Can you pick one favourite book?

Swiper the fox

I wonder, is there any chance we could have a thread without honourable mentions to three or four other books, who can pick a current favourite and leave it at that? Of course we will discuss/agree with/ridicule:o certain choices.
I am going to go for 'On Chesil Beach' by Ian McEwan, nice and short, beautifully written and a closing chapter that will stay with me forever.
I could change my mind but that is what I would say now.

echo beach

That is like asking a parent to choose their favourite child and most of us have only a few children but hundreds of books.

Severard

In the last five years or so I have picked up the pace at which I read a book quite a lot, from fantasy to sci-fi and from alternate history to actual events but one book that has always been at the forefront for me if I had to pick one would be The Forever War by Joe Haldemen. At 256 pages it's fairly short, so one could complete it in a week easily.

What really stood out for me was -

The concept of returning home after a stint at war to an Earth that one doesn't recognise was profound. The use of interstellar travel means that the main character has less and less of a connection with humanity, as society charges rapidly each time he returns from war.

The only thing he then can relate with is war, even though he has such a disliking for it. At one point the main character is almost completely isolated from humanity including culturally (almost everyone else speaks English differently than he does) and sexually (At one point, almost everyone else is homosexual). Both points of which his subordinates now loathe him for as they have to learn 21st century English & accept someone who is heterosexual.

And the sense of hopelessness and pointlessness of the war in general that the character felt towards the end of the book, it really was immersive.

If you can wrap your head around the concepts of time dilation and special relativity then it really is a great read.

Queenalocin

This one - And Ladies of the Club published in 1982, the characters were so far ahead of their time, it's the one book I always go back to.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22...And_Ladies_of_the_Club%22

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

Trainspotting

buck65

Eyrie by Tim Winton was my favourite read this year.

confusticated

I think The Book Thief has stuck with me and made more of an impact on me than any other book I've read.

Andrew Laeddis

The Outsider - Albert Camus

Every single time.........

buck65

Andrew Laeddis wrote: »

The Outsider - Albert Camus

Every single time.........

Great book, need to re-read

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

buck65 wrote: »

Eyrie by Tim Winton was my favourite read this year.

I was all set to say Great Expectations, without doubt, and then I remembered Tim Winton.... Breath, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music.... how can I pick just one?!?!

Seriously though... I'd say Great Expectations. I've read it 3 times and loved it every time. Most other books, even ones I love, I've only ever read once.

Dirty Dingus McGee

All the Pretty Horses for me.

It's such a sad story and it's beautifully written as well.The sense of hope youth,expectation and freedom from the start of the book being taken away is devastating.

I'm quite a slow reader and it would usually take me at least 3 weeks to read a book of that length but I started reading it and couldn't put it down it took me only a couple of days to read and I got completely wrapped up in the story and the characters that my own mood shifted in line with the characters experiences (to a much greater degree than with other books I've read).

It's quite simply a masterpiece and a book I believe that anyone could enjoy.

skippy15

A star called Henry, by Roddy Doyle
only book iv'e ever re read. There are follow ups that progress the story nicely but Henry got me hooked on reading again

Melko

Silmarillion by Tolkien

Wailin

Chickenhawk-Bob Mason.
Went through a period of reading Vietnam books many years ago and this one blew me away.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63699.Chickenhawk

Coffee Run

Trainspotting

Arghus

I don't think I could conclusively say one single book is my absolute favourite. At different times of my life I've felt extremely attached to particular books, some of which have kept a place in my heart that no book I've read in the last couple of years can ever really hope to take.

Examples - The Phantom Tollbooth
Catch 22
Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man
All The Pretty Horses
Against The Day
1984

Uncle Ben

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. I like the classics.

huey1975

American Tabloid

Arghus

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

All the Pretty Horses for me.

It's such a sad story and it's beautifully written as well.The sense of hope youth,expectation and freedom from the start of the book being taken away is devastating.

I'm quite a slow reader and it would usually take me at least 3 weeks to read a book of that length but I started reading it and couldn't put it down it took me only a couple of days to read and I got completely wrapped up in the story and the characters that my own mood shifted in line with the characters experiences (to a much greater degree than with other books I've read).

It's quite simply a masterpiece and a book I believe that anyone could enjoy.

I remember reading it and thinking that Cormac McCarthy was the one contemporary author that I could imagine people still reading a hundred years from now. Every action in the book- changing a tire, drinking coffee - seems poetic and meaningful, and not in a way that ever feels pat or tiresome. There is this sense of a deep wisdom about life that runs through every page in that novel. I think it was Roger Ebert who wrote something along those lines, when he was expressing his scepticism about adapting The Road for film. He said that McCarthy was, in a sense, unadaptable because it wasn't so much about what he wrote about, it was about how he wrote about it .

oliviablond

Fighting Club

Brindor

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

bpmurray

It changes over time for me and, I suspect many more. Currently, it's The Martian - while the movie got the essence of the story, the crucial details and inventiveness of the protagonist were not really addressed.

eviltwin

The passage by Justin Cronin

marienbad

HHhH- Laurent Binet . An extraordinary book around the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich .

sadie06

The book that stayed with me for the longest and still does to this day is The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Paddy Samurai

Depends on the circumstances........

If I was on a desert island with only one book I would pick The Religion by Tim Willocks as the one book I could read multiple times.

If I was told I had a week to live I would read Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem again.

catbear

Treasure Island. I've read it three or four times, it's just such a good yarn and a short read too. I always feel adventurous after it.

Of Human Bondage stayed with me for a long time after even though its not a book I'd embark on again.

My dessert island book would have to be "How to build a raft".

Paddy Samurai

Cancelled,LOL Forgot I had already posted.

PressRun

Middlemarch by George Eliot is a masterpiece. From political, historical and social perspectives, her attention to detail in this novel is just astounding. The novel's various plot threads are very carefully woven and there's just layer upon layer, with something new to be found with every reading. Eliot was an intellectual powerhouse who was so thoroughly informed about the society she lived in and completely sympathetic to human frailties. She has very few equals in English literature, to be honest.

LionelNashe

sadie06 wrote: »

The book that stayed with me for the longest and still does to this day is The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

I've just started that one. I'm liking it so far.

I read No Country for Old Men a while back; thought it was pretty good. The language is very to the point, almost like stage directions. The book had about ten first-person monologue chapters by the sheriff (who I can't help but picture as Tommy Lee Jones) which were quite interesting as well.

deisedude

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien