Top 10 fiction books of all time

[hopefuldreamer]

I've recently had a real block on reading.

When I was a teenager, I was reading A LOT. I used to get 16 books a week out of the library and finish them all.

But the last 4 years, I really struggle to finish a book (i'm too addicted to the internet, and get so easily distracted )

My new year's resolution is going to be to read 50 books next year. But I've been out of touch so long, I have NO IDEA what I should read.

So I thought it might be helpful if everyone could tell me their top 10 fiction books of all time, and I will just work my way through all of them

I'll start off with my top ten so far (and hopefully it will have changed a lot by this time next year):

1. John Marsden - The Tomorrow Series
2. Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
3. Terry Brooks - The Jerle Shannara Trilogy
4. Paulo Coelho - Veronika decides to die
5. J K Rowling - The Harry Potter Series
6. Patrick Suskind - Perfume
7. Linda LaPlante - The Red Dahlia
8. Dean Koontz - Fear Nothing
9. C.S. Lewis - The Magician's Nephew
10. Lian Hern - Across the Nightingale Floor

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Yikes! That is an awfully big question.
Here goes:

John Kennedy Toole-A Confederacy Of Dunces

Charles Bukowski-Ham On Rye

Herman Hesse-Steppenwolf

Joseph Conrad-The Secret Agent

George Orwell-1984

Douglas Coupland-Generation X

Kurt Vonnegut-Breakfast Of Champions

Shirley Jackson-The Haunting Of Hill House

Luke Rhinehart-The Dice Man

Arthur Conan Doyle- The Sherlock Holmes Stories

 

[childeroland]

Assuming you just mean novels/short stories--prose, basically, and personal favorites:

1) Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
2) Pride and Prejudice
3) Lolita
4) The Narnia books
5) Little, Big
6) The NeverEnding Story
7) The Aegypt series
8) The Sound and the Fury
9) Ulysses
10) (tied) Bleak House / Oliver Twist / The Secret Garden

 

[flickchick85]

I haven't done a lot of reading in the past few years, so a lot of these are favorites from my school days, but...

1.) George Orwell - 1984
2.) Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the series in general, but mainly the first 2)
3.) Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
4.) JK Rowling - Harry Potter series
5.) Jane Austen - Emma
6.) Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
7.) George R.R. Martin - A Song of Ice & Fire series
8.) Cormac McCarthy - The Road
9.) Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons - Watchmen (TIME Magazine counts it as a regular ol' novel, so I will too)
10.) William Goldman - The Princess Bride

 

[Tonicky]

1 Alice In wonderland/Though the looking glass
2 I am not a serial Killer
3 Treasure Island
4 Lord of the Rings
5 Harry Potter
6 the Hobbit
7 The strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde
8 Abraham Lincoln Vampire hunter
9 Dracula
10 The Godfather (it was a book 1st)
Those are a few of my favorite can't say best of all time haven't read every book yet.

 

[jonathancrane]

1. Anything by E.A. Poe
2. The Great Gatsby
3. Salem's Lot
4. Lord of the Rings
5. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
6. While I love the Harry Potter series, The Prisoner of Azkaban will remain my favorite.
7. The Code of the Woosters
8. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Canon
9. The Pale Blue Eye
10. The City on the Edge of Forever (Ellison's Original Screenplay)

 

[Rocketman]

It's impossible for me to put these in order, but these are probably my favorite pieces of fiction ever.

1. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
2. Misery - Stephen King
3. The Ruins - Scott Smith
4. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
5. Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
7. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
8. Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
9. Blankets - Craig Thompson
10. Y: The Last Man (Complete Series) - Brian K. Vaughan
11. The Walking Dead (Ongoing Series) - Robert Kirkman

 

[Pink Ranger]

1. Dune by Frank Herbert
2. The Corrections by John Franzen
3. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
4. Beloved by Toni Morrison
5. Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
8. I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier
9. Fall On Your Knees by Anne Marie McDonald
10. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

 

[Watchman]

I don't think I have a concrete list but here's ten I love:

1. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
2. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
3. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
4. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
5. A Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
7. 1984 by George Orwell
8. VALIS by Philip K. Dick
9. The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien
10. City of Glass by Paul Auster

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

I can't put these in any order, but here are the ten best ones I can recall reading...

Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
Hollywood - Charles Bukowski
Factotum - Charles Bukowski
Chump Change - Dan Fante
Spitting off tall buildings - Dan Fante
Plexus, Nexus and Sexus - Henry Miller(these are 3 novels, but one continuous narrative like lotr)
Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller
The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart(the sequel 'In search of the Dice man' is terrible though)
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

 

[thedarkpoet]

1. Dune, by Frank Herbert (And the ensuing novels)
2. Frankenstien, by Mary Shelley
3. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
4. Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
5. Brave New World, by Adlous Huxley
6. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. Hamlet, by Shakespeare
8. Complete Tales and Poems, by E.A Poe
9. Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
10. Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff

 

[redmarvel]

I can't do it by book, that's too tough.

I'll do it by Author, in no particular order:

Douglas Adams
Robert Asprin
Anne McCaffrey
Spider Robinson
Agatha Christie
Mary Higgins Clark
Farley Mowat
C.S. Lewis
Isaac Asimov
oh no, I've hit 10... umm... eenie meenie miney... Rex Stout

oh, and that list... well it'll change as soon as I fall asleep and realize I've forgotten someone...

 

[jonathancrane]

In no particular order:
1. 'Salem's Lot
2. The City on the Edge of Forever
3. Batman: The Long Halloween
4. All Things Tolkien
5. Doyle Sherlock Holmes Canon
6. The Great Gatsby
7.Writings of Hunter Thompson
8. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
9. IT
10. American Gods

 

[Valvalkyrie]

Can't confirm these are my "top" 10 but they are some favorites

1. The Phantom Tollbooth
2. Tail of Two Cities
3. The Hobbit + LOTR
4. Poetry by E. E. Cummings
5. Redwall Series (I know I know)
6. Frank Miller's Watchmen and Dark Knight returns
7. Anything by Jules Verne
8. The Scarlet Pimpernel
9. The BONE comic series
10. C. S. Lewis Space Trilogy

 

[Mr.Webs]

Wow. A broad question, but here goes nothing. Obviously in no order.

1. Lamb by Christopher Moore
2. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchet
3. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
5. Animal Farm by George Orwell
6. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
7. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
8. War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells
9. World War Z by Max Brooks
10. On The Road by Jack Kerouac

 

[JewishHobbit]

In order from my favorite (Hobbit) on down. This is as close as I could get it.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (about the most epic novel I've ever read... it's like the Bible with elves)
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The Shack by WM. Paul Young (The only book that's ever made me cry)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Left Behind series (original 12 novels) by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (Read it as a faith builder or as thriller, wondering who will survive Armageddon)
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry (It's like Sherlock Holmes meets Inception)
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott


Something that wouldn't make my top 10 but that I think is worth a mention is Myst: The Book of Ti'ana by Rand Miller and David Wingrove. Technically it's book 2 of a 3 part series but it stands alone and was scores better than the first book. I never got around to reading book 3 but I thought this one was great (though slow to get started). There's talks of turning it into a movie and I'd like to see it. It's based off the video game series of Myst.

 

[Secret Fawful]

1.) The Count of Monte Cristo
2.) The Brothers Karamazov
3.) The Hobbit
4.) At the Mountains of Madness
5.) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
6.) The Maltese Falcon
7.) Journey to the Center of the Earth
8.) 2001: A Space Odyssey
9.) To Kill a Mockingbird
10.) House of Leaves

 

[bored]

"Stranger in a Strange Land"- Robert A. Heinlein
"Brave New World"- Aldous Huxley
"Mutiny on the Bounty"- Nordhoff and Hall
"American Gods"- Neil Gaiman
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"- Heinlein
"The Fountains of Paradise"- Arthur C. Clarke
"Neverwhere"- Gaiman
"The Dark Tower series"- Stephen King
"The Stand"- King
"Hawaii"- James A. Michener

 

[Ponyboy]

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (about the most epic novel I've ever read... it's like the Bible with elves)

yep. It's my favourite book. I read it about 5 times a year.

 

[JewishHobbit]

yep. It's my favourite book. I read it about 5 times a year.

You're good people. I've read it about 3 or 4 times over the past 15 years and I love it equally every time. I also like the newer novel, Children of Hurin, which is one of the stories inside to more detail. I've always felt that when they finish the Hobbit flim the Silmarillion could be made into a trilogy as well. The initial stuff through the Ungoliant/Morgoth attack being the first film, the second film would be about Feanor and some of the stuff in there until his story finishes, and then the last film following his sons through the end of the story. They'd have to take out some stuff but it'd work. I'd go into more detail about it but I don't want to spoil anything for hopefulsuicide if she decideds to give it a read. Or just pick certain stories out of it, like Beren and Luthien... which has always been my favorite plot in the book. Good stuff.

 

[JewishHobbit]

"Neverwhere"- Neil Gaiman

That was number 11 on my list

 

[Lord]

You're good people. I've read it about 3 or 4 times over the past 15 years and I love it equally every time. I also like the newer novel, Children of Hurin, which is one of the stories inside to more detail. I've always felt that when they finish the Hobbit flim the Silmarillion could be made into a trilogy as well. The initial stuff through the Ungoliant/Morgoth attack being the first film, the second film would be about Feanor and some of the stuff in there until his story finishes, and then the last film following his sons through the end of the story. They'd have to take out some stuff but it'd work. I'd go into more detail about it but I don't want to spoil anything for hopefulsuicide if she decideds to give it a read. Or just pick certain stories out of it, like Beren and Luthien... which has always been my favorite plot in the book. Good stuff.

I didn't read much yet but i also think they could adapt some parts to movies, however most in the children of hurin thread seemed to dislike the book and the idea of it being turned into a movie

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

10. On The Road by Jack Kerouac

I might have put this on my list if I'd remembered it. I never read any of his other books, but I did get Neal Cassidy's unfinished novel 'The First Third', which is actually very good indeed, telling the real life story of growing up on skid row with his alcoholic father. It comes in an edition that has a compilation of other writings up the back of the book, letters to Jack, and writings on other incidents that happened in his life.
I also read 'Off the Road', the memoir written by Cassidy's wife, Carolyn, which details her marriage to Neal and their friendship with Jack, who lived with them for a period.
and of course, you probably already read it, but Neal plays a major role in Tom Wolfe's 'The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test', which is a hoot of a read.
You can basically read 'The First Third', 'On the Road', 'Off the Road' and 'Acid Test' as a series chronicling Cassidy's life.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I didn't read much yet but i also think they could adapt some parts to movies, however most in the children of hurin thread seemed to dislike the book and the idea of it being turned into a movie

I liked the book but it's better as a part of the larger plot. As a movie by itself I don't think Hurin would be great, but a part of the Silmarillion it could be interesting. Then again, it could easily be one of the plots dropped for the larger scale plot of Feanor and his sons.

 

[Dr.]

According to a survey reported by Time magazine in 2007, the top 10 (fiction) books of all time are:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

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