Truly Enjoyable Book List
Every time I see another "Top 100 Greatest Books" list, I yawn, because it is generally always the same books. Too many I haven't read. Makes me feel stupid. Also, I think that the lists are totally unsurprising, as the books have become obligatory.
So, I propose a different type of list. The Top 20 Most Enjoyable Books. Books you read again and again. Books that make you laugh or cry. Not necessarily "the classics", but just damn good reading.
Send me your top suggestions, and I will rank them like Normblog did.
Some suggestions below
Lord of the Rings (controversy brews on the above list about this)
Earth (David Brin)
Morita's Ride (Anne McCaffrey - whole series, really)
One for the Money (Janet Evanovich - whole series)
Something Wonderful (Judith McNault - yes, a romance, but FUNNY)
Dragonfly in Amber (Diana Gabaldon - ahh, Jamie. Need I say more??)
Valley of the Horses (Jean Auel - racy reading for a teenage girl)
Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austin - actually anything by her)
The Stand (Stephen King)
The Source (James Michner)
Bourne Identity (Robert Mitchum)
Little House on the Praire (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
Wheel of Time series (Robert Jordan)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
Enders Game (Orson Scott Card)
The Eight (Katherine Neville)
I could go on, but I'll stop for now!
Easily one of the most enjoyable writers over the last twenty or so years has been Ruth Rendell. Her Inspector Wexford books, her non- Wexford thrillers and above all the books she has written under the pseudonym of Barbara Vine are in a class of their own. 'Asta's book' should have been on the Booker shortlist for the year it appeared, and 'A dark-adapted eye' is stunning. So is 'The brimstone wedding.' I could go on. The acid test of a TRULY enjoyable book is that you drop whatever you're reading when one comes into your hands somehow. I always read a Rendell/Vine immediately. There are lots and lots of other thriller/ detective writers who deserve consideration as good novelists but she is the tops!
Posted by: adele geras | November 29, 2003 at 03:50 PM
Oops - call that Robert Ludlum, not Robert Mitchum. Thanks Charlie!
Posted by: Elizabeth Albrycht | August 25, 2005 at 01:30 PM