A wizard of Earthsea, it would seem

The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien intended it to be one book, so I can't it as one. :-)

I'm with Draugnar on this one, although I personally "count" it as one. ;) I was also a fan of how they did a mass release of the whole book in one volume around the time the movies were coming out.

Toss up. The Killer Angels, The Secret History, or Watership Down. Maybe A Song o Ice and Fire depending on how -- and if -- it ends.

Just a few since I can't decide...
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Watchmen by Moore and Gibbons
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

Nice, I was thinking of starting a book thread. I need some ideas to broaden my to-read list. Some of my own recommendations:

Watership Down - Richard Adams (big surprise)
Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond
Aztec - Gary Jennings
City - Clifford D. Simak
The Case for Mars - Robert Zubrin

Frank Herbert's Dune

I, too, am a fan of Watership Down. I'd also recommend Martian Chronicles by Bradbury and Gulliver's Travels by Swift.

2nd-favorite book: Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton.

Watership Down is indeed a must read. But the ones I like most are:
- Otherland by Tad Williams
- A moat in Gods eye by Weber
- Old Mans war by Scalar

" A moat in Gods eye by Weber"

Never heard of it. I know of A Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven, but even googleing it found nothing.

The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna is probably my favorite. It's historical fiction and philosophy in one book!

In b4 obi.

You are right of course, Draug. was still half asleep. But let's add some of Weber aswell. I am a big fan of the honor Harrington series.

But not long before, steephie! ;)

Obi's Top 10 Favorite Books/Plays (because Brevity, the soul of wit? Pffff...)

Ranked for preference, if not necessarily quality...

10. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia-Marquez)
9. The Waves (Virginia Woolf)
8. Portnoy’s Complaint (Philip Roth)
7. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
6. The Collected Works of Wilde (If I have to pick...The Importance of Being Earnest)
5. Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
4. Women in Love (D.H. Lawrence)
3. The Brothers Karamazov (Fydor Dostoyevsky)
2. The Collected Works of Shaw (If I have to pick…Man and Superman)
1. The Complete Works of Shakespeare (If I have to pick one...Hamlet!) :)

On a side note...reading "Lolita" right now...and...

Who's read this book and, um, felt comfortable doing so? O.o

I mean, it's wickedly-well put together, but goddamn...

300 pages of an admitted and unabashed pervert and pedophile...yikes.

not every book is designed to be read comfortably, obi.

reading american psycho right now, and though some passages make me sick - literally - i think it'll become one of my favourites.

1984.

All Men Are Mortal - Simone de Beauvoir.

@obi, jude the obscure is better than tess

noone has any balzac which is a shame.

sorrows of young werther
count of monte cristo
penguin island

When my former book club read One Hundred Years of Solitude, we all referred to it as One Hundred Years of Crap. That book is why I no longer join book clubs.

You're late, obi.

Thanks for being late though, gave me the opportunity to earn a +1.

I really like the Emperor and Conqueror series' by Conn Iggulden and Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin.

I don't read that much, probably average 3 or 4 books a year outside of required readings.

if I had to choose one book, my vote would probably be Clash of Kings

I don't know which would be my overall favourite, but here's a list of series I've most enjoyed:
The Saxon Stories, by Bernard Cornwell
The Conqueror Series, by Conn Iggulden
The Culture novels, by Iain M. Banks
The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson

I should given the Culture novels and the Stormlight archive a try, I really enjoyed both the Saxon series and the Conqueror series, so we probably have similar tastes.

Also: The Iron Druid Chronicles (Oberon FTW), by Kevin Hearne
The Dresden Files (start getting better after the first two), by Jim Butcher.

Green Eggs and Ham

really, jmo? i liked the cat in the hat better, to be honest.

Both wonderful, but the really great one is "Oh, the places you'll go!"

Horton Hears a Who

You guys are all idiots. The Lorax is clearly the best.

I prefer Danny Dunn or The Hardy Boys myself.

Most of the above plus Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny. The only book that I know of that manages to pull off waking up without a memory and makes it interesting.

Red Storm Rising by The Greatest Author of All Time (aka Tom Clancy)

"You're late, obi.

Thanks for being late though, gave me the opportunity to earn a +1."

And you're welcome for it. ;)

"You guys are all idiots. The Lorax is clearly the best."

Don't let krellin hear you say that.......

Also, The Cat in the Hat COMES BACK is clearly the best...that Fox in Socks.

"not every book is designed to be read comfortably, obi."

Which is why I'm pushing through "Lolita," but goddamn...this narrator seriously makes me sick...

obi, you should really give american psycho a try if you haven't yet.

There are too many, but here is a short list in no particular order:

Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment (Russian Title: Transgression and Judgment lends it a little different connotation)
Augustine - City of God
Homer - The Illiad
Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Twain - Huckleberry Finn (ignoring Twain's own preface about not taking it seriously)
Steinbeck - East of Eden
Henry of Huntingdon - Historia Anglorum ("History of the English People" written in 1135 in Latin, but available from Cambridge Press in a facing page translation)

And on a lighter but still very satisfying note:
Dunnet - King Hereafter
O'Brien - the entier Aubrey/Maturin series
LeCarre - pretty much any of his works
Fesperman - Double Game
Clancy - Red Storm Rising (one of two books he wrote that are re-readable)

/\ I call bullshit - what an utterly ridiculous and trite list. Another Obi wanna-be with his pretentious wine and his "I looked up the best book on Google and this is what I came up with".

Who are you frauds, anyway? And what pathetic and droll lives you must lead if your reality is really so narrowly focused on only the "best" books as listed by your English teacher/professor. Who are you trying to impress?

For a single book, my favorite is Ender's Game. And I mean the book, not the movie. I was very disappointed with the movie.

@krellin: i agree only partially. you are right that some of the "best books of all time" are massively overrated, yet most of the time, they're on these kind of lists for a very good reason.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

Almost anything by Thoreau.

Tommy and Grizel, Barrie.
The Magnificent Ambersons, Tarkington.
Of Human Bondage, Maugham.
My Antonia, Cather.
The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky.