15 Books In 15 Minutes.

[AwayWeGo]

Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
Following The Equator (Mark Twain)
The Innocents Abroad (Mark Twain)
Semi-Tough (Dan Jenkins)
The Periodic Table (Primo Levi)
The High Spirits (David Huddle)
Catch-22 (Joesph Heller)
The Catcher In The Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Semper Fi (et seq.) (W.E.B. Griffin)
Badge Of Honor (et seq.) (W.E.B. Griffin)
By Order Of The President (et seq.) (W.E.B. Griffin)
Bamboula ! (S. Frederick Starr)
The Elements Of Style (Strunk & White)
Modern American Usage (Wilson Follett)
A Devil To Play (Jasper Rees)​

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- the 1st 15 you can think of in no more than 15 minutes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[normab]

What a great thread. I was afraid it would take me all night to come up with 15. Then I realized there were some books that were required reading in Jr High, HS and college which have stuck with me to this day.


Little Women—Louisa May Alcott
The Gift of the Magi- O Henry
1984 (George Orwell)
Animal Farm (Orwell)
The Chosen-Chaim Potek
The Clan of the Cave Bear-Jean Auels
Inherit the Wind- (not sure who wrote it)
Catcher in the Rye—JD Salinger
Hamlet- Will Shakespeare
Dress for Success 1980-ish version (?)
Diary of Anne Frank (A. Frank)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Jane Eyre (C Bronte)
The Misanthrope (Moliere)
Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)

 

[ScoopKona]

1 - The Razor's Edge, Somerset Maughm

2 - Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

3 - Letters from the Earth, Mark Twain

4 - Cannery Row, John Steinbeck

5 - Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck

6 - The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

7 - Hearts of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

8 - A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

9&10 - The Outline of History - H.G. Wells (best Western Civ. books ever written).

11 - Walden, Henry David Thoreau

12 - On the Road, Jack Kerouac

13 - An Autobiography of My Experiments with Truth, Mohandes K Gandhi

14-16 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien

 

[SueDonJ]

A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving - my favorite book ever
Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
...And Ladies of the Club Helen Hooven Santmeyer - excellent historical fiction
Johnny Tremain Esther Forbes - 7th grade required reading, I couldn't put it down
A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens - 9th grade, Mr. O'Neill brought Dickens to life
Little House on the Prairie (series) Laura Ingalls Wilder
Common Ground J. Anthony Lukas - as true an account as can be found of forced busing in Boston
And The Band Played On Randy Shilts - the book, NOT the movie
Light A Penny Candle Maeve Binchy
The Mitford Series Jan Karon
The Lorax Dr. Seuss - perfect
Roots Alex Haley
Fried Green Tomatoes Fannie Flagg
Harry Potter (all of 'em) J.K. Rowling
Helter Skelter Vincent Bugliosi - began a lifelong love of true crime genre

**I just went and looked at the lists before mine - we could make this a list of 50 and it still wouldn't cover all the greats!

 

[jlr10]

It is eclectic, and some are old going back to grade school, but it is my list:

The Outsiders S.E. Hinton
Lie Down with Lions Ken Follett
Pillars of the Earth Ken Follet
Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell
Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway
The Pearl John Steinbech
My Life as a Geisha Eleanor Underwood
The Watcher Dean Koonz
A Rose in Winter Kathleen Woodiweiss
The Firm John Grisham
Morning Glory LaVyrle Spencer
The Cradle Will Fall Mary Higgins Clark
Harry Potter the Deathly Hollows J.K. Rowlings
The Other Thomas Tryon
Johnny Tremain Esther Forbes

 

[happymum]

This is DH's list. (He is the passionate book-lover in the family).
In no particular order:

1. Steppenwolf H. Hesse
2. Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
3. A prayer for Owen Meany John Irving
4. Siddhartha H. Hesse
5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance RM Pirsig
6. Dune Frank Herbert
7. Neuromancer William Gibson
8. Catch 22 Heller
9. The Magus John Fowles
10. One hundred years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
11. Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
12. The English Patient M. Ondaajche
13. A fine balance Rohinton Mistry
14. The Corrections J. Frantzen
15. Mister Pip Lloyd Jones

 

[easyrider]

1. Green Eggs and Ham Dr. Sues
My first book, my kids first book and my grandkids first book.

2. Aesop's Fabels Aesop?
These stories were read to me until I could read them myself. My kids and grandkids too.

3. Jonathon Livingston Seagull Richard Bach
Originally read in jr. high but have read it a few times since.

4. The Hobbit Jr Tolkien
This includes the Fellowship of the Ring and other Tolkien stories.

5. R is for Rocket Ray Bradbury
One of my favorite authors. I read alot of his stories.

6. The Old Man and the Sea Ernst Hemingway

7. Army Combat Manual
I had to memorize portions of this and its still stuck between my ears.

8. The Sword of Shanara Terry Brooks
My favorite author and I have read all of his stories.

9. Aztec Gary Jennings
Could not put it down.

10. Dracula Bram Stoker
Made me hear noises in the night.

11. The Shining Stephen King
I like most of Stephen's books. Cujo, Christine

12. One Flew Over the Cucus Nest Ken Kesley ?

13. Amazon ?????
The story of the gorilla named Amy.

14. Angels and Demons Dan Brown

15. Battlefield Earth Ron Hubard
Good Book -- Crappy Movie

 

[Blondie]

Andersonville

A Civil Action

Unsafe At Any Speed Ralph Nader

Julius Caesar

The Devil Wears Prada

The Fitgeralds and the Kennedys

Wait Til Next Year Doris Kearns Goodwin

Still Me Christopher Reeve

Catcher In the Rye Salinger

The Prizewinner of Defiance Ohio

Bitter is the new Black

Enter Talking Joan Rivers

The Chamber John Grisham

On Wings of Eagles Ken Follett

 

[mo1950]

1. Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)
2. Catcher In The Rye (J.D. Salinger)
3. Breakfast of Champions (Kurt Vonnegut)
4. Collected Works (Flannery O'Connor)
5. Swiss Family Robinson (Johan Wyss)
6. Emma (Jane Austen)
7. The Call of The Wild (Jack London)
8. Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)
9. The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane)
10. In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)
11. The Far Pavilions (M. M. Kaye)
12. The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)
13. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
14. The Sound and The Fury (William Faulkner)
15. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

 

[summervaca]

I know this much is true - Wally Lamb
Laura Ingalls Wilder series
Night - Elie Wiesel
The Stand - Steven King
Something queer is going on - Elizabeth Levy (Children's book)
A Farewell to Arms-Ernest Hemingway
As the Crow Flies-As the Crow Flies
I have lived a thousand years- Livia Bitton Jackson
Come Back - Claire and Mia Fontaine
Greek Slave Boy - Lillian Carroll
The Amityville Horror
Every book by Daniel Silva
Forever - Judy Bloom (Scandalous at the time)

 

[Texasbelle]

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
Five Smooth Stones Ann Fairbairn
The Little Prince Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Giving Tree Shel Silverstein
The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth
A Girl of the Limberlost Gene Stratton Porter
The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom
The Mitford series Jan Karon
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
The Pelican Brief John Grisham
The Innocent Man John Grisham
Where Eagles Dare Alistair MacLean
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas James Patterson
AND:
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books Mark Twain
Mary Poppins series ["I had a mother who read to me."]

 

[rickandcindy23]

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Manchild in the Promised Land, Claude Brown
Roughing It, Mark Twain
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
A Separate Peace, Knowles
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Christy, Catherine Marshall
Thornbirds, Colleen McCullough
Little House on the Prairie series, Laura Ingalls Wilder
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

My favorite by far, Gone with the Wind.

By the way, I took a Mark Twain Major Author course in college and read everything that nut wrote, and Letters from the Earth was the worst book I have ever read. I didn't like Mark Twain much after reading everything that guy wrote. He was funny and eccentric, true, but he was bordering on crazy.........and that's all I will say about that.

 

[mo1950]

It is surprising how many authors have had mental issues. Good examples are Poe, Burns, Hemingway, Dickinson, Fitzgerald, etc., etc. And also many artists (Pollock comes to mind). Perhaps it has something to do with how the mind of the creative genius works.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Edgar Allan Poe.

It is surprising how many authors have had mental issues. Good examples are Poe, Burns, Hemingway, Dickinson, Fitzgerald, etc.

Poe also had serious alcoholism issues. Long after Poe's day, alcoholism came to be recognized as going hand in hand with certain forms of mental illness (e.g., bipolar disorder -- formerly known as manic depression).

-- oOo --​

My late father had a colleague in Washington DC journalism named Ed Poe, who wrote from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Ed Poe said one day when he was a little boy, a man asked him, "What's your name, little boy?"

"Eddie Poe," he replied.

The man said, "Are you any relation to Edgar Allan Poe?"

The little boy said, "I is Edgar Allan Poe."

-- oOo --​

When The Chief Of Staff & I spent a week at Massanutten last fall, we enjoyed the performance of an actor who impersonated Edgar Allan Poe, doing dramatic recitations in the Ski Lodge 1 evening.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[easyrider]

"I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more when they get older. Then it dawned on me that they were craming for their finals. "

 

[AwayWeGo]

Another Reason For Reading The Good Book.

"I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more when they get older. Then it dawned on me that they were craming for their finals. "

Or looking for loopholes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[MULTIZ321]

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

Dear and Glorious Physician - Taylor Caldwell

The Gift of the Magi - O'Henry

MacBeth - William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

Hamlet - Willam Shakespeare

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Travels with Charley: In Search of America - John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

Pentimento - Lillian Hellman

Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy - Vincent
Bugliosi

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles

The Magus - John Fowles

Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown

The Runaway Bunny - Margaret Wise Brown

The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

The Fourth Horseman - Robert Koening

Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. - Ron Chernow

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance - Ron Chernow

Gold and Iron: Bismark, Bleichroder and the Building of the German Empire - Fritz Stern

The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets, 1798-1848 - Niall Ferguson

The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker, 1849-1999 - Niall Ferguson

The First Salute - Barbara Tuchman

The Guns of August - Barbara Tuchman

Stillwell and the American Experience in China: 1911 - 1945 - Barbara Tuchman

Night Fall - Nelson DeMille

The General's Daughter - Nelson DeMille

Word of Honor - Nelson DeMille


Richard

P.S. Alan, well I went over 15 books but I was engrossed as I was typing the titles and authors that came to mind

 

[AwayWeGo]

Mark Twain.

I took a Mark Twain Major Author course in college and read everything that nut wrote, and Letters from the Earth was the worst book I have ever read. I didn't like Mark Twain much after reading everything that guy wrote.

I didn't read much Mark Twain -- just Tom & Huck & Pudd'nhead Wilson, etc. -- till I borrowed Following The Equator off a relative's book shelf & got hooked on Mark Twain then & there.

I read every volume in my father's series of Twain's complete works. Then I started reading books about Mark Twain -- e.g., Justin Kaplan's Mr. Clemens & Mark Twain -- & went to see Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight show at the Kennedy Center, etc.

I didn't care much for Letters From The Earth or The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, or any of Twain's darker writings. But by then I was so interested in Mark Twain that I wanted to read even the books that I would have avoided if they had been written by anyone else, just to extend my acquaintance with Mark Twain.

So if I were to go beyond 15 Books In 15 Minutes, I would surely add more stuff by Mark Twain -- e.g., The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Or I might drop a W.E.B. Griffin book & add instead a non-Twain book like The World According To Garp, or some such.

But rules are rules, so I'm sticking to my original list of 15 Books In 15 Minutes -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[rickandcindy23]

It's been many years since I read Letters From the Earth, but my one memory that really stands out is that the entire book had many scatalogical references, and one particular story was about an elevator with several prominent figures, one of which lets out some gas........Disgusting!

And when Harriett Beecher Stowe invited ol' Sam to a party, saying "Come as you are," he did. He was sitting in the bathtub while he read the invite, so he arrived with not a stick of clothing.

Bizarre. Very unstable.

 

[AwayWeGo]

The Preacher & Mark Twain.

Rev. Joseph Twichell, closest friend of Mark Twain in Hartford CT, once asked Twain if he wanted to to go heaven or go to to hell.

"Heaven for the climate," Twain said, "and hell for the company."

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[AwayWeGo]

Puddn'head Wilson.

Click here for a good Puddn'head Wilson Internet source, including a link to the complete text of the book that looks good & is easy to read -- also a link to a facsimile of the 1st edition.

-- hotlinked --​

Click here for Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.

Click here for Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[sammy]

Vacation favorites, too

The classics and pseudo-historical reads:

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchel)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
Molokai (Alan Brennert)
Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
Devil in the White City (Eric Larson)

And then some favorite vacation reads:

Eye of the Needle (Ken Follett)
Lie Down with Lions (Ken Follett)
The Beach House (James Patterson)
The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
Girl with a Pearl Earring (tracey Chevalier)
Free Fall (Kyle Mills; not by Robert Crais although that was pretty good, too)
The Watchman (Robert Crais )


Would your vacation favorites be different?

Reading thru the lists, I am reminded that Charlotte and Emily Bronte were sisters. Amazing one family could have such influence over literature. Not sure I read any of Anne's books.

 

[CSB]

1) Shakespeare - I can't choose which
2) Anne of Green Gables..................... Lucy Maud Montgomery
3) Tale of Two Cities......................... Charles Dickens
4) The Chrysalids.............................. John Wyndham
5) Harry Potter Series
6) Gone With The Wind...................... Margaret Mitchell
7) The Kite Runner............................ Khaled Hosseini
8) The Mayor of Casterbridge.............. Thomas Hardy
9) The Agony and the Ecstasy............ Irving Stone
10) Something Wicked This Way Comes. Ray Bradbury
11) The Yearling............................... Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
12) Orlando..................................... Virgina Woolf
13) The Good Earth.......................... Pearl Buck
14) Black Like Me.............................. John Howard
15) The Fixer................................... Bernard Malamud

 

[Texasbelle]

Cindy, I remember when I was in college my mother read Black Like Me. I could not remember the author. Mom was a librarian and was born in 1898. She thought that was a fine book. Mom was a very forward looking person.