I keep thinking of books I've left out. Those listed by Mark Twain, Rex Stout, Patrick O'Brian, and a few others, just represent the body of their works, as it's hard to pick a favorite. Most of these, I've read more than once--the asterisks indicate the ones I've read the most times.
Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury
Ahab's Wife, by Sena Jeter Naslund
All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
*The Black Cauldron, by Lloyd Alexander
The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Call for the Dead, by John Le Carre
*China Court, by Rumer Godden
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain
Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton
*David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
*The Dead Zone, by Stephen King
A Distant Trumpet, by Paul Horgan
The Dollmaker, by Harriette Arnow
Dreadful Hollow, by Irina Karlova
*The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter
Fer de Lance, by Rex Stout
The Goblin Reservation, by Clifford D. Simak
*Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Green Mansions, by W.H. Hudson
The Harvester, by Gene Stratton Porter
*The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Once and Future King, by T.H. White
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Pathfinder, by James Fenimore Cooper
Peachtree Road, by Anne Rivers Siddons
Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Quo Vadis, by Henri Sienkiewicz
*Random Harvest, by James Hilton
*The Razor's Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham
*Rebecca, by Daphne duMaurier
The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy
The Shining, by Stephen King
The Sign of the Ram, by Margaret Ferguson
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski
Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, by Ramey Channell
*A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas pere
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
True Grit, by Charles Portis
Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
*Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Youngblood Hawk, by Herman Wouk (resembles the life of Honore de Balzac)
(Add on Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Buffalo Girls by Larry McMurtry.)
Thursday, January 13, 2011
50 Or So Favorite Novels
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8 comments:
Wow, you have them in alphabetical order! Thanks for mentioning Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge. (It's my favorite!)
Mine, too!
In your list, my other favorites are:
The Black Cauldron
Connecticut Yankee
The Dead Zone
Once and Future King
Way Station
Wrinkle in Time
Many of the others would be in my top 50, too. But not Peachtree Road. I hated that book!
Others I would include are:
The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle
The Fortune of War, Patrick O'Brian
A Stillness at Appomatox, Bruce Catton (I know it's not a novel ... but the story, writing, and characters are all better here than in almost all novels, so I'm claiming it. This is an example of self-control - there are 7 other books by Catton that I love more than almost any novel.)
Polar Star, Martin Cruz Smith
The Chronicals of Amber, Roger Zelazny
Citizen of the Galaxy, Robert Heinlein
The Black Mountain, Rex Stout
War Story, Derek Robinson
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Fortune Made His Sword, Martha Roffheart
War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
All of the above re-read many times. I could add many others by Catton and O'Brian. Smith has written 1-2 others that could chart. Ditto for Niven / Pournelle. Zelazny wrote many good books, but nothing that ranks with Amber. Ditto for Card. I stole your copy of Fortune Made His Sword, but I'll loan it back to you if you insist!
War of the Worlds is a great book, but it's hard to really love anything by H.G. Wells. His people are so bloodless. But at the end of this book, one of his characters has an actual human emotion. It's so out of character (for Wells), and so unexpected, that it makes me cry every time.
I think I still like Gorky Park best of Martin Cruz Smith's books. The Fortunes of War is one of O'Brian's best, I think. Originally I had about 8 Rex Stouts on the list but had to drop some. The Black Mountain is probably his best.
Thanks, guys, for reading the list.
Had forgot about Youngblood Hawk. I'd like to read that again.
I forgot about Inferno by Niven and Pournelle. One of my favorites.
Jed: Peachtree Road was like The Dollmaker, in that I hated everything about it, including most of the characters, but thought it was a great book. Siddons should have stopped after writing PR. I felt almost as sorry for the girl who shot herself (in PR) as I did for the little girl in Dollmaker.
Hmmm. I like Peachtree Road and The Dollmaker, and I cried copious amounts while reading each one of them.
I did, too, Suze. They're just too tragic to read over-and-over. I even cried once or twice reading "Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge."
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