What is your favourite book of all time?

Lacedaemonian

A Plume of Smoke
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I know it has probably been asked half a hundred times already on these boards but some questions just beg to be asked. I am not talking about what book you consider to be the best, I am purely interested in which is you favourite. The book can be from any genre, any reading age and quality really does not matter. Only include a series as your answer if the series constitutes one continuous story. I know it is a bloody tough question but I will try to start us off. (No doubt I will change my mind as this thread grows).

The Warlord Trilogy by Bernard Cornwell.
 
There are so many wonderful books out there. If I was pushed, I'd have to say Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources ..known together as The Water Of The Hills(yeah, I know that's two books but they are really two parts of the same story)

My reason? I think this story is beautifully written with fine characters (which I really began to care about the deeper I delved into the tale). But most of all, I think this story is a fine example of why sometimes 'simplicity is best'.

Ps. Moby Dick came a very close second:)
 
The first two Gormenghast books by Mervyn Peake - there are huge numbers of other books that come close - but nothing is quite as good as these IMO.
 
Well that's very hard to say but because Steven Erikson is my favourite fantasy author of all time I'll nominate Book 3 Memories Of Ice but naturally that may change as the series progresses...:D
 
Foxbat said:
There are so many wonderful books out there. If I was pushed, I'd have to say Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources ..known together as The Water Of The Hills(yeah, I know that's two books but they are really two parts of the same story)

My reason? I think this story is beautifully written with fine characters (which I really began to care about the deeper I delved into the tale). But most of all, I think this story is a fine example of why sometimes 'simplicity is best'

I aint read the books Foxbat but I own both films on DVD. Beautiful tale. I would say that Jean de Florette is a better story, but Manon is so beautiful and so wild. Emmanuelle Beart.... :)
 
Yep. Jean de Florette is definitely the stronger of the two. As for Emanuelle Beart.......simply stunning:)
 
I don't know, there are three I find hard to seperate - Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles, Gaiman's Stardust, and Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. If pressed, I'd probably go for Stardust. In an hour's time, it might be different, though....
 
Memories of Ice, Steven Erikson. Though Neil Gaiman's American Gods runs it very close...
 
Wow. What a very hard question!

I'm going to take the easy way out and cite a book of poems, and translated at that - Le Fleurs Du Mal by Charles Baudelaire. At least, it's a book that I've re-read countless times in the last 17 years with undiminished enjoyment. If anything, Baudelaire's vision only becomes more appealing and vivid to me as the years go by.

Second place or a tied first place would have to go to the 4-volume Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus. Again, I've re-read these books several times over the years, and still like them as much as ever.
 
best of the best is Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" maybe because I read is a young boy...
from sf Clarke's "Childhood's End"
 

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