your favourite novel

[Wormdundee]

Ah, someone stole Ender's Game from me. Although, since Dascoo didn't describe it, I get the joy.

Basically, Earth has already been invaded twice by these insectlike aliens. So now they're taking all the most brilliant children they can find and bringing them to Battle School to train them to be commanders in preparation for a third invasion. There's a whole bunch of twists in it, and it's fucking great. I think I actually liked Ender's Shadow even more than the original one. It's the same story, just from the perspective of a different person.

[Outcast]

Gonna have to read Ender's Game...I've been seeing lots of people mention not only here but on others forums also.

I've been going through the Foundation series lately, and I have to say Isaac Asimov is becoming my favourite writer really fast.
The foundation series is set well into the future where the whole galaxy is populated by humans and called the Galactic Empire. A scientist Hari Seldon has foreseen the fall of the Empire as it was in the later stages of decay and developed psychohistory to help humanity form another empire in 1 millenia after the fall instead of 30,000 years of chaos. Psychohistory uses the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (equal to the population of the galaxy which has a population of around a quadrillion).
The series guides you through about 500 years of progress full of twists and turns.

A childhood favourite of mine would have to be the Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, a great book set during the american civil war, where a group of random people steal a baloon to escape imprisonment and end up on an uncharted island on the pacific where they make a life for themselves, yet there's a lot of strange things going on....

[ds dude]

The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe.


It's awesome.

[Demonic]

I would just like to point out that besides like 4 people nobody bothered to actually write anything informative about their favourite novels. Some of them being moderators.

Go you, you illiterate schmucks. ¬_¬

[ds dude]

What is there to know about The Black Cat?

It's about Edgar Allen Poe (alter ego) who hates his cat, and he takes his pocket pen knife and stabs the cat's eye out.  Then he murders his wife with an axe.

>.>

[PANZERCATWAGON]

I've been going through the Foundation series lately, and I have to say Isaac Asimov is becoming my favourite writer really fast.
The foundation series is set well into the future where the whole galaxy is populated by humans and called the Galactic Empire. A scientist Hari Seldon has foreseen the fall of the Empire as it was in the later stages of decay and developed psychohistory to help humanity form another empire in 1 millenia after the fall instead of 30,000 years of chaos. Psychohistory uses the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (equal to the population of the galaxy which has a population of around a quadrillion).
The series guides you through about 500 years of progress full of twists and turns.

i forgot to mention this. the foundation series is also a favourite of mine also along with his robot stories.

[iDante]

I only seriously like 3 books, all of them having to do with psychological messes. I also don't really like new books (things after 1980 or so), they all feel so tacky and, "modern."

Catch 22 - Previously mentioned. The plot is based around a dude that flies planes for the air force in some war (I read this several years ago...), and he is faced with a situation: The only way to get out of the air force is if you are insane, and trying to get out proves your sanity. The style of writing is full of logical mishaps that are seemingly overlooked by the main characters.

Crime and Punishment - A long one but awesome. About some dude in Russia that decides to kill an old lady he doesn't like, because it benefits society. He goes through huge chapters in the book very thoroughly explaining the inner workings of society's "heroes"--AKA people who can be above the law in order to help the world.

Lolita - About a pedophile 'nuff said. But seriously you end up actually agreeing with the main dude at points and then you remember he's a pedophile and wow. I got a lot of strange looks while reading this on the bus from my day camps in the city to home last summer.

Ender's Game/Shadow get props for being interesting, but they were far too easily predicted, and I actually thought that the sequels were better. W/e.

[Outcast]

You probably got those looks just for reading a book, which is unthinkable for most people these days. They don't know what they're missing really.

[Smegma]

Any description of my novel would have ruined it. I believe "the shit" is somewhat apt in a description.

[Achi]

Digital Fortress - Dan Brown
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Iliad - Homer
1984 - George Orwell
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Those are just some awesome ones that come to mind. My favorite would have to be The Iliad. I'm just a fan of history like that. It's basically an old Greek book based on the Trojan War. I think the movie Troy was based off this book as well. It's hard to read if you're not used to the writing, but if you have no problem reading it, it's amazing.

[SadistAtHeart]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
1984 - George Orwell
Awakening the Buddha Within - Lama Surya Das

Nice timing, posting this thread around the same time that I found myself getting back into reading. I'm going to start reading A Roadside Picnic by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky. It's supposedly the inspiration to the film Stalker, one of my all-time favorites.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis.  It's profound and well written; I don't think I'll ever get tired of reading and rereading it.

I would just like to point out that besides like 4 people nobody bothered to actually write anything informative about their favourite novels. Some of them being moderators.

Alrighty, I'll elaborate, just for you.

Perelandra is essentially a retelling of the original temptation of Eve in Genesis, with a couple of things shifted around.  The setting is Venus, which is a "new," unfallen planet.  The main character has been taken there supernaturally, and it's his job to prevent the two inhabitants from falling into temptation.  It really makes you think about a lot of things (most notably, whether there was more to our Genesis story, where Eve is all "A snake wants me to eat this fruit.  K.")

The book is the second part of a trilogy, but I find it to be the most enjoyable of the three to read.

[Splinter-Snake]

House of Leaves- Mark Z. Danielewski

Raw Shark Texts- Stephen Hall

Only Revolutions- Mark Z. Danielewski

Basically, nothing will ever top House of Leaves. The answer to life's purpose is within this book. God rests within this book. The entire world is inside of this book. A house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside. "Picture that, in your dreams."

[jettlarue]

The Room by Hubert Selby Jr.

The darkest and most haunting book I have ever read, also one of the best written. It is one of the most deep and best portrayal of loneliness, solitude, and apathy. Although normally most readers find this a bit daunting, this is an exception to all rules and will leave you motionless. Yes.

[JayBee]

    - Charles Bukowski: Ham on Rye, Post Office, ...
    - Jack Kerouac: Lonesome Traveler, The Dharma Bums, On the Road
    - J D Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye, his short stories
    - Henry David Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience
    - Albert Camus: The Stranger, The Plague, The Fall, The Myth of Sisyphus
    - J P Sartre: Nausea
    - Walker Percy: The Moviegoer
    - Saul Bellow: Seize the Day, Dangling Man
    - Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho
    - James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    - Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
    - Aldous Huxley: The Doors of Perception, Heaven and Hell, Brave New World
    - George Orwell: 1984, Down and Out in Paris and London
    - Henry Miller: Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Black Spring
    - Knut Hamsun: Hunger
    - Louis-Ferdinand Céline: Journey to the End of the Night, Death on the Installment Plan
    - John Fante: Ask the Dust
    - Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment
    - Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim
    - Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi)
    - Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf, Siddhartha
    - Henri Barbusse: Hell
    - Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke
    - Pierre Bayard: How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read (indispensable for the student of literature ^_^)

    Recently finished: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig), One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Kesey), The Trial (Kafka), A Working Stiff's Manifesto: A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember

    Reading: The Man Without Qualities (Musil) (yes, I actually plan on finishing this... someday...), Dispatches (Herr), Trainspotting (Welsh), Gravity's Rainbow (Pynchon) (uuugh, reads like an acid trip, but minus the excitement)

    To read: everything mentioned in The Outsider by Colin Wilson, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Losers Club; more Percy, Hesse and Barbusse.




^ copypaste from my fecesbook page (I was forced to join...)
too lazy to write what they're about

[SadistAtHeart]

Gravity's Rainbow (Pynchon) (uuugh, reads like an acid trip, but minus the excitement)

I was recommended this. Is it good?

[tehsnipah]

Although I am not any of those mythical freaks, Darren Shan's books are my favorites.

[JayBee]

Gravity's Rainbow (Pynchon) (uuugh, reads like an acid trip, but minus the excitement)

I was recommended this. Is it good?

It's one of the very few books I did not finish. I'm doing a Master's degree in English, and one of my courses this semester was on Gravity's Rainbow. (Actually, the course was entitled "The American Historical Novel after 1950", but I'd say a good 75% percent of it was on G's R). I was actually looking forward to reading it, because the novel's themes interest me. But Pynchon's writing is just so unnecessarily convoluted... Sentences sometimes run over 50 lines, you have to remember hundreds of characters, and - even if you have a sound general knowledge -  you'll have to check an encyclopedia regularly if you don't want to feel completely lost amidst countless obscure references. We had three guest lectures on the book. Two were by critics who basically contradicted each other on every point, which just shows nobody can make heads or tails of what the f**k Pynchon's saying. (I bet the guy reads the academic criticism on him once a year and has a good laugh over it). The last lecture was one of the most interesting hours I've spent at university, because we just ended up talking about the general themes of the book.

I found the novel to be completely unreadable. Some say that if you say that, you don't get the novel since its style reflects its content. Yeah, I get that, but I just don't want to be reminded of that for 600 pages...
If you do decide to read it, be prepared to invest a lot of time and effort in it... 

[Outcast]

I do recommend Do androids dream of electric sheep? by Phillip K Dick also, thanks to JB for reminding me of it.

[Demonic]

Just read that. Am downloading Blade Runner. I'm hard to please when it comes to literature, but K. Dick just pillow talked me and rammed me until sunrise. The guy definitely knew his shit, I agree with those that say that he will be among those you'll learn about in high school within fifty years, so if you're one of the sad motherfuckers who haven't read anything from him yet, GET IN THERE.