Seeing the other guy's post on Life of Pi book, I realized that there are many great books out there to read. Now however, a quick search of the best books to read comes up with the ones that the critics love. After reading most of their plots on wikipedia, they tended to sound dull. What are your favorites?

10 years ago*

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I don't do a lot of reading anymore, but when I was younger I loved the Dragonlance series. I'd suggest starting at the beginning with the Chronicles trilogy if you're interested.

10 years ago
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A wonderful saga.

10 years ago
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I love deltora quest as a kid

10 years ago
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Holy shit biscuits I remember those ones.

Also the keys to the kingdom a few years on from that, and this one I dont remember that involved magic rocks and shadow monsters.

10 years ago
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One Hundred Years Of Solitude and Pedro Paramo both some of the greatest ever written on latin and south america.

10 years ago
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  • for you!
10 years ago
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I'm going to recommend 100% hard SF.
My favorite books I've read in the past year:

Author dump:
Greg Egan, Vernor Vinge, David Brin, Stephen Baxter, Isaac Asimov, and of course Arthur C. Clarke

What age range/maturity level are you looking for?

10 years ago
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Nice! We have very similar taste in books. Have you read Dan Simmons? The Hyperion saga? If not, I highly recommend it to any hard SF fan.

10 years ago
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Yep, I read those a few years ago. The Shrike is one of my favorite constructs from any book.

10 years ago
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I'm reading Ilium at the moment but I loved The Terror.

10 years ago
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I found Evolution lacking, maybe my expectations were too high.

As for hard SF let's not forget about the Ringworld saga. If you like older scifi, I recomend Frederick Pohl's Gateway.

10 years ago
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1984, The Silmarillion and The Left Hand of God(awesome narrative).

10 years ago
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Yes! The Left Hand of God. And also the Lord of The Rings Trilogy.

10 years ago
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Ya. It's a great story too :)

10 years ago
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+1 for Silmarillion

10 years ago
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+42 for 1984

10 years ago
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2+2=5 for 1984

10 years ago
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Sherlock Holmes books !!

10 years ago
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Really? Because the classics are mostly what come to mind.

1984

Catch-22

Ender's Game

Also The Girl Who Played with Fire

10 years ago
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+1 Ender's Game

10 years ago
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just finished the book, i can only recommend it +1

10 years ago
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The Wheel of Time

10 years ago
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+1.. amazing epic fantasy saga

10 years ago
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Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. Just reread it and she's got another series that follows on, but 20 years later. I'm busy reading that at the moment. All of her books are great, but the black magician trilogy is the one that stood out for me.

10 years ago
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+1 great first trilogy, you should read raymond e feist books, think there is about 27 books in the set but its absaolutly epic

10 years ago
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Dune.

10 years ago
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This, of course.

10 years ago
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I totally agree!
It is kinda hard to get into. I remember getting confused with all the jumping between the characters at the start.
But I absolutely loved it, the later books in the series do go downhill, but this as a standalone book is brilliant!

10 years ago
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all the saga its great, my favorite by far was the god emperor of dune, was such a nice book, so weird and wonderful!

10 years ago
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I did really enjoy god emperor as well, chapter house was pretty good too. But after that, when his son took over, they do go downhill.

10 years ago
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Yeah it was sad that they tried to make more money from the saga after herbert dead... they totally destroyed the story

10 years ago
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I have read a lot of amazing mature books but once in a while the inner child within me loves to get this series from the shelves and read it to the morning.

In terms of comic books, I really enjoy reading Y: The Last Man and Girls. You can easily make a good novel out of them. Fables is good too but it's everywhere and no where after chapter 100.

10 years ago
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Any of David Gemmells stuff

10 years ago
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Fahrenheit 451
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
A Scanner Darkly
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

10 years ago
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K. Dick <3

10 years ago
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You, gentlemen, have good taste in litterature.

10 years ago
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Game of Thrones

10 years ago
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you gotta just love The Silmarillion <3

10 years ago
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Really, I felt like I was reading the bible from middle earth. Interesting enough but not really all that entertaining.

10 years ago
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American Gods and the semi-sequel Anansi's Boys. Neil Gaiman.

10 years ago
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+1 for American Gods
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is also pretty good! That man has got some great ideas.

I'll put Anansi Boys on the to-read list.

10 years ago
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+1 Neil Gaiman FTW

10 years ago
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Terry Pratchett - Rincewind

Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

10 years ago
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I personaly think the Rincewind books are the weaker stuff of Pratchett, compared to later books...
For Discworld I might personally go with Going Postal or Making Money... Probably the Going Postal...

10 years ago
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I´ve read a lot of his stuff, mostly his older books - Going Postal is great indeed, especially the movie - Richard Coyle was just brilliant :-)

10 years ago
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The Hitchiker is by far my most often read novel, must have been 13 to 14 times already.

I also love to read Pratchett, but I prefer the witch stories and Small Gods. While I do like SciFi, I don't think Pratchett's SF stories were worth it, but the books about discworld science with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen are both a pleasure to read as well as a solid collection of interesting science and scifi bits.

10 years ago
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And the other books from douglas adams

10 years ago
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Dafuq u all. Harry potter is still the best.

10 years ago
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I read the title as "Best Boobs blah blah" and had to stop for a second. Then I saw I was mistaken. Farewell.

10 years ago
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Every book of Matthew Reilly just for the awesome present day recon army thing.
Artemis Fowl just because I really really like it and also Deltora Quest even if they are kid books and currently reading the wheel of time which I hope will be good.

Do you have any books or genres you like or prefer?

10 years ago
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Stephen King. Any one, specially the Dark Tower series.

Also, Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth and its sequel, and the new ones about WWI and WWII.

10 years ago
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+1 for the Dark Tower series

10 years ago
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I've personally only read It, but man was that a good book.

10 years ago
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I finished quite recently this series and was so great! i loved the books and the ending! :D

10 years ago
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Pillars of the Earth reads like it was written by a highschooler, I tried so hard to get into it and even got like 25% in but I really didn't enjoy it at all.

10 years ago
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Just read the WWII one. At first I didn't like it that much- the opening scenes and writing style didn't draw me in- but once I got into it I loved it. The feels, too. When the Soviets capture Berlin...

10 years ago
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1984 - George Orwell

10 years ago
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Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy

10 years ago
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Great books, i really hope they can finish the other trilogy with the things that Stieg had finished when he died...

10 years ago
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I thought the first one was better than the last two, but yeah, they're all pretty great.

10 years ago
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I don't know about the best, 'cause I'm not really a hierarquizing kind of guy, but let's see. Here's an handful of books that I've really enjoyed over the years:
George Orwell - 1984
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Primo Levi - If This is a Man
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
GK Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday
Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
JD Salinger - Nine Stories/To Esme, With Love and Squalor
Eh, I could go on all day!

10 years ago
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Cat's Cradle is possibly my favourite Vonnegut book (so hard to choose just one) I love the bokonon(sp?) death ritual. Still think about when things are shitty for me. Such lucky mud I am, I loved everything I saw.

10 years ago
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Yeah, I'm a big Vonnegut fan, and Cat's Cradle is very probably my favorite! And on bokononism: you just got to love a religion that begins by saying that "all the true things I'm about to tell you are shameless lies"

10 years ago
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The Malazan Book of the Fallen from Steven Erikson. Best fantasy I have ever read.

10 years ago
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Closed 10 years ago by Aquila12555.