What is the best book you have ever read?

"Ready Player One", Ernest Cline. If you were a kid in the eighties you will love it.
 
the best ?
I duno, but i remember this entertained me



The book needs a good editor. At times the prose is Victorian and there are redundancies. This is a autobiography of a man who was a product of a different era, but also a man who enjoyed killing and distressing polite company. Keep those things in mind if or when you read this book



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Like Robert Jordan.... :D "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan is an excellent book. The series is complete now that Brandon Sanderson wrote the last three books from Jordan's notes (after his death). I left the last three books literally sit until the very last one was published. I then started the last three and was pleasantly surprised. That series bogged down at about book 6 or 7 and was only passably good until the last three.

Agreed there ^

Very, very good at the start. Decently good towards the middle, if for no other reason than the fact that you're attached to the characters by then, and the last 3 books are fantastic. My goodness it's a long read, though. I can speed read at like 650 words per minute and it takes me a few months to get through... I started the series at the same time as a friend a little over a year ago, and she's just starting book 6 :p

Another fun series is Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth, although if you've read Wheel of Time you'll notice that Goodkind seems to have stolen the framework concepts for Jordan's story and written his own story based off of it. I would describe it as Wheel of Time for a younger audience. It's not as intricate as Wheel of time.


If Fantasy isn't your thing, my favorite sci-fi stuff is John Scalzi's Old Mans War series.
 
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is my favorite
Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson is great cyberpunk, or if you want a few thousand pages of historical fiction try his Baroque Cycle
michael Creiton's book Travels is one of my favorites
for sc-fi try Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Leguin, or Ray Bradbury's short stories or his great book City
 
"The Kingdom of this World," by Alejo Carpentier is the best book I've ever read. This book makes it plain that fiction or nonfiction is not so important; it's what a book reveals to the mind that matters most.
 
Like Robert Jordan.... :D "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan is an excellent book. The series is complete now that Brandon Sanderson wrote the last three books from Jordan's notes (after his death). I left the last three books literally sit until the very last one was published. I then started the last three and was pleasantly surprised. That series bogged down at about book 6 or 7 and was only passably good until the last three.
Haha, yeah, I was trying to avoid naming names.
 
Another fun series is Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth, although if you've read Wheel of Time you'll notice that Goodkind seems to have stolen the framework concepts for Jordan's story and written his own story based off of it. I would describe it as Wheel of Time for a younger audience. It's not as intricate as Wheel of time.
I really disagree that it's for younger audiences (well... depending on what you consider "younger"). It may be a less intricate story that follows fewer characters and subplots, but a lot of the themes are very adult. In a lot of ways I think it is a superior series. I must have read faith of the fallen a dozen times.
 
I don't have a 'best book', but the latest book that I read was a biography of Johnny Cash, titled 'The Life'. I really enjoyed that one. I also read a lot of Scandinavian thrillers; the whole Wallander series of Henning Mankell is on my book shelf.
 
Inferno by Dan Brown and as mentioned already by a couple people The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Those are two of my favorites off the top of my head.
 
Goodkind is a very good writer and I enjoyed that series thoroughly. I bought all the hardbacks just like Jordan's Wheel of Time. With Jordan, I personally think the number of books in the series was all about the money. Jordan became a multimillionaire with the royalies from that series.
 
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. Also Moby Dick by Melville. These are two that come to mind first.
 
The Flashman Series, the Aubrey/Maturin series, "Peter the Great" and "Dreadnought" by Robert K. Massie. "The Arms of Krupp"
 
Couldn't pick a favorite...but the walking drum by Louis L'amour & the fault in our stars by John Green are two books I adore. :)
 
I like Heinlein:
Glory Road
The Past Through Tomorrow (collection of stories in his Future History series)
Tunnel in the Sky

William Gibson:
Neuromancer
Mona Lisa Overdrive
Idoru
All tomorrow's parties

Neil Stephenson:
Snowcrash

Alfred Bester:
The Stars My Destination (maybe the greatest sci fi novel)

Joe Haldeman:
The Forever War
Mindbridge

Gordon Dickson:
Call Him Lord (novelette)

Piers Anthony:
On a Pale Horse

Michael Bishop:
No enemy but time

Outdoor books:
Wildwood wisdom by Ellsworth Jaeger
Jack knife cookery by James Austin Wilder

Two of the most intriguing books I've come across:
Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia by Stephen Oppenheimer
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
(basic idea was that as early as 3000 years ago, humans actually could hear "gods" or voices talking to them - auditory hallucinations from the right brain hemisphere communicating to the left brain - because that was how our minds were wired at the time before we achieved "consciousness" and introspection/self awareness due to social complexity and environmental stresses.
 
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I just can not pick a best but these are a few of m favorites at the moment.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Women By Charles Bukowski
Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher
City Of The Red Night by William S Burroughs
Any and all writings by John Muir
 
Blink and The Outliers also The Tipping Point are pretty entertaining if you are a fan of human behavior. I love to know why people do what they do.
By far my favorite was S.O.G. by John Plaster... This one gave me anxiety at times Lol. Many great actual stories of Vietnam Vets in country.
 
I like Heinlein:
Glory Road
The Past Through Tomorrow (collection of stories in his Future History series)
Tunnel in the Sky
Glory Road is great. I feel like you can't mention Heinlein without mentioning Starship Troopers. My favorite of his.
 
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