Your Favorite Book(s) of all time

House of Sand and Fog - loved this book. Excellent themes regarding pride and obsession. Great atmosphere in this book, too.

Oh, so many.  I might have to answer based on author from time to time, though!

Little Women - I think I try to re-read this every year, right around Christmas. 
On Writing - Stephen King.  I think it's the best book about writing I have ever read, and just really interesting at the same time. 
Most books by Stephen King
Most books by Nelson Demille
The Hot Zone - Richard Preston
And The Band Played On - Randy Shilts
Anything by Mary Roach (Spook, Stiff, Bonk)

(and my guilty pleasures fall into the Harry Potter and Twilight realm.  I KNOW.)

Catch-22 has been my favourite book since I was 16.

Catch-22 has been my favourite book since I was 16.

LOL! It's one of my least favourites! 

It's an odd one - most of the people I know who claim it as one of their favourites are men.

It's an odd one - most of the people I know who claim it as one of their favourites are men.

Add another man to that list   

I just have a few faves, which are mostly fantasy:

Anne of Green Gables- Lucy Maude Montgomery, 8 volumes- read all 8 books 7 times over
Harry Potter series- J.K Rowling, read the last two books 2 times
Howl's Moving Castle- Diana Wynn Jones, and all her other book, great fantasy type books
and last but not least
Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkien and many of his other works, oh and his son as well

I just recently read a book called 'Stupid and Contagious' and it was probably the funniest book I've ever read. They're both sort of screw-ups who together aren't so screwy and it's definately one you don't want to read on the subway or something because you'll be cracking up the whole time

I just recently read a book called 'Stupid and Contagious' and it was probably the funniest book I've ever read. They're both sort of screw-ups who together aren't so screwy and it's definately one you don't want to read on the subway or something because you'll be cracking up the whole time

Sounds good so far. I've read books at work and giggled out loud, the person in the room asked if I was ok.   

Maybe I am maybe I'm not.
Seriously, I do like a book that will make me laugh, so Im going to give this one a go.

Sounds good so far. I've read books at work and giggled out loud, the person in the room asked if I was ok.   
Seriously, I do like a book that will make me laugh, so Im going to give this one a go.

If you want a book, actually several, that will make you laugh aloud and I don't mean little sniggers here and there but full blown laughter, then take a look at this guy - Tom Sharpe. By-standers won't be asking if you're ok, they will be giving you plenty of space. His books take a long time to read from having to frequently set the books down and wipe your eyes. I guarantee you will laugh. I don't usually read a book more than once but I have read a few of these twice.

The first three I highly recommend are Wilt, Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure. In that order.  Read one and I am willing to bet you get sucked into all his books.

Riotous Assembly 
Indecent Exposure
These 2 are set in SA and, though political inspired, are not political reading. They are extremely piss-take view of life in SA in the apartheid 60’s and many of the characters are angliophiles. These two books were inspired by his deportation from South Africa.

Wilt – this is, IMO, by far the funniest. He is a lecturer to a bunch of disinterested borderline yobs at a Polytechnic. He is bored with life and his nagging wife and constant trying to spice up their love life. He fantasizes about killing her. One weekend, he does a trial run involving a blow up doll and is seen, setting off a chain of events involving a murder investigation by the most inept bampot of an Inspector.  Meanwhile the wife takes off without telling anyone. With her American lesbian lover.
It is hilarious!

Others that are in his top 6 as recommended by Ayoubob:

Porterhouse Blues
Blot on the Landscape
The Throwback

Reading your review for Wilt made me laugh, jeez a blow up doll, can't get better than that.

Reading your review for Wilt made me laugh, jeez a blow up doll, can't get better than that.

Actually it does. Trust me. Read one and tell me you didn't bust a gut.

In Riotous Assembly, a rich old woman, who is the epitome of everything English, calls the Extreme anglophile police Kommodant to report that she has just killed her Zulu (?) cook. The Kommodant assures her she didn’t kill her cook. Then it transpires she and her cook were lovers and into rubber. The Kommodant wants to pin the murder on her English brother so that when he is executed, he can get a transplant using the brother’s heart. Somewhere in all the mayhem is Constaple Els and his elephant gun.

In Indecent Exposure, the Kommodant now has his transplanted heart (which he thinks is an English heart but isn't) and spends his days acting English. He gets invited to an English woman’s mansion (and its own substory and mayhem) so his second in command takes over and this guy is intent on wiping out sexual relations between his police officers and the local women. So in a nutshell, he shows them explicit images of well-endowed women and uses electric shock therapy. Down in their nether regions. The end result is turning the entire police force from macho police into a force of queens of the campest kind. He then has some heavily armed agents to fight communism but none of the agents know any of the other agents but they all end up meeting up with some baddy commies which are in fact the other agents. It’s complicated but the mayhem that ensures is so descriptive and hilarious.

Jeez Louise! Where on earth did you find these books?

Jeez Louise! Where on earth did you find these books?

Jeez K of the J, my name's not Louise 

Found Wilt by accident. Then I had to go looking for the others. Think they are available on-line. I was getting these in the newsagents about 20 years ago.

Unfortunately all mine are in storage just now.

Favourite books of all time: Little Women, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables, Little Princess and The Secret Garden(both by Frances Hogsdon Burnett), September(Rosamund Pilcher), Memoirs of a Geisha, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

The Stand and The Tommyknockers by Stephen King, and Polar Star and Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith.  Also just about anything by Bill Bryson.

Memoirs of a Geisha

My wife, while reading this, was under the impression that it was an autobiography, and was pissed off to find out it was written by a man.  This always makes me laugh.