What is your favorite book?

[DJ Jackalope]

So since the naming thread came up and books got mentioned...
What is your favorite book and is it different than the book you would recommend everyone to read?

My favorite book is Vurt by Jeff Noon. Its a Matrix like adventure, but a lot easier for us to relate to.

http://tinyurl.com/3aaa2s

As for something i would recommend to everyone...Not really sure, at the moment it's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson, but maybe that's just cuz it's the audiobook in my car.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is super high on my list, too.
http://tinyurl.com/2xyd5a

[shrdlu]

Re: What is your favorite book?

A couple of comments; please consider not using tinyurl, or else also provide the actual link. I make it a practice of never, ever clicking on any link that I can't parse.

So since the naming thread came up and books got mentioned...
What is your favorite book and is it different than the book you would recommend everyone to read?

Favorite book for what? I have hundreds of favorite books, depending on the subject matter, and the purpose. I recently reread Thoreau's Walden, which remains one of my favorites. Anything by Richard Stevens is my favorite. Almost anything by Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite. Early Harlan Ellison is my favorite; same thing for Spider Robinson. Albert Camus is my favorite.

As for something i would recommend to everyone...Not really sure, at the moment it's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson, but maybe that's just cuz it's the audiobook in my car.

HST is currently popular again, but I've personally found others (such as Kerouac) to be more interesting. Ah, yes, and Aldous Huxley, et Pere.

I could go on (and on), but I'll quit.

Oops. I lied. I forgot Zelazny (thanks to Thorn for reminding me). Mmm, and "Till We Have Faces" a work that kept me up for several nights in deep thought (it's by C.S. Lewis).

[Thorn]

Re: What is your favorite book?

Boy, that is a tough question. Like shrdlu said, favorite for what? If really, pressed for a single book, I guess my all time favorite would have to be Robert Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". But ask me next week, and that may change.

I'm not sure I could even narrow it down to a favorite author, or even genre. In Science Fiction, Heinlein is certainly up there, Roger Zelazny was great, Harlen Ellison, and Larry Niven are others at the top, too. In the Mystery arena, Lawrence Block is tops, but there are a handful of others who I think are very good.

EDIT: Oh,yeah, anything by Neal Stephenson.

[barry99705]

Re: What is your favorite book?

I don't know, pick one.

[shrdlu]

Re: What is your favorite book?

Boy, that is a tough question. Like shrdlu said, favorite for what?

We actually visited this topic, years ago, over on dc-stuff (the mailing list that's been going almost as long as Defcon). Many of the respondents below have moved on, some forever. Still, it was an excellent answer to the question: What books do you like, and why?

http://www.deaddrop.com/ReadingList.html

[Thorn]

Re: What is your favorite book?

I don't know, pick one.

Everybody knows that you can't read and that those books belong to your wife.

Seriously, I have to do that. Where did you get those bookcases?

An aside: Getting my books organized both physically and in a catalog is something that I've wanted to do since I was a kid. I recently found this software: http://www.collectorz.com/book/ It's great, especially when combined with a barcode reader. I've gotten through two rooms so far...

[renderman]

Re: What is your favorite book?

I'd have to say that the 2 favorites have to be the Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy and Nineteen Eighty Four. They are favorites for entirely different reasons of course.

[0x58]

Re: What is your favorite book?

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

[moleprince]

Re: What is your favorite book?

Favorite for what, indeed.

I grew up with a healthy mix of Asimov, Clark, Wells, Hawking, Herbert, Tolkien, Lewis, Carroll, Ellison-- need I go on, however some of my favorites are more of the slightly one-off.

One of my most favorite books of childhood and to this day is Bridge to Terabithia.

I fell in love with Joan D Vinge's Cat trilogy and Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn trilogy somewhere around middle school, and have pawed at them a time or two since.

Later, I discovered the brilliant Jesuits-in-space work of Mary Doria Russell in The Sparrow and Children of God. This was much later to be compounded by discovering Canticle for Liebowitz. The only thing that might trump space-Jesuits is post-apocalyptic Cistercians!

Then there is the epically irreverent conspiracy clustertale that is Foucault's Pendulum by way of Umberto Eco.

More recently I got sucked into the surreal urban fantasies of Charles DeLint [Someplace to be Flying] and Haruki Murakami [Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World], little say Charles Stross [Halting State], Cory Doctorow [Overclocked], and China Mieville [Perdido Street Station].

With regards to more of the canonical, I have a very special place in my heart for Beowulf and the Epic of Gilgamesh, not to mention Fahrenheit 451 and of course Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

For more technical/nonfictional works, I delight in curious tomes and tales like Clifford Stoll's Cuckoos Egg or Chadwick's Decipherment of Linear B [Yes, I am That kind of nerd].

So I guess to be honest, my 'favorite' often tends to be "Whatever I'm currently reading", but the above are definitely high up there.

[theprez98]

Re: What is your favorite book?

I don't know, pick one.

I have at least as many books as you, but they're sitting in boxes...

[shrdlu]

Re: What is your favorite book?

...Where did you get those bookcases?

I normally block images when I'm reading the forums (or actually, for almost anything), but, just for you, I checked this one out. You can get that kind of bookcase at the well-known French Emporium of Delight (Target). I have several. I love them because moving them around is so easy (since the shelves and sides fold up), and are quite sturdy (about half of my tech books are hardcover, so this is good). I think they run about $70 or so, but are well worth it.

An aside: Getting my books organized both physically and in a catalog is something that I've wanted to do since I was a kid. I recently found this software: http://www.collectorz.com/book/ It's great, especially when combined with a barcode reader. I've gotten through two rooms so far...

Thanks for this link. I've used a spreadsheet in past. If I really want a book, I sometimes end up with more than one copy, since I'll see it somewhere, buy it, come home, and realize that I already have it (one of the perils of having lots of books). When Asimov was writing sequels to his Foundation and Robots series, I ended up purchasing Asimov's "Robots of Dawn" five times before I quit (I used to read two or three novels, and any number of short stories, each week).

Oh, and the makers of "I, Robot," the movie, should apologize to the ghost of Asimov.

[theprez98]

Re: What is your favorite book?

Anything by Stephen E. Ambrose (his writing style brings history to life)

Witness by Whittaker Chambers is the story of the Alger Hiss trial.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a short but powerful story about Soviet gulags.

Cyberpunk by Katie Hafner/John Markoff is a good read (by that I mean, I enjoy the story by its style of writing) although I do have serious problems with the facts ;-) It was my first real introduction to the hacker community. I read it in its entirety in the library, several hours a night until I finished it.

Double-Edged Secrets by W. J. Holmes is a fascinating book on the nature of intelligence during wartime (WW2).

Both 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell opened my eyes to a lot of things.

[Thorn]

Re: What is your favorite book?

I normally block images when I'm reading the forums (or actually, for almost anything), but, just for you, I checked this one out. You can get that kind of bookcase at the well-known French Emporium of Delight (Target). I have several. I love them because moving them around is so easy (since the shelves and sides fold up), and are quite sturdy (about half of my tech books are hardcover, so this is good). I think they run about $70 or so, but are well worth it.

Thanks. That makes it tantalizing, but probably out of reach. We're in one of the few states that doesn't have a Target. The nearest are about 150 miles away in the Albany NY area (one way) or Concord NH (the other way). I'll have to see if they sell them online.

Thanks for this link. I've used a spreadsheet in past. If I really want a book, I sometimes end up with more than one copy, since I'll see it somewhere, buy it, come home, and realize that I already have it (one of the perils of having lots of books). When Asimov was writing sequels to his Foundation and Robots series, I ended up purchasing Asimov's "Robots of Dawn" five times before I quit (I used to read two or three novels, and any number of short stories, each week).

That's part of what's motivating me. There were about 120 books in my office alone, and three were copies of the same book (DNS & Bind). I knew I had two... I know I have lot's of other duplicates, too.

(I used to read two or three novels, and any number of short stories, each week).

Your reading habits sound like mine and my wife's. We've had non-reading types walk into our house and ask if it's actually a library.

Oh, and the makers of "I, Robot," the movie, should apologize to the ghost of Asimov.

Agreed. Of course, that goes for most stories that go from book to movie. In most cases, the author should be allowed to sue the Hollywood moguls for defamation of character. My single exception to that is "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" being filmed as "Blade Runner". For some reason I always found Phillip K. Dick very difficult to read, even if the story was an interesting idea, while Ridley Scott's vision of the story was extraordinary.

[burncycle]

Re: What is your favorite book?

I agree with everyone else insofar as I have a lot of favorite books. However, I have 2 books that I typically recommend to people:

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Archangel Protocol by Lyda Morehouse

(Dune is a good read too)
(So is Shogun)
(I really need to stop before I list every book I've read recently)

[shrdlu]

Re: What is your favorite book?

Thanks. That makes it tantalizing, but probably out of reach. We're in one of the few states that doesn't have a Target. The nearest are about 150 miles away in the Albany NY area (one way) or Concord NH (the other way). I'll have to see if they sell them online.

Then Crate & Barrel also has something similar. Heck, if there's a Kroger's in your area, so do they. Of course, Target also probably has them online. Really, the best ones are the ones from Target.

http://www.target.com/Folding-Bookca...ank&rh=&page=2

Ew. Line wrap for sure. This is a smaller version of one that I have, for $50.

Your reading habits sound like mine and my wife's. We've had non-reading types walk into our house and ask if it's actually a library.

My favorite question is usually "Did you *read* all those books?" and I usually answer with "No, I just keep them around to start fires in the fireplace." The former den adjoining the former family room in my current house is officially a library (bookcases on every wall), adjoining the computer room. I had them all organized, and then, I moved. Sigh. I really need to take about a week, and do it again.