When you meet a fellow book lover, what do you tell them your favorite five books are?
When you meet a fellow book lover, what do you tell them your favorite five books are?
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Generally simply chat about what reading and that prompts other author names. No way to list 5 as all time favs. Had a delightful conversation in an airport with someone simply because one of us commented about what the other was reading at the time.
If they asked for 5 favorite books I would list The Mists of Avalon, Anne of Green Gables, The Handmaid’s Tale, Night, and the Song of the Lioness Quartet (slightly cheating since its 4 books, but I have them in one combined book).
I am super excited by your list. I think my next book has to be the handsmaid’s tale. My daughter loves this book. Anne of Green Gables is one of my favorite series that I try to reread every year-yes, all 8 books!
I just finished rereading the Alanna books, the first time since high school and I’m so glad they lived up to my memories!
I’m so glad. I haven’t read them in about 10 years and my daughter is the age I was when I read the first one, so I was hoping we could read them together (but individually).
Wonderful idea!
@Megan and @Mikah have you two read the Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce? They are a darker series, but so very good. My son and I loved reading them. Very strong female characters.
I haven’t read them yet, but own them. Lol.
I did read them. They were good, but not my favorites (high bar though!). I just finished reading the Protector of the Small for the first time which were great and got better as they went and I enjoyed the Trickster books (Alanna’s daughter). Have you read either of those? My next quest is to reread the Circle of Magic books. I agree thay she writes such great female characters!
I would rather talk about what they are reading than my reading habits. I learn more that way.
I like book series. Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Outlander, The Baroque Cycle, Horatio Hornblower.
You know, depending on how the stars are aligned, this is changeable. And impossible to answer, for me. I could probably talk about favorite authors and my favorite book of theirs, but five all time faves…couldn’t do it.
so give me 5 books you want society to read
Well, this is tough too! Lends itself to non-fiction, and whatever I think might shed light on social ills at any point in time. Or just interesting history. But here goes:
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race
Hillbilly Elegy
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy
Katherine by Anya Seton, Wuthering Heights, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, In The Sanctuary of Outcasts, & The Shape of Illusion
Loved Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. My moms favorite book was Wuthering Heights. Thank you for the book ideas.
The Help#1 for sure
The Nightingale
Firefly Lane
The Fault In Our Stars
Beach Girls
The Notebook
Thanks For The Memories
Who wrote Thanks for the memories?
Cecelia Ahern
I love firefly lane and most of your top 5! Have you read any newer books that you would recommend since i seem to have similar taste!?
Everything Everything and The Sun Is Also A Star
Me Before You, Paris For One, Love Like Crazy
Thank you
The poisonwood bible
If they ask me, I would tell them my top 5 favorite books are -The Book Thief, To Kill a Mockingbird, All the Light We Cannot See, The boy in the stripped pyajamas and Matilda. I am about to read The Handmaid’s Tale and The Nightingale and I think I will add them too in the list. ??
Gone With the Wind
The Bible
The Kitchen House
My Sister’s Keeper
The Stranger Beside Me
It’s hard to only pick five. I could go on and on. Lol!
Three men in a boat by Jerome K. jerome, the general danced at Dawn by George Macdonald Fraser, 1066 and all that by w.C. sellar and r.j. Yeatman, excellent women by barbara Pym, An Autobiography by Agatha christie
The Samurai’s Garden-(Tsukiyama); Tattoos on the Heart-(Boyle); Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree-(picture book – Barry); Wait Till Next Year-(Goodwin); Kane and Abel-(Archer).
I just picked up Tattoos on the Heart. Boyle is going to be speaking at my sons school this month.
I read Mr willowby to my grandchildren every year! Also I loved Sammuai garden. Made both of my book clubs read it!
Non-Fiction that educated me: Fort of Nine Towers (Qais Akbar Omar)-a family surviving in Afghanistan, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (Bryan Stevenson)-our justice system, The House by the Sea (May Sarton)-aging & living alone, In the Absence of Angels (Elizabeth Glaser)-a woman fighting for her child in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, All But My Life (Gerda Weismann Klein)-Holocaust survivor story.
Fiction: I can’t do 5!!!
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), The Book Thief (Markus Zusak), Someone Knows My Name (Lawrence Hill), Matterhorn ( Karl Marlantes) , Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese), The Sparrow/Children of God (Mary Doria Russell)
Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and the Harry Potter series….but I have a lot more! Lol
I have 37 books in my Goodreads books I love (extra love) and it is always growing. Can’t name just 5
Is there a way to designate your absolute favorites on Goodreads. There are 5 stars and then there are those books that just blow me away and would love to “star” them or something.
Depends on *their* genres of choice. But generally speaking…
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wrobelewski
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
But that’s off the top of my head today. I’m sure to have forgotten something brilliant that would supplant one of these from a “top 5”
I totally loved The Night Circus!
I agree with History of Love. One of my all-time favorites too.
@Mikah – and yet so few people have read or heard of it. I like her other work, too, but this one – lightning in a bottle.
Great question… Harry Potter, Hitchhiker’s Guide (Doughlas Adams), Me Talk Pretty One Day (Davis Sedaris), Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), and Delights and Shadows (Ted Kooser).
I like your first four of those, too! I know nothing about the Kooser.
He’s a wonderful poet who used to be US Poet Laureate. Delights and Shadows won a Pulitzer Prize. He writes poems with really simple imagery, but much deeper meanings.
Here’s one I like. http://www.tedkooser.net/excerpts/tattoo.html
My five favorites would be a different list than the five I would recommend somebody else read. Loving a book is so personal and subjective! But mine are: The Shipping News, Peace Like a River, She’s Come Undone, Olive Kitteridge, A Thousand Acres. (*all subject to change, of course ;))
I started She’s Come Undone last night. Thank you. I really enjoyed Peace Live a River and Olive Kitteridge as well!
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
Dark Ages by Valerie L Price
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
The Partnership: Making of Goldman Sachs by Charles Ellis
The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Good Earth
Stones from the River
Pillars of the Earth
and I read Boys Life by Dan McCammon a million years ago. I don’t know if I would love it today, but I sure did back then.
I loved Boys Life.
My Antonia by Willa Cather
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Autobiography of a yogi by Paramahansa yogananda
Power vs. Force by David Hawkins
Slauterhouse five by Vonnegut
My Antonia ?
A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Road to Yaak, The Middle Window, Below the Salt, Giovanni’s Room
I’m reading these responses and going, “Oh, yeah! Forgot about that one!”
I am so excited about my list.
Alas, Babylon
Ethan Frome
This Perfect Day
The Giver
The Postman
Thank you. Loved The Giver!
The Postman by David Brin?
@Monica yes
@Sue Thank you
The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gaysby, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Looking for Alaska, Entwined, The Fault in our Stars
I am reading The Catcher in the Rye right now! Loved The Picture of Dorian Gray. Looking for Alaska was so engaging. I cried to hard during “The Fault in our Stars,” plus I couldn’t get off the couch. I could not put that book down. I will have to read your other two:-)
Who wrote Entwined? Too many options 🙂
Lynda La Plath.. i could not remember. but it’s really a good book. About a reunion of twins after a survival this Angel of Death tragedy
The catcher in the rye is my all time favorite
The Great Gatsby too
@Ana Thank you so much for all of the excellent book suggestions. I have read all of them now except Entwined. I will look for it at the next library sale. Have a wonderful 2018! Happy Reading.
Entwined is a great book. one of my favorites
i have six. lol
Troublemaker! ??
lol
David Copperfield
The Secret Garden
Lord of The Rings
Watership Down
Huckleberry Finn
To Kill A Mockingbird
OK that’s six but in my defense I could have put more down. Hard to limit it to five. Lol
classics❤
so true
I don’t think anyone, anywhere, ever asked that. Maybe that’s a kid thing.(?)
House of Sand and Fog
To Kill a Mockingbird
Catch 22
The Alchemist
The Red Tent
Pillars of the Earth, The Nightingale, Necessary Lies, The Mistress of Nothing, The Couple Next Door.
I just get excited and ask what they like to read. I don’t do favourites, I don’t even have a favourite drink! I’m THAT undecided about things. I talk about genres and tastes, was never able to pinpoint a ‘favourite’.
Hotel on the corner of Bitter & Sweet; Losing Julia, Mary: Mrs. A Lincoln, Ahab’s wife, The Aviator’s wife
I loved Losing Julia!!
Loved Ahab’s Wife!
The book thief, Rage of Angels, The little prince, The chronicles of narnia (still working on it, but yes I love it!) and a brazilian fiction (in a free translation) I would receice the worst news from your beautiful lips. ❤
News of the World, Day for Night, Delicious, The Saboteur, The Radium Girls, oh my goodness, the list just goes on and on…
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, the Far Pavilions by MM Kaye.
Thank you to everyone that gave of yourself to share some of your favorite books. I know most of us have many books we really enjoy and many that have changed and shaped our lives. I am currently reading The Catcher in the Rye and She’s Come Undone. I am loving both of them. Thank you again and happy reading.