[Anonymous]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
and then anything by Tamora Pierce

[Anna]

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
The Lord of The Rings trilogy+The Hobbit+The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
Dune (and sequels but I haven’t read them all yet) by Frank Herbert

[Kaylee]

While Oleander
My Sister’s Keeper
Me Talk Pretty One Day

[Heather Lamb]

My favorites are
1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
2. Going Bovine by Libba Bray
3. The Little Prince by Antoine de SaintExpery (I am aware that I slaughtered that spelling and I apologize)
4. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (although I think Franny and Zooey is a better book, but somehow that doesn’t mean it is more of a favorite, which is weird)
5. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
6. Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss

It’s worth noting that, as shown by my whole Catcher vs. Franny and Zooey thing that books that I think are the best are not always my favorites. I love The Great Gatsby, for example, and think it’s a perfect book, and yet… somehow not breaking into my favorites list.

[Anonymous]

While I don’t have a dedicated favorite, the book series that I reread the most is the first part of the Kushiel’s Legacy series (Phedre’s books) by Jacqueline Carey. The characters are really unique, and the culture of the society of the book itself is very fascinating. It’s like I’m reading the history of another world (well duh), and when I set the book down, I actually have to try and mentally get myself to switch gears from one worldview to another.

I also frequently reread the Shapeshifter series by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I just think it’s a unique take in shape shifters, and I love the way the differences were actually set up. It wasn’t just a circumstantial difference in the characters, it was an instinctive difference to keep them from destroying the world. Yet they must still overcome it to save it.

Aaaah. I’m such a romantic. e.e That being said, I should probably admit that I also like Nora Roberts and I have reread her Key trilogy quite a few times.

[Anonymous]

Vampire Academy/Bloodlines Series by Richelle Mead
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Dante’s Inferno
The Hobbit/LOTR by J.R.R.Tolkien
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
North Of Beautiful by Justina Chen
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi
Neon Angel by Cherie Currie and Tony O’Neill
Looking For Alaska by John Green

[Megan]

Catch 22 is my all time favorite but I also love the Game of Thrones and Hannibal series, Good Omens, The Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy, Needful Things, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Victoria]

Some of my favorites are:
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Percy Jackson and the Olympians series
The Moorchild
Just Ella
Inkheart series
Mercy Thompson series
Little White Horse
The Chronicles of Narnia
Interview With the Vampire
Harper Hall trilogy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums)
Stardust
Coraline

[Ani]

“Eilanden” (Dutch for “Islands”) by the late Boudewijn Büch. The book is about islands that are all unique somehow, of which many are simply unknown and nothing more than a dot on a map about which little is known. Büch uses a very describing style that almost makes you wanna pack your bags and go there. Some famous islands such as Jamaica are covered, but also some tiny dots on the map such as Clipperton, Bouvetøya, St Helena, …

“1984” by George Orwell

“We” by Jevgeni Zamjatin. The ultimate dystopian novel, written over 25 years before “1984” and clearly a source of inspiration for Orwell. But Zamjatin’s book to me, is simply better. It was groundbreaking as dystopianism was a new concept, his poetic writing style makes the cruel totalitarianism almost bearable and his vocabulary is so wide he can describe things in a way that sounds like a poem or a lovely letter. That contradicts the book, which goes much further than “1984”. At least Orwell gave his characters names, and houses with brick walls instead of glass walls. In Zamjatin’s book only mathematical procedures that can easily be predicted are welcome, emotions and creativity are unpredictable and seen as illnesses, and even during a public execution people praise the system and the execution process. People have zero privacy as houses are made of glass and people only have a number.

“Mount Athos” by Koert Ter Veen: description of a step-by-step romance between the author and the holy mountain Athos, were pilgrims and monks live a sobre life without any material luxury and totally dedicated to communication with god.

“Geheimbünde. Mythos, Macht und Wirklichkeit” by Karl-Rüdiger Mai. Extended and very detailed description of secret societies and the suspisions and mysteries attached to them. Includes reports on freemasonry, Illuminati, Skull & Bones, and more. Excellent writing style keeps you fascinated and wanting to read more and more.

“Handboek van de wereldgodsdiensten” (Dutch translation, I am unaware of the Original title but it’d be like “Handbook of the world’s religions”) by different authors with Christopher Partridge having done redaction work. Comparison of the origins, evolutions and practices of the different religions in the world, very detailed and with lots of photo material. Also includes less famous religions from African and Asian tribes.

“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë

“High sensitive person in love” by Elaine N. Aron

Lonely Planet travel guides on more or less any country I’m interested in. Lonely Planet has the best travel writers of them all, and cover destinations crowded with tourists and the off the beaten path locations. For example the Arabian peninsula (few other travel guides will cover Yemen and Saudi Arabia to such extent), the Pacific islands (which other travel guides will tell you all about a stay in Pitcairn or Tonga?), Greenland & the Arctic (most books on Russia hardly talk about Murmansk and don’t talk at all about Dikson or Novaya Zemlya ; few guides to Canada spend more than 1 page on Nunavut … This Lonely Planet guide covers all of it!), Africa (a whole continent in one travel guide, and you never have the feeling important parts were left out or forgotten) …

“Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Engels

“Tot de dood ons scheidt” (= “till death do us part”) by A. Cochez. She is a campaigner against the death penalty and has for years maintained a friendship relation with someone on death row whom she visits 1 or 2 times every year. The book is very touching as she manages to describe the horrors of death row and the injustice of executions in a very detailed and emotional way, sensitive souls like me better be prepared for tears of emotion. But that emotional side makes it all the better as a book and as statement against capital punishment.

“Mijn thuis in de Islam” (= “My home in Islam”) by Eva Vergaelen. A Belgian woman in her twenties enjoying the freedom of liberal Belgium, converts to Islam. For her, Islam is not women unfriendly, not violent, and especially very misunderstood. She explains those misunderstandings very well and uses a writing style almost poetic, like a love declared in poetry. A love declaration to the religion she found happiness in.

“Yours for eternity: a love story on death row” by Damien Echols & Lorri Davis. Have not yet read the entire book but a few snippets and excertps were so incredibly convincing that even for those parts alone it deserves to be mentioned. Damien and Lorri show that true love survives, even in the harshest conditions one can imagine.

“Vergeten arena’s” (= “Forgotten Arena’s) by Stefan Van Loock. A very melancholic description of the glorious history of Belgium’s most ancient football stadiums, now in a state of decay or already broken down. Lots of photo materials of the old stadiums in a state of ruins, contribute to the nostalgia of the book.

[Savannah]

Ahh, picking favourites is so hard! I will say that, if I had to choose, Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small and Circle of Magic series are the ones that I keep coming back to over and over and helped me through some tough times in my childhood, though books like Graceling, the Harry Potter series, and the Lunar Chronicles series would be high up there as well.

[Lauren]

My favorite book besides the bible is “Power for Abundant Living” by Victor Paul Wierwille. I love biblical studies books and political books!

[Anonymous]

Mmm, it’s quite hard. The favourite is “The Count of Montecristo” by Alexandre Dumas. It has everything: morals, philosophical debates about justice and revenge, a environment based of the “One hundred and one nights”, love stories, a detective story (a simple one compared to Agtha Christie but it has) and you learn about commercial law and navy. I haven’t found any movie closed enough to the book, perhaps the French miniseries with Gerard Depardieu, but it doesn’t have the same ending.

I’m also a Pottermaniac and I’m keen on myths, I even have an encyclopedia in one book. I liked Dan Brown, especially The Da Vinci Code, only because of their artistic and cultural routes rather than their plot (only because the aren’t realistic at all), and finally some philosophical books like “The Art of War” and “The Prince” by Machiavelli.

[Eliza Brodnax]

Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series (SF) is great.

[Emi]

My favorite book has to be Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. It’s about the Vel D’Hiv’ roundup in France, and its really hard to putdown once you start. If you haven’t read it, I highly suggest you do!

[Emily]

My favorites are Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, and anything by H.P. Lovecraft, Paulo Coelho, and Rainbow Rowell. 🙂

[Raell5]

Just a few of my favorite authors:

Anything by Robert A Heinlein, John Scalzi, Joe Haldeman, Laura Hillenbrand, James Herriot, J K Rowling, Gary Paulsen, Mary Renault (!!!!!), Mark Twain, Jeannette Walls (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), many books of Asimov and C S Lewis, only one of Tolstoy (Anna Karenina, since his wife co-authored it), many of Richard Phillips.

Margaret Mitchell’s only novel (!!!!!!!!!) I am ALWAYS in the mood for reading anywhere in Gone With the Wind.

Maya Angelou’s seven autobiographies
Geoffrey Chaucer (A retelling by Peter Ackroyd is my favorite modern language translation)
Laura Ingalls book series
I hate reading Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s depressing books, but they’re SO WELL WRITTEN!!
Amanda Foreman’s Georiana: Dutchess of Devonshire. Best. Doctorate. Ever.
John Grisham
Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father (BOY, I can so relate. I also was raised abroad in a 3-culture, multi-race environment, was mostly home-schooled, currently living in southern Thailand “near” Kuala Lumpur)
Scott Zesch, The Captured
A TRUE story that parallels “The Jungle Book”-Marina Chapman’s memoir; The Girl With No Name: The Incredible Story of a Child Raised By Monkeys.
Candace Bushnell, Sex in the City (a series of memoir notes..insightful and funny!)
Belle du Jour: Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl, by “Anonymous.”
FAVORITE AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Harpo Speaks, by Harpo Marx

I was born picky, and even though I’ve read most classics and many others, these are the ones I read and reread the most, at least lately.

MY MOSTEST FAVORITE: Robert A Heinlein
Second favorite; Jeannette Walls

I’M ALWAYS reading Gone with the Wind, for the pure pleasure of good writing
I constantly read and reread alternate gender memoirs, Civil War and WW ll female spy and code breaker biographies and memoirs, many autobiographies, all of which are too numerous to mention, also usually reading several business how-to books at a time.

[Allison]

My all time favorite read is “Crown Duel” by Sherwood Smith. But I am also a fan of the Harry Potter books, The original Sherlock Holmes stories and all things Charles Dickens. =) That’s only to name a few. I love my books.

[Megan]

Ah, how long can one reply be?! My first favorite from elementary school that I still enjoy today is The Phantom Tollbooth. Also, Abhorsen trilogy, Sherlock (old and new), Bartimaeus trilogy, the Last Rune series, Dark is Rising series, Vampire Hunter D, Ravenor, Mistborn series. I could go on for a while. Basically, I love anything to do with fantasy or horror. I still like the first few Anita Blake books, back before it lost all plot and became purely sex.

At the moment, I’ve started reading the Cthulhu mythos. It’s shaping up to be a pretty good book so I’ll probably have to add it to my list before long.

[Raell5]

Yesterday I noticed a reference to the movie Blackbird, so quickly did a search to read about it on Wikipedia, found the link to the original novel and within a few seconds I owned the Kindle version. I just finished reading it. It’s fairly well written, sort of “Catcher in the Rye”-ish, but a nice read, the “prequel” to Eight Days a Week.

A review at the end of the book says,
It’s hard to pinpoint why Blackbird is so good. Part of the reason is that Duplechan is quite modest in his story’s scope and intent. The plot takes a few weeks in the life of Johnnie Ray Rousseau – a gay, Black, high-school student in Southern California – as he comes to grips with his sexuality and with the realization that growing up means having to deal with a very real, sometimes quite dangerous world where the only person you can really trust is yourself and your instincts.

Duplechan, Larry (2006-05-01). Blackbird (Little Sister’s Classics) (p. 223). Arsenal Pulp Press. Kindle Edition.

[Anonymous]

Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, and Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott
Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
…and many more!

[Author]

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