EWB's Favourite Book

[Skummy]

Some of you might remember that I did this four years ago (!!), and as it seems to be the season for lists, I'm going to do it again.

You know how the game works by now, list your top ten favourite books in order. Number one gets ten points, number two gets nine points, and so on and so forth. If it comes to a tie between two books, the one with the higher number of votes wins (so a book that got two votes at number 1 will lose out to a book that got one vote at number 1, and two at number five, or whatever). Repeat votes in one list will count as a single vote, with the highest possible number of points assigned. You're free to vote for fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, whatever. The only thing that I'm undecided about is collections - a collection of short stories I will allow, but a "three-books-in-one" type thing, probably not, though if it becomes an issue I'll take it on a case-by-case basis. Try to avoid editing lists too often, as obviously it confuses thing if I'm going to be tallying up points as I go along, but I know it's sometimes unavoidable.

To get the ball rolling, here's my list;

1. "Naked Lunch" - William S. Burroughs

2. "Kafka On The Shore" - Haruki Murakami

3. "Dandy In The Underworld" - Sebastian Horsley

4. "Crash" - JG Ballard

5. "Spring Snow" - Yukio Mishima

6. "Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas" - Hunter S. Thompson

7. "Finnegan's Wake" - James Joyce

8. "A Picture Of Dorian Gray" - Oscar Wilde

9. "The Prize" - Daniel Yergin

10. "Shoplifting From American Apparel" - Tao Lin

As with just about everybody else, I'll probably kick myself after I remember something else in a day or two's time, but I'm not going to let myself edit. Go ahead, guys.

[Sousa]

Ooooh, this is going to be fun.

1. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

2. Grendel by John Gardner

3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

4. Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

6. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

7. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

9. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

10. My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber

I'm going to stick with that, though a lot could shuffle in and out--Toni Morrison's Beloved, Zadie Smith's White Teeth, and Joyce's Dubliners all get honorable mention.

EDIT: No, I'm not! Down to honorable mention with you, Tim O'Brien!

[Downward Spiral]

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

3. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

4. Wicked by Gregory Maguire

5. The Line Of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

6. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

7. Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner

8. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (what? It's an amazing kids' story)

9. Does The Book of Revelation count? If not, I'll plump for The Epic Of Gilgamesh Translated by Stephen Mitchell as my classical/ancient epic.

10. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

A bit of an eclectic mix, but I'm fairly confident that these are the books I'd want on my desert island with me.

[METALMAN]

Would everyone laugh at me if my top seven were to entirely consist of Harry Potter books?

[GRIFT]

1. Women by Charles Bukowski

2. Lord of the Flys by William Golding

3. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

4. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by HST

5. The Paper Men by William Golding

6. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan

7. Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

8. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

9. The Abortion by Richard Brautigan

10. I've Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Farina

[Skummy]

And Grifter surprises absolutely nobody by being a fan of Bukowski.

[fr34k]

Yeah, GRIFT

1. "Factotum" by Charles Bukowski

2. "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk

3. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

4. "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs

5. "Post Office" by Charles Bukowski

6. "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess

7. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

7. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

8. "Junky" by William S. Burroughs

9. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

10. "The Gun Seller" by Hugh Laurie

List would contain infinitely more Bukowski if I had more books by him. Being broke sucks

[9 to 5]

Would everyone laugh at me if my top seven were to entirely consist of Harry Potter books?

They should.

[DMN in the House]

This is going to show how woefully I need to get started reading again...

1. 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' - Hunter S. Thompson

2. 'Brave New World' - Adlous Huxley

3. 'Slaugherhouse Five' - Umm, fuck, umm... Vonnegut? EDIT: FUCK YEAH, I IS VONNEGUT! I FUCKING ROCK!

4. 'Fahrenheit 451' - Ray Bradbury

5. 'I am Legend' - Richard Matheson

6. 'Through the Looking Glass' - Louis Carroll

7. 'I, Robot' - Isaac Asimov

8. 'Frankenstein' - Mary Shelley

9. 'Lord of the Flies' - William Golding

10. 'The Zombie Survival Guide' - Max Brooks.

Fuck, I read so much shit when I was younger, and I've slacked off so much. Need to start again.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

"Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Haruki Murakami

"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

"White Noise" by Don DeLillo

"Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell

"Battle Royale" by Kōshun Takami

"Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk

"Dance Dance Dance" by Haruki Murakami

"The Trial" by Franz Kafka

"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

"English Passengers" by Matthew Neale

[Sousa]

Huxley's going to win this thing and Murakami's going to get no traction because we all like different books.

[METALMAN]

Maybe we should have done favourite author? Voting for favourite book is a bit like voting for favourite album. Too much variation to produce much of a list.

[probablyoliver]

1. The Post Office - Charles Bukowski

2. The Beach - Alex Garland

3. The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart

4. My Fault - Billy Childish

5. Women - Charles Bukowski

6. Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

7. Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk

8. The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

9. The Big Nowhere - James Elroy

10. Down And Out In Paris And London - George Orwell

[Hobo]

1) A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Muramaki

2) Candide - Voltaire

3) White Noise - Don DeLilo

4) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

5) Montaillou - Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

6) Have A Nice Day - Mick Foley

7) Lt. Nun - Catalina de Erauso

8) Moab Is My Washpot - Stephen Fry

9) God Is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens

10) Post Office - Charles Bukowski (I'm not finished it yet but really enjoying it)

[LittleDaniel]

This is so hard, but I'm going to try to stick with this list.

1. "The Catcher in the Rye" by Salinger (I am either a stereotypical teenager or a murderer)

2. "Slaughterhouse Five" by Vonnegut

3. "The Sound and the Fury" by Faulkner

4. "Invisible Monsters" by Palahniuk

5. "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Murakami

6. "Wise Blood" by O'Connor

7. "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Adams

8. "Fahrenheit 451" by Radbury

9. "1984" by Orwell

10. "Harry Potter" series by Rowling (solidarity metalman >_>)

[Skummy]

Maybe we should have done favourite author? Voting for favourite book is a bit like voting for favourite album. Too much variation to produce much of a list.

Personally, I'd say favourite author would be trickier, though. Burroughs and Murakami would still be up there, but you get a lot of guys who only wrote one great book - Catch-22 damn near made my list, but there's no way Joseph Heller would ever make a list of my favourite authors, because I've never read anything else by him; that doesn't make Catch-22 any less of a great book, but I'd find it difficult to name him as a "favourite" when I've only read one book. I'd wager that the same would go for Huxley with the people who have voted for him - "Brave New World" could well be their favourite book, but he's not necessarily their favourite author. Or looking at my own list, I'd never call Sebastian Horsley or Daniel Yergin one of my favourite "authors", because one only ever wrote a memoir, and the other exclusively wrote non-fiction, but the two books in question are definitely amongst my favourites. On the flipside, I'd probably allow Terry Pratchett a spot on my list of favourite authors, despite none of his books making my favourite books list. I just feel that this way works better.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Strange Things Happen - Stewart Copeland (his autobiography, which covers most of his life except the bit where he was, y'know, part of the Police in their heyday. 'Course, that's been covered)

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (one of the books I immediately go to when asked this sort of question. It might make me sound pretentious, but fuck you, it's a great book and a fantastic example of why the surreal is infinitely scarier)

Night Watch - Terry Pratchett (see, I love Discworld and I quite like Les Miserables the musical, but I can't stand Les Miserables the book, and since Night Watch is Pterry doing Les Miserables on the Discworld, problem solved)

World War Z - Max Brooks (alternate histories and shit are a fave of mine and, while this isn't technically one of them, it's a similar principles. Also zombies)

Good Omens - Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman (...I like Pterry. Sue me)

One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch - Alexander Solzhenitsyn (I've definitely misspelt his name. It's a perfect illustration of the hell that Communist Russia wreaked on it's populace, and that sort of shit gets me off in a literary way)

The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford (As much as Freakonomics gets all the notice, the Undercover Economist is a better book in my eyes. Harford's been writing for the FT since 2003 and is basically the only reason I'd even consider getting the damn thing)

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (C'mon, we all know this.)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (See above.)

I can't think of a suitable #10, irritatingly. And I'll order them tomorrow.

[DFF]

1 Good Omens by Terry Prachett & Neil Gaiman

2 Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker than Wrestling by Mick Foley

3 The History of the Rune-Staff by Michael Moorcock

4 The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

5 Spartan by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

6 Perseus Spur by Julian May

7 Mort by Terry Pratchett

8 Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks by Mick Foley

9 The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

10 The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

Meaning that Digital Fortress by Dan Brown and The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett don't quite make it.

[VerbalPuke]

1. Factotum - Charles Bukowski

2. Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

3. First Blood - David Morrell

4. Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski

5. Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck

6. Women - Charles Bukowski

7. Glue - Irvine Welsh

8. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

9. The Choir Boys - Joseph Wambaugh

10. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

I wanted to stay away from biographies (though I guess Bukowski's books are sort of like biographies) and books that are more for information (stuff detailing music scenes, or sports culture). This is what I came up with, despite there being some books out there that I could probably call top ten, these are books that I enjoyed enough to read more than once.

Edited August 26, 2010 by VerbalPuke

[ROC]

1. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

2. Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman

3. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

4. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

5. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

6. Factotum by Charles Bukowski

7. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman

8. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

9. Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

10. More Information Than You Require by John Hodgman