xkcd's favourite 100 books - vote now!

Melic · Postby **Melic** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 6:50 pm UTC

LOTR (J.R.R.Tolken)
Magician (Raymend E.Fiest)
Dresdon Files (Jim Butcher)
Inheritance Cycle (Christopher Paolini) I assume i will like the fourth one
Belgariad/Mallorean (David Eddings) not sure if this has bee voted for or counts as 2 book series
belgarath the sorcerer (David Eddings)
Battlefield earth (L Ron Hubberd) Im not a scientoligist
The Halo books (various authores)
The Wheel of time (mostly James Oliver Rigney)

I really apreciate this thread once i filnally get done with the Ice and Fire series i will be going through this list looking for some more books to read (fyi i wont be putting Fire and ice on my list)

Adacore · Postby **Adacore** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:51 am UTC

Updated and re-alphabetised where I noticed it had gone askew. There are now a total of 444 books (or series) on the list...

Spoiler:

The Moomin · Postby **The Moomin** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:24 pm UTC

The Thief of Always - Clive Barker
The Abarat - Clive Barker
Dragonlance Chronicles - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Nightsdawn Trilogy - Peter F Hamilton
Earthsea Quartet - Ursula K Leguin
The Invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares
Shadows Fall - Simon R Green
Charlie Parker Series - John Connolly
Mrs Chippy's Last Expedition - Caroline Alexander (Fictionalised account of the Shackleton expedition from the cat's point of view)
Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently Novels - Douglas Adams
Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Dune Series - Frank Herbert
Turn of the Screw - Henry James
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Land of Dreams - James P Blaylock
The Once and Future King - T H White
Replay - Ken Grimwood
Alabaster - Caitlin R Kiernan

*Edit Felix Castor series - Mike Carey

And that completes the 20, wooooo.

John T · Postby **John T** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 2:24 am UTC

Diskworld Series - Terry Prattchett
Thursday Next Series - Jasper Fford
Bloodsucking Fiends Series - Christopher Moore
Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein
To say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
Belwether - Connie Willis
Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
Amber Series - Roger Zelazny
Future history series - Robert Heinlein
Future history series- H. Beam Piper
Posleen series - John Ringo
Honor Harrington series - David Weber
Dinosaur Beach - Keith Laumer
Life on the Missippi - Mark Twain
Roughing It - Mark Twain
Lord Darcy series - Randall Garrett

AvatarIII · Postby **AvatarIII** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 12:23 pm UTC

Night's Dawn Trilogy/Series - Peter F Hamilton
Commonwealth Saga - Peter F Hamilton
Fallen Dragon - Peter F Hamilton
Revelation Space Series - Alastair Reynolds
Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds
Terminal World - Alastair Reynolds
Enderverse Series - Orson Scott Card (all of them as a whole)
Hyperion Cantos (Quartet) - Dan Simmons
Ilium/Olympos - Dan Simmons
The Dispossessed - Ursula K LeGuin
Engines of Light Trilogy - Ken MacLeod
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Forever War - Joe Haldeman
The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
Mars Trilogy/Series - Kim Stanley Robinson
Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon
Behold the Man - Michael Moorcock

dhokarena56 · Postby **dhokarena56** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:24 pm UTC

Ulysses
Portrait of the Artist
Dream of the Red Chamber
In Search of Lost Time
The Waste Land
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Hitchhiker's Series
Atlanta Nights
Harry Potter

freakish777 · Postby **freakish777** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 6:22 pm UTC

Neuromancer (or Sprawl Trilogy) - William Gibson
Pattern Recognition (or Modern Trilogy, not sure what to call this series) - William Gibson
Brave New World - Huxley
Calvin and Hobbes collection (disagree with this being taken off the list)
Hercule Poirot (series) - Agatha Christie
Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength (Space Triology) -CS Lewis
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Rings - Tolkein

That's 10 votes. Can I use my remaining 10 votes to vote against the likes of Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and The Old Man and the Sea (amongst others, note that these are all books by American authors who had careers in roughly the same time period)?

Adacore · Postby **Adacore** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 12:20 am UTC

freakish777 wrote:That's 10 votes. Can I use my remaining 10 votes to vote against the likes of Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and The Old Man and the Sea (amongst others, note that these are all books by American authors who had careers in roughly the same time period)?

No, no down-votes. What've you got against American authors who published books between 1925 and 1951?

Update on the list:

Spoiler:

freakish777 · Postby **freakish777** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 5:28 pm UTC

Adacore wrote:What've you got against American authors who published books between 1925 and 1951?

Boring subject matter, and similar writing styles that exacerbate the issue (Where things. Take. Forever. So the plot. Never. Advances.). Of the books I mentioned, Of Mice and Men is the most tolerable (because it's subject matter is at least somewhat interesting), and The Old Man and the Sea is the least tolerable (we get it Hemingway, old age sucks, and life is unfair, don't drag it out 50 pages longer than it has to be).

You could have the deepest characters, and if your writing style sucks it will detract from them.
You could have the richest setting, and if your writing style sucks it will detract from it.
You could have the most brilliant plot, and if your writing style sucks it will detract from it.

EDIT: I'd also vote against Catch-22 if I could, I didn't enjoy it. But pinpointing why I didn't, I'm not so sure of.
EDIT 2: Spook Country by William Gibson is the second book in the Bigend trilogy (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History)

Aiwendil · Postby **Aiwendil** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 12:57 am UTC

I feel like somebody has to point out that the Hitchhiker series now has forty-two votes.

lorb · Postby **lorb** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:54 pm UTC

freakish777 wrote:[...]
That's 10 votes. Can I use my remaining 10 votes to vote against the likes of Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and The Old Man and the Sea (amongst others, note that these are all books by American authors who had careers in roughly the same time period)?

You want to downvote Hemingway while Harry Potter takes the 5th spot in the ranking? :cry:

freakish777 · Postby **freakish777** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:24 pm UTC

lorb wrote:
freakish777 wrote:[...]
That's 10 votes. Can I use my remaining 10 votes to vote against the likes of Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and The Old Man and the Sea (amongst others, note that these are all books by American authors who had careers in roughly the same time period)?

You want to downvote Hemingway while Harry Potter takes the 5th spot in the ranking?

Having not read Harry Potter, I am not qualified to judge it.

willaaaaaa · Postby **willaaaaaa** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 10:03 pm UTC

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown
Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt (despite the suspect methodologies)
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
The I Hate Mathematics! Book by Marilyn Burns, et. al.
Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
Head First Design Patterns by Eric Freeman, et. al.

UniqueScreenname · Postby **UniqueScreenname** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:04 am UTC

Can I give all 20 votes to Pride and Prejudice?

ahammel · Postby **ahammel** » Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:10 pm UTC

Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
Creation, Gore Vidal
The Windup Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jule Verne
The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The Judas Window, John Dickson Carr
The Uplift Series, David Brin
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (bite me, literary modernism haters!)
The League of Extraordinatry Gentlemen, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll
At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien
The Sherlock Holmes Series, Arthur Conan Doyle

I think we decided that we're not counting plays, but if we did, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia would have made the cut.

Mambrino · Postby **Mambrino** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 12:50 am UTC

ahammel wrote:I think we decided that we're not counting plays, but if we did, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia would have made the cut.

Well, there's a couple of plays by Shakespeare on the list already.

My list of 20: (just 20...? not easy at all)

Maus, by Art Spiegelman
The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
Marcovaldo, by Italo Calvino
A Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler (or should that be the whole Philip Marlowe series...?)

The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Nose, by Nikolai Gogol
Corto Maltese series, by Hugo Pratt
Tintin series, by Hergé
Matilda, by Roald Dahl

Pappan och havet (Moominpappa at Sea appears to be the English title), by Tove Jansson.
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Study in Emerald, by Neil Gaiman (yes, it's a short story, but there's Lovecraft's short stories on the list so...)
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
The Murders in the Rue Morgue, by Edgar Allan Poe
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Adacore · Postby **Adacore** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 6:11 am UTC

UniqueScreenname wrote:Can I give all 20 votes to Pride and Prejudice?

New list update! I gave you one vote for Pride & Prejudice. Feel free to put another 19 on different books.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm considering as a book pretty much anything that gets voted, for the purposes of the list. Personally, I don't like the idea of plays-as-books, but my personal opinion doesn't have much to do with it.

Spoiler:

mosc · Postby **mosc** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:22 pm UTC

Shakespeare would be much better represented in earlier posts if it was clear that he was even eligible. What about collected works of poetry or short stories? I think if you widen your net, the purpose goes away. I would remove all plays.

Adacore · Postby **Adacore** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 2:29 am UTC

I don't really have a strong preference either way with plays.

I did notice that the OP stated fiction only, and I think I added a few nonfiction books in the latest update, which I'll have to excise if/when I update the list again.

Odilo · Postby **Odilo** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 6:43 am UTC

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Battle Royale - Koushun Takami
Dirk Gently series - Douglas Adams
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Night Angel trilogy - Brent Weeks
White Cat - Holly Black
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

Negated · Postby **Negated** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 6:53 pm UTC

1984 - George Orwell
Hercule Poirot series - Agatha Christie
Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Yoshiki Tanaka
A Song of Ice and Fire series - George.R.R.Martin
Lord of the Rings - J.R.R.Tolkien
Yōgisha X no Kenshin - Keigo Higashino
Millennium series - Stieg Larsson
Shiki - Fuyumi Ono
Yongzheng Emperor - Er Yue He
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Old Man and the Sea -Ernest Hemingway
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
MacBeth - William Shakespeare
The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allen Poe

mosc · Postby **mosc** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:56 pm UTC

Nobody should be able to vote for ender's game until they've read it when they're thirty and understand the connection between how smart you think you are and youth. Kids already have god complexes, that book is just mental masturbation for the 12-17 year old crowd. There's definitely some sci-fi in it, but that's not why it is getting votes here.

Microscopic cog · Postby **Microscopic cog** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 9:46 pm UTC

Not that I disagree with you, but the reason why people like the books they vote for has nothing to do with it. It's a list of favourite books, nothing else.

ahammel · Postby **ahammel** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:30 pm UTC

I would vote "no plays", on the grounds that they're meant to be performed rather than read. Saying "my favourite book is Hamlet" is a bit like saying "my favourtie book is the shooting script of Cool Hand Luke" as far as I'm concerned.

UniqueScreenname · Postby **UniqueScreenname** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:53 pm UTC

I'm gonna have to trickle them in as I remember.
2. Uglies series - Scott Westerfeld. Best sci-fi series I've ever read.
3. The Giver - Lois Lowry. Probably the first book to make me think while I wasw reading.
4. A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket. Only series where I own all of them. Completely obsessed as a child.
5. The Firm - John Grisham. Love the way it builds.
6. The Client - John Grisham. Usually I hate adult books centered around kids, but I loved this one.
7. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. I love the way this book builds too.

Adam H · Postby **Adam H** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 7:02 pm UTC

A Song of Ice and Fire
The Once and Future King
The Lord of the Rings
Wheel of Time

You know what's crazy? I was completely convinced it's named The Lord of the Ring until just now when I looked it up.

Mambrino · Postby **Mambrino** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 10:28 pm UTC

ahammel wrote:I would vote "no plays", on the grounds that they're meant to be performed rather than read. Saying "my favourite book is Hamlet" is a bit like saying "my favourtie book is the shooting script of Cool Hand Luke" as far as I'm concerned.

Not that I'd be adamantly for including plays in The List, but the difference is not necessarily clear... I've been told that during Dickens' era novels were often read aloud in presence of audience. That would possibly count as a performance, I think. This is, after all, a list of books ("FICTION ONLY"), not a list of novels. Plays are often printed in form of books, often fictional, and literature, too (if that fact has any significance).

Snark · Postby **Snark** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 10:37 pm UTC

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass (And What Alice Found There) - Lewis Carroll
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck

In no particular order. I need to read more.

serutan · Postby **serutan** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 5:12 am UTC

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
Fountains of Paradise by Arthur c. Clarke.
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Sunset Warrior Trilogy by Eric van Lustbader
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Revelation Space Trilogy by Alastair Reynolds
Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.
Dune (first book ONLY) by Frank Herbert.
Ringworld by Larry Niven

Adacore · Postby **Adacore** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 8:36 am UTC

If the next few people's votes break down the right way, we might actually get a top 100 soon (of books with 3 or more votes - the jumps in number of books having 2 votes or 1 vote were large enough at the relevant times that we jumped from less than 100 to way more in a single update).

I removed a couple of nonfiction works. Left the plays alone for now, since there doesn't seem to be consensus there.

Spoiler:

Nyxrisor · Postby **Nyxrisor** » Mon Aug 13, 2012 10:00 pm UTC

Discworld series (Terry Pratchett)
Nation (Terry Pratchett)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
The Redemption of Althalus (David Eddings)
The Pendragon Cycle (Steven Lawhead)
Airman (Eoin Colfer)

UniqueScreenname · Postby **UniqueScreenname** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 2:42 am UTC

UniqueScreenname wrote:I'm gonna have to trickle them in as I remember.
2. Uglies series - Scott Westerfeld. Best sci-fi series I've ever read.
3. The Giver - Lois Lowry. Probably the first book to make me think while I wasw reading.
4. A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket. Only series where I own all of them. Completely obsessed as a child.
5. The Firm - John Grisham. Love the way it builds.
6. The Client - John Grisham. Usually I hate adult books centered around kids, but I loved this one.
7. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. I love the way this book builds too.

8. The BFG - Roald Dahl. Best children's book ever.
9. Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli. Nonconformist manifesto.
10. Maniac Magee - Jerry Spinelli. Pro-integration tale through the works of one kid.

willaaaaaa · Postby **willaaaaaa** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 6:13 pm UTC

UniqueScreenname wrote:
UniqueScreenname wrote:I'm gonna have to trickle them in as I remember.
2. Uglies series - Scott Westerfeld. Best sci-fi series I've ever read.
3. The Giver - Lois Lowry. Probably the first book to make me think while I wasw reading.
4. A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket. Only series where I own all of them. Completely obsessed as a child.
5. The Firm - John Grisham. Love the way it builds.
6. The Client - John Grisham. Usually I hate adult books centered around kids, but I loved this one.
7. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. I love the way this book builds too.

8. The BFG - Roald Dahl. Best children's book ever.
9. Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli. Nonconformist manifesto.
10. Maniac Magee - Jerry Spinelli. Pro-integration tale through the works of one kid.

How did I forget Stargirl

Is vote changing allowed?

UniqueScreenname · Postby **UniqueScreenname** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 2:01 pm UTC

I will always vote in favor of Stargirl. However, it is not my thread.

Adacore · Postby **Adacore** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:59 pm UTC

I don't think it's really anyone's thread - ian (the OP) hasn't been on the fora since December last year. I've been tallying votes, but that's more just admin than ownership. I don't see any reason not to allow changes in votes so long as it doesn't happen too often and you make it clear what you're removing a vote from.

Personally, I'm not going to change my votes, even if I do think of a few better options.

Eomund · Postby **Eomund** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 12:03 am UTC

Okay, here are my first few

1. LOTR - Tolkien
2. Narnia - Lewis
3. Ender's Game - Card (should these be as a whole series ?)
4. Hercule Poirot - Christie
5. Foundation - Asimov
6. Sherlock Holmes - Doyle
7. Princess Bride - Morgenstern
8. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn - Tad Williams
9. The Dragon King Trilogy - Stephen R. Lawhead
10. Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson
11. Silmarilion - Tolkien
12. The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy (or can this be the whole Jack Ryan Series?)
13. Space Trilogy - Lewis
14. Redwall - Jacques
15. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

I'll add the rest later.

dg61 · Postby **dg61** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 11:04 pm UTC

Plays actually were read during Shakespeare's time, or at least it seems that way based on the print and manuscript evidence we have as follows:
1) There are several texts of Shakespeare's plays printed in his time and I think under his supervision that are far, far too long to be preformed even for an Elizabethan audience. Conversely, there are shortened texts that may have been edited from the longer texts specifically for performance. A good example is the first and second quartos of Hamlet
2) the printing of de luxe editions(most famously the First Folio) by public subscription, something that would not be of much use to an average actor who needs only the play they're performing. Indeed, the split between cheap quarto editions and more expensive folio editions is consistent with a reading public with a wide variety of budgets
3) The existence of pirated publications not supervised by the company that held the right to perform any given play

Oryx · Postby **Oryx** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:28 pm UTC

I would vote for

1984 - George Orwell
A brave new world - Aldous Huxley
The royal game - Stefan Zweig
The Horla - Guy de maupassant
The lord of the rings trilogy - Tolkien
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Artwood

ocean_soul · Postby **ocean_soul** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:39 pm UTC

Here's my vote (not in order). I only included novels, not for example plays but also not short story collections.
- The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien).
- A Tale of Two Cities, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (better known as The Pickwick Papers), David Copperfield, Great Expectations (C. Dickens). If I had more votes there would probably be even more of his work on the list.
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Out of the Silent Planet (C.S. Lewis). These votes can be considered to be for the whole of The Chronicles of Narnia and the Cosmic Trilogy.
- Lolita (V. Nabokov).
- The Old Man and The Sea (I know not much happens, but it is written brilliantly. It's somewhat of a style over substance book, and is included here for sublime writing style) & For Whom the Bell Tolls (E. Hemingway).
- To Kill a Mockingbird (H. Lee).
- The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (E.A. Poe).
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (R.L. Stevenson).
- The Name of the Rose (U. Eco).
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (J. Verne).
- Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (J.W. von Goethe).
- The Eagle of the Ninth (R. Sutcliff). The book was way better than the movie. Actually all Sutcliff's works are very good.
- The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables (V. Hugo).

ocean_soul · Postby **ocean_soul** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:43 pm UTC

Maybe we should make a separate threat for plays? I think it's hard to compare plays with novels. I found it difficult enough already to compose a list of twenty 'best' books.

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