I can't speak for the greatest, but the story I've most enjoyed reading through was The Wheel of Time.

He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone.

 

I wanted to get into these books so bad. But the characters are terrible. A+ worldbuilding, C- character stereotypes. I think I finally dropped them around books 7 or 8.

 

This is going to get an eye-roll, but completely unironically: Harry Potter.

The sheer amount of time I have "spent" in the Harry Potter universe speaks for itself. For me the measure of a work is in how much it engages my imagination in wanting to spend further time with it. A book that you finish, appreciate but then put down... I could never describe such a work as "great", no matter the quality of the writing, the cleverness of the plot, or the power of its message.

There are some books out there with writing and characterisation of such quality that I forget they are fiction rather than biographical - for example, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, or The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. But what was my actual experience of those books? I read them, I admired the writing, I put them down, and then I never thought of them again.

If Harry Potter is a Sunday roast just like your mum used to make, books like A Thousand Splendid Suns are a Michelin star meal. Delightful for a brief moment, but unfulfilling in any long term way.

So yeah. Long live genre fiction.

 

I've had a lot of difficulty with the question, mainly due to it being entirely subjective and opinion based.

My favorite book of all time is The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. Despite being written nearly 70 years ago, it manages to perfectly encapsulate what it means to be a teenager, and also what it is to have a mental illness.

The best part of it to me, was it always read more like a story about events that actually happened to a person, and less of a fantastical quest, with rising and falling actions with climaxes and grand battles between good and evil.

Its just the story of some kid suffering by himself, alone, unsure, insecure, and wracked with demons.

People will argue that this doesn't really constitute it as a story, because there is no growth or change for the character. Those people are stupid, Holden admits to his issues, he realizes he has a problem, and that he needs helps.

Its reflective of its author in a way, Salinger was deeply disturbed and went through a lot of troubles in his life. He served at Utah Beach during the Normandy Landings as part of Operation Overlord (The largest battle on the western front, also had the most American causalities ever), as well as the Battle of the Bulge (The largest and bloodiest single battle the United States engaged in for the whole of World War 2) and Hurtgen Forest (The longest battle the United States Army has ever fought.) . It was during the push from Normandy into Germany that he met with Ernest Hemingway, and the pair became friends.

He was also part of the liberation of the Kaufering Concentration Camp, which was part of the Dachau Concentration Camp. After the war he was hospitalized for what was then called CSR, which we now know as a precursor to PTSD. As far as I know, he never spoke much of what he saw or experienced at Dachau, according to his daughter Margaret the most she ever heard about it from he was "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live."

He published The Catcher in the Rye in July of 1951, he described it as autobiographical to a degree, describing much of his boyhood growing up in Manhattan. According to a certain reviewer, no book has capture the essence of New York to the degree of the Catcher in the Rye.

To me it seems more of a war novel, that didn't really talk about the war at all, or violence, or fighting. Just the emotions during and after.

Its a sad story about death, apathy, desensitization, fear, loneliness, angst, and alienation, but the best part about it is, it shows that things get better, that you aren't so alone, and removed from everyone in the world.

If I could have every single person alive ever read a book, and understand it as I do, and see it as I do, I'd pick this one. It would make the world more kinder I'd think.

 

WoT, more than any other was my introduction to real storytelling and literature. It was the story that I first broke down into its constituent elements out of sheer pleasure, rather than as something for school. Don't get me wrong, I've always devoured novels, but WoT was the first that really captured my imagination.

Jordan was also the author I learned to write from. Not directly, but emulating his style and structure constituted some of my first shitty pieces of writing back in middle school.

I really can't really put anything in as my entry except The Eye of the World and to a lesser degree, the first three books of The Wheel of Time. (The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn)

I disagree that the characters are terrible, but I'm not gonna contest that they're stereotypes. The characters are archetypes, and they're that way for a reason. You're supposed to see mythological figures in them, because in the universe that Jordan built, Jordan's characters are those figures.

The characters become terrible as Jordan lost track of his story and it expanded out of proportion. End the story at Book 3 (as was originally planned) or even at book 5, and the perspective changes, IMO.

 

What constitutes best? Or do we just mean our personal favorites? Or is it sort of a "number of people touched/influenced over long periods of time?" or more of a subjective "which book do I think was best written?" Heh maybe me being too nit picky. But yeah.

Actually on that topic. I actually think you need to break it down a bit by genre not just fiction/non-fiction. Single greatest/vest book *ever* period? You'd have a hard time not picking something like the bible. Or maybe Homer. I think it makes more sense to look for greatest in genre.

As for the WOT. Meh I didn't dislike WOT but I also didn't think it anything amazing. WOT was very influential on the genre don't get me wrong. Its success paved the way for a lot of the door stopper mega series (including ASOIAF one of my favorites). But I wouldn't put it as the best either. In terms of influence on the genre it gets trumped by things like LOTR. And in terms of writing quality I honestly only consider it mediocre. Even before the whole 'lose all track of things' problems of books 8 on.

Like WOT is a fun enough read. And much better then a lot of the trash being pushed out in the 80s or early 90s. Compare it to like Dragonlance or Terry Brooks and sure it seems great. But compare it to either some of the classics that pre-date it, or the modern stuff (we are in something of a renaissance of the genre the last two decades) like ASOIAF, Name of the Wind, etc etc and it just doesn't measure up.

So I give it some points for influence on the genre but that's it. Again its not BAD. And I went through my own WOT phase in the 90s. But it just imo can't measure up to like a dozen other series I could name.

In the fantasy genre If we take "best" to just mean my personal favorite then probably A Song of Ice and Fire followed very closely (almost tied) by LOTR. If we take it to mean "most influential" or "impacted the most people/impacted the genre over a long period of time" its hard to compare anything to LOTR in the fantasy genre. It essentially created the modern genre.

Most influential (which again is different from best writing or best story) of *my* life time? That probably could be debated between WOT, ASOIAF, the Dresden Series and (if we count it as part of the fantasy genre... it's often not for a variety of reasons) Harry Potter. Maybe one or two others you could throw into the debate.

 

Any book from Joe Abercrombie that is set in First law world - fictional
Herman Hesse Wolf of the steppes - nonfictional

Heavily based on my opinions and preferences...