Favorite Book?

The FAZ apparently surveyed German CEOs (sorry, can't find the article) about their favorite books yesterday. They got some dosey's for answers. For example, at least two said Bill Clinton's "My Life" was their favorite book. Come on.

So, it got me to thinking about my own favorite books. Far and above my favorite of the last couple of years is Dan Simmons Hyperion. In the end, it's a four book set, but that first one is the best. It's an interesting story, one you learn bit by bit and backwards, which is okay since the antagonist in the book is a monster that shifts through time and dimensions. The best part of the book though is how it's told. It's told through the narration of four central characters, each with their own part of the book. And each narration is in a different literary style. I highly recommend it.

Another favorite, one I've read at least three times since age 10, is Louis L'amours Walking Drum. It's one of his few non-Westerns and set in the 11th/12th century. The reader follows the narrator from his boyhood home in Wales(?) where the local robber baron has just killed his mother and robbed his house, to being enslaved on a galley ship, to apprenticing to a Mid-Eastern scholar in Constantinople (or is Istanbul?). A great adventure with little nuggets of wisdom thrown in for good measure.

Finally, a book I ran across last year and love for it's sheer wackiness of plot, is Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book. This is actually the second novel of the series, but it's the one I found first and like the best. Obviously the title caught my eye. But the plot captured me. Thursday Next is a Literary Detective and can jump into books by will. Her father is a rogue Time Cop and an evil mega-corporation is trying to eradicate her husband's very existance. While trying to find her lost husband, Thursday leaps into and out of several great literary works - Poe's The Raven, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, just to name two. It's great fun.

So, what is your favorite book or books? Why do you like them so?

Posted by Jinglelady at October 6, 2004 10:40 PM | Reading | TrackBack