lucretia96 Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 How about Duchess of Milan by Michael Ennis? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kesky Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 One of these beauties. Philip K. Dick "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said" J. D. Salinger "The Catcher In The Rye" G. R. R. M. "A Song Of Ice & Fire" John Birmingham "The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco" F. M. Dostoyevsky "Brothers Karamazov" Michel Houllbecq "Elementary Particles" B. E. Ellis "American Psycho" I think when discussing the greatest books I have ever read, a good translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. I have yet to find a really good translation of that book. Even the good ones fail to bring the humor that the original has. I laughed out loud many times while reading it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sToNED_CAT Posted December 5, 2005 Share Posted December 5, 2005 Forrest Gump . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sibri Posted December 14, 2005 Share Posted December 14, 2005 Not "The Greatest Books Ever", just my favs: - The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut - 62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortazar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moshe Goldberg Rubinshteyn Posted December 14, 2005 Share Posted December 14, 2005 I have to second Dylanfantic. There's so much good stuff out there. My favorite novels include books like 'Der Zauberberg' by Thomas Mann and 'Der Prozess' by Franz Kafka. Works like those have really spoilt me; how anyone can return and truly enjoy Dickens after reading that is beyond me. The Silmarillion is also a very impressive book. The scope of it is enormous. To create a mythology, including at least two languages and whatnot. It is also one of my favorite books; I liked its melancholic and poetic character, the overarching theme of fading. It might not be a great novel in a conventional sense (concerning plot or characters), but taken as a mythological work, it surely beats anything else on the market in term of literary quality by several miles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thiazyl Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 Here is my 2 cents. The Oxford English Dictionary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TehipiteTom Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 I'm not sure what the greatest book ever is, but looking at some replys: That's a damn good book, and I think Mccarthy is one of the best authors on the planet currently, along with Ishiguru (Remains of Day, ) and Jose Saramago who I think is just brilliant, and Rushdie (not to mention Pynchon), and to throw a SF author in there I really think on the most underated authors is JG Ballard. I was also extremely impressed with Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves which only came out a few years ago. I'm one of the people that truly think that there iisn't anybody that I have read that shows as much as ability (to the point of making many just feel stupid) as James Joyce - I'm not sure if any of his books are the greatest ever written (they certainly have to be in the conversation) but I'm pretty sold that there was never a more talented writer I have read. That doesn't necessarily equate to best novel, admittedly. If I went with some national bias, I'd say Mishima Yukio who is as talented as I have ever read as well, I mean start with Confessions of a Mask and just read all his work, and I also think Katherine Mansfield is severely shorted when she is not mentioned in topic like this. Calvino and Kafka are names that come to mind as well. Let me quit keep beating around the bush though - this would change probably every hour but I will go with Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time I do want to comment about 1984 whic hseems to be popular. Don't get me wrong, I love it, and Orwell's other works as well, but I'd like to thank the greatest book ever isn't a book that is deemed so accesible that it's standard in many grade school curriculums. Comparing his work to Joyce or Faulkner or the like seems rather overly complimentary in my mind. I too would include Pynchon and Faulkner on my short list...and I'm going to have to go with your #1 choice as well: Remembrance of Things Past (sorry, I just prefer that translation of the title) is one of the very few works for which one could make an argument for 'greatest work of fiction ever'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Forbes Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 Another vote for The Brothers Karamazov. Brilliant book that left me breathless with its genius. Lord of the Flies. Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is a damn impressive piece of work that was profound, hilarious, moving, and simply massive in scope and detail. I think Joyce's "The Dead" is the best, and most accessible, thing he ever wrote (though technically not a novel). "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor and "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson are two of the greatest and most powerful short stories in the English Language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashara Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 A few years ago, I would have said "Brothers Karamazoffs" as well, but after all is said and done, with all my teenage love of "Crime and Punishment", it was actually the "Idiot" that left the deepest indent, and that I remember the most. So, Dostoyevskiy would definetly be my pick for the greatest author, and "Idiot" will be my personal choice of the "greatest" book ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marth Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 I'm gonna have to put my vote behind catch 22. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ahimsa Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 In terms of "proper literature," I'd consider Hamsun's "Hunger," Graves' "I Claudis" (really Suetonius but....) Flaubert's "Sentimental Education" and Camus's "The Plague." Including fantasy genre stuff, I think "Snow Crash," "The Anubis Gates," "Tigana" "Wizard of Earthsea" "Briar King" and of course the first two books of "A Song of Fire and Ice...." For anonymous, older stories, "Beowulf" and "Njal's Saga" are both most excellent. Just my opinion, some of that is lesser-known but well worth reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muppet Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 "Bouncing Back" by Alan Partridge "1984" by George Orwell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoodlum Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I can't say what the best book ever writen was but here are a few of my favorites in no particular order: ASOFAI A Farewell to Arms To Kill A Mockingbird The Fountainhead The Odysssey Gone With the Wind Shogun The Journeyer The Count of Monte Cristo Great Expectations La Miserable Aztec Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingslayer Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 My favorite book of all time is Watership Down. It's incredible, and the only book that I was genuinely sad to be finished with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Stranger Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I absolutely do not feel qualified to say what the best novel of all time is, but based on my experience here are some ideas: Most important book of recent times: 1984 best take on the human condition: Lord of the Flies best poetry (yeah, I know this is novels, but I need to give a shout out): Hafiz. nothing matches Hafiz in my mind, period. most moving book to me, personally: The Silmarillion. not sure if it qualifies as best book ever, and LotR is a much more humane book to this reader, but the richness of language and emotionally evocative qualities of Tolkien's frankensteined prose still really get me. I cry when Finrod dies and joins Fingon in Aman. :cry: ....as a dark-horse contestant, I'm about halfway through a decent translation of Celine's Journey to the End of the Night and if it keeps doing for me what it's currently doing, I might have a new champion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Sun Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I can not say if one of these books falls in the "best book" category, but these are books that had the greatest impact on me. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird John Steinbeck, East of Eden Lion Feuchtwanger, The Josephus Trilogy and "The False Nero" (would also fall in the category "good historical novels") Italo Calvino, Once a Traveller in a Winternight William Golding, Lord of the Flies Edit for adding this: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince (I actually slug my way through "Der Zauberberg", but I hate the main character with a power of thousand suns, and even the lovely prose can not help me.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Multaniette Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 The Stranger: perhaps it might be a consolation for you to hear that in one of the numerous revised versions, Tolkien sent Finrod back to Aman to walk the gardens of Vanyar with his beloved Amarie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Stranger Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 The Stranger: perhaps it might be a consolation for you to hear that in one of the numerous revised versions, Tolkien sent Finrod back to Aman to walk the gardens of Vanyar with his beloved Amarie. wow...that's...really kinda beautiful. <necromances tolkien a giant hug> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 I'm about halfway through a decent translation of Celine's Journey to the End of the Night and if it keeps doing for me what it's currently doing, I might have a new champion. stranger-- heh. just wait until you're done with that and ready to start with his death on the installment plan. that's where things begin to get really bizarre. when you're done with that one, check out kristeva's the powers of horror, which is kinda the definitive reading of celine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cen0taph Posted January 9, 2006 Share Posted January 9, 2006 Im going to have to go with the book Im writing now. It isn't finished but when it is, you will all be able to say you knew the author of the Greatest Book Ever. Anyways, now that I have gotten that out of my system, Im just going to say that it's pretty hard to define the greatest book ever written because so many books mean so much to many different people. My votes go to the following. Of course Im going to add the disclaimer that these are only out of the books I have read and Im sure there are A LOT of books I haven't read that are considered classics. Im also going for accessibility because no matter how great a book is, if its not accessible, then its lost its relevance to contemporary readers. The Great Gatsby Dune East of Eden War and Peace Crime and Punishment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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