Top Ten Books

[Cbz40]

The only time I don't wear shoes...is when I am in the shower or in bed ....no barefooting for me...now the wife is another story lol.

Same here BP.......every time I go barefooted I pay dearly.

 

[peacockaja]

As I am still a student and dont really like to read there are only a few books i like.

My Favs are in no order:

1. Bleachers
2. Tears of Tiger
3. the Outsiders
4. To Kill a Mocking Bird
5. Just about any book about sports

 

[CowboysFan02]

Anything by Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October and Rainbow Six being my favs.
Almost any Steven King book.
Something Wicked this way comes/Death Is a Lonely Business - Ray Bradbury
Esperanza's Box of Saints - Maria Amparo Escandon
Lord of The Rings(trilogy) - JRR Tolkin
Sphere - Michael Crichton

That is the short list of my fav's.

 

[Crown Royal]

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a terrific, though eclectic choice. He is, of course, famed for the formerly banned Fahrenheit 451, but SWTWC is a very good one. Kudos

 

[Chief]

I should add "Friday Night Lights," by Buzz Bissinger.

I bought the hardback 16 years ago or whenever it came out. Wonderful piece of work.

 

[TruBlueCowboy]

A lot of the classics have already been covered. Catcher in the Rye was probably the first book to introduced me to literary analysis. When I was in high school, I was so fascinated by that book and its universal messages, that I once spent an entire day in the public library reading books that were reviews and essays on Catcher in the Rye. One little novel sure could spawn a lot of deep thinking.

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were the first grand adventure books I ever read. Those were amazing reads when you're a kid (and probably still good ones today) and everything since has seemed shallow compared to the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien.

I thought I'd list an off-the-wall book that changed my life at the time. It's nothing by Plato or Descartes but it changed the way I viewed life for a bit. : Not in a good way, but it certainly changed my life. I was 18 when I read Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko. You read that book when you are a young dumb and full of you-know-what teenager, and you will go crazy. That books makes you feel like you can do anything, and makes you wonder why you've been following rules your whole life. Especially after reading about his Seal Team breaking into bases and the quick thinking they would employ to prove that it was possible to steal nuclear weapons. I was crazy for about a month after reading that book.

I love any good biographies. In order for them to be effective, they have to be written after the subject died. LOL I think most current autobiographies are full of junk because no one wants to be critical of their actions or let the public know some of their deepest secrets when they are still alive. I also am skeptical of biographies on current living individuals for the same reasons.

Some of the better ones I've read are Huey Long by T. Harry Williams, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, and the entire LBJ series by Robert A. Caro.

Sadly, I did most of my reading during high school and earlier so I really don't remember a lot of the stuff I read. Once I entered college and had to work full-time as well as go to school, I never had time for reading. I had to read so much junk I didn't want to in college, and fit in the reading time however possible, that I started looking at reading as torture rather than an enjoyable pasttime. LOL I had one good class, African-American Literature, that I took as an elective, and I thoroughly enjoyed that class because it introduced me to a field I had never explored. I read everything from unknown slave stories, to Native Son, to the great works of Zora Neale Hurston. I'm slowly getting back into some good reading, and I'll be sure to check out some of the books in this thread.

 

[zagnut]

I thought I'd list an off-the-wall book that changed my life at the time. It's nothing by Plato or Descartes but it changed the way I viewed life for a bit. : Not in a good way, but it certainly changed my life. I was 18 when I read Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko. You read that book when you are a young dumb and full of you-know-what teenager, and you will go crazy. That books makes you feel like you can do anything, and makes you wonder why you've been following rules your whole life. Especially after reading about his Seal Team breaking into bases and the quick thinking they would employ to prove that it was possible to steal nuclear weapons. I was crazy for about a month after reading that book.

Interesting pick. It's funny how books can sometimes hit us at just the right time. Catcher in the Rye and A Prayer for Owen Meany were that way for me.

The CEO of the company I work for holds Richard Marcinko as a kind of diety of sorts. He would always give people Rogue Warrior and had a picture of Marcinko on his office wall. Marcinko is so interesting it's hard to believe he's a real guy, but he's 100% legit testosteroni.

Being the poor, cynical -- and occasionally innebriated -- office jockeys we were, the gesture was pretty much lost on us. Whenever faced with a question of conscience, we would sing the words to South Park's What Would Brian Boitano Do, subbing in Richard Marcinko's name. Nobody understood what the heck we were doing, but we found it funny.

 

[zagnut]

It takes a thread like this to make me realize how little I read for leisure these days. I'm going to have to put a few of these on the reading list, especially People of the Lie and that Jung book (The Body as Shadow?). They sound very interesting. Thanks Juke and Hoov for discussing them.

--

Many of mine have been mentioned and almost all from late HS and early college.

10. Towing Jehovah - James Morrow
9. James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl
8. Concerning the Spiritual in Art - Wassily Kandinsky
7. The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
6. Watership Down - Richard Adams (Mom took me to see the movie version when I 6 or 7 - Bad Mom! Very bad!!!)
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (Only book I couldn't stop reading. Spent an entire week at the beach sitting inside reading it when I was 16.)
4. The Once and Future King - T.H. White
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
1. Animal Farm - George Orwell (Odd enough, I could never get into 1984.)

 

[TruBlueCowboy]

Interesting pick. It's funny how books can sometimes hit us at just the right time. Catcher in the Rye and A Prayer for Owen Meany were that way for me.

The CEO of the company I work for holds Richard Marcinko as a kind of diety of sorts. He would always give people Rogue Warrior and had a picture of Marcinko on his office wall. Marcinko is so interesting it's hard to believe he's a real guy, but he's 100% legit testosteroni.

Being the poor, cynical -- and occasionally innebriated -- office jockeys we were, the gesture was pretty much lost on us. Whenever faced with a question of conscience, we would sing the words to South Park's What Would Brian Boitano Do, subbing in Richard Marcinko's name. Nobody understood what the heck we were doing, but we found it funny.

That's great stuff! I can picture the song already. Reminds me of something out of Office Space. LOL I don't even remember much about the book, but this thread made me remember how fascinated I was by his lifestyle. I seriously doubt it would have the same effect now but when you're a rip-roaring adrenaline-junky teenager who thinks he can live forever, that type of book thrills the hell out of ya.

My step-father was a Seal in Vietnam and I never thought to ask him if he had ever served with Marcinko. He served with Jesse Ventura and told me hated him. Thought he was an arrogant.... ummm.. donkey. I wouldn't be surprised if he had the same opinion of Marcinko.

 

[Juke99]

It takes a thread like this to make me realize how little I read for leisure these days. I'm going to have to put a few of these on the reading list, especially People of the Lie and that Jung book (The Body as Shadow?). They sound very interesting. Thanks Juke and Hoov for discussing them.

--

Many of mine have been mentioned and almost all from late HS and early college.

10. Towing Jehovah - James Morrow
9. James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl
8. Concerning the Spiritual in Art - Wassily Kandinsky
7. The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
6. Watership Down - Richard Adams (Mom took me to see the movie version when I 6 or 7 - Bad Mom! Very bad!!!)
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (Only book I couldn't stop reading. Spent an entire week at the beach sitting inside reading it when I was 16.)
4. The Once and Future King - T.H. White
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
1. Animal Farm - George Orwell (Odd enough, I could never get into 1984.)

Sorry...I just realized, I never posted the title to the Jung/Reich book...yes, "The Body as Shadow" is it...duh for me.



I felt the same way about Owen Meany...drew ya in from the first paragraph...

 

[Crown Royal]

I just realized (thanks to reading another post) that I put Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as being written by Hitler. That was wrong - for some reason I was thinking Mein Kampf, another life changing book (because its craziness). William Shirer wrote the former...

 

[Crown Royal]

It takes a thread like this to make me realize how little I read for leisure these days. I'm going to have to put a few of these on the reading list, especially People of the Lie and that Jung book (The Body as Shadow?). They sound very interesting. Thanks Juke and Hoov for discussing them.

--

Many of mine have been mentioned and almost all from late HS and early college.

10. Towing Jehovah - James Morrow
9. James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl
8. Concerning the Spiritual in Art - Wassily Kandinsky
7. The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
6. Watership Down - Richard Adams (Mom took me to see the movie version when I 6 or 7 - Bad Mom! Very bad!!!)
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (Only book I couldn't stop reading. Spent an entire week at the beach sitting inside reading it when I was 16.)
4. The Once and Future King - T.H. White
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
1. Animal Farm - George Orwell (Odd enough, I could never get into 1984.)

Real good list. I like the Dahl selection. If you like JK Rowlings stuff, I would highly suggest Dahl. He also wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy, The Witches, The BFG, among other adult literature. He is one of my favorite British authors - he is kinda like a British Mark Twain...

 

[Irvinite]

Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series....

Anne McCaffrey's Pern Series....

R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden books....

Dean R Koontz early works....

 

[jterrell]

Man its tuff to name just 10.

The Stand-S. King
Poetics-Aristotle
The Fountainhead-Ayn Rand
The Invisible Man-Ralph Ellison
The Wheel of Time series-Robert Jordan
The Black Company-Glen Cook
North Dallas Forty-Pete Gent
The Education of Henry Adams-Biographical
Principia Mathematica(sp?)-Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
Malcolm X Autobiography-Malcom X and Jack Haley.
Don Quixote-Miguel Cervantes
Assorted Shakespeare
Brave New World-Aldous Huxley
1984-Orwell

 

[jterrell]

I have yet to read the last few Dark Tower books....I will have to get around to it, but now that it has been so long since I read the others I will have to start from scratch.

On a side note have you noticed the themes that run in many of his books that tie together....like the Talisman, The Black House, It, The dark Tower series and Dream catcher to name a few.....the theme of ...Following the Line.

I just ordered the first 2 books in the series because I like you I had read the originals so logn ago I forgot the story.

 

[jterrell]

I should add "Friday Night Lights," by Buzz Bissinger.

I bought the hardback 16 years ago or whenever it came out. Wonderful piece of work.

I read it back then as well. It was very close to home for me. I knew the Carter kids because I had went to junior high in that area.
I played at Tech with some kids from those Permian squads such as Lloyd Hill(Roy Williams older alf-brother), and my best friends cousin Jamie was a running back for them.

 

[Hostile]

Kinda bored (dead week). This is my top ten books, the books that have shaped my life. I tried to put them in order, but it is hard. They each affect me differently. Some are novels, some nonfiction, etc. Just good stuff.

1) Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein

2) 1984 George Orwell

3) Job: A Comedy of Justice Robert A. Heinlein

4) The Life and Death of Socrates Plato

5) The Holy Bible Multiple Authors

6) A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking

7) Meditations Rene Descartes

8) The Chosen Chaim Potak

9) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Adolf Hitler

10) The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

(Note - just because they affect me doesn't mean I subscribe to the beliefs. I learn a lot from reading these, but I am not a **** or Communist.)

Nice thread idea.

1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

2. The Collected Works of William Shakespeare

3. Heart of Darkness by William Conrad

4. Man of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes

5. Throwing Heat: The Nolan Ryan Story

6. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

7. Shogun by James Clavelle (recommended to me by TwoDeep3, thanks TD)

8. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

9. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

10. Apaches and Longhorns by Wil C. Barnes

 

[jterrell]

Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series....

Anne McCaffrey's Pern Series....

R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden books....

Dean R Koontz early works....

It amazes me that Salvatore who is at best a mediocre writer created one of the best characters of all time in a dark elf ranger. Shows what being a D&D nerd can do for you.

If you haven't already read Glen Cook.

 

[jterrell]

I hope you like it. It's not a masterpiece or anything, but it was something that I could identify with. Let me know what you think when you finish it.

I like your list. I've heard great things about the Joel Osteen book and the Rick Warren book.

I read that book on your recommendation and was very, very pleased.
My Dad grew up not too far from that scenario honestly, rooting for the Cardinals because they were the only team that came on the radio and all.

Grisham is an extremely talented writer whose best 2 books have nothing to do with his mega-hit law novels turned movies.

Bleachers was wonderful as well.

I've read most of the books on these lists and I haven't seen one on here yet I didn't like.

 

[Khartun]

Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series....

Anne McCaffrey's Pern Series....

R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden books....

Dean R Koontz early works....

Those Jordan books are very good.

It amazes me that Salvatore who is at best a mediocre writer created one of the best characters of all time in a dark elf ranger. Shows what being a D&D nerd can do for you.

Now you got my curiosity up. I'm gonna have to get the Salvatore books.

Peirs Anthony and Barbara Hambly are good authors as well.