Thank you so much for recommending that list! The book of my choice was indeed there, Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. I first read it when I was thirteen, despite Hesse's warning, and reread every couple of years ever since. It's a testing stone for my maturation process and change in personality, and I identify with it on so many levels. It has also influenced me in many ways. I can't wait to read the one about anti-intellectualism. That should explain a lot! : )
 

Irina - I'm glad you enjoyed the List. The reviews of Steppenwolf are compelling - I may check it out on my next visit to the library.

I have a hard time choosing a favorite book, but I'll say it is Animal Farm by George Orwell. I read it in 5th grade and I remember my feeling of awe at the evils of the communist state.
 

That is a great list, but it’s almost too long. It’s great if you want to check if a specific book is on it, but I would find it overwhelming if I just wanted an idea of what to read next. What’s my One Book? Tough question. I’m really not sure, but here are some I like a lot.

You mentioned Orwell. I loved 1984.

The most recent good sci-fi I read was The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. The premise is terrific. The protagonist is the sole survivor of a failed Jesuit mission to another planet. It’s great science fiction because it invents the fewest number of things needed to tell the story. It isn’t fantasy; it’s science fiction. It has about the most realistic description of interstellar travel I’ve ever read. There’s no warp engines; there’s general relativity. There are no phasers; the explorers take rifles. (I think Winchesters.) The aliens don’t speak any English; actually just like us, they speak many different languages. I really liked it, but it’s definitely not in the class of The One Book.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy are an extraordinary story, and deserve their place as the great-grandparents of all fantasy.

Isaac Asimov’s robot short stories are also well ahead of their time in sci-fi. They’re great because they’re really explorations of what it means to be human.

A book that I both liked and also impacted my thinking was As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg. It takes place in Judea during the Roman occupation (a few generations after Jesus). The protagonist is a Rabbi in the Sanhedrin, the Rabbinic governing body, who in the Talmud is declared a heretic and is excommunicated (for reasons that are lost to history). It is a great story about the relationship of reason and faith.

I’ll have to think about what’s my One Book. Do you have one, Oven? (I say no fair using the Bible; pick something else.)
 

As you've guessed, the Bible is the one book I'd take with me to a desert island and the one I most recommend. The reason is straightforward and uninteresting, so I'll confine the rest of this comment to works that are not the Word of God.

I've loved so many books that it is hard to pick just One. Animal Farm is a solid choice so I went with that. But there are many, many others:

Of course I loved 1984, The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham - beautiful, bittersweet human drama.

Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London - two manly stories about a dog (the former) and a wolf
(the latter).

Everything by John Steinbeck - dark and despairing and evocative.

The Lathe of Heaven and The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin - great sci-fi (the former) and great fantasy (the latter).

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - riveting German perspective of WWI.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - the fantastic rise and fall of the Buendia family.

In the non-fiction category I loved the collected mathematical recreations of Martin Gardner, and there are many.

There's more, but I've said enough.
 

I'm the type that finds an author I like, and read everything I can by that author. Some authors I particularly like:

John Irving: Particularly good are: "The Hotel New Hampshire", "The World According to Garp", "The Cider House Rules" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany".

Tom Clancy: I've read everything up through "The Bear and the Dragon", but not including the book-mill hack "Op-Center" and "Splinter Cell" series, or the non-fiction stuff.

Tolkien: I wish he'd lived to 200 so we could have had more.

Leon Uris: Nice blend of history and fiction. Sometimes the characters are a little shallow, and the history tends to be told from one perspective, but all-in-all a very entertaining and engaging way to learn.
 

Leon Uris is great in that he gives a background to each of his characters. I think the reason they come across as somewhat shallow is because they symbolize a category of people rather than just one human story. (Had a very heated discussion on that subject in one of my classes recently) I think it would be somewhat difficult to write such a complex novel as Exodus, for instance, from multiple perspectives. Although it would have been interesting, if he had given it a try. But he does make motivations of his characters very understandable.
 

Nomad - I'm with you on John Irving, at least up to and including A Prayer for Owen Meany, which is one of those incredible reads where everything comes together at the end. I think everything after that is pretty much unreadable. And don't bother with the wimpy movie they made out of it, either.

Another favorite book, of more recent vintage, is In The Image by first-time novelist Dara Horn. It's a story about how one generation is affected by the previous, but I liked it because it is so well written - each sentence seems carefully crafted. Plus there are some funny references to Costco.

There's always the Asher Lev series by Chaim Potok - keepers both.

And I don't know how good a book it really is, but Where the Red Fern Grows was my favorite as a kid (whose movie version was also butchered - one of the biggest disappointments of my grade school life).
 

Good points on Uris, Irina. I'm inclined to agree with you. I don't mind the one-sidedness of his perspective so much, as it's a perspective I usually share. And, while I love the depth of characterization that Irving offers, you're correct about the limitations imposed by an historical novel. Besides, Michener's got the market cornered on character-lite for the historical novel.

And, yeah, Ralphie, APFOM is probably my favorite novel after the LOTR trilogy.
 

The LOTR trilogy is just one of those things that has something for everybody. It could be enjoyed on so many levels! Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the movie adaptation... Some books are meant to be left alone.
 

I have a feeling this means you're going to hate the ode to Peter Jackson I've been planning to write. ;-)
 

But I'm still curious to see exactly WHAT you can find to praise in that movie! That ought to be...a creative effort on its own! : )