Best Books Ever...

S

Shawna Clingerman

New member
Ok, so I'm padding my "to read" list and I just really don't want to miss anything super awesome! No pressure LOL!! You don't have to pick like the one single best book of all time, but more like, what are a few of your all time favorites??

I'll have to work on my list now, but one of the books that will always be on my favorite book list as my number one book (since highschool) is Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver -- I have pretty much always read all of her books right as they come out, but Animal Dreams is the book from her that I adore the most, and I feel like it is 100 million times better than the most recent book from her (sorry bk!)

A few other absolute favorites:
Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
The Secret Life of Bees and the Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Jewel by Bret Lott
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
oh and The Help - so so good!

Add to that pretty much anything by Amy Tan and Barbara Kingsolver


I've also LOVED the divergent series (one to go!) and the Hunger Games books although mostly the non games parts LOL, and I totally got sucked in by the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series a bit ago too...

What about you, what are your BEST BEST reads???
 
Favorite books of all time...

Anything by Sharon Kay Penman
The Stand by Stephen King
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Harry Potter - obviously...I always feel like including HP on lists like this is just silly b/c it is so far and beyond everything else lol
A Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martin
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
North and South Trilogy by John Jakes
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Calico Palace by Gwen Bristow
Anne of Green Gables Series by L.M. Montgomery
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Anything by Anya Seton
Anything by Jean Plaidy
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks


Recent loves...
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - (I freaking loved this book...listen to the audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton if you can..it's awesome)
Anything by Rainbow Rowell
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer - this book was AMAZING
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent - another of my top reads this year
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - this is a graphic novel but SO incredible
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - middle grade but probably my fave Gaiman so far
Between Shades of Gray Ruta Septeys - Young Adult set during WWII
Daughter of Smoke and Bone Series by Laini Taylor
The Diviners by Libba Bray
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer - this book is a delight
The Gollum and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Anything by Kate Morton
Wool Series by Hugh Howey
Anything by Susanna Kearsley
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Masters of Rome Series by Colleen McCullough
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Hangman's Tale Series by Oliver Pötzsch
Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
 
Ok a few of my faves (warning... I like a lot of fluffy easy reading. Nothing that makes my brain work too hard. I have enough of that in real life. LOL)

11/22/63 by Stephen King
Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Timebound by Rysa Walker
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I also read the Texas, Vegas, and Kentucky series by Fern Michaels many many years ago. It's actually 3 different trilogies (actually Texas might be 4 books), but they all tie together. It's just like reading a soap opera. LOL

And of course I have to add Hunger Games & Harry Potter to my list.

I know there are so many more that I loved, but I'm totally drawing a blank right now.
 
This is my Top Ten list in no particular order:

1. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
3. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
4. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
5. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
6. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
7. Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer
8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
9. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Roots by Alex Haley used to be on my list, but I had to give it the boot when I read The Book Thief. I wouldn't call most of these books "easy reads," but they are all really good.

I recently really enjoyed Okay for Now by Gary D Schmidt and The Poisonwood Bible.
 
I love a lot of the books already listed. A very recent addition to my all-time favorites (and I don't add them often!) is the Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I also loved her The Secret History.

Some others on my list:
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (this is probably my single favorite book of all time -- if I had to recommend one, it would be this one)
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Poisonwood Bible (you've probably already read this one if you like Barbara Kingsolver)
 
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