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What Are Your Top 5 All-time Novels?


TexasAg1969

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5. Centennial by James Michener. I lived in Greeley, Colo. (the real Centennial of the novel) going to grad school when this came out in 1974. Went to many of the locations where the novel takes place.

4. Shogun-one cliffhanger after another at the end of every chapter while slowly immersing the reader in another culture

3. 1984-Most relevant to today's "propaganda politics".

2. Moby finger - so deep in so many ways plus a look at a way of life now in the past.

1. To Kill A Mockingbird-growing up in the south learning about hunting, killing a real mockingbird was considered a great sin and it is protected as the state bird of Texas. Also the clear message about the sin of prejudice/racism is just as powerful now as it was when this came out 4 years before the Civil Rights bill was signed by Texan LBJ in 1964.

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48 minutes ago, DieHardBrownsFan said:

5.  The Confessions, by Saint Augustine

4.  The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas A. Kempis

3.  Life Is a Dream, by Pedro Calderun De La Barca

2.  Great Again, Donald Trump

1.  Salems Lot, Stephen King.

I'm taking a copy of St. Augstine's Confessions on audio CD with me on our trip back to Colo. in Sept. Hopefully my wife will not complain too much. I told her I needed a "newsbreak" from all the news stations on Sirius. I have never read it nor listened to the audio, but it is on my bucket list.

And I see you realize that Trump writes fictional novels as implied by the title of the thread.😁

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"Hound of the Baskervilles" Conan Doyle

"Mystery of Cabin Island" and all the rest of the Hardy Boys books that I collect.

my own novel, officially printed in three copies.

westerns by Zane Grey

"Dances with Wolves"

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2 hours ago, calfoxwc said:

westerns by Zane Grey

"Dances with Wolves"

I think you would love "Centennial". A lot of the mountain man trapper trader history in it. Can you spot the Beaver on the mountain? It's in the novel. Look at where the tip of the sign post is pointing upwards which is the Long's Peak summit. Ignore the peak on the far right side of the picture that is only half captured. Then to the left of the top of Long's Peak you can see a notch. The beavers nose is the tip of the left side and his head slopes to the left. Then you can see the hump of his back with a small elongated dip that starts the beginning of the tail which is a little darker color of rock than the rest of the rock just below him. Once you can see the body you can barely make out what might pass for the right upper and lower legs dangling down under on the side of the mountain. That part is a bit of a stretch though. So what you see is the right profile of a beaver laying on the mountain to the side of the Long's Peak summit in RMNP, once a major source of beaver pelts in the olden days. Once you actually see the beaver you can't un-see it. LOL!

Image result for longs peak beaver
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1 hour ago, calfoxwc said:

I admit, not seein it. I see Jabba the Hutt.

LOL! I hiked to the top of Lilly Mountain and had my brother take a picture of my finger on the nose of the Beaver the next ridge over pointing to the rest of it because for 40+ years I could never get my wife to be able to "see" the beaver. Now she does.

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6 hours ago, TexasAg1969 said:

LOL! I hiked to the top of Lilly Mountain and had my brother take a picture of my finger on the nose of the Beaver the next ridge over pointing to the rest of it because for 40+ years I could never get my wife to be able to "see" the beaver. Now she does.

Doesn't really take very long to see it....looks like someone with a massive chisel carved it out of the surrounding rock.

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12 hours ago, calfoxwc said:

I admit, not seein it.

Here's a better way to see it in Braille cal 😎, though they did not quite bracket the tail which is part of the next hump to the left of the bracket. Refer to the next picture to see the tail more defined.

Image result for beaver on longs peak
 
This has a better view closer up. Now can you see the tail as a darker rock than the layer below it?
 
Related image
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The Godfather by Mario Puzo even though Francis Ford Coppola pretty much wrote it and hired a novelist to put it all together so I hear.

Of course Lord of the Rings a masterpiece  I've read many many times.

Needful Things by Stephen King.

All these years the mark lewisohn trilogy on the history of The Beatles. I wish you'd get off his butt and release the second book.

It's been a long time but I really did like Shogun also Trinity by Leon Uris.

The Century Trilogy by Ken Follett is one of my favorites.

I've enjoyed every one of the Bernard Cornwell series The Last Kingdom.

I have read and enjoyed every book by Harlan Coben.

I just finished Chesapeake speaking of James Michener and have thought about reading Centennial.

Animal farm and A Clockwork Orange are among my favorites.

Can't really nail on a top-five I guess.

WSS

 

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This has a better view closer up. Now can you see the tail as a darker rock than the layer below it? Tex
***************************************************************
    eh.....okay....I'm starting to get tired of staring at it...maybe I kiinda see a groundhog, but no beaver....... lol
oh,
and btw, about novels - when I was in the service, I read Tolkein's trilogy about the Hobbit. Fascinating fiction, amazing story.
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1 hour ago, Westside Steve said:

Get really nailed on a top-five I guess.

WSS

I know. It's tough to rule some out. I had to do that with East of Eden, The Godfather and the best short novel ever IMO, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

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Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper

Beyond that I like series:

The Dune Series...by Frank Herbert...and then by his son plus Brian Anderson

Bernard Cornwell...as Steve said, did several series:   The Saxon Tales (The Last Kingdom)   The Richard Sharpe series (Napoleanic War stories), The Warlord Chronicles.   The Holy Grail Series.   He also did a great stand alone novel on Agincourt.

I have enjoyed all the Dan Brown books,  but, they have become formulaic.

And also the Lord of the Rings series.

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23 hours ago, The Gipper said:

Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper

Beyond that I like series:

The Dune Series...by Frank Herbert...and then by his son plus Brian Anderson

Bernard Cornwell...as Steve said, did several series:   The Saxon Tales (The Last Kingdom)   The Richard Sharpe series (Napoleanic War stories), The Warlord Chronicles.   The Holy Grail Series.   He also did a great stand alone novel on Agincourt.

I have enjoyed all the Dan Brown books,  but, they have become formulaic.

And also the Lord of the Rings series.

Come to think of it I liked Cornwell's King Arthur series better than the last Kingdom, but like them both a lot.

WSS

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3 minutes ago, Westside Steve said:

Come to think of it I liked Cornwell's King Arthur series better than the last Kingdom, but like them both a lot.

WSS

Cornwell himself thinks that the King Arthur series was his best work.  But, FYI, in his series, I do not believe that Arthur was ever actually King. It was Uther, then Mordred (who was also a son of Uther). 

Just FYI for those not familiar......The Warlord Chronicles is Cornwell's version of what the history of (King) Arthur could actually have been like... no sorcery or magic involved.  There is mysticism, what with Merlin being the head Druid priest.  But no actual magic.   

What it actually is is story of the original Britons struggle against the invading  Angles and Saxons, circa between 400-500 AD.  In a certain sense, the Saxon Tales are a somewhat sequel series, because they depict the Angle/Saxons struggles against the invading Danes and Norsemen.

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/22/2018 at 10:14 AM, The Gipper said:

Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper

Beyond that I like series:

The Dune Series...by Frank Herbert...and then by his son plus Brian Anderson

Bernard Cornwell...as Steve said, did several series:   The Saxon Tales (The Last Kingdom)   The Richard Sharpe series (Napoleanic War stories), The Warlord Chronicles.   The Holy Grail Series.   He also did a great stand alone novel on Agincourt.

I have enjoyed all the Dan Brown books,  but, they have become formulaic.

And also the Lord of the Rings series.

Anybody watching the current PBS series the great American read?

THE GREAT AMERICAN READ is an eight-part series that explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels (as chosen in a national survey)*.  It investigates how and why writers create their fictional worlds, how we as readers are affected by these stories, and what these 100 different books have to say about our diverse nation and our shared human experience.  

The television series features entertaining and informative documentary segments, with compelling testimonials from celebrities, authors, notable Americans and book lovers across the country. It is comprised of a two-hour launch episode in which the list of 100 books is revealed, five one-hour theme episodes that examine concepts common to groups of books on the list, and a finale, in which the results are announced of a nationwide vote to choose America’s best-loved book.........  

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so, my brotherinlaw printed me three copies of my novel. Two friends have read it - they really liked it -

had all sorts of notes, per my request, reported on it. lol.

some mistakes here and there, etc, a word here and there, maybe three run-on-sentences...

but i've fixed those.

Now, to get a formal copyright and an ISBN number. Then I'll sell it to a movie producer for millions ,and we're set.

But I have to go work out on the farm today, I've been installing lights and painting edges of walls for a couple of days - got half of today off.

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23 minutes ago, calfoxwc said:

so, my brotherinlaw printed me three copies of my novel. Two friends have read it - they really liked it -

had all sorts of notes, per my request, reported on it. lol.

some mistakes here and there, etc, a word here and there, maybe three run-on-sentences...

but i've fixed those.

Now, to get a formal copyright and an ISBN number. Then I'll sell it to a movie producer for millions ,and we're set.

But I have to go work out on the farm today, I've been installing lights and painting edges of walls for a couple of days - got half of today off.

Used to be a big and somewhat expensive deal getting anything published now with today's software you can publish one book......if you want.

Now making a movie is another $$$$$ story.

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The Bible

Morrison and Boyd's Organic Chemistry

Fundamentals of Physics (Hadley, Resnick and Walker)

Make Money With Your Studio, Tom Volinchak - Hal Leonard

Fart Proudly - Benjamin Franklin

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1 hour ago, Axe said:

Too many to list only 5.. The one that sticks out because it's a recent read i is "Wool".........

Well, I guess that is three :D

Dude is my fav author as of late.. Many good books..

Agreed. They want to list America's favorite read when it would be hard to list 20 or even 10 but you try to get some manageable list of 5 here. I've never even heard of many of the top 100 but it is an interesting PBS program.

I read a LOT in junior high and high school, tapered off in college might try to read more but sports, movies mainly old movies and lately online stuff are taking more time. My wife and her 94 year old mother are voracious readers.

Meanwhile carry on, good reading.

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10 minutes ago, The Gipper said:

Now for the five books that you read that you hated the most: great expectations by Dickens, had to read that in ninth grade and hated it. Wuthering Heights Just a stupid romance novel pretending to be a classic. And I will think of more as I go along

That's true. Some Dickens I liked, some eh. For authors particularily in school I loved every Ian Fleming James Bond 007 novel bought them back in the paperbacks for about 35 cents each. I loved the classic WWII novels and autobiographical books, sports stories and biographies even the Biography TV series with Peter Graves. I read whole shevles of books in our school library and my place the McKinley Memorial Library a block from my junior high school.

In college I liked F. Scott Fitzerald, didn't really like English Lit, loved ancient history and the Civil War books. On it goes, in that PBS eight part series you sure see a varierty of books alright!

And now I'm hanging around Sports Boards.  :lol:

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1 hour ago, The Gipper said:

Now for the five books that you read that you hated the most: great expectations by Dickens, had to read that in ninth grade and hated it. Wuthering Heights Just a stupid romance novel pretending to be a classic. And I will think of more as I go along

I read Great Expectations for the first time just a few years ago and just enjoyed the prose more than anything about it. Gave me a better understanding about where "The French Lieutenant's Woman" grew from, another where the prose alone made it worth the read.

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2 hours ago, TexasAg1969 said:

Where the prose is ah..............................inventive!!??😘

Yeah I'm going down the river, probably will end up living in a van.  A big pile of unread books rotting away, :lol:

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