All-time Favorite Book

I hope this isn't a topic started somewhere else, but I couldn't find it.

What is your all-time favorite book that you've gone back to to read again and again and know you will read again in the future?

For me it is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom about a Dutch family who hid Jews during WWII and ended up going to a concentration camp because of it. I must have read it half a dozen times at least so far (starting when I was about 14) and I have read it to my children.

Why do I like it? I guess I would have to say for her honesty and her strength derived from her relationship with God.

I have given this book as a gift many times.

I don't have one. Too many out there and too many sides to me to choose. I have a kind of list of them though, the ones I'd always re-buy if I had to do so. The ones I'd never purge from my library. But it's a list and not a single book.

I remember reading the Hiding Place as a young teenager and it scared the hell out of me...the inhumanity of it all. But the other side of the coin was also there and the message was positive.

My absolute all-time favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I first read this book when I was 14 years old. I reread it every so often and still love it!! By the way, I rarely reread a book because there are so many on my TBR list.

I also love the movie version of this book, which is also rare for me.

My husband found me a first edition for our anniversary last year. It was the most thoughtful gift I have ever received.

Bookmarque--Yes, the stories of WWII are incredible in their inhumanity. There are others, of course, even happening today and I just can't imagine what makes a person do those horrible things to others. But one of the great points in The Hiding Place is that forgiveness is greater than cruelty.

#2 Knittingfreak--Funny we both read these favorites as young teens. I wonder if that has something to do with them being our favorites.

Well, I've got a list of my top 5 or 10, but I think I'd go crazy if I had to choose just one. One of those is Sidarttha by Hermann Hesse. It is, to me, a very beautiful, powerful story of the journey to enlightenment.

A Prayer for Owen Meany comes to mind right this second. My favorite John Irving novel. I'm an atheist, but it comes close to making me a believer.

There are 64 books tagged with "All-time Favorite" in my library but I can narrow it down to three, in no particular order.

Swimmer in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle (he also wrote the original ET: The Extraterrestrial), a very haunting short story about a woman whose baby is stillborn. It was the first time I had learned about thte importance of closure.

Serpentine by Tommy Thompson, probably the best true crime story about a global con man ever written. Thompson sadly died after writing only three books and each was wonderful.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I know some readers deplored this book written from the viewpoint of a young teenager after she is raped and murdered as she witnesses what happened afterwards. One's opinion seems to depend a bit on what one's religion has taught about an afterlife. My religion doesn't believe in an afterlife and yet I can't get this book out of my mind and I dearly wish what it depicts were true.

I will have to agree with Bookmarque, there are way too many books I loved and still love to be able to pick one favourite. The first three that come to mind, though, are (not in order of preference) Dickens's David Copperfield, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Possession by A.S.Byatt.

As with most people, I don't have one favorite book, but there are a few that come close: for instance, Sunshine by Robin McKinley and The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner.

Aluvalibri--Last year I had a flight cancelled and spent an extra night with friends who showed me the first 3/4s of the new Pride and Prejudice movie, then the DVD got stuck. When I got home I went to the library, they only had the older BBC version. It made my ironing go faster and I ended up liking it better than the new one I was eventually able to borrow. Then I got the book on tape and listened in the car. Finally I checked out the book. I loved every version and read all the rest of Austen that I could get hold of. And this, from someone who prefers non-fiction!

My favorite book of all time? I have such an eclectic collection, it would depend on my mood; but there are a few that I have read over and over.

1. The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
2. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera
3. Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

There are also some classics I can read anytime, but these are 3 books that just make me happy to read....and sometimes that's the best reason to read.

I just recently read P&P for the first time and I loved it! Between the time of the BBC and the new movie, the edition from A&E is the best. It was recommended to me by several English teachers and Jane Austin fans and I was not disappointed.

I am looking forward to reading more of her books. I read Sense & Sensibility, but P&P was better in my opinion.

Yes, skf, I love ALL of Jane Austen's books as well. Once you start reading her, you get hooked!

Easy. The Penguin Book of Greek Verse. The most-loved book I've ever had, even in a lifetime (and roomful) of loved books.

This is a very difficult question --

toss-up between Gone with the Wind and One hundred Years of Solitude; A Fine Balance is another contender, but I read it recently and I have to see whether it stands the test of time.

The Count of Monte Cristo and These is My Words by Nancy E. Turner. The Hiding Place doesn't make it into my absolute favs, but it is one I've read and enjoyed very much. I had an opportunity to visit her home and see the hiding place, it was incredible.

Touchstones for the first two won't load.

My #1 is, without a doubt, The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice. It means a lot to me for a variety of reasons, and I always have a blast rereading it.

Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander comes in a close second, though; it may be a children's book, but it always strikes a chord with me. I love it so, so much. Wicked by Gregory Maguire rounds out the Top 3.

Beyond that, I'd have a hell of a hard time ordering them.

It may be laughable but my favourite book of all time is Moby Dick. I can somehow immerse myself in that story and emerge at the end feeling briny, sea-soaked and completely sated. I love the abundant humour (hell I actually get the humour), I love the dramatic situations and melodramatic speeches, I adore Ahab's noble, tragic, monomaniacal character, I even love the author's digressions into the detailed descriptions of the characteristics of whales. I have no explanation for why such an epic and unusual novel should enchant me so, but it has inspired in me a passionate and enduring love for it's story.

P.S.
Just a quick response to xicanti. The Vampire Lestat was for a long time my number one novel too. At the time I felt the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles were beckoning to me, as I would encounter them unexpectedly and always felt an urge to obtain each one immediately. I'm proud to say I gave in each time and built up quite a collection of the chronicles. I was never disappointed. The Vampire Lestat, and the Tale of the Body Thief remain my two favourites of the series. Ahh those times, I can truly say I was enchanted by Anne Rice during that period.

kageeh -

I too am a big fan of 'Tommy Thompson; what a shame that he died so young. And Serpentine is one of my all-time favorites; I wish I had a copy, re-read it right now. It's been a long time since I read the book and I can't remember the specifics - just this (I think) Indian serial killer, right? I think I saw or read somewhere last year that he had been released from prison. I don't remember his full name so I can't google it. Anyway, another fan of Tommy Thompson. His other two books were - I forget. One was the story of rebellious young boy (his name was the name of the book, right)? The other I forget.

Just wanted to talk about Serpentine, that's all. I never see it discussed so it was a pleasant surprise.

Gone With The Wind

hands down, I never get tired of reading that book!

There have been a lot of different favorite books for me at one time or another, but right now my favorite book is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I loved that story!

edited to get that darn touchstone to work!

Wow - I was so surprised to see Serpentine in this list. It has probably been 25 years since I read it, but it has stayed with me. What a fascinating - and creepy - book!

I agree with all who say there are too many books to pick just one, but my most recent favorite is The Known World by Edward P Jones. I loved every page of it and DID turn right around and re-read it as soon as I finished the first time.

Too many to choose a single best book.
A few of my favorites, in no particular order:

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
1776 by David McCullough
Being Dead by Jim Crace
The Sea by John Banville

Armor by John Steakley
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers

Probably my all-time favorite is To Kill a Mockingbird. I like Moby Dick also. Other favorites are Pride and Prejudice and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series.

"The Sand Pebbles" by Richard McKenna. I was in the Navy when I read it and completely identified with Jake - "All I wanted was to be left alone to do my job but the military kept interfering."

I got over it, but poor Jake wasn't so fortunate.

Excellent book.

Ralph

The only book I've gone back to for reading a second time: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

There are plenty of books that I can melt into over and over again; some of the are listed above. But The Princess Bride is number one. And I'm mildly irked that the touchstone here says it's by Rob Reiner, not William Goldman. I do love the movie, but I'm IN love with the book.

Someone actually said that The Princess Bride was by Rob Reiner? On a library site?

There are 21 different works that come up on a search of The Princess bride, the Goldman version having over 2000 copies to Reiner's 48 if you click on others by the touchstone you can select the correct one.

Some people contraversally do use LT for film adaptions of books and hence don't want to have them under the authors name.

Did Reiner write the movie? I thought he just directed it. Does this mean that The DaVinci Code is filed under Ron Howard?

Just curious.

Phlox72, I join you in your opinion about Moby Dick. But, over and above that great novel, my favorite all-time book is Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn...for some odd reason I would read that book every summer...lemonade...a front porch glider swing...some stolen cookies...an afternoon of sheer pleasure...Patty

Hard choice. One that I have read over and over and never tired of is Lad: a Dog by Albert Payson Terhune. Never once have I grown tired of the real-life tale of that wonderful collie that eclipses Lassie.

A close second would be The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud.

Third might possibly be The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett, but I'd have to look over my collection to be sure.

Thanks, reading_fox, that makes a lot more sense.

Thakhek, William Goldman definitely wrote the movie.

I'm going to cheat:
all of Jane Austen
most of William Shakespeare
LoTR
Mapp & Lucia series by EF Benson

I can't pick a single book but those would be some of my desert island choices.

Without a doubt, Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison. I don't think I can even explain why I love that book so much. It is so heartbreaking and so life-affirming at the same time, and it is really just so beautifully-written. I think I might have to go read it again, now that I think about it...

Hello Tiffin, fellow Lucia fan.

Probably A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, followed by The Giver and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Hands down, Lord of the Rings. That would be the book I'd grab first when jumping from a sinking ship ;-)

But like most of you, there's so many other favourites too, all the Anne of Green Gables series, Jane Austen, The Earthsea Quartet. So many good books, so little time....

nymith, I love Lad, a Dog too. It inspired me to get a collie as our first dog after we were married. I loved Terhune's passion for the environment too, he loved Sunnybank so much.

I'd have a hard time deciding between:

Middlesex
Refuge
House of the Spirits
The World According to Garp
The Poisonwood Bible
Ishmael and My Ishmael

I also love Owen Meaney, it ranks up there close to the top; and it's time to read To Kill a Mockingbird again, it's been many years but I loved it every time I read it.

Actually, Thakhek, William Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the movie: that's why some of the lines are verbatim from the book, and the whole tongue-in-cheek swashbuckler elements are still in there.

I'm with you, sflax: as Goldman himself says at the beginning: "This is my favorite book in all the world." I stumbled across it in 1978 (!), caught by the cover: pretty girl on horseback, pointy hat with veil, and the tag line "A Hot Fairy Tale." I had to pick it up, and the back cover read,"What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince in the world--and he turns out to be a son-of-a-bitch?"
Hooked.
Read it, recommended it, gave it as gifts, read it to my brother when he was sick in bed, and as a classrooom teacher, and now school librarian, I have read it aloud, cover to cover, more than 30 times. And it is still "my favorite book in all the world."

Mine's Practical Magic. I've probably read it twenty five times by now. I love it so much that the copy I have used to be my mom's, but I won't give it back. I've gotten a lot of her books that way.

For Phlox 22 (and other MD fans) I reread MD after I finished "Ahab's Wife," by Sena Jeter Naslund. If you missed this in 1999 check it out at library, and enjoy. Esta1923

#44 Hahah, when I first read The Princess Bride with my mother, I was just young enough to find the profanity on the back a little bit shocking. (My mother did not read the back aloud.) I did feel a little misled, though, because it's not a completely accurate description of what happens in the book. But the book was too awesome for that to really matter.

I just finished "Moby Dick" for the first time and was astounded at how much I loved it. Style, style, style! Frank Muller's audio version is superb, plus it really helped to read along with the edition that has illustrations by Rockwell Kent, which are quite atmospheric.

Even after all these years, it's still Catch-22, timely as always, the madness of war never being far from my painful awareness.

my most favorite book of all time has to be i know this much is true by wally lamb- the first time i read it i finished it in 3 days- the second time i took my time with it- i just couldnt put it down it was that amazing

For me it is The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Neffininger.
Its by far one of the cleverest books I have read, but had so much more than just intelligence. It was well written, with brilliantly developed characters A proper ending (so many books leave me feeling like they just tailed off), and is one of those books you can't put down, but you don't want to finish it.
I will read it again, but not just yet. I think I'll wait until i forget some of the twists and tales.

Good thread this, I'll be trying out some of the other favourites scattered about

I think it is really hard to decide on just one all-time favorite...especially if you read a lot, but this is an intriguing thread and I think that my criteria for "all time favorite book" would have to be one that absolutely blew me away when reading it, caused me to want to read other books similar to it, and was one that I reread multiple times. With this in mind my "all-time favorites" are:

Gone with the Wind: I first read it when I was about 8; I have read it numerous times since and it caused me to be obsessed with the Civil War.

The Mists of Avalon: I have read it several times and it got me interested in Arthurian tales.

Lonesome Dove: I loved this book which was amazing because it was a Western...the only Western I have ever enjoyed.

Time and Again: This book is the epitome of time travel writing. I love Jack Finney. Reading it made me a fan of time travel stories (even bad ones!!)

I, like most, have a number of books. The ones that came to my mind soonest have been: Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau, Life: a user's manual by Georges Perec, The alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and the Raj Quartet by Paul Scott. Coelho's and Queneau's books I've read more than once, so they shoudl popu up to the top. Exercises in Style is a two paragraph vignette rewritten a 100 times in a vaiety of styles, some of them extreme. Queneau was part of a French literature movement called Oulipo, as was Perec. The PBS series, The Jewel in the Crown was taken from the Raj Quartet, and is perhaps my favorite TV serial (14 weeks). The novel is somewhat difficult to read, as each long chapter takes a character (except the main character, Hari Kumar/Harry Commer) and runs with a major story, so when you leave one chapter, you are backtracking in time to ge the next person's development. I really liked the idea of the "quest" in The Alchemist, but haven't taken to any of Coelho's other efforts.

I need to add that Jorge Luis Borges is my favorite short story writer.

Bob Campbell

The Fountainhead

It's impossible for me to choose just one book. Pride and Prejudice is probably the book I've read more often than any other book, but in a sense it belongs to a "younger me". The same goes for The Centre of my world by Steinhofel, a wonderfully lyrical coming-of-age story.

If I had to limit myself to just three (which is hard, but doable), I'd pick The Magician's Assisstant by Ann Patchett, The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

And if comics count, too (and why shouldn't they?), it's Neil Gaiman's Sandman. But again, it's a series rather than just one book, which proves once more that it's impossible for me to pick just one. I'm glad I'm not the only one that "indecisive".

My favorite book, without question, is Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice, followed very closely by The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, and Blood Canticle.

A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler is my all time favorite book!!!!!!

I have a few:
Gone with the Wind
All of the Harry Potter Books
The Thornbirds
Jane Eyre

Other than the Harry Potter books there is only one in the last ten years that I read again the second I finished it. That book is The Monk by Matthew Lewis. I still can't believe it was written in 1796. If I could find it in "the black hole" aka my garage I would read it again starting tonight.

I almost forgot something. I do NOT think the Monk should be read by anyone under fourteen, maybe fifteen. I tend to be overprotective so take this however you wish. Just read a review first.
Please let me know if any of you read or read it.

Grendel by John Gardner

Definitely The Lord of the Rings. I've read it once a year since the age of 13.

A close second would be The Source by James Michener.

Brother to Dragons by Robert Penn Warren.
I prefer the original to the revised, seems Thomas Jefferson did talk about his murdering nephews during his lifetime, not just when queried by RPW.

I can't think of mine. When I asked my husband he said For Whom the Bell Tolls without hesitation. I am still thinking...

Strange that practically all the books mentioned so far are novels (I think someone mentioned Borges, so there are at least some short stories there). If I had to think of books I've "gone back to to read again and again and know (I) will read again in the future", then The Oxford book of English verse, 1250-1918 would be somewhere near the top of the list. Or the Helen Gardner edition - I'm not as fussy as Rumpole...

Otherwise, I suspect that Summer Lightning is the book I've read most often. Not because it's my favourite Wodehouse, but more because I've had a copy on my shelf for nearly forty years. If I had to take just one Wodehouse to a desert island, I would probably pick Joy in the morning or The mating season, I think.

As far as "serious" novels go, the ones I've re-read most (not counting set texts or P&P) might well be The tree of man and Die Blechtrommel. Those are certainly books I'd be happy to be trapped somewhere with.

Harriet the Spy (that book NEVER gets old)
Rebecca
Anne of Green Gables
Smila's Sense of Snow
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Sophie's Choice
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Witches of Eastwick
Gormenghast (the trilogy)

That's what I think they are today. No particular order.

(Edited because touchstones are tricky.)

I can hold my list to six:

The Iliad First read when I was 14, have read 15 times since then.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, I have half of it memorized.
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, a great detective story from the facts of history.
The Rise of the West by William McNeil, showed me what history writing could be.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, probably the greatest novel ever written.
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant the best book written about the greatest event in U.S. history.