"A round of applause for your top ten books..." Topic

What books would be on your all-time top ten list?

Let's say that by top ten we mean books that are not only first class the first time you read them, but still do something for you when you pick them up again.

Here's mine, listed in no particular order, and probably missing a couple that have slipped my mind:

"Fiesta, or The Sun Also Rises", Hemingway.
"The Gallic War", Caesar.
"Vanity Fair", William Thackeray.
"Collected Poems", W.B. Yeats.
"The Razor's Edge", W. Somerset Maugham.
"The Glass Bead Game", Herman Hesse.
The Regeneration Trilogy, Pat Barker.
"Lord Jim", Conrad.
"The Remains of the Day", Kazuo Ishiguro.
"The Matriarch", Witi Ihimaera.

Honorable mentions:

"The Persian Boy", Mary Renault.
"Collected Poems", T.S Eliot.

I know it's a play but "Glass Menagerie", Tennessee Williams

"The Old Man and the Sea", Hemingway

"Nine Stories", Salinger

"Metamorphosis", Kakfa

LOTR Trilogy

Vonnegut:

Slaughter House Five

Blackbeard

Sirens of Titan

Salinger:

Catcher in the Rye

Thucydides:

History of the Peloponnesian War

Lewis:

Sparta and Persia

Kagan:

The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War
The Archidamean War
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition
The Fall of the Athenian Empire

Top 10 as of today in no particular order:

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
LOTR by Tolkien
Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens
The Rebel by Albert Camus
The Iliad & The Odyssey by Homer (numerous translations)
Philosophical Investigations – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche
The Sound & The Fury – William Faulkner
Collected Poems – Anne Sexton
Portrait of a LAdy – Henry James

Honorable Mentions:

Moby Dick, Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina…

How about a top 100 list instead?

1. The Flashman books.
2. Lord of the Rings
3. Shelby Foote's ACW trilogy
4. Samuel Eliot Morison's "History of US Naval Operations in WW2"
5. SEM's "European Discovery of America"
6. Stephen Becker's "The Chinese Bandit"
7. Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
8. L Sprague de Camp's "Lest Darkness Fall"
9. Nicholas Monserrat's "The Cruel Sea"
10. Other stuff

If the criterion is that I can go back and re-read with pleasure every single time, that is my list.

1. Collected speeches of Winston Churchill
2. Edith Nesbit, "The Princess and the Hedge-Pig"
3. Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August
4. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
5. John Buchan's Richard Hannay series
6. Byron Farwell, Mr. Kipling's Army
7. The fragments of Heraclitus
8. Dreadnought, Robert K Massie
9. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian---mainly for Pericles
10. Pure egotism here, but "Consider The Snorklepine", my first published short story.

So far, the OFM is the only person who sounds like a wargamer. The rest of you are girly-men. Jane Austen, Kafka? Give me Harry Flashman or Shelby Foote any day.

In no particular order and subject to change without notice:

"The Nick Adams Stories" by Hemingway
"The Leopard" by Lampedusa
"The Complete Sherlock Holmes" by Doyle
"The Jeeves Omnibus" by Wodehouse
"Stories and Early Novels" by Chandler
"Treasure Island" by Stephenson
"Last of the Mohicans" by Cooper
"Robinson Crusoe" by Defoe
"The Hobbit" by Tolkein
Too many more to mention.

Must add:

Harry Potter series
The Blue Nile and the White Nile by Alan Moorehead
The Bible
The Cartoon History of the Universe

No way I am insulting many of my lovlies by picking ten out of their number as the "top ten".

Never got my head around Jane Austin. I much prefer George Eliot, Middlemarch being my favorite.

Hmmm, in that case mweaver, why don't you make a list of ten-for-starters (or more, if you like)?

Shame you didn't get into Austen. She's as sharp as a tack. The various rubbishy movies don't do her justice.

In no particular order…

'First Man in Rome' series by Colleen McCullough;
'Flashman' books (especially 'At the Charge' and 'The Great Game');
'Dungeon, Fire and Sword' (very readable history of the Templar Knights);
'Swords against Wizardry' (favourite Fritz Leiber book);
'Sowers of the Thunder' (favourite R.E. Howard book);
'Lord of the Rings';
'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy';
'Bill, the Galactic Hero';
'Die Hard' (Haythornthwaite); and
'Salem's Lot'(Stephen King).

Have read all of them more than once – time management was never my strong point ;)

Har har, just ten… easier to list a hundred than just ten…. oh well, the courage to exclude I guess…

Lord of the Rings (as one entry), Tolkien
The Hobbit (as a separate entry), Tolkien
Iron Men and Saints/Flame of Islam (as one entry), Lamb
My War Gone By, I Miss it So…, Lloyd
Beyond the Black River (Conan short story), Howard
Forever War, Haldeman
Swords Around a Throne, Elting
The Black Company (as one entry), Cook
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Berendt
The Shining, King

Wow, that was hard. But you better have Clausewitz' On War, Sun-Tzu's Art of War, and Machiavelli's The Prince on your shelves too!

The only thing (worthwhile) I ever needed to know about life I learned from Henry Miller, so…
for now only one entry. I will have to think on this a little longer

Tropic of Cancer, Miller

Oh, I don't think that I can select only 10, far too many good books on my shelves, but here goes for starters (& in no order):-
1/ LOTR by Tolkein
2/ The Lymond Saga by Dorothy Dunnett
3/ The Falco novels by Lindsey Davies
4/ Judge Dee by van Gulik
5/ The Morgaine Quartet by C J Cherryh
6/ The Forever War by Haldeman
7/ Smiley Trilogy (Tinker, Tailor, etc) by le Carre
8/ LA Quartet by James Ellroy
9/ Midnight Sun (Kane) by Karl Edward Wagner
10/ Larousse Encyclopodia of Mythology

You guys re-read a lot of books!

Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
Campaigns of Napoleon, David Chandler
Battles of America, Don Troiani
The Once and Future King, ?
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
Ulysses Grant As A Military Commander
In Harm's Way
Seven Days In May

That is the best I can do not having my library nearby to review. Top ten? maybe.

1. Iliad (Loeb edition)
2. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
3. Nature and Culture in the Iliad by Robert Redfield
4. Achilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero by Seth Benardete
5. Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts
6. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre
7. The Searchers by Alan LeMay
8. The Hobbit by JRRTolkien
9. The Struggle for Guadalcanal by SEMorison
10. Brazen Chariots by Robert Crisp

LotR -J R R Tolkien
SYW (Everything) -C Duffy
Illiad/Odyssey -Homer
War and Peace –L Tolstoy
Dune -F Herbert
Everything -E A Poe
Battles and Leaders of the ACW -Castle
The Bible
The Russo-Turkish War 1877-79 F V Greene

If the qualification is books I"ve enjoyed reading more than once then here's the list:

Killer Angels; Michael Shaara
Lord of the Rings; J.R.Tolkien
Oliver Twist; Charles Dickens
The Jacaranda Tree; H.E.Bates
For Whom the Bell Tolls; Ernest Hemingway
1066; David Howarth
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Conan Doyle
Electra; Henry Treece
Day of the Triffids;John Wyndham
Campaigns of Napoleon; David Chandler

For you guys who list "The Forever War" (which I should re-read, come to think of it), I recommend John Scalzi: "Old Man's War", "The Ghost Brigades", and "The Last Colony" (which should be read in that order.

If I did this in the morning, at lunch, at supper and at night, my list would change markedly. Nevertheless, here goes:

Tales From Margaritaville – Jimmy Buffett
Noble House – James Clavelle
Citizen Washington – William Martin
Killer Angels – Michael Shaara
Time Enough For Love – Robert Heinlein
Dune – Frank Herbert
About Face – Col. David Hackworth
All The President's Men – Woodward & Bernstein

Eight already?? The plane's leaving, what do I grab?

Now I Can Die Happy – Bill Simmons
Centennial – James Michener

MWeaver is right – there's a lot of unhappy books left on the shevles…

Uurgh – restricted to just ten? Oh dear. Well, here's mine, as of now (It'll all change tomorrow):

The Forever War (Yup, add me to the list)
Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond
Setting the East Ablaze – Peter Hopkirk
Startide Rising – David Brin
The Golden Age Trilogy – John C Wright
Great Expectations – Dickens
The Blind Watchmaker – Dawkins
Bridge of Birds – Barry Hughart
Perdido St Station – Mieville

and either:
Anubis Gates, OR, Stress of her Regard – Tim Powers (I can't decide!)

Let's see,
Lord of the Rings--J. R. R. Tolkien
The Odyssey--Homer
Mani--Patrick Leigh Fermor
Count of Monte Cristo--Alexandre Dumas
Herodotus
The Once and Future King--T. H. White
Strategy--B. H. Liddell Hart
Peter Cozzens' three books on the Army of the Cumberland
Kagan's account of the Peloponnesian War
Persuasion--Jane Austen
Kidnapped--R. L. Stevenson (Whoops! That's eleven!)
And for good measure:
Favorite play--Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
Favorite poet--Piet Hein who wrote Grooks, Grooks II, etc

In addition to a room full of toy soldiers, I have a great deal of wall space covered with bookshelves, and still not enough room for all the books. So I periodically cull them. The criteria in recent years has been moving in the direction of "Would I enjoy re-reading this when I retire?" Unfortunately, that is probably eleven years out.
And lest I be accused of not being militant enough, let me point out that, inspired by Fermor's travel book, I converted two clans of Moreotes hoping to kill each other in the name of blood feud or, better yet, lusting to kill any Turks who might wander into their corner of the world.
Grelber

If I were to fall off of the planet at this moment, they would be:

Slaughterhouse Five – Vonnegut
A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller Jr.
The People from the Horizon – Philip Snow and Stefanie Waine
Letters from the Earth – Mark Twain
The Twelve Caesars – Suetonius
The Spell of the Yukon – Robert W. Service
2001 A Space Odyssey -Arthur C. Clarke
The Hobbit – Tolkien
Blitzkrieg in the West: Then and Now – Pallud
Any poetry book with "Vagabond House" – Don Blanding

Bernard Cornwell – The Winter King, Sharpe Series
Tolkien – Hobbit/LOTR
Nigel Tranter – The Bruce Trilogy
Iain M Banks – Excession
Iain Banks – Complicity
Rosemary Sutcliff – Eagle of the Ninth
Stuart Reid – The Campaigns of Montrose
Steven Pressfield – The Virtues of War

My favorite books are mostly escapist trash. To list them here I would feel like a bum at a white tie affair…

I also would say what I adore now I may only like next month, but here i go.

1) His Dark Materials Trilogy – Pullman
2) Dune – Herbert
3) American Civil War – Shelby Foote
4) The Hobbitt – Tolkien
5) The Rome sequence by McCullough
6) I Claudius – Graves
7) Paradise Lost – Milton
8) The Once & Future King – White
9) The Drawing of the Dark – Tim Powers
10) The Lantern Bearers – Sutcliffe

Pat

I cant bring myself to list just 10 books, but I am a little surprised that nobody has mentioned any of Patrick O'Brian's magnificent Aubrey/Maturin series.

Well, the first three are easy, because I re-read them annually:

The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston – Sassoon
The Riddle of the Sands – Childers
The Falcon on the Baltic – Knight

and then in no particular order:

The Chain of Chance – Lem
Three Comrades – Remarque
The Secret Agent – Conrad
The Annotated Alice – Carroll (& Gardner)
Christmas Holiday- Maugham
The Old Left – Menaker
Mike, a School Story – Wodehouse

Is that 10 already? Well, 11, because Mike, a School Story is in two volumes these days, Mike at Wrykyn, and Mike and Psmith, but I did read it in one volume the first time. And I'm kind of surprised that The Old Left made the list, but the more I think about it, the more I'm sure it belongs there.

Well, I'll take The Big Bumper Book of O'Brian as one.
A Soldier of the Great War – Mark Helprin
Bleak House
Life and Fate – Vassily Grossman
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Vanity Fair
The Naked and the Dead
War Story – Derek Robinson
Tuchman's The Guns of August, or A Distant Mirror, or The Proud Tower, or maybe Terraine's White Heat
Pax Britannica / Heaven's Command / Farewell the Trumpets – James / Jan Morris.

All of which are in the "leave 'til there's NO chance of interruptions" class.

Okay, in no particular order:
1] Travels in Arabia Deserta by Doughty
2] Revolt in the Desert, then Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Lawrence
3] Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter by Selous
4] Maneaters of Kumaon by Corbett
5] LOTR by Tolkien
6] The Centurions by Larteguy
7] We Were Soldiers Once, and Young by Moore and Galloway
8] Achtung! Panzer by Guderian
9] Small Unit Action in Vietnam by West
10] Battles and Skirmishes of the Great Sioux War by various participants
However, I still wonder which three books the hero took back into the future in The Time Machine.
Natokina.

Irishserb,
Way to go! Vagabond House. I have a copy of Blanding's book that he autographed to my Mom. They went to high school together.
Natokina.

Hm – mine will probably make me look like a raving pacifist. I'm limiting myself to one appearance by any one author, and treating it a bit like "Desert Island Books" – supposing I'm due for a long spell in the Dawghouse with only these for entertainment.

1. The Dispossessed – U K LeGuin – one of the few survivors from my Sci Fi days
2. Lord of the Rings (even though I still skip the songs most of the time)
3. The Road to Wigan Pier – George Orwell. A better class of anger.
4. Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegutt. A number of others have cited this one.
5. Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee – Dee Brown? I've lost my copy and keep looking for another one in S/hand bookshops. No luck so far.
6. Ian M Banks – hm. Look to Windward I think, or maybe Consider Phlebas. Interesting that they are the first and last of the Culture novels.
7. Terry Pratchett – The Fifth Elephant. Because I like it.
8. Adrian Goldsworthy's In the Name of Rome. It almost makes me like Romans.
9. A late John Le Carre – maybe Single & Single or The Russia House.
10. Its a very long time since I've read it, but I think I'd finish with Sassoons's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. On the other hand maybe O'Brien's Master and Commander to redeem my wargaming credentials.

In no particular order:

Duffy: The Wild Goose and the Eagle
Duffy: Eagles over the Alps.
H Rider Haggard: She and Allan
Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion
Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
AE Houseman: Collected Poems
Dilan Thomas: Collected Poems
H W Wilson: Ironclads in Action
Danniel Dennet: Breaking the Spell

Most military history, one fiction, two poetry and rest philosphy. Athiest can be moral, we're stoics ;-)

Top ten specific books in no particular order except that the first two are my current all time favourites (but this has a habit of changing):

"The Malakand Field Force" – Churchill – NWF
"Passing it on" (short talks on Tribal fighting on the North West Frontier of India) – General Sir Andrew Skeen
"The River War" – Churchill – Sudan
"London to Ladysmith via Pretoria" – Churchill – Boer war
"Commando" – Deneys Reitz – Boer war
"Cochrane" – Donald Thomas – Napoleonic Naval
"The Forgotten Soldier" – Guy Sajer – WW2 Eastern Front
"Rifles" – Mark Urban – Napoleonic
"The Autobiography of Sir Harry Smith" – Napoleonic
"Beau Geste" – PC Wren – French colonial

I also have to mention:
The Far Pavilions – MM Kaye – NWFrontier
Trafalgar – David Howarth
Conan Doyles Boer War history
Atlas of Military strategy – David Chandler – 18th & 19th century
PQ17 – Godfrey Winn -WW2 naval
Band of Brothers – Stephen Ambrose – WW2

Aaaaghh I can't stop…..

Top ten series:
"Flashman" – George MacDonald Fraser – Victorian Humour
"The Sheikh and the Dustbin" (representing the trilogy) – George MacDonald Fraser – post WW2 in Middle East humour
Aubrey/Maturin – Patrick O'Brian
Matthew Hervey – Allan Mallinson
Hornblower – CS Forester
Sharpe – Bernard Cornwell
The ACW series – Bernard Cornwell
Uhtred (Arthurian) – Bernard Cornwell
The Viking series – Bernard Cornwall
The Medieval series – Bernard Cornwell

Also up there are:
Bolitho – Alexander Kent
Sergeant Jack Crossman – Garry Douglas
The colonial series – John Wilcox
Napoleonic Naval – Julian Stockwin

I would class MacDonald Fraser, O'Brian and Mallinson in a class of their own but I also devour all of the others writings.

Long list but others lists have introduced some great reads to me, hope this can do the same for others.

Okay, here is my junior varsity 10:
Again in no particular order:
1] The Forgotten Soldier by Sajer
2] King Solomon's Mines by Haggard
3] The Eyes of the Eagle & Eyes behind the Lines by Linderer
4] The Guns of Navarone by Maclean
5] Six Silent Men [3 volumes and 3 authors]
6] Mission MIA by Pollack
7] Intervention by Eisenhower
8] The Great Escape by Brickhill
9] The two Colditz volumes by Reid
10] Over the Top by Embrey.