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Author Topic: What's your favourite book of all time?  (Read 12512 times)

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S200

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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2018, 10:27:42 am »
0
haha... A sassy little 10 y/o (?) with photographic memory?

It's seriously funny, but not that rewarding. I don't think that you will learn much from it.
Just fun for a bored time...
« Last Edit: May 04, 2018, 11:17:14 am by S200 »
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2018, 04:20:35 am »
+2
Difficult question. I think i have 3 favourites for different reasons:

Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs...She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse by Paul Carter was definitely the most enjoyable read while reading. It's the only book where I've laughed out loud while reading more than once.. boy it is a funny one. I cant even remember if its legitimately funny or it was just so vulgar that a younger me couldn't help but laugh.

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler). These books were my childhood. Haven't gone back to read them and I never even finished the series because I would keep forgetting stuff that happened early on so I'd re-read the old books, then jump back to where I was but forget what happened previously so I would have to go back again, but then I'd forget something else and it was just a painful cycle that would get interrupted by new books and growing up :( still fond memories and a great story.

Paper Towns by John Green. This is the only book that was a tag-team read with someone and I'm pretty sure its something that will never happen again so this one has a special place in my heart.

Typing this out I realise I retroactively rate books based on factors outside of the actual writing (as long as it surpasses a certain minimum level). Most books I read these days are either biographies which are rarely mind-blowing but are consistently fun, or self help/personal development books told via. story telling a la The Tao of Pooh or The Richest Man in Babylon. Really need to get back in to some good fiction tho

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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #17 on: May 05, 2018, 10:57:05 am »
+4
Antoine De Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" has, by far, been my favourite book from the moment I first was read to. It is the fondest memory I have of my late grandma who, despite being Vietnamese, could speak fluent French. There is this romantic frankess in Saint-Exupery's writing, as if he had transported me to an entirely different land and purged all the sensations, political outcry and pleas for innocence upon me. I had the greatest pleasure of being able to hear my grandma read the story to me before I went to bed every single night and it is just one of those tales you always experience as if it were the first time.  Every time was as magical as the last. There is something ethereal about, again, experiencing, not just reading or listening to, the story in the language it was written in, but also as a wanderlust myself. My grandma shared many anecdotes of her life before she became a citizen in Australia and her adventures had inspired me from a young age to dream of more.

The novella has stuck with me past my grandma passing away. In year 10, I bought a copy of it in English and was once again immersed in the story that the French pilot had so meticulously constructed. I was amongst the stars. I was the planets that baffled the prince. I was the child who never grew up, and who was still terrifyingly innocent in such a helpless world.

Around this time, I had also entered a book review competition on Write the World which is an amazing creative writing platform that I am an active Peer Reviewer on and, regardless of all the amazing pieces of literature I had read, I ended up choosing to reevaluate my love for this story. To this day, I still come back to reading it when I need to fuel myself with creativity, to assess my society, or simply to honour the legacy that my grandma had left behind for me. It is also my Discovery related text because of exactly all of this and how I experience a plethora of discoveries every time I plunge into it.

This post ended up being longer than I had thought but I just love talking about books. This one has been such an important constant in my life and I just wanted to share it in this lovely thread  ;D
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #18 on: May 05, 2018, 02:06:42 pm »
+1
Ooooh, this one’s a toughy. Can I choose a series of 13 books? ;)

also @spectroscopy, if you want some fiction recommendations I'm yo gal!

I always loved John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice Series. My older sister found the series and used to sneak it home from the secondary section of the library for me, because apparently back in the olden days year 5s found the word ‘apprentice’ too complex. ::)
I will always have the guilty pleasure of picking up one of those books and enjoying it like it was the first time I read it. In my opinion, while many children’s books can be described as magic, this series of 13 (and still counting!) is definitely some sort of sorcery.

Actually, good ol’ JF was the author to first introduce little year 5 me into the world of historical fiction and, later, fantasy and epic fantasy, which are now some of my favourite genres (both to read and write), idols being authors like Brandon Sanderson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan and Patrick Rothfuss (let’s not talk about Patrick rn… fuck you, patrick. you screwed me over.).

HOWEVER//
I finished reading 'Turtles All the Way Down' by John Green just a couple weeks ago, and that book is fast overtaking my love of many other old favourites. (Soon to be my new 'favourite book of all time'??) Definitely a deep and thoughtful read for anyone interested in a different kind of twist to the usual generic ‘boy and girl were childhood friends and they actually like each other and are happy ever after isn’t that funny’. ^-^
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #19 on: May 05, 2018, 04:05:59 pm »
+2
Choosing my absolute favourite book is like a parent choosing their favourite child tbh, so here's a few favourites:

In high school, I religiously followed the CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore. I'm a big fan of spy stories, and this series was one of the better ones out in the school library at the time. (considering I didn't exactly get to finish the Alex Rider series for other reasons)

Over the years, I've been given many copies of Anne of Green Gables. It'd be a shame if I didn't mention that I love it. (I also don't need another copy of the first book pls <3)

On the John Green front, Looking for Alaska is my hands-down favourite story, and I don't know why 😂

Finally, some other favourites are: Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, which I recently finished; Insignia by SJ Kincaid, which I finished late year 12 (from memory); and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie because I'd be doing this book some injustice if I didn't mention it here 😍
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #20 on: May 05, 2018, 07:01:03 pm »
+4
Bad Pharma is probably it for me. It was the second Ben Goldacre book I read (after Bad Science). In essence, it tools about the way that pharmaceutical companies manipulate the evidence base that we use to make decisions in medicine and the ways that companies also manipulate doctors to make decisions in their interests, rather in their patients’ interests. The title is a little unfortunate because it suggests that pharmaceutical companies are fundamentally bad and it also gives that bleeding heart vibe; however, Goldacre is really clear in his view that it’s actually doctors who are ultimately responsible for these problems and that sitting around sooking about the fact that pharmaceutical companies do dodgy things to make money is probably not achieving much.

I found the book very dense and slow to start off with, and didn’t hugely enjoy the experience of reading it (not like I would with other books!); however, it fundamentally changed my view of medicine and is driving me to make this something that I want to fix. Most of what I think should be fixed about medicine lies in this space, and since reading the book (before med incidentally) I’ve had an enduring interesting in how we can improve evidence based practice, both by seeing evidence translated to practice, but perhaps more critically, seeing the evidence improved. A lot of my career goals, if I’m honest, are centred on what I learned from this book, which is pretty cool.
Indeed, I like it so much I have two copies! 😂

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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #21 on: May 06, 2018, 06:45:17 pm »
0
Ha.
If you consume a mass amount of a medium like film, book, tv shows, plays, dramas, etc. These questions are just the worst. Why?
Because its so darn hard. Like really hard. My favorites change every year, month, week, even second. It depends on what I want.

Need a book about dealing with time? Shortness of Life by Seneca
Need a series on magic and general teenager drama done right? Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
Need a manfiesto of life advice? Tools of Titans by Timothy Ferriss
Need a book on being creative? War on Art by Steve Pressfield
Being a better person from the Chinese? Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Same as above but from the Greeks? Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A primer on power and like historical examples? 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
A book on solo-travelling? Vagabonding by Rolf Potts
A book to inspire you to travel? On the Road by Jack Kerouac

It goes on and on and changes as well. My manifesto on life advice favorite was Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by George Horace Lorimer that now has changed to Tools of Titans by Timothy Ferriss. For Map-making, it switches from Elements of Cartography to Designing Better Maps to Making Map to the Looks of Maps and now maybe Cartography.

To sum this up, picking one is hard. Let me pick multiple.

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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #22 on: May 07, 2018, 12:18:38 pm »
+3
Super hard question because I've probably read thousands of books, but I'm going with The Lord of the Rings.  I'd cut out various bits where he goes off on long tangents and poetry and tom bombadillery, but I come out of that book feeling uplifted and, you know... nobler.  Which sounds weird, but it takes me into a higher place.  Have still never watched the movie.
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #23 on: April 17, 2019, 02:54:32 pm »
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My Favorite Book all the time is First Rate Master Manga Book.

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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #24 on: July 10, 2019, 06:24:36 pm »
+1
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler). These books were my childhood. Haven't gone back to read them and I never even finished the series because I would keep forgetting stuff that happened early on so I'd re-read the old books, then jump back to where I was but forget what happened previously so I would have to go back again, but then I'd forget something else and it was just a painful cycle that would get interrupted by new books and growing up :( still fond memories and a great story.

Ooooh, this one’s a toughy. Can I choose a series of 13 books? ;)

Could not agree more. I went through phases of loving EJ12, Go Girls, Zack Power, Fairy Books ect. but once I discovered A Series of Unfortunate Events, I was hooked. I went back a re-read them two years ago, as I found that the plot got more complex than younger me could comprehend.

I also really loved Cathy Cassidy and her "Chocolate Box Girls" but also just all of her books in general. These are basically slightly grown-up Go Girls but I own almost all of them and re-read them regularly. They are surprisingly easy to find in an Op Shop.

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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #25 on: July 10, 2019, 07:09:40 pm »
+2
A series of unfortunate events is definitely one of my all time favourites. I do think I prefer lemony snickets newer series "all the wrong questions" though. It is part of the same universe as the series of unfortunate events and would highly recommend.

But I'd have to say that my favourite book of all time is dirk gently's holistic detective agency. Absolutely brilliant.
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #26 on: July 10, 2019, 07:19:31 pm »
+1
A series of unfortunate events is definitely one of my all time favourites. I do think I prefer lemony snickets newer series "all the wrong questions" though. It is part of the same universe as the series of unfortunate events and would highly recommend.

Just put the entire series on hold at my local library. Thanks for the recommendation!

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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #27 on: December 11, 2019, 02:47:38 pm »
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Bad Pharma is probably it for me. It was the second Ben Goldacre book I read (after Bad Science). In essence, it tools about the way that pharmaceutical companies manipulate the evidence base that we use to make decisions in medicine and the ways that companies also manipulate doctors to make decisions in their interests, rather in their patients’ interests. The title is a little unfortunate because it suggests that pharmaceutical companies are fundamentally bad and it also gives that bleeding heart vibe; however, Goldacre is really clear in his view that it’s actually doctors who are ultimately responsible for these problems and that sitting around sooking about the fact that pharmaceutical companies do dodgy things to make money is probably not achieving much.

I found the book very dense and slow to start off with, and didn’t hugely enjoy the experience of reading it (not like I would with other books!); however, it fundamentally changed my view of medicine and is driving me to make this something that I want to fix. Most of what I think should be fixed about medicine lies in this space, and since reading the book (before med incidentally) I’ve had an enduring interesting in how we can improve evidence based practice, both by seeing evidence translated to practice, but perhaps more critically, seeing the evidence improved. A lot of my career goals, if I’m honest, are centred on what I learned from this book, which is pretty cool.
Indeed, I like it so much I have two copies! 😂


I also loved both Bad Science and Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre. He's also got a collection of his essays he has compiled called I Think You’ll Find it’s a Bit More Complicated Than That, which was ok. His books definitely opened up my mind to the incompetence or abuse of systems, regulatory capture etc.
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #28 on: December 11, 2019, 03:04:37 pm »
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Like others, choosing a favourite is difficult and like, every book I have ever read escapes my mind.
But,
I weirdly enjoyed my year 12 book a lot. Ransom by David Malouf I absolutely adore his style of writing. It sucks you into this romanticised world that isn't really that great at all. It makes me appreicate the little joys of life. The way he describes his environment and the feelings which dwell inside the characters is so beautiful.

Another favourite book of mine is, Adeline Yen Mah's Chinese Cinderella, it was true and very shocking, I think that is why I liked it. I remember being in year 6 and roaming the bookshelf to find something to read, and it called to me. It was the first ever book that made me cry. Adeline had a little pet duck and it died and that just sent me into tears.

Have any of you ever started reading a book, but then stop half way and never finish it?

That's what happened with this one book Clair De Lune, I remember the story now, it was so majestic and beautiful, but unfortunately I was too young to appreciate it and sadly never finished it. ):
Also, Anne of Green Gables is a really good book, but I never got to finish it. I got up to the part where Anne has her bosom friend. ❤️
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Re: What's your favourite book of all time?
« Reply #29 on: December 11, 2019, 03:20:41 pm »
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It's too hard to pick a single favourite book but here are some of my all-time favourites:

Non-Fiction
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • Practical Ethics by Peter Singer
  • The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
...

Fiction
  • Shōgun by James Clavell
  • The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
  • The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
  • Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
...

Ahhh, so many more I could add - there's just too many good books. (p.s. anyone know why the bullet list isn't appearing?)
« Last Edit: December 11, 2019, 03:23:24 pm by Tau »
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