Top 5 Books Of All Time

[FileyBulldog]

My top 5 books of all time

 

1- Savage by Richard Laymon

2- Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck

3- IT by Stephen King

4- Watchmen by Alan Moore

5- Fluke by James Herbert

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1. The Kingsbridge series by Ken Follett 

2. The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell

3. The Aubrey and Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien

4. The James Bond series by Ian Fleming

5. The Century Trilogy by Ken Follett

[Dunbar]

1. Catch-22

2. Birdsong

3. His Dark Materials trilogy *

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy

5. Nineteen Eighty-Four

* I am not really the target demographic for these books and I wasn't when I first read them but they are very good and very influential.

[EagleEyePie]

A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)

The Harry Bosch Series (Michael Connolly)

The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

11/22/63 (Stephen King)

Helter Skelter (Curt Gentry & Vincent Bugliosi) - Probably the best true crime book ever written. VB was the prosecutor in the Charles Manson trial

Edited November 15, 2023 by EagleEyePie

[FileyBulldog]

28 minutes ago, EagleEyePie said:

A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)

The Harry Bosch Series (Michael Connolly)

The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

11/22/63 (Stephen King)

Helter Skelter (Curt Gentry & Vincent Bugliosi) - Probably the best true crime book ever written. VB was the prosecutor in the Charles Manson trial

11/22/63 great book

[The Masked Poster]

Rogue Male - Geoffrey Household

Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes

A few more.....

 

[Route66]

Trainspotting- Irvine Welsh

The Religion - Tim Willocks

Laidlaw - William Mcilvanny 

Earth Abides- George r Stewart 

Altogether now - Mike Carter 

Could have picked out dozens of others but wanted a cross section of genres

 

[Moose]

It’s impossible to choose a top five.

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

Feast Day Of Fools - James Lee Burke

The Aubrey And Maturin series - Patrick O’Brien

The Laidlaw Trilogy - William Mcilvanney 

On another day I could just as easily pick any of Ian Rankin, Michael Robotham, John Grisham, Elmore Leonard, R J Ellory or Jim Thompson books.

 

[Midlands hobo]

Starship troopers. (Heinlein)

Lord of the rings.(Tolkien)

The foundation series (Asimov)

Soldier (gen sir Mike Jackson)

Ancillary series (ann leckie)

 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

13 hours ago, Moose said:

It’s impossible to choose a top five.

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

Feast Day Of Fools - James Lee Burke

The Aubrey And Maturin series - Patrick O’Brien

The Laidlaw Trilogy - William Mcilvanney 

On another day I could just as easily pick any of Ian Rankin, Michael Robotham, John Grisham, Elmore Leonard, R J Ellory or Jim Thompson books.

 

I have so much to owe to the Aubrey and Maturin series for rescuing me from a massive slump I'd fallen into a few years ago. 

I used to read so much when I was a teenager and then throughout my 20s I completely fell out of love with it. When I was made redundant from a long time job at the end of 2019 and the pandemic hit, I saw it as an opportunity to reinvent myself and achieve some of the things I always dreamed of doing. One of these things was getting back my obsession with reading but I didn't really know where to begin with this. 

Well after the first lockdown was lifted and charity shops were inundated with dvds, I bought masses of them and one I got was Master and Commander. I'd never seen it before and I am a massive history fan so thought it might be interesting. I loved that film, absolutely loved it. When I looked further into the background of the film I discovered of course that it is based on the novel series by Patrick O'Brien and decided I had found where to restart my reading and thus scoured charity shops for the books. 

It took me about a year to read the Aubrey and Maturin series and my life was changed forever. The series was mesmerising, never before had I been so immersed and drawn into storytelling and planted right in the middle of this historical world that had always so fascinated me through watching endless history documentaries. I had discovered historical fiction, a genre as a teen I had never even considered exploring. 

Now I find myself reading about 20 historical novels a year and still scouring charity shops for more and more. I'm currently working through Edward Marston's Domesday series and I will then treat myself to Ken Follett's new Kingsbridge novel, the new Sharpe novel and the Poldark series, while searching charity shops for the books that make up Bernard Cornwell's Saxon stories. 

All because I got randomly got the film of Master and Commander in a job lot of cheap dvds. And after reading the books, the film went right down in my opinion anyway...

[Josef K]

1. The Road To Wigan Pier - George Orwell.

2. With The Old Breed - E B Sledge.

3. Blood For Blood : The Black And Tan War In Galway - William Henry. 
4. The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga Of The Donner Party - Daniel James Brown. 
5. Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters From The Western Trails, 1850: The Diary of Margaret A Frink - Kenneth L Holmes. 

[Lowdesert]

The White Spider

The Old Man and the Sea

The Forgotten Soldier

A Woman of no importance

Moby Dick

 

Special mention just for how fantastic a real life story it was - Agent Zig Zag.

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Lowdesert

[Irish Saint]

1. The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck

2. Saturday Night, Sunday Morning- Alan Sillitoe

3. 1984- George Orwell

4. A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens

5. The Dead Zone- Stephen King