For greatest book ever I have to nominate "Don Quixote", it was truly revolutionary and the story is moving, but my personal favourite is Lolita.

I have never been more touched by a book, the depiction of what some would call insane, but I herewith dare call the most sincere profession of love I've ever read can only be rivalled by the endless humour sprinkled over each of its sentences and the wonderful style that only someone like Navokob could posses makes it THE must-read book IMHO.

Honourable mentions:
-There's no such thing as far away - Richard Back
-Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
-The last question - Isaac Asimov.

Share yours!!

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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

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zappaisgod said:
I have read and enjoyed all of those sci fi books. The fantasy one I don't know. Funny thing. I took a fantasy lit course in college. One of the books was Lolita. I thought that was a great characterization of the book. Another book was Frankenstein which I loved. Also the Riverworld book by Phillip Jose Farmer, I can't remember the name.

Have you read Dahlgren? That is a real eye-opener.

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zappaisgod said:
The Illuminatus Trilogy was very cool.  I kind of forgot about that one.  I don't know that I learned anything other than that there are a whole shitload of conspiracy theories out there.  I thought it was tongue in cheek.  I'd prefer to keep that, by the way.  I certainly don't want to know they actually believe that shit.

Shogun also was fantastic.  Not great writing but great storytelling nonetheless.  In that same vein, I love so many of the James Michener books.  The Covenant and The Source especially.

There was so much shit going on in Dahlgren it has to be read and reread.  I haven't cracked it in twenty+ years but I remember:
Kid
Denny
Lanya
George the Moon
Orchids
Scorpions

Fucking masterpiece.

Oh yeah, and another masterpiece, not sci-fi, is A Prayer For Owen Meany

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I know it's tongue in cheek.  What I meant by I learned a lot was the various incidents that the characters go through.  There's the part where one of the characters talks to HP Lovecraft.  I didn't know who that was, so I found out.  Stuff like that.  The book started me down the path towards reading better literature and becoming a more well-rounded individual, overall.