book lists

[alcazar (former member)]

"Favored Book Lists" aren't my speciality either (Law School basically killed reading fiction for me) but I guess the most influensive works have been (on top of my head):

- The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (no real suprise here)
- the Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis (esp. Boy and Horse)
- the Captain Cobbwebb-series
- The World According to Garp by John Irving
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Death by Government by R.J. Rummel (reccommended to all)
- Rechters: Opkomst van de zwarte macht ("Judges: rise of the black power") (Dutch; a collection of interviews from the early nineties about activist-judges in the Dutch legal system)

Those above are books I have read years ago that have really 'molded' me, in retrospect.

More recent works I thought were pretty good are:
- De Ambtenarenplaag ("The pox of civil servants") (Dutch)
- Eco Nostra by Peter Siebelt (Dutch; about the leftist radical scene over here)
- Sacred Causes by Michael Burleigh

The above lists are bound to be incomplete but these are the works I can think of right off the bat.

[geekgirl (former member)]

Some of the very best guilty pleasure books:

Almost anything by Charles Bukowski (but definitely "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town") - if you can stand sick and mildly twisted thinking

Kalil Ghibran - The Prophet

Any Anne Rice

A.N. Roquelaire (same person, totally different type of book)

Clive Barker

Steven King (not as much my fave but still good)

Ernest Hemingway (especially The Old Man and the Sea or For Whom the BEll Tolls)

And I Don't Want to Live this Life - Deborah Spungen (about her daughter)

No One Here Gets Out Alive - Hopkins and Sugerman

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in 72' Or just Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

Will You Die for me? - Tex Watson

Ordeal - Linda Lovelace

[qchris]

Books
If Chihns Could Kill by Bruce Campbell,
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride's,
NLP for lazy learners

[lcarter83]

Right now I'm in the middle of a personal classic...Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. I've read everything by Richard Wright. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Sort stories by Charles Chesnut and D.H Lawrence. There's a great book of ghost stories called Black Water collected by Alberto Manguel. Times Arrow by Martin Amis. Things Fall Apart. Every thing by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Franz Kafka.

[ladychatterly (former member)]

It's hard to recommend books without knowing to whom your recommending them, but, here's an incomplete list:

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for anyone who's ever been made to feel like some sort of museum piece on account of their faith.

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger for anyone toying with the idea of locking themselves in their closet with just enough granola bars and good books to last them 'til the (hopefully soon) Reckoning.

The poetry of E.E. c*m.ings for anyone who wants to know whether or not they are really in love. (Edit: Sorry for the goofy auto-censor. That's C-u-m-m-i-n-g-s, and I don't think it was a dirty word when he published during the first half of the twentieth century. At least I hope, for his sake, not. Though he mightn't have cared.)

D.H. Lawrence for all the anachronists and neo-luddites.

Bukowski for the iron-stomached and golden-hearted.

[doesitmatter]

Scott Westerfeld
Rachel Cohn
David Levithan
Ellen Hopkins
I like Blood and Chocolate, the movie sucks btw.
The Complete Persepolis
Spin--I haven't read the second book but I have to, I heard about a possible movie for it though, sweet.

[swtjujube (former member)]

`These are the first book in each series and I really enjoyed reading them.

"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" by J. K. Rowling ( Harry Potter )

"Guilty Pleasures" by Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter/Necromancer, kick *ss female)

"Destiny" by Alex Archer (Rogue Angel series, mystical sword, Archeologist, kick *ss female)

"Dead witch walking" by Kim Harrison ( The Hollows/Rachel Morgan series, witches, vampires, elves, demons, kick *ss female )

"Sandry's Book" by Tamora Pierce ( Circle of Magic series, magic, natural disasters, pirates, murderers, plague, adventure)

"Moon Called" by Patricia Briggs ( Mercy Thompson series, walker, werewolves, vampire, mystery, action-adventure, kick *ss female )

"Bitten" by Kelley Armstrong ( Women of the Otherworld series, werewolves, witches, demons, necromancer)

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams (sci fi, comedy, space travel)

"The Fellowship of the Ring" by J. R. R. Tolkien ( Lord of the Rings trilogy)

"The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas ( action, adventure, sword fighting, historical fiction)

[ataivaskathryn]

`Young Wizards series by Diane Duane is my favorite. I also like The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix and His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.

[daistock]

`the death gate cycle by weis and hickman
diablo sin war trilogy by knaak
the dragonlance chronicles and legends trilogies by weis and hickman
the dark elf trilogy by r.a. salvatore
the belgariad by eddings