Your top 10 books of all time

Tim Robbins

Well it's that time of year again... Manipulate a bit of agape from someone you know and get yourself a good book over the Secular winter break!

So how about you name your top 10 books of all time to all the people you love arguing with so that you and they have ideas for some reading material when locked up with the family and in-laws in the secular break.

Here's mine:

1. The Selfish Gene, Dawkins
2. Cool It, Lomborg
3. The Pig that wants to be Eaten, Baggini
4. The Duck that won the Lottery, Baggini
5. Long Walk to Freedom, Mandella
6. The Code Book, Singh
7. The History of Westen Philosophy, Russell
8. The Curious Incident about the Dog in the Night, Hadden
9. One World - Peter Singer
10. The Art of Happiness - Dalai Lama

and for bonus:
11. A brief history of time- Hawking

Dades

You're assuming everyone here has read 10 books?
In no real order (save the first few):

His Dark Materials (Phillip Pullman)
On The Road (Jack Kerouac)
HHGTTG (Douglas Adams)
A Song of Ice & Fire (George RR Martin)
Cosmos (Carl Sagan)
Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
The Hobbit (Tolkien)
The Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe)
Childhoods End (Arthur C Clarke)
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman)

Much as I appreciate non-fiction, the best book experiences for me take my mind elsewhere.

Only read two on your list, Tim, and it'll remain like that for a while!

Tim Robbins

Dades wrote: »

Much as I appreciate non-fiction, the best book experiences for me take my mind elsewhere.

Only read two on your list, Tim, and it'll remain like that for a while!

Fiction takes my mind elsehwere, believe me. I just can't deal with non - fiction. A wood pecker just keeps telling me but it's not true so it's hard to care about the characters unless the writer has an exceptional amount of imagination and writing ability and can thus make you forget that.

The Mad Hatter

Hrm...

In no particular order (aside from the first two - maybe three)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave McKean
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
1984 - George Orwell
The Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake
The Silmarillion - J. R. R. Tolkien
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There - Lewis Carroll
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
From Hell - Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell

I'm not too fond of non-fiction (and the only two non-fiction books I'd recommend are The Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama and The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross...), but there you go.

Also, this list may change depending on wind speed.

robindch

In no particular order either:

The Player of Games and The Bridge, Iain Banks
The Silmarillion, JRR Tolkien
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
HHGTTG, Douglas Adams
Words and Rules, Stephen Pinker
The Loom of Language, Frederick Bodmer
Cryptography, Bruce Schneier
Religion Explained, Pascal Boyer
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid and Le Ton beau de Marot, Douglas Hofstadter

Mark Hamill

Not in any order:

"I am Legend" and "What Dreams May Come" by Richard Matheson.
"The Complete Robot" by Isaac Asimov. (Thank again to Goduznt Xzst who posted his short story "Last Question" in Religious Humor a while back-first I had ever heard of it and it was also brilliant)
Pretty much everything by Terry Pratchett, but his best are "Good Omens", "Nightwatch" and "Small Gods".
Again pretty much everything by Robert Rankin, among the most notable being "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocolypse" and "The Toyminator".
"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman (also his short stries "The Wedding Present" and "Murder Mysteries" from the Smoke and Mirrors collection).
"Breathe" by Cliff McNish.
"The Wheel of Time Series" by Robert Jordan.
The "Farseer", "Liveship Traders" and "Tawny Man" trilogies by Robin Hobb (9 books , but really one story all the way through).
The "Watch" Trilogy by Sergei Lukyanenko.

stevejazzx

in no order

1984 - orwell
how mumbo conquered the world - wheen
brothers karamazov - dostoyevsky
death of ivan illyich - tolstoy
master and margarita - bulgakov
ulysses - joyce
finnegans wake (mental but great) - joyce
mao - jan halliday
david copperfield - dickens
Watchmen (1986)- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

ChocolateSauce

1. His Dark Materials (Amber Spyglass the best)
2. A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
And then in no particular order (can't remember some of the authors...)
A Clockwork Orange
A brief history of time
Flashman series
Queen Victoria's Little Wars
God is Not Great
Climbing Mount Improbable
The Witching Hour
Lirael

Daemonic

Hard to name fav books so I'll list a few authors I always look out for and enjoy immensely. Heavily crime fiction biased and pretty easy on the brain
Richard Stark (a pen-name of Donald Westlake) - The Parker novels are favs
Elmore Leonard - anything
Richard Dawkins - making complicated stuff easier
Carl Hiaasen
Michael Crichton (RIP) - made me stay up late too many times.
Pinckney Benedict - really hasn't written enough but what he has produced is brilliant.

Hivemind187

No real order but ...

1982 - George Orwell
HHGTG - Douglas Adams
God Delusion/Ancestors Tale - Richard Dawkins
The Tomb - F Paul Wilson
A brief history of time - Hawking
The Hippopotamous/The Liar - Stephen Fry
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Good Omens and most of the diskworld series - Terry Pratchet
The Satanic Bible - Anton Szandor LaVey (it was that or Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand)

Honourable mention

Preacher - Garth Ennis
Maus - (cant remember the guys name off hand)
V for Vendetta - Alan Moore
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson
Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers - Rob Grant and Doug Naylor
Battlefield Earth - L Ron Hubbard (if only to innure yourself to the Scientologists)

stevejazzx

Hivemind187 wrote: »

No real order but ...

1982 - George Orwell

prefer the sequel....;)

MrDaithi

Dades wrote: »

You're assuming everyone here has read 10 books?

Actually, I've only ever bought and fully read two books ever.

Yes, you can go through the whole education system up to university without having to fully read any book, even when it's some assignment. Just browse through some pages, pick up what you need, get some friends who've read the books to talk about it... you'll help them with something else.

Anyway here they are:
The long way round - Ewan McGregor, Charlie Boorman
Performance at the Limit: Business Lessons from Formula 1 Motor Racing - Mark Jenkins, Ken Pasternak, Richard West


I've bought a 3rd book during a trip a 6 months ago, but I haven't started it yet.
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell - Tucker Max

Fanny Cradock

Not a definite list, but here are some of my favourite non-religious books in no particular order:

1) Kolyma Tales, Varlam Shalamov
2) Stalingrad, Anthony Beevor
3) In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick
4) The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien
5) LOTR, J.R.R Tolkien
6) Roadside Picnic, Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky
7) Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
8) Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolf
9) Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
10) The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood

(I could probably knock a couple off that list given time)

Honourable mentions off the top of my head:

The Day of the Triffids
1984
Brave New World
Lord of the Flies
Life of Pi (maybe not quite secular)
Count of Monte Cristo
Gulliver's Travels
Treasure Island
Catch 22
American Psycho - couldn't or wouldn't want to read it now, though.
etc., etc.

condra

I don't read (fiction) books often. I'm more into (Japanses Gas Mask) porn.

Here are some books that I read and liked: (in NPO)
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonegut (favourite book ever)
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adama
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The God Delusion
Poems, plays etc - Oscar Wilde

Here are some books that I didn't finish because I considered them sh1t.
Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
The Celestian Prophesy - James Redfield (steaming pile)
The Art Of Happiness - Dalai Lama
Fiesta - Hemmingway

Charlie3dan

In no order and off the top of my head:

The God Delusion-Richard Dawkins
The Alchemist-Paulo Coehelo
The Count of Monte Cristo-Alexandre Dumas
Hagakure-Yamamoto Tsunetomo
HHGTTG-Douglas Adams
Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance- Robert Pirsig (quality )
Angels & Demons -Dan Brown (Yes I went there)
Watchmen-Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
The Book of Five Rings-Miyamoto Mushashi
A Catcher in the Rye-J.D. Salinger

1984 is next to read on my list.

Until recently I was reading catch 22 and I very rarely don't finish a book but I don't know what it is about this book, at times it's brilliant and at other times doesn't hold my attention. It's back on the book shelf for the moment.

The Mad Hatter

Charlie3dan wrote: »

Angels & Demons -Dan Brown (Yes I went there)

*throws up*

But to say that, and then immediately after

Watchmen-Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

is surely heresy of the highest order!

Here you have successfully juxtaposed one of the best writers of the last twenty years and one of the absolute worst!

Dades

Charlie3dan wrote: »

The Alchemist-Paulo Coehelo
A Catcher in the Rye-J.D. Salinger

Two of my most hated books!

On the flip side since you mentioned it, in hindsight I should have squeezed The Count of Monte Cristo onto my list...

Charlie3dan

I know, I'm not proud of it, but damn I enjoyed Angels & Demons and can't wait for the movie! *


but if I wasn't a heretic I wouldn't be here;)

My most hated book is the curious incident of the dog in the night time.


*good to get that off my chest

Tyler MacDurden

Also in no particular order...

The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins.
Mind-expanding, perception-altering masterwork.

Cosmos - Carl Sagan.
If you ever need your faith in humanity's future restored, read this.

Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield.
The battle of Thermopylae, with more than a hint of Homer. Epic stuff, and not all blood & guts, Pressfield nails the spirit of Sparta.

The Religion - Tim Willocks.
Don't let the name put you off! The main protagonist is one of us. The great siege of Malta, with glorious, gory battles, philosophical digressions, and vaguely embarrassing love-scenes.

The Flights of the Mind - Charles Nicholl.
A biography of Leonardo, comprehensive, accessible and affectionately written.

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien.
As the Professor himself said, not a temple or fain to be seen, but Christian symbolism aplenty. Still it shows up in the lists of the godless and religious alike.

Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare.
My favourite tragedy and comedy. Hope to see the latter on Midsummer's night in The Globe this coming year.

The Iliad and The Odyssey - Homer.
In translation, Lattimore for the former, Fagles for the latter.

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova.
A new take on the Dracula legend, worth reading for the evocative rendering of the plot's various European settings alone. Will make you want to InterRail. And hunt the undead.

Vokes

Hmmm, don't think I could name ten but the following would be my top ones (in no particular order):

• The Forever War, Joe Haldeman (Ridley Scott is planning a movie adaption!)
• LoTR, Tolkien
• A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin
• Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
• Waylander, David Gemmell
• The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

Valmont

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave McKean

Alan Moore wrote it and Dave Gibbons illustrated it, I think McKean did something for the anniversary edition.

Regarding my favourite books pertaining to athiesm (in a roundabout way), I would say Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Truly inspirational novels. Ayn Rand believed that self interest was the motor of the world.

On that point, is the selfish gene any good? would you recommend it? I thought the God delusion was fairly obvious, so I only read a bit of it.

Galvasean

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

American Psycho

A side of you I never taught I'd see.

midlandsmissus

I read all the time. I need to read a book in bed before I can go to sleep. As Scout in To kill a mockingbird said "I don't love reading, one does not love to breathe"

A few of my faves:
To kill a Mockingbird
Catcher in the Rye - I really do love that book
About a Boy
All the Discworld books - I love Terry Pratchett
1984 - my year of birth wahey!
Lord of the Flies
Animal Farm


How many is that. Can't think of ten off the top of my head.I must say I read the God delusion and thought it was extremely boring! I just thought there wasn't a good argument in it. You'd get a better argument on here!

The Mad Hatter

Valmont wrote: »

Alan Moore wrote it and Dave Gibbons illustrated it, I think McKean did something for the anniversary edition.

Sorry, meant Gibbons. McKean was Sandman

robindch

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Well it's that time of year again.

Ooops, forgot to include just about anything at all by the truly numinous Dylan Thomas. His A Child's Christmas in Wales is worth 15 minutes of anybody's time:

Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales, read by Joss Ackland.mp3

Then, there's his majestic, Joyce-like, satirical, insanely weird, Under Milk Wood.

And there's our own Myles Na Gopaleen. An Béal Bocht (in English as The Poor Mouth) is a must-read for anybody whose teenage years were blighted by the bowdlerized ramblings of Peig, who died 50 years ago yesterday.

pH

#1 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen

2-10 (in no particular order)
Snow Crash Neil Stephenson (Diamond Age is great too)
The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins
True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey
Something by Ian (M) Banks - Consider Phlebas or Wasp Factory or The Bridge
Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
Something by John Wyndham Triffids/Kraken
Foundation trilogy Asimov
Microserfs Douglas Coupland
The Blank Slate Steven Pinker

5uspect

So many books so little time, I wouldn't have any significant favourites really but there are some notable books that currently spring to mind as books I would recommend to friends.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Cosmos - Carl Sagan
The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

Anything by Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Bill Bryson, Stephen Pinker, Feynman and Dawkins.

I've just finished The Satanic Verses and quite enjoyed it for the weird and wonderful weirdness of it. Currently reading Fahrenheit 451 and I am enjoying it immensely.
Next up on my list is probably Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

aidan24326

robindch wrote: »

And there's our own Myles Na Gopaleen. An Béal Bocht (in English as The Poor Mouth) is a must-read for anybody whose teenage years were blighted by the bowdlerized ramblings of Peig, who died 50 years ago yesterday.

I refused to read Peig for the LC. When the test came around I made up my own version and in the end had her killed in a car accident (they were well ahead of their time down there in West Kerry). The teacher marked my paper with alot of red biro strokes and scribbles which presumably meant she was most impressed with my reinterpretation :pac:

5uspect wrote: »

Next up on my list is probably Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

Read that myself recently and it's pretty good. His chapter debunking Gillian McKeith is particularly amusing. Though what's less amusing is how the likes of her still gets a slot on primetime television.

A few I liked in recent years.

'Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman' - Richard Feynman
'The Demon Haunted World' - Carl Sagan
'The Ancestor's Tale' - Dawkins
'The Selfish Gene' - Dawkins
'God and The New Physics' - Paul Davies
The Last Three Minutes - Paul Davies
'The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Nighttime' - Mark Haddon
'Consciousness - How Matter Becomes Imagination' - Gerald Edelman

Hardly ever read fiction to be honest.

adamd164

Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life - Nick Lane
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
In Defence of Atheism - Michel Onfray
Pale Blue Dot: Visions of the Human Future in Space - Carl Sagan
The Red Queen - Matt Ridley
The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

CerebralCortex

I don't think its possible to have a top 10 titles but here is a list of books I found rather enjoyable:

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 1 & 2
Breaking the Spell - Daniel C. Dennett
Foundation - Isaac Asimov I have yet to read the whole series but I'm looking forward if this part is anything to go by.
The three stigmata of Palmer Eldridge - Philip K. Dick
Ubik - Philip K. Dick
Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick strange story bringing you to quite a believable alternate version of reality I think I need to read it again.

Currently reading The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins this has increased my understanding of evolutionary biology profoundly.

Pompey Magnus

In no order:

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon
Emperor - Conn Iggulden
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Animal Farm - George Orwell
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Miracles and Idolatry - Francois Voltaire
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
Misquoting Jesus - Bart Ehrman
Lost Christianities - Bart Ehrman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams