Favourite Books of All Time?

Inspired by the What Are You Reading? thread, what are your favourite books of all time? I'm not necessarily talking about great works of literature. I'm talking about your favourites. What were the books that inspired you, regardless of your age?

Here are mine, in no particular order:

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. Began my love affair with time travel.

Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I actually prefer the French version as the book's language is so poetic and loses something in the translation.

The Green Futures of Tycho by William Sleator. Another great time travel novel I read over and over as a preteen.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Need I say more?

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. One of the greatest novels ever written IMHO. I first read this book when I was about ten and I didn't understand a lot of it at the time. But it was so magical and wonderful that it inspired my love of reading and I've reread it almost every year since.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Began my cynicism toward the human race.

Matthew Looney's Invasion of the Earth by Jerome Beatty Jr. These were a series books about a boy who lives on the moon. When I was in grade school these books inspired my love of space. The books are currently out of print and I kick myself for having gotten rid of them ages ago.

The Tomb by F. Paul Wilson. If you've never met Repairman Jack, you don't know what you're missing. Easily the coolest and flat-out badass protaganist to hit the bookshelves in decades.

I think you and I may have similar taste.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. (I have not read it in French, as I do not speak French, but I have read it in German).

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Anything written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., but most definitely Player Piano.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Ready, Okay! by Adam Cadre.

I swear I wasn't copying you. The Little Prince and The Phantom Tollbooth are both listed on my FB as my favorite books, with Catch-22.

I have been reading and re-reading as much Kurt Vonnegut as I can lately.

Dune by Frank Herbert.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Of course

Also, RAH titles including particularly Glory Road, Stranger, TMISAM, and Starship Troopers

I've read Lucifer's Hammer a dozen times.

just off the top of my head...

Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers by Harry Harrison.

Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy.

The Stand by Stephen King.

The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel.

The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey.

Cats Cradle
The Stand (re-reading right now)
Lightning (Koontz time travel)
World War Z (a new favorite)
Red Storm Rising (started my Clancy collection)
2001

The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson (all three books and you could chuck Cryptonomicon in there as well)

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Time Enough For Love : RAH

The Lord of the Rings : JRR Tolkien

The Mote In Gods Eye : Niven/Pournelle

Night Chills : Dean Koontz

Little Fuzzy : H Beam Piper (started my on reading sci fi)

It's obvious that people who enjoy these books have refined taste, are quite intelligent and also very good-looking!

I was forced to read Stranger in a Strange Land as part of my high school curriculum. I realize it's considered a classic work of science fiction but, to be honest, I found it a bit tedious. However, I loved Starship Troopers, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.

The Stand (mentioned before)
The Foundation series - Isaac Asimov

As a child, The Hobbit, the Chronicles of Prydain, and the Tripods series.

Now I'd go with:

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny.
Starship Troopers by Heinlein.
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson
Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
The Belgariad by David Eddings

I'm reading through the Daniel Boorstin trilogy on the history of discovery and thought now, and have to say they are absolutely incredible.

Some of them are just mind candy, and some I have a level of emotional attachment to based on the people in my life I shared them with.

The Best novels I've ever read would be a different list.

To Kill a Mockingbird












.

I'm just a sucker for the sort of characters he writes. I would definitely be willing to say it's behind the other titles on that list.

While I'm on about that - there are quite a few of his short stories that I'd rank with the better of the novels too

The Great Divorce

David Copperfield

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

2001: A Space Odyssey and A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clark

Dune by Frank Herbert

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Gateway by Frederick Pohl

Red Storm Rising and The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession by Charles Adams

Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner

Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

And then there were None (Ten Little Indians) Agatha Christie

Days of Infamy and End of the Beginning by Harry Turtledove

I am addicted to reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War for some reason...I own 4 or 5 different translations of it and have read each of them at least a dozen times, and yet I still have this inexplicable desire to keep reading it. I've also read through both English translations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but the Moss Roberts version is by far the better version. Those are the only books I've read that I've liked enough to read multiple times, so I suppose that would qualify them as my all-time favorites

Ahh, The Art of War. I should've included that one. And Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

Watership Down - Richard Adams

Dune, God Emperor of Dune - Frank Herbert

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter Thompson

Naked Lunch - William Burroughs

Swan Song - Robert R. McCammon

Parliament Of Whores - P. J. O'Rourke

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

The Songs Of Distant Earth - Arthur C. Clarke

Fiction:

The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Without Remorse by Clancy.


Nonfiction:

Tank Sergeant by Ralph Zumbro (I've read that book numerous times)
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason
Castles of Steel by Robert Massie

Which one was Night Chills?
This may sound like sacrelige (sp?), but I'd like to see a new movie version of 2001, one that sticks closer to the book. The reason only 2001 (& not 2010,61, or 3001)makes my list is that Clarke retconned the 2001 plot in 2010 to match the movie.

Sticking with fiction, I suppose. There's lots of non-fiction I could include too.

Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
His Masters Voice, Stanislaw Lem
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
Contact, Carl Sagan
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick

Threads like this make me wonder why I don't read more. So much stuff left to get through...

Farewell Elric, I was a thousand times more evil than thou, and it leapt into the sky making a mockery of the cosmic balance and filling the universe with its unholy joy.

I really haven't enjoyed the end of a series as much as that.

Anyway, that series (The Elric Saga) is great and all, but probably not my favorite.

Instead:

Fiction:
Starship Troopers Heinlein
Chronicles of Amber Zelazny
The Chocolate War Cormier
Valis/The Divine Invasion/The Transmogration of Timothy Archer trilogy by Philip K. Dick
Still Life with Woodpecker Tom Robbins (a great lovestory + bandit)
Sword of the Spirits - Trilogy by Christopher
Day of the Triffids - Wyndham
The Sandman, series by Gaiman

Non-fiction:

Germs, Guns, and Steel Diamond
Six Easy Pieces Feynman
A Brief History of Time Hawking
The World is Flat Friedman

In no certain order:

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress: Heinlein
Starship Troopers: Heinlein
Red Storm Rising: Clancy
The Hunt for Red October: Clancy
Without Remorse: Clancy
The Fountainhead: Rand
Flight of the Intruder: Coonts
Run Silent, Run Deep: Beach
Thunder Below!: Fluckey
Nimitz: Potter
The Fighting Sailor: Ryan

Read Stranger in a Strange Land. Found it 85% excrutiating, 15% interesting ideas.