Your Top 10 Favourite Books

[Bremen]

I've read Dostoevsky in a few different English translations, and my favorite translator is David Magarshack. He's not as well known as some other translators of Russian literature, and obviously, not knowing any Russian, I can't speak to his faithfulness or accuracy, but his straightforward, unadorned style feels very right to me for Dostoevsky. I've actively sought out his translations in used bookstores and online. I believe only a story collection and the Penguin Devils are currently in print. Kazuo Ishiguro said somewhere that he read Dostoevsky in the Magarshack translations, and that he was actually a big influence on his prose style.

As to the topic of this thread, I find it really easy to make lists for other stuff, but I've never been able to make a list of ten favorite books. I love so many different books for so many different reasons, it's really hard to compare them.

I sort of agree. I mean, I made my own list, but it changes constantly. My list is more like, 10 books I absolutely adore, would re-read, and would recommend to anyone. But there are so many more I could say this about. A top 50-100 would work better, probably.

[crazyfists3600]

On the other hand for Anna Karenina and War & Peace, I got the ones by Louise and Aylmer Maude (Wordsworth Classics) which were quite easy to grasp and straightforward but never over simplified.

The version of The Idiot that I have is a Wordsworth Classic. I looked but I can't see where the name of the translator is. Would it be the Maudes?

[affy18]

I just snatched these up for like $2 each at my local used book store...eagerly anticipating ripping into them in Oct (on my European vacation).

LOL, you're reading those for your European vacation? Those will be VERY dreary vacations.

I remember reading Sartre's Nausea during a train ride around Europe and my mood afterwards was...peculiar, to say the least.

[crazyfists3600]

LOL, you're reading those for your European vacation? Those will be VERY dreary vacations.

I remember reading Sartre's Nausea during a train ride around Europe and my mood afterwards was...peculiar, to say the least.

LOL, well...I prefer something dark only because, well, I prefer dark

Besides, it's easier for me to tackle something like these while away from other distractions (like my children) so a 20+ hour plane ride in absolute silence will be a perfect jump off point.

Now I feel the need to look up Nausea

[crazyfists3600]

14. Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)

I must say, I'm reading this to my daughter right now and I'm really freaking impressed. I'm in love with this book and wholly expect it to rank in my top ten by the time I'm through. It's so delightfully witty and exciting and just so fleshed out in a way that I think even my four year old is starting to 'get'.

[francesco-natale]

10 favorite Novels

Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf ;
The Wonderful Adventure of Nils - Selma Lagerlöf ;
Consuelo - George Sand
La Princesse de Clèves - Madeleine de La Fayette ;
Villette - Charlotte Brontë ;
Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust ;
Effi Briest - Theodore Fontane ;
Middlemarch - George Eliot ;
Room with a view - E.M. Foster ;
Clarissa - Samuel Richardson.

[CINNAMON]

Off the top of my head, I made a list without counting and I come up with 16 books I would consider as favorites and be happy to read again and again.
!. The Iliad -Homer
2. The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea)
3. The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy - Yukio Mishima (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel)
4. Women In Love - D.H. Lawrence
5. Jude, the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
6. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
7. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
8. One of Ours - Willa Cather
9. Tender Is The Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
10. Cheri and The Last of Cheri - Colette
11. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
12. King, Queen, Knave, V. Nabakov
13. Good Times, Bad times - James Kirkwood
14. Narcissus and Goldmund - Hermann Hesse
15. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
16. Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev

[ladylurks]

I always loved The Alexandria Quartet.

[haqyunus]

The version of The Idiot that I have is a Wordsworth Classic. I looked but I can't see where the name of the translator is. Would it be the Maudes?

My was Garnett's.

Meanwhile a very interesting, fascinating and fun read about all of this from New Yorker:
Translation Wars
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/200...urrentPage=all

[Habsburg]

5. Twilight of the Habsburgs; Emperor Franz-Josef, Alan Palmer
4. Empire; How Spain Became A World Power, Henry Kamen
3. King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild
2. The Scramble for Africa, Thomas Pakenham
1. The War of the Austrian Succession, Reed Browning

[DirkDiggler]

In no particular order:

Never Let Me Go
Pride & Prejudice
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
A Clockwork Orange
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
The Long Walk
The Great Gatsby
Into the Wild
Froth on the Daydream

[camille]

In no particular order:

The Waves - Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Nana - Emile Zola
Therese Raquin - Emile Zola
Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
The Weight of Oranges (poems) - Anne Michaels
The Short Novels - DH Lawrence
The Rainbow - DH Lawrence
Sarah - JT Leroy
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things - JT Leroy
I am David - Anne Holm
To a God Unknown - John Steinbeck
Mansfield Park - Jane Austin
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

[djlaughs]

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Quiet American - Graham Greene
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Stéphane]

I can't think of ten, but my top three are:

One Hundred Years of Solitude
On The Road
A Tale of Two Cities