Good Books

More Submissions, please! Take this and run with it... I want a huge list of books that I've never read to take with me on The Train, and I'm sure that most other people wouldn't object to a book list, either!

• hmm..maybe we should organize this page alphabetically by author, because many books are repeated again and again. -mike

• the Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
• the Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
• No Ordinary Moments by, guess who, Dan Millman

Now for some change ;p

• Illusions by Richard Bach
• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• Twelve Steps to Raw Foods by Victoria Boutenko
• the Sunfood Diet Success System by David Wolfe

All of these books have to do with health. The last two primarily about physical health, and all of them having to do with spiritual equalibrium. These are the books that have had a most profound impact on my life. -

Books that Franny thinks everyone should read. Ahem.

• Peace Like A River by Leif Enger. This book will change your life.
• Stargirl by Jerry Spinnelli. So will this one.
• anything by Francesca Lia Block but especially Violet and Claire, Weetzie Bat, I Was A Teenage Fairy and.... okay. all of them.
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Barbara....something
• I'm pretty sure that Betty Smith wrote A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. -Elizabeth
• Hope Was Here and The Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. 16. 16!!! years old she was.
• Everything by Madeline L' Engle. Most Especially..A Wrinkle In Time, And Both Were Young, Meet the Austins, Camilla
• Writing Down The Bones and Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg. They're kinda about writing but you should read them even if you don't write.
• Poetry by Sylvia Plath and Billy Collins and Maya Angelou actually anything by Maya Angelou is good...
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath if you like strong books. It's fairly depressing but very strong.
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
• Reviving Ophelia very very good essays and poems by teenage girls. Very good.
• Almost A Woman by Esmerelda Santiago. Memoir. Spectactular!
• Night by Eli Weisel. About the time he spent in prison camp. Also very very strong. This one made me cry.
• The Pigman by Paul Zindel. Funny. Good. Inspiring.
• Growing Wings I can not for the life of me remember the authors name but the bookd is so incredible. It's about this clan of people who have wing. It sounds really cheesy but you need to read it!

Franny is too tired to remember all these authors names right now....

• Summerhill: A Radical Approach To Child Rearing by A. S. Neill, a wonderful book on freedom and child psychology
• The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff, Taoism..and Pooh.
• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman, an entertaining book about a curious character.
• The Day I Became An Autodidact by Kendall Hailey, story of a teenage girl and her journey of becoming an autodidact.
• The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, ever wonder what could, and most certainly would, have happened if WWII wasn't won by the Allied Forces?
• The Subtle Knife, Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman
• The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff, dense and short, a incredibly though provoking book about the intellect vs. instinct
• They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?, The Good Samaritan Strikes Again and others, by Patrcik F. McMannus, outdoor humor that will have your sides aching.
• The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper

-mike's favorite books list, that he can think of

• The Sorcerer's Companion by Alan Zola Kronzck & Elizabeth Kronzck is the best book ever, it takes all the weird stuff from Harry Potter books (i.e. grindylow, redcaps, hags, gnomes, ect, ect.) and explains where the actual myths originated... yeah, it's slink-cool.
• Little Women by Lousia May Alcott, of course. Beautiful book, I seem to remember the movie following it closely, but anyway...
• Alice in Wonderland & Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. LSD TRIP MUCH?
• The Harry Potter Series. Yeah.
• Your Current Dictionary by The English Language. I don't care who or how smart you are... you should read the dictionary!
• Girl Goddess #9, The Weetzie Bat Books & I Was Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block. But not Violet and Claire. Because it sucks.

• uh hello! violet and claire was the best one!
• ditto!
• yeah, well, I thought it completely blew. And that's my opinion. So nyah. -ali

All right you asked for it,

• the blue sword by Robin Mckinley
• anything by Robin Mckinley
• the eight by Katherine Neville
• I, crocodile by Fred Marcellino
• song of the lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce
• crocodile in the sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
• Oh, wow, I've found someone who's read Elizabeth Peters! I LOVE her Amelia books. Elizabeth
• borrower of the night by Elizabeth Peters
• the eye of the world by Robert Jorden
• Redwall by Brian Jacques
• harry potter and the sorcerors stone by J.K. Rowling
• Catwings by Ursula Leguin
• the forstwife by Thersea Tomlinson
• anything by Lloyd Alexander
• The ordinary princess M.M. Kaye
• the enchanted forst chronicles by Patricia Wrede
• outlander by Diana Gabaldon
• Julie of the wolves by Jean Craighead George
• Bunnicula, a rabbit tale of mystery by James Howe
• Princess by Jean Sasson
• The ruby in the smoke by Philip Pullman
• the golden compass by Philip Pullman
• Artemis fowl by Eoin Colfer
• in the forest of the night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
• deamon in my view by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
• the jungle book by Rudyard Kipling
• the boggart by Susan Cooper
• Honor Harrington on basilisk station by David Weber
• fanny by Erica Jong
• calvin and hobbes by Bill Watterson
• shadow leader by Tara K. Harper
• the happy mutant handbook
• the drastic dragons of draco texas by Elizabeth Scarborough
• the cold camp vampire by Elizabeth Scarborough
• the princess bride by William Goldman
• into the wilderness by Sara Donati
• the art of war by Sun Tzu

thats all I can think of the top of my head. Katana

• Hope was Here and The Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer
• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura.....
• Almost a Woman by Esmerelda Santiago
• The Giver, Number the Stars and the Anastasia Krupnick series by Lois Lowery
• anything by T.A. Barron
• The Theif by Megan Whalen Turner
• The Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis
• Tom Sawyer and Huckelberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
• Island of the Blue Dolfins by Scott O'Dell
• The phantom Toll Booth by......?
• Rose Daughter by Robin McKinnly

"Even if it kill's me" by Dorthy Joan Harris abount a girl whos 14 with anerixia

"Travels with Samantha", by Phil Greenspun (http://www.photo.net/samantha/)

Lets see- Wizard and Titan- by John Varley. There is at least one more book in the series, but I can't remember the name, and I havn't read it.

• The third book is Demon, by John Varley. ~Danopian~

Ismael Daniel Quinn. I havn't even finished reading it and I'm putting it on my list! Anything by James Michner if you like 600 plus page historical novels. Some of them are a little hard to get started on, since he has a tendency to go back to the forming of the continents to start them, but... The Giver Lois Lowrey Hey Mom Can I Ride My Bike Across America? John Seigel Boettner. Subtitled Five Kids Discover Their Country The Complete Jugggler Dave Finnigan A Wrinkle In Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, A Wind In The Door, and Many Waters Madeline L'Engle Also anything else by her.If you get far enough into them, the Wrinkle In Time series, and the Meet The Adams' series, which is about a seemingly normal family, sort of merge an charactors from one series appear in the other. The Narnia books- all 7 of them- C. S. Lewis Somone down delow mentioned the childrens book Ferdinand the Bull Yeahhh! thats what I can think of right now- Lorin

• It's actually Meet the Austens, not the Adams. Good book. Further in the series comes A Ring of Endless Light, which is one of my favorites. -Elizabeth

the Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien, and it's prelude The Hobbit. right now i'm reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, author of the great Narnia Chronicles. it's super duper good. yeah.

                       -moth

• Angela's Ashes (so sad... so very very sad. And unbelievably well-written)
• The Satanic Verses (stubbornly difficult to read, but eventually worth it)
• The Great Gatsby
• Beloved
• All in the Timing
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories
• Number the Stars
• The Giver
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Downsize This!
• Stuart Little
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• The Cider House Rules
• Catch-22
• Cyrano de Bergerac
• Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
• The Miracle of Mindfulness <---- *Rabbit Hill
• The Hobbit
• James and the Giant Peach
• The Witches
• Tao Te Ching
• Tales of the City and sequels
• The Dyke and the Dybbuk

-Mitchell

Here are more additions,

• Eloise books -Kaye Thompson (books for precocious grown-ups)
• Town in Bloom -Dodie Smith (good luck finding this, it is out of print)
• AnyBody Can Do Anything -Bette MacDonald (one of the smartest writers and clever...sarcasm sublime)

-anything by PG Wodehouse (meet the psmiths, jeeves, wooster...the drone club)

• Far From a Madding Crowd -Thomas Hardy (miserable 19^th century english people, my favorite)
• Sleeping Ugly -Jane Yolen (funny childrens book)
• From Here to Eternity -James Jones (beauty in the ugliness of war, with exquisite metaphors)
• Peacock Spring -Rumur Godden (mystical india and english colonialism...)

-Gennie, who will come up with more

Rosie's List: (AKA "Meet The Loves of my Life")

The ones in bold are my favorite of favorites. You guys have (fortunately) left out a lot of my all-time loves, so this is going to be a looooooong list! I'll try to write summaries for more of them later...

• The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
• The Blue Sword also by Robin McKinley
• Precious Bane by Mary Webb
• The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle
• The Innkeeper's Song by Peter Beagle
• Gwinna by Barbara Helen Berger
• Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye
• Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
• West With the Night by Beryl Markham
• Juniper by Monica Furlong
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Sainte-Exuperie
• Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
• The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
• Dawn by Molly Bang
• The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. LeGuin
• Tehanu: the last book of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

• The Ramayana by William Buck
• The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
• Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry I can't remember the author
• Catherine, called Birdy by Karen Cushman
• Free Your Mind (a book for queer youthit's in Genius Tribe)
• Cherries & Cherry pits by Vera B. Williams
• Grimbold's Other World by Nicholas somebody ;)
• I Feel a Little Jumpy around you edited by Naomi Shihab Nye...it's, as the subtitle says "a book of her poems and his collected in pairs"...poems on similar subjects or with a common feeling are organized in twosone by a woman & one by a man. And the poems are amazing!
• The space between our footsteps: poems and paintings from the middle east edited by Naomi Shihab Nye
• High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver...a book of intensely personal, powerful, often political and always poetic essays.
• Wise Child by Monica Furlong
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Paper Crane by Molly Bang
• King Bidgoods' in the bathtub by Don & Audrey Wood
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon
• Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood
• Kissing the witch: old tales in new skins by Emma Donaghue...a collection of fairytales retold in a simple, dark style. often they are virtually unrecognizable from the original stories, but are very well-written
• Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevsky (if you like 700-page plunges into the psychology of an impoverished neurotic victorian Russian axe murderer...)
• Rise Up Singing especially for us folksong nuts
• Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes...I'm still not sure what I think of the analyses...it's worth reading even just for the myths & fairytales it contains and how well they are told.
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Chan
• A Journey of One's Own: uncommon advice for the indpendent women traveler by Thalia Zepatos
• Piggins by Jane Yolen...also the sequels ;)
• Sister Light, Sister Dark by Jane Yolen
• Olivia by Ian Falconer
• The Earthsea books by Ursula K. LeGuin
• The Redwall series by Brian Jacques...the early books are better, IMHO
• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
• The Willows in Winter by William Horwood
• Beauty by Robin McKinley
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, if you don't mind all the Christian symbolism...my favorite is The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, The Silver Chair, and The Magician's Nephew...
• plays by Shakespeare (see them first, then read them) I especially like Much Ado About Nothing
• To Kill a Mockingbird I can't remember the author's name
• American Primitive by Mary Oliver
• The Folk of the Air by Peter Beagle...Peter Beagle is one of my very favorite fantasy writers. this is a fantasy sci-fi set in Berkeley in the '70's with goddesses, demons, professors, anachronistic revels, and a genuine sense of magic and evil and mystery which very few people can convey in print

   /Comic books & graphic novels to look for to look for:/

• Death: the high cost of living by Neil Gaiman
• Death: the time of your life by Neil Gaiman
• Oh My Goddess (an ongoing series)
• Artbabe by Jessica Abel
• Love and Rockets by Jaime and 'Beto Hernandez...the art is incredible, I nearly die with jealousy every time I read their comix. Besides that, their stories are complex, continuous, and well-written, often slightly fantastical, and with a lot of strong, beautiful, interesting female characters.

Sorry you asked???? *LOL*

• Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
• Ishmael By Daniel Quinn
• My Ishmael By Daniel Quinn
• The Story Of B By Daniel Quinn
• Beyond Civilization By Daniel Quinn
• After Dachau By Daniel Quinn
• The Man Who Grew Young By Daniel Quinn
• The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy By Douglas Adams
• The Resturant At The End Of The Universe By Douglas Adams
• Life, The Universe, And Everything By Douglas Adams
• So Long And Thanks For All The Fish By Douglas Adams
• Mostly Harmless By Douglas Adams
• The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
• The Sacred Journey Of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
• Ender's Game By Orson Scott Card
• 1984 by George Orwell
• The Princess Bride By William Goldburg
• The Sunfood Diet Sucess System
• Dweller On Two Planets by Phylos The Thibetan
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook By Grace Llewelyn

JesseBorges

My apologies for repeating what others have already reccomended..

• The Memory of Whiteness by Kim Stanley Robinson, food for the imagination and mind and a damnably good book to boot.
• The Once and Future King by T.H. White
• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
• In the Spirit of Happiness by the Monks of New Skete, the book written for my soul and no doubt countless others; it may change your life, and it may change it for the better. Everything true I know of life is in the book and the bible. To say it is my favorite book would be an understatement.
• The Seventh Samurai by Helen Dewitt, one of the few novels capable of matching and surpassing the depth and excellence of Umberto Eco's; a single mother and her son, who is taught (at home! yariba!) greek at the age of 3; quickly achieves emotional maturity and tries to find his father.Later published under the title 'The Last Samurai'.
• The Bone People by Keri Hulme
• The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco, about Roberto de la Grive, a fellow who happens to get shipwrecked on a shipwreck, and the account of what happened to him and what went through his mind afterwards....Amazing! Read!
• The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Leguin, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore. Inspiring story, beautiful fantasy world and 'high fantasy' style writing that I dig so much.
• Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide by Orson Scott Card, beautiful story, entertaining, original, wonderful. Best page-turners I've read since Magician by Raymond E. Feist
• The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Tolkien Biography by Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien. A lot about his life and the person himself, very interesting.
• Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, see Kim W.'s entry below.
• The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Amazing books, but fantasy writers are now continuously copying off of it (in my opinion).
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams (again, see below)
• 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell. 1984 is about a possible future (or, if you prefer, past) totalitarian government where the populace is completely controlled by directed hate, continuous fear and no privacy (feel free to debate). Animal farm is an allegorical novel on the corruption of a socialist community, very good.
• The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. The Name of the Rose is a mystery that takes place in an abbey in Italy, quite a masterpiece in my opinion; Foucault's Pendulum is an amazing novel about 3 book editor's fall into the world of conspiracies and subsequent attempts to escape, but its so incredibly wonderful I can't really sum it up.
• Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength make up the Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis...Amazing books. Changed my life much. Read em.
• also The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, where the protaganist goes to heaven and hell and has some conversations with people from both, interesting and short.
• Tathea by Anne Perry; Definetley read this one...interesting story about it ~ I had an idea for a novel, general plot idea. I walk into the library, grab a copy of Tathea, read it, and lo! it was 'my' book completely written out. I really love it, the characters are mucho neato.
• Interface Masque by Shariann Lewitt. Really wierd Sci-Fi, quite enjoyable.
• Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman. Fantasy novel that departs from the norm perceptibly, very well written.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey and following books by Arthur C. Clarke.
• Dune series, The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor by Frank Herbert, all Excellent Sci-Fi.
• Magician: Master and Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist.
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
• Foundation, Second Foundation and Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov.
• Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson ~ also he's written an addition to the series titled The Martians which I haven't read.
• Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is really froody, describes the landscapes the story takes place in Beautifully, in several different writing styles, I loved it.
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
• The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams.
• Magister Ludi by Herman Hesse (haven't read it yet but hear its great).
• The Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
• Genesis by Poul Anderson.
• Sphere by Michael Crichton, and also Jurrasic Park and The Lost World are great if you're into that kind of genre.
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.
• The Dinotopia books by James Gurney, see other's posts below.
• Wheelock's Latin, the textbook we used in my Latin class, eheh..
• The Bible by God, et al.
• Redwall and following books in that series by Brian Jacques (pronounced Jakes). Slightly aimed at younger children than me or thou, but pretty good nevertheless.
• The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights by John Steinbeck.
• Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson.
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
• Ismael by David Quinn.
• The His Dark Materials Trilogy, which is The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman ~ Really zippo fantasy-adventure, very well written can'tputitdown books with characters you can really feel for and an original plot that doesn't quit.
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.

Thats all that comes to mind, I'll post more later when my post-coffee coma ends.. ~Dan Frampton, Cynical Madman~

• The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. It's the first in the Wheel of Time series, which are probably some of the best books I've ever read (there are eight of them so far.) Be warned: they are very long (between 600-1000 pages each), but they are well worth the time, especially good for train trips. Everyone one I know who's read them loves them and they talk about the characters like they're real people. The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadow Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords, and The Path of Daggers are the other books in the series.
• If I may interject my opinion here; The first 4 books are some of the best fantasy novels ever written, but after those it really starts to slow down...book 5 (the fires of heaven) is one of the worst books I've ever read. If you get into the story and want to know what happens further on in the series, thats great, but you've been warned. :-) -Danopian
• A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline L'Engle. She's written a lot of other good books, but I can't remember their titles.
• The Wizard series by Diane Duane. The first book (which is really a trilogy) is Support Your Local Wizard. One of my favorites of all time. A Wizard Abroad, The Book of Night With Moon, and To Visit the Queen are the others in the series. The last two are especially for cat lovers (cuz they are the main characters in those) and physics/time/dimension travel people. They are all fun reads.
• I though there were other books in that series... So You Want to Be a Wizard, Deep Wizardry, and High Wizardry. Those aren't about the cats though, they're about human wizards. But yeah. -marina
• I know Marina. Support Your Local Wizard contains So You Want to Be A Wizard, Deep Wizardry, and High Wizardry. I said the last two had cats for main characters, I didn't say the others did. ; ) - KimW.
• The Empty Crown by Rosemary Edghill (or somename like that.) Great if you like your fantasy smart, wry, and sarcastic (in a good way.)
• Song in the Silence by ? Beautifully told, semi-prose like fantasy novel about Dragons (bonus!) with names like Khordeshkistriakor.
• The Little Prince by Antonie - can't remember the rest of his name. Look at the LifeChangingBooks page for the whole thing.
• Insane and demented books like The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, etc..., by can't remember his name. : ) Kim W.
• Hitchhiker's Guide series is by Douglas Adams, he also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (I think thats correct) and The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

My list will of course get longer when I have loads of time to think of books I love (hah!), but here's an author everyone should love and read: William Sleator. He writes the most awesome sci-fi creapy things, most of which start out as a normal sounding sci-fi book, but then he twists something and changes it so much that all you can say is, stupidly, "woah." Dude. Everyone go read some of his stuff, especially:

• Fingers
• House of Stairs
• In the Dollhouse? (something like that)
• The Beasties (slightly gross) (okay, a lot gross)

Anywho, those are my faves... -Robyn

• Tree Grows in Brooklyn -Bette Smith (terrific classic, gorgeous discription)
• I Capture the Castle -Dodie Smith (this just came back into print, written by the same lady who wrote One Hundred and One dalmations, the author of Harry Potter loves this book
• Six of One -Rita Mae Brown (anything by her is terrific, this is one of the best)
• Sherlock Holmes -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (this is a bit broad mind you, since there are several novels, and short stories, I say read any of them. The first thing he wrote about Holmes, is the novel a Study in Scarlet, you find out how Holmes, and Watson met.)
• A Town like Alice -Nevil Shute (I am quite fond of this book, just the adventure of it excites me, they also made a great mini-series of this, on PBS I believe)
• Thurber Carnival -James Thurber (A collection of short stories, essays, and cartoons by the famed writer of the New Yorker. He writes some hilarious stories about his eccentric family.)

 -Gennie

• Very Far Away from Anywhere Else, by Ursula K. LeGuin
• A Solitary Blue, by Cynthia Voight (sp?)
• Giving Good Weight, by John McPhee (esseys)

These are my comfort books. The ones I read when something unpleasent is bothering me. It's partly the writing, partly the familiarity I guess.

Anything by Tamora Pierce! She's great. I'm saving one of her quartets to read on the train to camp. It's going to take lots of willpower though, because all her books are great! (Or the ones I've read so far, anyway) -Kathleen

• Dinotopia, by James Gurney (beaaauuutiful book! it was a childhood favorite and I still love to look at it years later... adds Eryn)
• The World Beneath, by James Gurney

(Ari)

The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley

• Not deep or anything, but fun to read. At least it was for me, since I'm absolutely obsessed with medieval stuff. It's pretty long.

Midnight Hour Encores - Bruce Brooks

• Interesting novel about a world-class cellist who would be really happy as an unschooler (at least, that's what I couldn't help but think when I read it)

Looking for Alibrandi - Melina Marchetta

• I don't know what to say..I guess it's one of the few things I've read recently and it was decent.

For illustrations (all kid's books):

The Brambly Hedge books (Spring Story, Summer Story, Autumn Story, Winter Story, Sea Story, The Secret Staircase) - Jill Barklem

• ADORABLE illustrations. I absolutely love her style.

Grandfather Twilight - Barbara Berger

When The Sun Rose - Barbara Berger

• Gorgeous acrylics.

 - Emma

READ: The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, & High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver. She is one of my favorite authors, with a clarity and every-day poetry quality I love. Her novels (the first two listed) are excellent, Animal Dreams being my favorite. (It traces the story of two sisters, Cody and Hallie, Cody full of old pain, haunted by her memories as she returns to her old home-town (a tiny railroad-town in Arizona) and Hallie, the younger, so different from Cody, going south to help replant the fields in Nicaragua.) High Tide in Tucson is a bunch of excellent essays. Well, I have to go, my family wants to read more on the book we're on right now...I'll have more Favorite Books of All Time for Ever & Eternity to aggressively market to you soon.

  Love,
    Rosie

• The Redwall Series Brian Jacques
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera
• The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis
• Little Women Louisa May Alcott
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook Grace Llewellyn
• Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind and Ender's Shadow Orson Scott Card
• Light a Single Candle Beverly Butler
• Animal Farm George Orwell
• Patty Jane's House of Curl Lorna Landvik
• Brave New World Aldous Huxley
• Wrinkle in Time series Madeline L'Engle
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and it's companion books, of course Douglas Adams
• Jurassic Park Michael Crichton
• Lost World Michael Crichton
• Skeleton Crew Stephen King
• The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
• Princess Bride
• Ishmael Daniel Quinn
• Call of the Wild Jack London
• Escape from Home Avi
• Lord Kirkle's Money (this and "Escape from Home are a series... this being the second) Avi
• The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle Avi
• Harriet the Spy
• Island of the Blue Dolphins Scott O'Dell
• for that matter, anything by Scott O'Dell... he's awesome
• Julie of the Wolves
• Ferdinand the Bull (there's a bit of a story behind this. it's a children's book, but my grandparents gave us a copy of it in German, and I had that book memorized (in German, nonetheless), and could tell it to you in either German or English, without the book. It's a cute story, though)
• The Tenth Good Thing About Barney Judith Viorst
• Goodnight Moon
• My Sergei Ekaterina Gordeeva
• The Tao of Pooh Benjamin Hoff
• Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
• The Wisdom of the Native Americans Various
• The Friendly Shakespeare: A thoroughly painless guide to the best of the bard
• The Perfect Storm Sebastian Junger
• The Hungry Ocean
• Ghosts of Everest
• It's Like This, Cat
• Ramona the Pest and all the other Ramona books Beverly Cleary
• Atlas Shrugged
• The Robot Series by Isaac Asimov (I've only read the first one so far)
• The Harry Potter Book!!! by J.K. Rowling
• anything and everything by Tamora Pierce (no, that's not the title. Just read everything the woman's ever written. Really.)
• Girl Goddess #9 by Francesca Lia Block
• The Weetzie Bat Books by Francesca Lia Block
• I Was A Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block
• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by...? But do not see the movie.
• Jurassic Park, Lost World, The Andromeda Strain, and Sphere by Michael Chricton
• Night Shift, The Stand, and Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

That's about it for my list. I'll add others as they come up.

• Your bathroom book! Your bathroom book rocks!!!

The Green Book - Jill Payton Walsh

Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne

Girl Walking Backwards - Nancy Gardner (I think)

Lives of a Cell - Lewis Thomas

A Brief History of Time - Stephan Hawking

Tommorow When the War Began (and series)-Can't remember the authors name.

Following list provided by Christy.

Deutsche Erzahlungen or German Stories, A bilingual Anthology. - translated and edited by Harry Steinhauer. Beautiful, inspiring, challenging, thoughtful short stories.

Point, Counter Point - Aldous Huxley... this is a beautiful, thought-provoking fiction book with lots of indepth characters. However it can be a little confusing, my recommendation is to take notes on who is who.

Conversations with God - by Neale Donald Walsch

God is a Verb - I cannot remember the author's name... the book is a beautiful one about Jewish mysticism. I'm not Jewish, but I really, really appreciated the book and thought it was beautiful.

The Prophet - Khalil Gibran Beautiful book, easy to read, sort of like a collection of poverbs or poetry.

Democracy in America - Tocqueville. Go for an abidged version, if you must, and flip through it. Its really quite an interesting look at our society.

The Poetry of Nietzsche - okay, this is a book about Nietzsche and his poetry. It has samples of his poems, in both English and German. And it includes information about his life. This guy is, in some ways, wonderfully fascinating and I could relate to a lot of the emotions in his poetry... he's also confusing, because I've heard so many different things about him.

Tao Te Ching - a collection of short bits of wisdom.

Wow, I just stumbled across this page...Although my memory isn't good enough to recommend the flat-out best books I've read, off the top of my head, here's some cool shit that alot of people haven't heard of either:

• The Kalevala (no author that I know of) ~ It's a Finnish folk poem, dazzlingly complex and simple, magical, the kind of book you can flip to any page and find something worth quoting.

• Rumi (many poems) ~ He was a 13^th(?) century Persian Sufi mystic, dervish. His poems are mindblowing. No other way to describe it. And jeez, it takes like, 2 minutes to read a poem! It's worth the effort!

• My Year of Meats (Ruth L. Ozecki) ~ I found this at random on the "new books" shelf at the library. It's really funny and it also manages to say thoughtful and important things about bovine growth hormone, domestic violence, television, and race.

• The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing) ~ She's absolutely brilliant, and this book in particular is crammed with musings, realizations, and just stark truth. It's fairly uplifting and never dull.

• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick) ~ This is a book everyone should read. This is an author everyone should be very familiar with. It's trippy, surreal, funny, sad...And if that doesn't make it sound worthwhile, "Bladerunner" was based on it.

• Anything by Francesca Lia Block. Trust me. It's like poetry but it isn't hard to read. It's the thoughts you were never clear enough to think. It will leave you inspired and comforted and noticing the slinksterness of everything. And knowing new words like slinkster :)

• Anything by Peter Hoeg. He wrote "Smilla's Sense of Snow" which is also a really good movie, but he's also written about a superhuman (that is, superior to the human characters he meets) ape, the relationship of time to reality, all kinds of really interesting and unique shit, totally check him out! For some reason alot of Scandinavian writers (he's Danish) really seem to be doing some exciting literary stuff lately, or maybe that's just what gets translated into English? :)

Okay my brain's hurting, maybe I'll add more later. Hope this makes someone's life more interesting! Jenny

'Oh, the places you'll go': by Dr. Seuss... one of the most unappreciated great works of our time. I read this for my graduation speech. People connected with me on a much deeper level after that.

'Alice in Wonderland': by Lewis Carroll... one of the most unappreciated great works of our time. (That's probably not entirely true.) I didn't read this for my graduation speech, but there was still some deep connecting going on. That's how powerful this book is.

'When the sun rose': by Someone Cool .... some kid ripped out the middle three pages of this book when I saw it in the library. Although that was a large portion of the entire story, I had a feeling it was great. Great and most likely unappreciated.

• That book is awesome! It's by Barbara Berger. She also has an equally beautiful book called Grandfather Twlight. I love those books... - Emma

'Jesse bear, what will you wear?': by Someone Cool II : .... follow the adventures of a spunky bear and rhyme your way through his day. (partial nudity. naked bears.) Must I reiterate the fact that this too is also great and unappreciated? ...Well, it is.

Thus concludes Rhymi's Library of Classics.

Naela's updated list (less books, longer summaries):

• Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott - Anne Lamott's real-life journal of her son's first year. Though I love her fiction as well, especially Hard Laughter, Operating Instructions reveals her personal style in a way that none of her other books do.
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard - A treat for your mind on two levels: the witty dialogue and the philosophical themes. One of those stories that reveal something new every time you read them.
• The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic. Amazing book, I read it on the way to camp my first year. All about synesthesia, an extremely rare neurological condition that causes two or more senses to "run together" (causing one to see music or taste shapes).
• The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan. A collection of short stories in which a young boy, Peter, "daydreams" twists on reality. Beautiful, beautiful book. I read it at age eleven or so, and it was one of those books that permanently changed my mind.
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I heartily disagreed with most of this book, and heartily agreed with the rest of it, which was more than a little disconcerting. In general, it really shook me up and got me thinking, and I must reccommend the experience.

Alyson's List:

• All children's books by Roald Dahl
• All Four Harry Potter books, by J.K. Rowling
• The hobbit, by J.R.R Tolkien

Jekissa's must read list:

• The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
• The Chronicle's of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
• Ender's Game & Ender's Shadow (In that order), by Orson Scott Card
• The "His Dark Materials" series, by Philip Pullman
• Almost anything by Roald Dahl
• The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (I think. It's the abridged book.)
• The Circle of Magic series, by Tamora Pierce
• All the TinTin books, by Herge
• Harriet the Spy, and The Long Secret, by Louise Fitzhugh
• Nancy Drew Mysteries, by Carolyn Keene
• Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge, by Judy Blume
• Running Out of Time, by Margaret Peterson Haddix
• Fried Green Tomatoes, by Fannie Flagg
• Girl Goddess #9, by Francesca Lia Block

 NickH's very favorite book of all time is "PaperMoon" 
 By Joe David Brown. I've read it 27 times. please go read it.
 But, if you can't do that, you might as well read one of these

 Roots by Alex Haley - I've read this one only nine times, cause
 my copy fell apart.
 The Cronicles of Narina.
 Anything by Terry Pratchett, an amazingly funny fantasy writer.
 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
 Johnathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach..
 High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.
 Just about anything Kurt Vonnegut Jr. has written.
 Anything by Harry Turtledove as well.
 Ms. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh... can't remember the author.

• the Beach by Alex Garland. kind of gory, but really funny & really well-written.
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. really stunning book.
• Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue. gorgeous rewrites of old fairy tales, connected to each other in some way or another.
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman. i love Niel G., he has a really amazing way of writing.
• most anything by Tanya Huff. she can be exceedingly gory (stay away from the "Blood" series if you're not into gory stuff) & sometimes a bit boring the first read, but her characters are really well-written & she is one of my all-time favorite authors. specifically, i recommend "Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light" (haven't read it in a long time, but if i remember correctly, it was really good) & "Child of the Grove."
• Sphere by Michael Crichton (sp?). i love Michael C., i think he's an amazing author, & he really checks out whatever he's writing about. even Jurassic Park & the Lost World were really amazingly written.
• Letters From Rifka by Karen Hesse. really beautiful book.
• The Street Lawyer by John Grisham. the only John G. book i've really read, well worth it.
• The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha by Lloyd Alexander. even my dad liked this one. ;)
• of course, anything by Douglas Adams.

kat