I couldn't find a topic on this when I searched it so lock this if there is one.

What is your favorite and least least favorite book?

I personally don't have a favorite one, I love too many, but I am anticipating a new book that I hope will come out this year called Bitterblue by Kirstin Cashore.
My least favorite has got to be the mortal instrument series and the twilight series. Ugh... It's hard to find a good book to read nowadays when the book stores and libraries around me are full of sappy, cliche fantasy romances.

My favorite novel would be Speaker for the Dead, sequel to teen SF novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Much more mature, philosophical novel than its predecessor, with far better storytelling and character development (Ender's Game was still a blast though). Some runners up include It by Stephen King, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Long Walk by Richard Bachman.

My least favorite novel would have to be The Scarlet Letter. I know I'm slamming a literary classic here, but beneath all that pretty writing all I found was a cliche'-ridden melodrama that's about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the crotch. However, I do realize that my tiny, uneducated seventeen year old mind probably just doesn't "get it", and it will take several years for me to realize the brilliance of Hawthorne's opus. God I hope that never happens.

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Favorites:
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, I used to be obssessed in high school
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, I read it every year
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, truly fantastic southern writer
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, she spot on captures the relationship between my mother and me
Edit: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is also one of my favorites, I am a huge sucker for South or Central American writers because I love the sensuality and magical realism.
There are so many more books and authors that are wonderful, but to list them out would be tedious.


Least favorites:
The last book of the Twilight series. It was utterly terrible, I loved the first book when I was in 7th grade or so and the quality had completely changed and I'm sure the media had a lot to do with it :/
The last book of the Gemma Doyle series by Libba Bray, the main character had turned into a complete bitch and then
Shockwave (or anything) by Clive Cussler is... terrible. He is just not a good writer and I just laugh at his incredible ego. The entire back cover of his books are a picture of him smirking next to a red sports car. Excuse me, but I hope the novel isn't about this stupid man. But then he actually does have 'cameos' of himself in each book. I was like, seriously? I don't care about you. Go away, I don't want to see that smile in writing or on laminated book covers.
Anything written (or co-written) by James Patterson, I used to kind of like his Maximum Ride series and that just went down the toilet. Honestly, I don't know why he keeps writing, especially since it's all become repetitive and the writing quality went from bad to complete sh*t. Really, why cant he just retire and live on all the money he's made half-writing crappy books?



Last edited by DorkFishOK at 10:39 pm, Jul 24 2011

To be fair, the pretty writing is largely what makes it literature instead of pulp (the same applies to how, say, Ender's Game is viewed in comparison with Brave New World. The writing is simply much, much better in the latter, objectively). Hawthorne isn't quite my taste, but he's a decent craftsman. The Scarlet Letter was a pretty daring move for its time period as well. Remember, literature doesn't exist in a vacuum. Context is everything.

I feel like this thread is a repeat, but in case it isn't, my favorites:
-Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
-The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
-The Complete Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges (sue me, it's the best compilation out there.)
-Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman Murakami Haruki
-Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

They're malleable. On another day a Bulgakov, Tolstoy, Soseki, or Kafka title could easily worm its way in.

My least favorites are anything that perpetuates itself based upon controversy, rather than good writing. Dan Brown is the most obvious culprit with inanities like The Da Vinci Code, but writers like Murakami Ryu can be just as bad.

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My favourite would be Vampre Academy Series
and my least favourite would be Twilight series...

I'll have to check some of these books out.
Ah, The Scarlet Letter, not saying it's bad, it just wasn't my taste either, had to read it in my junior year, did not enjoy it at all, I would of rather read The Grapes of Wrath or anything by Steinbeck.

@DorkFishOK I have to agree about the James Patterson. I read the first book of his Maximum Ride series and I had enough, I just couldn't buy into it. Even Stephen King said James Patterson was a terrible writer. Lol. Ughh:
"Patterson's outlines are a bit controversial. In a sense, Patterson is writing only so much; he has run out of time to write and has others do it for him. Many of his books are actually written by someone else, after Patterson provides what he calls a detailed outline."

Last edited by ForteAtrox at 12:03 am, Jul 25 2011

damn it's been quite some time since I last read some books, but lets see..... my favorites are: Isac Asimov's Robot trilogy(I really like Sci-fi), Shogun- James Clavell, Dune- Frank Herbert was also pretty good.

As for least favorite, well I usually drop anything I don't like but I gotta say Twillight is my least favorite, I remember seeing some good reviews for it before the movies came out, so I tried to read it like 3 times before eventually giving up

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Hmmm I can't really pick a favorite or even a list of favorites - I've read & enjoyed too many at different points in my life & something I loved when I read it 15 years ago might not do much for me now.

Least favorite has go to be William Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust; I just could NOT get through that thing. (~_~) That's probably the only "required reading for school" book that I didn't finish, and for years it was the ONLY book I'd started but not finished. I think it was the five-page-long sentence that made me give up. Didn't really like The Grapes of Wrath, The Scarlet Letter, or a lot of other "classics" too much either, but at least they were readable!

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I actually like Twilight <_< It's terrible, but also good. Except the last one, that one is just 100% terrible.

On topic now, my most favourite has to be the Three Worlds series from Ian Irvine, particularly the first 4 books. Least... Probably Angels and Demons from Dan Brown. I read it after I read The Da Vinci Code, and I hated it. One of the few books that I've stopped reading halfway through.

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Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz
or any other Alex Rider Book
My least favorite book is Twilight and all the books that follow

my most favorite has got to be the Vampirates series by Justin Somper because it was the first serties that i have actually followed but it was getting so corny and cliched that its also becoming my least favorite book series..

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I also have too many books I love to choose one, but I have a top5 list that constantly changes. I recently read "Perfume" and I have to say... it went right up to my top 5 list. Along with "Invisible Man" "The man who counted" "Lord of the Flies" and "Running with Scissors"
Though I do have a least favorite book "The Origin of Species" I read it for the info- and it was very useful... but since I'm not that into science it was a really, REALLY, boring read- it actually took me a whole week to finish it T__T

Love these -
Dresden Files;
Inheritance Cycle;
Codex Alera;
Kingkiller Chronicles;
Ranger's Apprentice Series;
Kett Jay Series;
a few more that escape me right now


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Fantasy is my favorite genre! I love it. Patrica Briggs (Moon Called, Blood Bound, River Marked) is my all time favorite, I also love Sara Douglass and Laurell K. Hamilton (I've been crazy about her Anita Blake and Meredith Genry series lately - Merry Gentry being my favorite of the two).




You know what? I can agree with you on that. First three were okay (make fun of me all you want, I will like what I like). The last one was total and complete bull****. I waste precious time from my life reading that ****ing garbage. I cannot express how much I hate that book. And because of that last book I started hating the entire series. Up until recently I can accept the first 3 for what they are and the last for what it is.

Favorite book would be The Hunger Games series.
Least favorite would be the Twilight series.

edit: Scratch what I said before. But I would also like to hear some recommendations.

Last edited by AznCuteMangaka at 5:24 am, Nov 11 2011

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