I know that I'll get what I think is my top 10 and then someone's going to mention a book and I'll be like OMG that one too!!

Oh you can also have ties 8)

Wow I'm gonna check some of those out and see if they need to go on the ol' TBR list hehehehe

That's the dangerous thing about these favorite book lists, mem! It adds SO MANY more books to my already too long TBR list!

Though I do rather feel that everyone in the world should read Lost Things and Book Thief, so at least add those two to your list!

This is a great question! Wow, I'm not going to put these in any kind of order. These are maybe not the best books, but they are the ones that had the most impact on me when I read them:

1) Grapes of Wrath
2) The Glass Castle
3) The Lord of the Rings
4) It
5) Island of the Blue Dolphins
6) Angela's Ashes
7) To Kill a Mockingbird
8) Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
9) Jane Eyre
10) A Light in the Attic

Runners-up:
Macbeth
Outlander
The Red Tent
The Stand
The Swiss Family Robinson
Harry Potter series

edited to finish adding touchstones and then to add Harry Potter (since someone mentioned series are allowed) :o)

#8 LOL Wow you and I share a few favorite King books! Cool!

Hi guys!! Sorry I've been away so long!

Great thread by the way.... Hmmmm, let me think....

In no particular order:

The Crimson Petal and the White
Memoirs of a Geisha
Of Mice and Men
Bella Mafia
Winnie the Pooh
The Liar
The Cider House Rules
The Book Thief
Atonement
The Many Mice of Mr Brice

On a different day, I might have picked ten different ones!

thanks

HI we've missed you? do you not love us anymore?

that's 2 votes for the book thief...anyone care to do a brief book bio?

hey how do you make touchstones?

Hi Mem! Of course I still love you guys! I've really missed you! Unfortunately I've been absolutely run off my feet... Grrrr.

Anyways, book title touchstones are with single square brackets around the title, authors with doubles :-)

To make touchstones, put square brackets (on my keyboard, they're to the right of the "p" key) around the title.

My top ten at the moment, in no particular order:

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
Beauty: a retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede
A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare
The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
Eight Cousins and its sequel Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

The author of this list reserves the right to make changes at any time without notice! ;-)

hey wouldn't it be cool to like use this list (when complete) to find out what we here at the HE think are the top ten best books ever... YOu know by which book people pick as the best the most...hmmm how could you count that? blah sorry typing while brain went on vacay..

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

hahaha IT BE TOUCHSTONED!!!

The Book Thief is about a girl growing up in Nazi Germany. It's narrated by Death (which was so well done, I'm still amazed by it). The language was so uniquely descriptive ... one of my favorite passages from the book was

Sometimes young men think they are running towards each other. They are not. They are running towards me.

(Remember that "me" is Death.)

I sobbed through lots of this book.

that sounds awesome in a depressing kinda way... does the book end happy or sad? oh wait post it on my profile so others don't get the book ruined please. but I can't read the book right now if its gonna depress me more!!

Hmmmm...wow, top 10 books. Okay...

1. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
2. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
3. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
4. Denial by Keith Ablow
5. Projection by Keith Ablow
6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
7. Misery by Stephen King
8. Dirty Work by Stuart Woods
9. Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins
10. Nine and a Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill

Oh geez, here we go. I've seen several more books I want to add to my list!

MEM82 -- yay for the King connection!

#10 LadyN:
We've missed you!! *hug*

Hmm, it seems I did this within the past two weeks, but they've changes since then! And, I made it less scary to decide my top ten. ;) But oh dear, I can't think of ten now! I'll try.

My Top Ten, not in any order:

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series

Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series

Charles de Lint: The Onion Girl & Widdershins *

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife

Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

Rosalind Miles's Guenevere series

(* Counting as a single book, sorry!)

BLAH I just noticed I made a typo in the topic line.. is there anyway to edit this?

My Top Ten:

Harry Potter series, JK Rowling
Fool's Sanctuary, Jennifer Johnston
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christopher Moore
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Last Days of Summer, Steve Kluger
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Edited because I hit Submit to early *wacks forehead*

hmmm....this changes all the time, but here goes. No particular order.

Little, Big by John Crowley
Geek Love by Katharine Dunn
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Aubrey/Maturin seriesby Patrick O'Brian
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Harry Potter series
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Honorable mentions:
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Independent People by Haldor Laxness
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
World's End by T.C. Boyle

okay after much thought here is mine:

1. It by Stephen King
2. Harper Hall trilogy by Anne McCaffrey
3. The Stand by Stephen King
4. The World According to Garp by John Irving 8)
5. Pegasus in Flight by Anne McCaffrey
6. The Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce
7. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder the very first chapter book I read myself
8. Prey Novels by John Sandford
9. The Giver by Lois Lowry the very first book that made me look around at the world I lived in
10. The Kama Sutra by some unknown monk LOL just joking
10. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the only Bradbury book I like

Well there you have it.... my favorite books as of this moment. NO classics NO amazingly story that touched a nation just good ol' fiction 8) Ta da

#23 I loved Bel Canto. Should have included it in my honorable mentions!

#22 MEM:
I don't think so. Don't feel bad, though, it happens to all of us. :)

#24 littlegeek:
I knew 'little' had to have come from John Crowley's Little, Big, but I never knew until now what the other part of your username was from. :)

#25 MEM:
7 -> For me, too!
10 -> That's the only Bradbury book I like, either. (The only other I've read is Something Wicked This Way Comes.)

Oh 10 will just not do it.

I keep looking at lists and saying oh I love that.

I'm going to do Children's books first (even though I don't really make that distinction then plays then novels)

1. The Secret Garden (started my love of reading)
2. Joan Aiken's Wolves Chonicles
3. Anne of Green Gables Series
4. The Chonicles of Narnia
5. The Moomintroll Series
6. HP Series
7. The Little Bookroom
8. The Story of the 14 Bears (I adored that book)
9. The Tall Book of Make Believe
10. Fog Magic

Honorable mention The Dark Materials Triology, The Book Thief, Nancy Drew (they're all the same plot really but I loved the gutsy girls sleuth).

I'll add the other 2 top 10 lists later.

28 Marensr

oh, oh, oh! The Fourteen Bears in Summer and Winter! I loved that book growing up! I think it made me want to have a place of my own. All their trees were so awesome! I had it listed as a slightly different name and LT said I was the only one to have it. I am so glad someone else appreciates it!

okay I would have to say that the little house books top the list followed by Anne of green gables, the cat who and the best...harry Potter!

*sob* You all keep putting limits on me!

Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters
The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Chronicles of Narnia
Catwings series by Ursula K. LeGuin
Lost Horizon
Lord Valentine's Castle
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Cyrano de Bergerac
Flatland

Grrr...That's ten already. I want you all to know this is killing me. If I had time I would divide them into categories (children's, YA, adult fiction) so that I could at least list 30. :oP

Ok, top ten, SO glad series can count as one because I love series. Just so you know, this list is either romance or children's books.

in no particular order:
Argeneau family series by Lynsay Sands
Malory family series by Johanna Lindsey
Cowboy series AND 7 Brides series by Leigh Greenwood
The Girl Who Owned a City by O.T. Nelson
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Ravished by Amanda Quick
Sleeping Beauty trilogy by Anne Rice
Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
OH! And My Teacher is An Alien (plus the other 3 in this series) by Bruce Coville

Don't know why half the touchstones aren't working.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Armor by John Steakley
On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson
The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
Von Bek by Michael Moorcock
King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story by Gloria Houston
Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall
When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
Where the Red Fern Grows: The Story of Two Dogs and a Boy by Wilson Rawls
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Contact by Carl Sagan
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): A True Story from Hell on Earth by Kenneth Cain
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Honorable Mentions:
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

#31 juggling:
Just counted mine individually and there are indeed thirty. Hehehe. ;)

#31 Juggling:
I really liked the part of Flatland that I read. I haven't gotten around to finishing it yet though.

I can't think of just ten books.

some of my favorites:
all of Tamora Pierce's books
The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Harry Potter series
Noel Streatfeild's books
Susan Cooper's books, especially King of Shadow and the Dark is Rising series
anything by Diana Wynne Jones
Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall trilogy and Pegasus in Flight and Pegasus in Space
All of Sherryl Jordan's books
The New Policeman by Kate Thompson
his Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. not so much the first one though.

Okay now I am going to do favorite plays

1 The winter's Tale
2 Hamlet
3 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
4 Cyrano De Bergerac
5 King Lear
6 Arcadia
7 As You Like It
8 Oedipus Rex & Antigone
9 The Imaginary Invalid
10 Copenhagen

(Okay I entirely shirked the Americans- that's another list the problem is once you start including Shakespeare then everything else has to go)

Bonus points to the dirge in Cymbeline

I'll try to limit myself to ten:

10. Harry Potter series
9. Reviving Ophelia
8. House of God
7. Ender's Game
6. The Historian
5. Pride and Prejudice
4. Me Talk Pretty One Day
3. I Am the Messenger
2. Shadow of the Wind
1. Hands down favorite book has to be (insert drumroll...)

The Pokey Little Puppy :) you know it rocks!

Thanks for the hug Kerian - right back at ya!! Mwah!

#38 - Marensr, great idea to list plays. I'm gonna copy you!

So here we go....

1. King Lear
2. Measure for Measure
3. Amadeus
4. The Crucible
5. The Man of Mode
6. Oleanna
7. Titus Andronicus
8. A Streetcar Named Desire
9. The Glass Menagerie
10. The Winter's Tale

Aww, I love the Poky Little Puppy! I may do a list with just picture books. In fact, yep, here it is:

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (no idea why this won't touchstone)
Madeline's Rescue
The Poky Little Puppy
Caps for Sale
Officer Buckle and Gloria
A Rose for Pinkerton (and other Pinkerton books by Steven Kellogg)
Green Eggs and Ham
The Contests at Cowlick
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
Kitten's First Full Moon

Crap. How did I end up in the wrong top ten? Transferring this to the other thread...:o)

LOL okay 8) got Saturday Night Fever? HAHAHAH i'm so funny- what a bad pun xO

This might not be entirely accurate, but it's my best shot. ;-)

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Miracles by C.S. Lewis
The Confessions of St. Augustine
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Honorable mention:
Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'engle
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Wow these are some good lists everyone8) I can't wait to try some of these books seeing as how lately I've been picking duds to read 8)

k... here goes my attempt at this very difficult task and in no particular order:

(and i apologize for counting series as a whole, it's difficult to choose only one book)

The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett
The Belgariad by David Eddings
Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series by Douglas Adams
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Kushiel Series by Jacqueline Carey

Honorable Mentions :)
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
Novels of Samaria by Sharon Shinn
Kim Harrison Novels
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Novels
Novels of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

yeah, that was hard... and there's so many that i know i'm leaving off :(

Oh my god - just had to come back online in the middle of the night as I totally missed out my favourite favourite book...

1. PERFUME - the story of a murderer by Patrick Suskind.

Can't believe I forgot it!!

I can believe you forgot it cuz i've never heard of it LOL!!

sounds kinda neat though
i'll look it up 8)

Oh it's fantastic. It's about a man born with no personal odour of his own, but with a hugely advanced sense of smell, who becomes odsessed with the scent of young girls and learns how to become a perfumier. Brilliantly written, and quite disturbing. Awesome read.

oooh! i've heard of it! a friend told me about this past summer! i had wanted to buy it and then i totally forgot! :)

that sounds just the type of book I like to read sometimes 8)
ooohhh my aching TBR list !!

Buy it! Read it! Love it! Although you'll never think about perfume in the same way again!

I almost never wear it so I won't care LOL

In that case you should be ok!

#29 compskibook. I love the 14 Bears. I have the childhood one which is just summer and summer and winter which was rereleased a few years ago.

My sisters and I used to pour through the pictures of their houses. I loved the detail and how each had a specific architectural style.

Okay 10 Novels I still remember vividly or have to reread again and again. These are books I am bound to either by rereading or my original experience of them.

1 I Capture the Castle
2 Le Grand Meaulnes
3 A Room With A view
4 Catch 22
5 Persuasion
6 Posession
7 The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays
8 The Man Who Was Thursday
9 Flame Trees of Thika
10 A Room of One's Own

Honorable mention The Country of Pointed Firs Orlando The Razor's Edge

#53 LadyN:
I'll never think of perfume the same way again, but then again, I have to sell the stuff for a living, don't I? ;)

For book people, this is like asking us to pick our favorite friends/relatives/children. I think, though, if I'm honest, there are certain books that I will read and reread and never get tired of. Here they are, starting with my favorite book of all time:

1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
2. In the Forests of Serre by Patricia McKillip
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
4. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
5. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
6. The Giggler Treatment by Roddy Doyle
7. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
8. Swan Lake by Mark Helprin and Chris Van Allsburg
9. Old Turtle by Douglas Wood
10. Over Nine Waves by Marie Heaney

with honorable mentions to Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series, C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, LeGuin's Earthsea, Rowling's Harry Potter of course, (oh man, I knew I wouldn't be able to stop once I started with the mentions) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders, Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley, and everything else Alcott, Austen, and McKillip ever wrote. Oh, and all the story books K. Y. Craft ever illustrated. Okay, I think that's it. Really. I'm stopping now.

Oo! Honorable Mentions.

Okay, so The Whispering Road, which the book says is by Livi Michael but LT says is by Judith Michael... whatever. And I just realized I forgot Inkheart! That really should be on the top 10, not just a mention. Gone with the Wind would be top 10 but it's long enough that I don't reread it so often as other books. Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy is amazing too. And I'll stop with Le Petit Prince. At least for now. :)

ETA: Peter and the Starcatchers and Peter and the Shadow Thieves are really good too!

#57 - Good point Kerian! I don't think I could work with perfume. I love it so much I'd worry about getting sick of the stuff, just like my sister went off ice cream when she worked in an ice cream van!

I had had no idea that Perfume was a book. I saw the movie a few months back, and thought it was phenomenal.

I think these are my top 10, in no particular order, but as soon as I hit submit I'm going to think of something I've left out...

Herman Hesse - The Glass Bead Game (by far the most genius thing the man wrote, although all his other stuff is phenomenal, too)
J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings trilogy
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables (I've even read it in the original French - it's a masterpiece)
Ayn Rand - all of her stuff, really, but Atlas Shrugged especially
Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Steven Erikson - his Malazan series
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities (I know a lot of people think this is nowhere near his best work, but for some reason it's the one that really resonated with me)
Deng Ming-Dao - Chronicles of Tao

so hard to pick just ten, but here are some of my favorites:

Yonder by Tony Johnston
Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
The Harry Potter books
the Shoes books by Noel Streatfeild
everything by Tamora Pierce
the Pern books by Ann Maccaffrey
the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey
the chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones
the Enchanted Forest series by patricia C. Wrede

Oh my gosh! You peole have really been cranking out the titles! So many of them are amazing! It's actually funny, I don't think anyone has as good a taste as everyone here! (if that made any sense at all)

Some of my favorites:
-The miraculous journey of Edward Tulane (I can't believe someone listed that!!! I photo copied the summary in the back of the book and taped it in my room!!!)

-Harry Potter, all the books, but the 6th, not as much.

-Ender's series (also listed, but I love them!

-Fahrenheit 451 so good!

-Anthem by Ayn Rand (surprisingly short, but one of her best, if not the best.

-Bridge to Teribithea that is the only book that can make me sob, some others I just tear up at, but this was the whole, sniff sniff, sob, tears routine. Amazing.

-Memoirs of a Geisha I picked it up for a joke and coudn't put it down!

-The Color Purple I was a little young when I first read it, but SOOOO good!

As far as truly spectacular plays go...

-A Raisin in the Sun is amazing! I've never read another play unabridged front to back to fast and enjoyed it so much!

ok lets see... these are faves, but not in order:

To Kill A Mocking Bird

The Harry Potter Series

Pride & Prejudice

Persuassion

A Room With A View

For Whom The Bell Tolls

The Chronicles of Narnia

LOR Thrillogy & The Hobbit

In The Time Of The Butterflies

A Night To Remember

There are many more but my mind is blank. Guilty Pleasures:

The Twilight Series

The Morganville Vampire Series

(and basically anything with a hot male vamp in it)

90's and late 80's Harlequin Presents Novels

Anything Titanic

Oh! I forgot To Kill a Mockingbird, that book is amazing!

Also forgot:

-Les Miserables (listening to soundtrack now, so I just remembered)

-The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Cannot believe I forgot that earlier!)

-Lonesome Dove (slipped my mind for some weird reason)

Hey suge, is there any vampire book with a hot vampire male in it that you haven't read?

mmmmm *thinks for a moment*

I truly doubt it, AR. I have dedicated my life to er... the study of hot male vampires. I'm very thorough with my research. Yep.

There's always the hope that there's someone out there writing new ones, though!

Now now, dont get me all excited, foggi. you know how I get......

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Hi everyone.I'm new to librarything and I dont know much about what I'm doing. I am very confused as I seem to think that most of you are girls, no offence to those of you that are lads, but could some one give me a brief introduction to library thing. I live in england so I guess that this site is american. If someone could tell me whether I'm right or not as well please. I look forward to meeting you all again in different parts of Librarything.

PS, could you send your answers to my profile please, thanks.

Yours truly, Shanfan.

PSS, in case anyone has the same problem I have with guessihng genders, Im an Irish boy.

PSSS, Sorry I havent answered the question asked at the top of the page so I'll do that now if your interested.
In no particular order:
Inkheart
Theif lord
The saga of Darren Shan
The Demonata series
The knight and the squire
The series of unfortunate events
The Harry Potter series
The Charlie Bone series
Groosham Grange
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