What is your favourite work of fiction?

The Bible. It is fun. Full of intrigue, gratuitous violence, murder, rape and seduction, misogyny, racism, prejudice, jealousy, revenge and remember after all of that – it reassures you that God really loves you. All you have to do is a lot of ass kissing and he will think that you are a great person. Give you an invite to spend eternity among the world’s most boring people.

No horror or murder mysteries…

“The Possessed” [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Possessed_(novel) ] by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is also known as The Devils or The Demons. For the record, it does not have any supernatural content.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Give something by China Mieville a try. Or Hyperion by Dan Simmons

“Candide” by Voltaire is also nice. It’s not very long, though.

@chels. The curious incident is a great book :-)

I would take 1984, On The Road and A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian.

Thanks all :) keep them coming!

@chels serious props for mentioning Perks. That is one of my all-time favorite books.

I’m not a huge fan of fiction. My favorite types of books are usually real-life adventure stories, history books, survival manuals, and how-to books.

If I had to pick a favorite fiction novel, I’d say The Lovely Bones. I know, it’s not some super-deep examination of the postmodern existential crisis of neo-Freudian hipsterdom co-authored by the Dalai Lama, Richard Dawkins, and Allen Ginsberg, but it has, nonetheless affected me emotionally in ways that I couldn’t possibly explain.

I’m also a pretty big fan of Paradise Lost and Don Quixote.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Third vote for The Curious Incident

Dune by Frank Herbert.

One of the best pieces of fiction of all time.

Guy de Maupassant’s short stories

Ranging in subject from murder, adultery and war to the simple pleasures of eating and drinking, Maupassant’s short stories are his greatest achievements.

Maupassant’s instinctive insight into the vices and passions of “respectable” men and women is tempered by a sensual appreciation of the good things in life and a robust humor.

Enjoy!

If your interested in the far East, some of James Clavell’s works might interest you. Shogun, King Rat, etc. Did I spell his last name right? Doesn’t look quite right.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard It’s my favorite. Oh and props for mentioning The Lovely Bones that’s another one of my favorites. It’s incredible, isn’t it?

@chels, absolutely. It was actually a combination of Perks and the Lovely Bones that inspired me to start writing a young adult novel

Anything that flowed forth from the mind of Tolkien.

After that, anything by Marion Zimmer Bradley – though I haven’t delved much into Darkover yet.

I’m also a big fan of Michael Moorcock.

Icy Sparks is also a great read.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Wonderful :)

Batallas en el Desierto by José Emilio Pacheco, La Cena by Cesar Aira, Crash by J.G. Ballard, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Oh!
Love in the Time of Cholera is a great read. The movie was good, too.

why western books? Just read some Manga its ART

@TogoldorMandar

Some people want to read, not stare at the same big-eyed, half-assed drawings for 200 pages.

Anything by Mark Twain ;)

For plane rides and beach sitting, you need something long, absorbing, rich in story and character, and yet fairly light, as opposed to something that really works your intellect hard. A book like Gone with the Wind, for instance. Say—have you read that?

@lucillelucillelucille, I am a lifelong admirer of Mark Twain, but have yoiu tried to read the Mysterious Stranger lately?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo is an all-time favourite of mine.

pride and prejudice and zombies…Dilbert books… Eye of the world

Not long, but Inherent Vice is a fun beach read (yes, that is a trailer for a book, and yes, that is the voice of Thomas Pynchon). May not be what you’re looking for, though, as it’s about a detective.

I’ll also second Love in the Time of Cholera (which I didn’t realize was a movie).

What else, what else? You wouldn’t happen to be vacationing in Venice, would you?

Actually, if I think about it, it’s probably Gulliver’s Travels.

Oops, after reading the details I forgot you were asking for personal favorites.

I guess then I will have to say Infinite Jest, which is very long and a good read anywhere, Gravity’s Rainbow, and The Woman in the Dunes, which will probably change the way you look at sand.

Piers Anthonys “Apprentice Adept” series.
Terry Brooks “Orginal Shannara” series.
Stephen Kings “Dark Tower” series.
Terry Goodkinds “Sword of Truth” series.

Above series are chronologically ordered as I read them and also it seems that each series is, in my opinion, better than the last. My favorite being the “Sword of Truth” series.

Also, the short story “Multivax” is very cool.

Anything by Orson Scott Card. His Enders series is a great place to start.

The Awakening
The Picture of Dorian Gray

Jane Eyre. Its great. It has everything… including a crazy woman in an attic.

100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.
120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade.
The Godfather and Fools Die by Mario Puzo.

@Les agree! Jane Eyre, it is! :)

Life is Beautiful!

The Middle Button by Kathryn Worth (it might not be in print anymore though) it is about a girl who tries to become a doctor in the nineteenth century.