Feels like a cliche to say it but someone has to mention Kerouac's On the Road.

Favourite sci-fi is a toss up between Foundation by Asimov and Nineteen Eighty-Four

The best book I've read recently is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer and it is comedic genius.

I'm not hugely into fantasy, nearest I get is The Dresden Files which is always fun and Gentlemen Bastards.

Stole my friends copy of a book thief recently as a joke but if it's that good I might actually read it.

 

I am a big fan of WoT and ASoIaF as well. Another book that I really liked in a genre that hasn't been mentioned is: Tai-pan by James Clavell. It's the story of an opium trader in pre-industrial China and it is historical fiction and a great read. The rest of the series is kinda meh but this book can be read alone and is awesome.

I am also starting to become a bit of a Brandon Sanderson fan. I think he's doing a passable job filling Jordan's shoes in WoT but when he does his own work I think it ends up better than when he takes up someone else's story. I highly recommend The Way of Kings and the mistborn books.

There is also a lot of bad fantasy out there. I highly recommend you AVOID Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks. The first book or two from each is decent reading but their themes become repetitive, predictable, and boring.

A couple other Sci-Fi Books that I enjoyed and think you may as well are:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Planet of the Apes by Michael Crichton

probably the best horror story I've read is:
IT by Steven King

 

One of my favorite series would have to be the Mistborn Trilogy. It was done by Brandon Sanderson, one of the best authors. I just recently bought the recently new book, The Alloy of Law.

 

Favorite series, next to A Song of Ice and Fire, Dresden Files and the Harry Potter books, would be Percy Jackson and the Hunger Games.

Both have their problems and may not be of particularly high quality but I still enjoyed all of them immensely.

 

Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

 

As pretty much everything I'd typically recommend has already been recommended, I think it's time to start recommending the somewhat obscure:

-The Player of Games by Iain M Banks
-The Xeelee Sequence by Stephen Baxter (It's pretty much all worth reading, though I do agree with Lutris that Exultant is one of its best parts)
-American Gods by Neil Gaiman
-The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
-Anathem by Neal Stephenson (It's not for everyone, but I enjoyed it)
-The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
-Ulysses by James Joyce (It's great if you can get through it.)

 

For my single book all-time favorite, I have to echo Portus and say, "To kill a mockingbird". Dat Atticus.

Series-wise, the Discworld books by Pterry (though City Watch is my favorite by far); also, Issac Asimov's Robots/Empire/Foundation series (it dated rather badly however).

There's also this series geared toward younger kids, though I heard a lot of adult readers love them too, written by this Brit single-mum...

 

I read that when I was about 13 or 14, and it seriously scared the shit out of me. The scene in the library where Pennywise smiles and his teeth are all razorblades, then proceeds to chomp on his own lips - yeah, I still remember that as if I'd just read it. /shivers

But I have to say that for pure terror, King's Pet Semetary ranks higher than It.

Another one of the best books ever written; I'm ashamed that I didn't even think to mention it, though I'd still put it behind the ones I listed.

 

Really weird thing about this one: it's online for free, but both Amazon and B&N want to charge $5 for an ebook version.

If anyone else is like me and reading stuff on an e-reader, do yourself a favor and just make your own epub or mobi file with calibre.

Direct link to the story: http://www.subterraneanpress.com/in...-lifecycle-of-software-objects-by-ted-chiang/

The formatting got a tiny bit screwed up when I converted it (no indented paragraphs for messages) but that's not a big deal at all.

 

Favorite series- Artemis Foul ( Stop Making them Eoin!)
Favorite book- 1984

 

Yeah. As far as I know, Chiang does this with everything he's written. Ebook purchases are more of a donation to a pretty-talented and under-paid author.

Understand by the same author is also really good. It's Algernon on steroids.

 

How much goes to the author, and how much goes to the publisher and amazon?

 

XD Thanks. I needed a good laugh. Oh lord, that series is terrible.

Anyway: Rec I forgot last time: Jennifer Government by Max Berry. <3

 

The wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
A Song of Ice and Fire - George RR Martin
The Riftwar saga - Raymond E Feist
Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini

All of them are well worth the read.

 

Favorite series? The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski

Favorite author? Sir Steven Runciman for his monumental A History of the Crusades and The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Thanks to his books I have fallen in love with Byzantium.

 

Actually, had to add my favorite author: Edward Rutherfurd. He writes epic historical novels spanning thousands of years, covering a specific area.
He has written Sarum, Russka, The Forest, London, Dublin: Foundation, Ireland: Awakening, and New York.

Of them all, New York is his weakest effort, and Sarum and Russka are my favorites. Anyone that is a fan of historical novels, do yourself a favor and check him out. He is definitely my favorite author, and I can't believe I neglected to mention him.

 

Even if a only cent goes to him, it would be a cent he would not have otherwise had.

/me never understood why people begrudged publishers money either.

As for my favorite series, A Song of Ice and Fire.

Gentleman Bastards comes in a very close second. Both books were just fucking fantastic.

And third:

Fucking this. I've always had a haphazard way of reading it since it didn't seem to be in order but these books are awesome. It took a lot of googling to figure out what was going on science-wise sometimes but it was worth it. The sheer scale of the series is unmatched . It also has one of the most best origin stories I have ever read.

 

Salem's Lot by Stephen King scared the high holy piss out of me when I first read it when I was younger. To this day, it's still my all time favorite book and I read it a couple times a year.

All of mine have been recommended already, but I want to make sure you don't miss this one. The Hero's, and to a lesser extent, the First Law Trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie. The Hero's is a part of the same world as his trilogy, but it can be read as a stand-alone book.