My Current Top Ten Reads.

Ian Fortytwo

A Poet, Writer and eclectic Reader.
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This is my top ten current favourites. This will be updated quite regularly, to see what changes and what mood you are in. Let's see where it takes us.

So to start us of, here's mine.

10. The Railway Children.
9. Thirty-Nine Steps.
8. Oliver Twist.
7. Tom Sawyer.
6. Secret Garden.
5. Kidnapped.
4. Moonfleet.
3. David Copperfield.
2. Treasure Island.
1. The Hobbit.
 
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What I looked for in Science fiction, as a young boy , was an exciting adventure . Most of your books on your list are some of the best non science fiction boys adventure stories. I especially liked Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island . The down side to Treasure Island is ,most pirates now have a Cornish accent.
 
I have read your no. 9. Period.
For most of the others I have seen the movie or TV-series. I do not feel compelled at the moment to read those booksnow. Partly because they are all at least as old as I am. 6, 5 and 4 are unknown to me.
Which is me saying my Top-10 would be completely different.
 
If it's part of a series I'll keep it to one book per series and pick my favourite from each series.

1. Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice
2. Raymond E Feist, Magican
3. Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance
4. Mark Lawerence, Red Sister
5. Stephen King, The Wastelands
6. Ian C Esslemont, The Path to Ascendancy
7. Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold
8. R Scott Bakker, Thousand Fold Thought.
9. Freda Warrington, Court of the Midnight King.
10. David Gemmell, Lord of the Silver Bow.


I made a mistake so unfortunately War of Flowers has been relegated in favour of Best serve Cold.

Some of these books were read a number of years ago, went with the ones I remember the most
 
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My contemporary list is:

10. The Uncommon Reader. Alan Bennett.
9. The Shepherd. Frederick Forsyth.
8. The Quiet American. Graham Greene.
7. The Lord of the Flies. William Golding.
6. The Big Sleep. Raymond Chandler.
5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams.
4. Smiley's People. John le Carre.
3. The Honourable Schoolboy. John le Carre.
2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. John le Carre.
1. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. John le Carre.
 
  1. The Stand - Stephen King
  2. Pet Sematary - Stephen King
  3. The Shining - Stephen King
  4. The Green Mile - Stephen King
  5. Salems Lot - Stephen King
  6. Lightning - Dean Koontz
  7. Phantoms - Dean Koontz
  8. The Bad Place - Dean Koontz
  9. Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
  10. Winter Warriors - David Gemmell
Weird list I know
 
okay this is quite difficult
1 - the count of monte cristo - alexandre dumas
2 - the name of the wind - patrick rothfuss
3 - the wiseman's fear - patrick rothfuss
4 - the christmas carol - charles dickens
5 - the warded man - peter v brett
6 - starship series - mike resnick
7 - ready player one - ernest cline
8 - armada - ernest cline
9 - look who is back - timur vernes
10 - the martian - andy weir

besides those anything from this authors is normally great
tom kratman
john conroe
michael anderle
daniel silva
jack higgins
robert heinlein
jim butcher
jonathan maberry
jack campbell
 
OK, here goes. These are all books that I have read at least 3 times, so worth mentioning here. In no particular order, no ranks.

The Last Frontier - Alistair MacLean
Bomber - Len Deighton
This Immortal - Roger Zelazny
Malafrena - Ursula Leguin
The Enemy Desmond Bagley
Whip Hand - Dick Francis
Peace - Gene Wolfe
Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
Anathem - Neal Stephenson
When The Lion Feeds - Wilbur Smith

Favorite writers (not already mentioned)
Jack Vance
Jo Walton
Dan Simmons
Tim Powers
Keith Laumer
Theo Sturgeon
Not many literary works. At least not English or American ones. Blame my teachers.
 
Many of my all-time favorites I read for the first time ages ago, so this will be just a list of favorite books (one per author) I first read in the last decade (roughly, since I turned forty):

M. John Harrison, Climbers
Norman Spinrad, The Iron Dream
Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent
Penelope Fitzgerald, Gate of Angels
Steve Erickson, The Sea Came in at Midnight
Rumer Godden, Kingfishers Catch Fire
Tim Etchells, The Broken World
James Salter, A Sport and a Pastime
Scarlett Thomas, Our Tragic Universe
K.J. Bishop, The Etched City
 
  1. The Stand - Stephen King
  2. Pet Sematary - Stephen King
  3. The Shining - Stephen King
  4. The Green Mile - Stephen King
  5. Salems Lot - Stephen King
  6. Lightning - Dean Koontz
  7. Phantoms - Dean Koontz
  8. The Bad Place - Dean Koontz
  9. Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
  10. Winter Warriors - David Gemmell
Weird list I know
Not weird I've read every one the list, all good books
 
In no particular order and also taking cue from Nixie (one book per series):

Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
The Stand by Steven King
Swan Song by Robert McCammon
The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton
Dune by Frank Herbert
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance
To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams
 
In no particular order and also taking cue from Nixie (one book per series):

Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
The Stand by Steven King
Swan Song by Robert McCammon
The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton
Dune by Frank Herbert
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance
To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams

Ugh, I had finally convinced myself to take a break from Tad Williams before To Green Angel Tower, then someone that also likes The Silmarillion better than LOTR puts it in their top 10...
 
Here goes and I might change my mind tomorrow on some of them :)

1. King Hereafter. Dorothy Dunnett
2. Fortunes Favourites Colleen McCullough
3. The Deadhouse Gates. Steven Erickson
4. A Storm of Swords George RR Martin
5. In a Dark Wood Wandering. Hellas Haase
6. The Stand. Stephen King
7. Warriors of the Dragon Gold. Ray Bryant
8. Prince of Thorns. Mark Lawrence
9. Ash. Mary Gentle
10. The Forgotten Soldier. Guy Sajer.
 
I posted earlier my top ten books first read in the last decade. Here's my all-time top ten (currently):
Georges Perec, Life A User's Manual
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
E.T.A. Hoffmann, Princess Brambilla
David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress
Raymond Queneau, The Sunday of Life
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
M. John Harrison, The Course of the Heart

I should point out that, while M. John Harrison may seem the only full-fledged SFF writer on this list (though he's been going more and more "pure literary" recently), the Pynchon is an SF book in all but name, the Markson was begun as an explicitly SF book (now it is perhaps only ambiguously so), and the Hoffmann is a little-known but extraordinary fantasy classic. The Perec too contains speculative elements.
 
I'm not well read and I pretty much solely read Science Fiction (with a little bit of horror). It's surprising how many of my favourite books come from early in my reading life, with only a couple of new ones. Is this a sign of old age?

My list of favourites

1. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
2. The Stand by Stephen King.
3. Dune by Frank Herbert.
4. IT by Stephen King.
5. The Forge of God by Greg Bear.
6. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
7. Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds.
8. Roofworld by Christopher Fowler.
9. Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
10. Necropolis by Dan Abnett.

The Dogs of War is the only recent one. I included it because i got an emotional response and it did make me stop and think for a while after i'd put it down.
 
This is awfully difficult, but I'm not one to pass by a list and not add my two-pennorth, so I guess I'll play, limiting myself to a single novel per author, trying to cover several genres and focusing on what I've enjoyed recently above things I read decades ago and have a poor memory of:

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John Le Carre
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Code of Woosters - P. G. Wodehouse
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
Nobody's Fool - Richard Russo
To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer

Ask me another time, I'm sure I'd come up with a different 10.
 
This is awfully difficult, but I'm not one to pass by a list and not add my two-pennorth, so I guess I'll play, limiting myself to a single novel per author, trying to cover several genres and focusing on what I've enjoyed recently above things I read decades ago and have a poor memory of:

...

Ask me another time, I'm sure I'd come up with a different 10.

What Bick said.

In no particular order, over the long-haul and after rereads,

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
The Underground Man by Ross Macdonald
At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I should reread the Faulkner and the Borges, but each had a very powerful impact on me at the time of first reading, and again on second reading.

Randy M.
 

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