Whats the best fiction book ever

Author: drlebronski

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drlebronski
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i like harry potter, some of percy jackson, LotR, star wars legends comics.
Sum1hugme
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@drlebronski
 "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons was GREAT. The goat? Idk, but a great read.
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I have no idea but if we were back in that debate ideas thread I'd add:

"J.K. Rowling's Ron Weasley is modelled after Shakespeare's Iago"
He's an excellent character.
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@Sum1hugme
-->@drlebronski
 "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons was GREAT. The goat? Idk, but a great read.
My sister has recommended this to me so often that she pissed I haven't read it yet.
oromagi
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Best ever is a useless qualification.

Most literary impact ever?  The Bible or The Iliad

Most literary impact on me?  LOTR  I literally learned to read grown up books because of Tolkien- keeping a dictionary handy to figure out which words were real English words and which were just imaginary words from Tolkien.  All of my love of literature, history, fantasy, sci-fi, dungeons and dragons, strategic gaming and more flows from Tolkien.  Gayness, even- LOTR is super gay.    I wrote the only fan letter I'd ever written and took it to the library to find out where to mail it just to find out that Tolkien was dead and the librarian had to comfort me while I cried.

Greatest English language tour de force?  I know I should say Ulysses but I'm going with Sophie's Choice.  William Stryron's power and command of language just blew me away.  Southern writers, man.

Most perfect example of an English language novel?  Forster's Howard's End .  Just the right balance of evocation and clarity.  Beautiful character development by dialogue.  A powerful condemnation of classism in a Christian society without once evoking class or religion.

Favorite book to recommend to others?  Moby DIck.  Moby Dick is shockingly modern, incredibly entertaining, endlessly fascinating, and ruthlessly existentialist.  A true masterpiece that doesn't get taught enough in US schools- maybe its too racist, maybe it's because there are no women characters.   Everybody should read it anyway.












Sum1hugme
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@oromagi
It was a good book. It has really good descriptive details for the alien-futuristic theme it is trying to paint.
ILikePie5
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Throne of Glass

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A couple books that were a great influence over my childhood.
1. Ender's Game. I read this when I was about 8, before they made it into a movie. This is the first book I remember reading that swore and had realistic character deaths. I haven't read any of the sequels but I plan to someday.
2. LOTR and other Tolkien works. I read The Silmarillion in the 7th grade when I found out there was stuff besides The Hobbit and LOTR. I would also note that Tolkien wrote a couple smaller stories that aren't in the LOTR universe, my favorite being Roverandom.
3. The Eyes of the Amaryllis and other stories by Natalie Babbitt. I actually have no idea why this book spoke to me so much, but it was my favorite book for a solid year.
4. Brandon Sanderson. Pretty self-explanatory imo. 
5. Worm. This is a webserial by Wildbow, and is basically a more gritty, noir, and physics-breaking exploitation superhero story. I can't recommend it enough.
6. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky. This is an excellent introduction to the rationality community and its beliefs and is also a lot of fun for HP fans. I don't read much fanfiction but "ratfic" as they call it is always worth taking a look at imo.

22 days later

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Non-Russian Literature:

Lord of the Rings Series, by JRR Tolkien 

Harry Potter Series, by JK Rowling

The Secret History and the Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

Russian Literature:

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Demons, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Resurrection, by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy



Vader
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@coal
Crime and Punishment has to be on of my favorite novels of all time
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Suffice it to say that this list would be very long if I gave everything. I'll try to give my favorite per category.

Sci-Fi: Dead heat between Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (the latter two both had pretty meh movie adaptations, unfortunately). Honorable mention to Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.

Fiction: I'll have to break this down further. Favorite series is the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (honorable mention to the Stormlight Archive by the same author). Favorite single book is Sabriel by Garth Nix (honorable mentions to both Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson and The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan).

Historical Fiction: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. My all-time favorite novel. Honorable mention to Burr by Gore Vidal, which is honestly less fiction and more history, though it still technically falls into this camp.
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@Vader
Dostoevsky is good stuff.  Almost all Russian literature of that time period is worth reading, but Dostoevsky is especially worth reading. 
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@coal
I enjoy Crime and Punishment, so I'd assume I enjoy most of his work