Let's play a recommendation game!

[ficbot]

Okay, here is the game Pretend that you are a big shmancy celebrity like Oprah, and some charity or whatever recruits you to donate a raffle prize. You decide that you will donate an iPod Touch/Kindle/eBookwise/Device of Your Choosing---pre-loaded with up to 25 great books hand-picked by you. Assume you have carte blanche and every title you might want is available to you. What are the books you would load onto that baby?

My list, in no particular order...

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Wicked by Gregory MacGuire
Three Plums in One by Janet Evanovich
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
1984 by George Orwell
Overclocked by Corey Doctorow
Naked in Death by J.D. Robb aka Nora Roberts
City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton
Story of my Life by Helen Keller
Complete Works of Lewis Carroll
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis
The Golden Treasury edited by Francis Palgrave
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Harry Potter, Book 1 by JK Rowling
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeliene L'Engle
The Complete Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

So, some mystery, some literary fiction and a few pieces of light sci-fi. Didn't find e-versions for Microserfs or Not Wanted on the Voyage, and would dearly love to! Everything else I think is findable.

[montsnmags]

If This Is A Man - Primo Levi
Bliss - Peter Carey
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Cultural Amnesia - Clive James
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Under Milk Wood - Dylan Thomas
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
An Imaginary Life - David Malouf
Accordion Crimes - Annie Proulx
Grass - Sherri S. Tepper
The World According To Garp - John Irving
A Room Of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee
A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams
A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues - Tom Robbins
Tom O'Bedlam - Robert Silverberg
The Life That Lives On Man - Michael Andrews
Neverness - David Zindell
Lord Of Light - Roger Zelazny
The Truce - Primo Levi


Cheers,
Marc

[AlexC]

Trying not to repeat any titles already mentioned, in no particular order:

Oxford English Dictionary
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgens
The C Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
Great Expectation by Charles Dickens
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg
The Compleat Enchanter by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt

[Peto]

Damn. 25 are too few. Slight preference order


H. Novels

All the Aubrey-Maturin Series (20) by Patrick O'Brian
Shogun, James Clavell
The Physician, Noah Gordon
Q, Luther Blisset (And this one is copyleft, already posted here!!)
Aztec, Gary Jennings
The Journeyer, Gary Jennings
Gates of Fire, Stephen Pressfield
Cienfuegos (all 6 books), Alberto Vázquez-FigueroaArmor, John Steakley
The Cave-bear clan, Jean Auel
Sharpe series (at least the first 10-12), Bernard Cornwell

CF, Terror, Fantasy

Dune (I'll just add one, you can pick the rest), Frank Herbert
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
It, Stephen King
Salem's Lot, Stephen King
Running Man, Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)
LOTR, by Tolkien (these are three just by the publisher's will. Tolkien wrote one)
The Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (Hilarious)

Other

El amor en los tiempos del Cólera, Gabriel García Márquez (it is worth learning Spanish just to appreciate his prose)
One flew over the Cuckoo's nest, Ken Kessey


Non Fiction

Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond
A Bright Shining Lie, Neil Sheehan
The 900 days, Harrison Salisbury
Human Origins: The Story Of Our Species, Yves Coppens
In the Footsteps of Eve: The Mystery of Human Origins, Lee Berger

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

In no order, and not checking that I've not repeated any:

Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
Against the Day - Thomas Pynchon
Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
The Confusion - Neal Stephenson
The System of the World - Neal Stephenson
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy (all 5) - Douglas Adams
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Hand Maidens Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Player of Games - Iain M Banks
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
All Quiet On The Orient Express - Magnus Mills
The Tournament - John Clarke
Flatterland - Ian Stewart
Bread Matters - Andrew Whitley
The Prime of Miss Jean Brody - Muriel Spark
Orlando - Virginia Woolfe
The Summer book - Tove Jansson
The Time Machine - HG Wells

[BenG]

Classics are readily available for free so I didn't include any Dickens, Verne, etc.


*The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
*Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier
*The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman
*The Jerusalem Quartet by Edward Whittemore (The non-existent omnibus of The Sinai Tapestry, Jerusalem Poker, Nile Shadows, and Jericho Mosaic)
*I Sing The Body Electric by Ray Bradbury (or The Golden Apples of the Sun)

*The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols
*Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
*Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
*The Dark Descent edited by David Halliwell
*Collected Stories by Paul Theroux

*The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
*The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
*To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
*Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll
*The Once and Future King by T.H. White

*Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore (If it were for the Christmas season I would replace this with The Stupidest Angel)
*The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban
*Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
*Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
*The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. One edited by Robert Silverberg

*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
*Dune by Frank Herbert
*Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
*Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford
*The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

[ravenne]

In no order:

Baricco, Alessandro, Silk
Marias, Javier, A Heart so White
Saramago, José, Blindness
Houellebecq, Michel, Platform
Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, Death Note 1-12
Rothfuss, Patrick, The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller´s Chronicle, Day 1)
Tolkien, R.R., The Lord of the Rings
Eco, Umberto, The Name of the Rose
Poe, E. A., Complete Tales and Poems
Goethe, J.-W., Faust: A Tragedy
Wallace, L., Ben Hur
Cervantes, Miguel De, Don Quixote
Melville, Herman, Moby-Dick
Philbrick, Nathaniel, In the Heart of the Sea
Llosa, Vargas, The War of the End of the World
Mann, Thomas, Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
Steinbeck, John, East of Eden
Gaiman, Neil, Stardust
Gaarder, Jostein, The Orange Girl
Harris, Thomas, The Silence of the Lambs
Kafka, Franz, The Trial
May, Karl, Winnetou
Süskind, Patrick, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Lindgren, Astrid, The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking
Bambaren, Sergio, Desde las estrellas: mensajes celestiales

Ravenne

[Tattncat]

Here are my choices:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The King's General by Daphne du Maurier
Raiders of Spanish Peaks by Zane Grey
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux

The Illustrated History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Feather in the Wind by Madeline Baker
Deeper Than the Night by Amanda Ashley (aka Madeline Baker)
Perfect by Judith McNaught
The Perfect Lie by Dinah McCall (aka Sharon Sala)

Fire and Rain by Kathleen Eagle
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein
The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Robert Browning
The Audacity of Hope by Barak Obama
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

The Secret Garden by Frances H. Burnett
Harry Potter by JK Rowling
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Host by Stephenie Meyer
The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan

Eragon by Christopher Paolini
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
I Robot by Isaac Asimov
The Scarlet Feather by Dale Van Every
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Chinese Box by Katherine Eyre
The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart
Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson
Two Years Before the Mast by Henry Dana
Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss

Sorry, I overshot by 5. These are some of my favorites. I tried to cover a variety of genres.

[JSWolf]

I'll pre-load the first 25 Discworld novels.

[Tattncat]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

If This Is A Man - Primo Levi
Bliss - Peter Carey
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Cultural Amnesia - Clive James
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Under Milk Wood - Dylan Thomas
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
An Imaginary Life - David Malouf
Accordion Crimes - Annie Proulx
Grass - Sherri S. Tepper
The World According To Garp - John Irving
A Room Of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee
A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams
A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues - Tom Robbins
Tom O'Bedlam - Robert Silverberg
The Life That Lives On Man - Michael Andrews
Neverness - David Zindell
Lord Of Light - Roger Zelazny
The Truce - Primo Levi


Cheers,
Marc

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

Have you found it in an eBook? I have the Hardbound.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Tattncat

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

Have you found it in an eBook? I have the Hardbound.

No, though I've never actually looked. I have the trade paperback.

Cheers,
Marc