Not about hunting, just in general.

https://www.amazon.com/Old-Breed-At-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0891419195

Interesting, that one popped into my head first as well. But I've read a lot of books, have to give this some thought.

One that springs to mind is The Covenant by Michener.

Not counting the Bible of course . . . "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - Dale Carnegie

Just started reading it "old breed"
Got it from a member here.

Not sure I can narrow it to one. Old Breed is a good one though for sure Bristoe. It was one of the required readings in my Pacific War course in college. Lately I've become a huge fan of the personal accounts such as Unbroken, Lone Survivor, American Sniper, etc. Unbroken might be my favorite of that group.

Ask me again tomorrow though. You may get a different answer.

"USE ENOUGH GUN"

"RUARK on hunting big game"

1) The Bible
2) Centennial by James A. Michener
3) The Terry C. Johnston series about ol' Scratch
4) Lonesome Dove

The Count of Monte Cristo
Atlas Shrugged

Cannery Row

One of my all time favorites was Martin Eden, by Jack London

You might like this.

https://www.amazon.com/Scalp-Dance-Indian-Warfare-1865-1879/dp/0811729079

Yeah, Unbroken--excellent! Page tuner.

Unbroken

I'll have to check that one out! Currently in the middle of "The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier," by Jakob Walter. He talks about the Grand Armee scavenging off the European Countryside and quartering themselves wherever they could.

Fields of Fire and one that I can't remember the name of. It was written by a German soldier on the Eastern Front.

was it all quiet on the eastern front?

The Forgotten Soldier, perhaps?

Dam, I just can't recall, in the end they where shipped to the western front, where they surrendered.

Nine maneaters and one Rouge.

maybe all quiet on the western front, guy sayjer comes to mind as the author?

The Forgotten Soldier

Story of Guy Sajer

Apparently it's been revealed that it is a compilation of stories of several different soldiers experiences on the eastern front and not just one man. But damn good read anyway.

Jeff

Erich Maria Remarque wrote All Quiet On Rhe Wesrern Front. I bet I read it a dozen times in high school alone!

Sounds like "The Forgotten Soldier". He started out as a truck driver then became an assistant machine gunner in an Infantry unit. Lots of battles retreating through Russia with horrendous artillery barrages, a harrowing escape back into Germany from some North Sea port as the Russians closed in, then finally surrendering to the Americans.

Really too many good books to pick just one as the all time greatest. I'd have to divide them into fiction and non-fiction at the very least and even then there are just too many great ones in each category.



And then there are some like "Popular Sporting Rifle Cartridges" by Clay Harvey that transcend both categories.....

Even though they have worn the movies out on television, about 45 yrs ago the book kept me mesmerized......read it twice! The Godfather.

Aztec held me mesmerized. It is a fictionalised account of pre Cortez Aztec life and the transition to a Spanish holding.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a close second.

My best book of all time was 4 books, or maybe 5 depending on how you count.

The Hobbit

Lord of the Rings

The Silmarillion

I could read Jack London til the cows come home.

I tend to read from several genres, and likely have favorites of different types.

One of the best I've read lately was an online series from google play. 5 books there as well. it was the "Going Home" series by A. American. (survival, EOTWAWKI stuff)

The Paul Doiron novels about Maine game warden Mike Bowditch are very good.

John Grisham is a terrific author and I enjoy about everything he's written. His best was not about lawyers or the law. Everyone should read "A Painted House".
Grisham is from the same neighborhood as I am, and this story kinda parallels my life.

"Aztec held me mesmerized. It is a fictionalised account of pre Cortez Aztec life and the transition to a Spanish holding"

Ever read "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz?

Diaz was with Cortez! Damn good read!!!

The Jungle........by Upton Sinclair

Way too many.........

Maybe not the "best", but a few favorites:

"Without Remorse", by Tom Clancy

"The 3 Musketeers", by Alexandre Dumas

"Shogun", "Whirlwind", "Tai-Pan", "King Rat", by James Clavell

MM

Harry Bosch books

"Best" book, or most enjoyable?

Horn of the Hunter - Robert Ruark

Rogue Warrior - Richard Marchinko

Both very enjoyable to read again.

No lipstick or mascara?

Yeah, I totally forgot Clancy. How'd that happen? Clear and Present was my favorite.

Not much into Viet Nam books but CW2 by Layne Heath was very good.

The aviation novels by John Nance are mostly all good. "Fire Flight" my favorite.

Ahhhh man. I just got a chuckle out of your last sig. line......grin

If you have the right sense of humor for it, this book will make you laugh until tears roll down your cheeks.

https://www.amazon.com/Confederacy-Dunces-John-Kennedy-Toole/dp/0802130208

There are way too many to single out a "best". As a boy, I read a book titled Skid over and over. Ruark's The Old Man and the Boy has almost been committed to memory. The Herriot books have brought me great enjoyment each time I have read them. Lone Wolf by Wolfgang and Argabright really helped me reach closure on something that had bothered me for thirty-five years. To Kill A Mockingbird had a great effect on me at an early age. The Bleachers by Grisham really resonated with me.

A very small partial list that I enjoyed growing up:

Andersonville

Gone With the Wind

Ivanhoe

She

The Exorcist (read it straight through until 4:00 in the morning)

Most anything by Heinlein or Bradbury

For pure adventure the original Conan books by Robert Howard, also the Doc Savage novels.

And many, many more...

I always combine Cannery Row with Sweet Thursday when someone asks me my favorite novel, the former being the pre-war story and the latter the post-war.

Also IMHO the only great novels ever that were actually turned into a decent movie (1982, Nick Nolte & Debra Winger). I haven't seen that movie in ages, wondering if its been buried somewhere.

Luca Brasi was an evil SOB in the book. Much better character than they portrayed in the movie.

Best book. Gotta think about it. The one that probably had the most influence was one I read about 20 times as a kid, My Side of the Mountain. Allowed me to escape and realized that I loved the outdoors.

The Bible
Richmond Lattimore's translation of The Iliad
Captains Courageous

Starship Troopers

Undaunted Courage and Log of the Cowboy.

The Berkut By Joseph Heywood is a helluva read.
The Berkut

All's quiet on the western front.
John Steinbeck (more than one)

To Kill A Mockingbird
The Old Man and the Boy
The Old Man and the Sea

Upturn in the tunnel.
W. W. Inman

That's a hard decision to make. Grapes of Wrath, was the first book that really made me want to read more!

Ghost soldiers by Hamton Sides.
Almost all of Steven Ambrose's books
Grapes of Wrath
Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo

I remember that book from school, I bet I read it a few times also. Big ones for me were "Desert Solitaire" by Ed Abbey. the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" made a big impression.

Sycamore

I quit reading books when I graduated from college in 1985. Never wanted to see another book. That said, I did take a lit class on Orwell's works. I enjoyed them all but tops was "The Road To Wigan Pier".

Stonewall Jackson!

I'm not a Stephen King fan in particular but The Stand is still my favorite.

That's probably darndest thing I have read on the 24HR Campfire in 13 years!

Did you read "Homage to Catalonia" in the Orwell class?

Sycamore

"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
I started reading early in the morning and couldn't put it down.
Finished it at 3am the nest morning.

With the old Breed is also high on the list.

Trinity, by Leon Uris.
And pretty much anything else of his..

dave

The Old Man and the Boy holds a special place in my heart.

Alaskas Wolf Man by Rearden is equally meaningful to me.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lynn Schoolers books too. Blue Bear and Walking home.

The heart of everything that is was a great read.

I've got a lot of favorites.

Where the Red Fern Grows

Hunt for Red October

I couldn't begin to pick an absolute favorite, but there are some that I've read and re-read over the years.

The Lord of the Rings series, including the Hobbit.

The Horatio Hornblower books.

Maneaters of Kumaon

The Jungle Books

The Phillip Marlowe novels

The Wind in the Willows

Anyone that likes the Harry Bosch books would also enjoy the Martin Beck novels as well as the Inspector Montalbano series.

Right now, I'm about a third of the way through the last Game of Thrones book. Gonna hate coming to the end.

Lastly, I'm about halfway through Topper by Thorne Smith, the basis for the excellent Roland Young, Cary Grant, and Constance Bennett film. The book has really struck a chord with me, so much that in addition to the Kindle version, I also ordered a nice reprint of it and the sequel, Topper takes a Trip for my dwindling library space. It's probably the ultimate middle-age crisis book; kind of a drunken adult fairy tale with ghosts, lots of ghosts, and a good bit sexier than the movie, without being graphic. Highly recommended.

Another Leon Uris fan here, Starting with Trinity and his follow-up Redemption.
Got tied up with the Jack Reacher series too.

All of Corbett's books, I have read each about 50 times over.

I come from a Naval family so am inclined to sea epics.

PURSUIT by Ludovic Kennedy...the chasing down and sinking of the Bismarck. Kennedy was actually in on the initial stage of the battle on board the HMS Tartar until his destroyer squadron had to return to port for lack of fuel and he missed the end although he doesn't even mention his involvement. Kennedy really tells it from how it felt from human emotions on both sides and begins with the intelligence efforts involved in the pursuit on to the final sinking.

IRON COFFINS by U-Boat Commander Herbert Werner, an incredible read that tells the other side.

I also have a rare special collection on books on German Hilfs Kreuzer or "Phantom Raiders" such as Atlantis, Pinguin, Thor, Kormoran ,etc...all written first hand by their captains...these are just some of my favorites among many, too many to list

Marine Sniper.

Shogun by James Clavel

Unintended Consequences by John Ross.

The green hills of Africa - Hemingway

True at first light - Hemingway

Unintended consequences - John Ross

The hunting shack - Don't remember

Hell, I was there - Elmer Keith

Big bucks the Benoit way - Bryce Towsley

JRR Tolkein

"When Pride Still Mattered"...

Many good books.
Not in any order all good.
The Old Man and the Boy Rourke
Unintended Consequences Ross
The Bounty Trilogy John Nordoff hall and ??
All Quiet on the Western Front Renee ?????
War & Peace
Alaska Mans Luck Hjalmar Rutzebeck
The Sea Wolf and others Jack London
The Worst Hard Time Timothy Egan and the Big Burn same author
The River of Doubt ???????
All the above mentioned Steinbeck
For Whom the Bell Tolls Hemingway
War of Two Sedgewick
2 volume set by Bullock about civil war
Superior Heartland; a Backwoods History Fred C. Ryndholm

Just a start here.

almost anything Ruark...

almost anything Faulkner

Spotted Horses and Race At Morning are great "short stories" by Mississippi's most famous author.

I almost hate to start on a book by Uris.
Its like you cant put it down...

dave

I read a lot. I used to read a lot more. There's really very little mentioned here that I haven't read. It would be impossible for me to try to identify one book as the best I've ever read.

Trails of an Alaska Trapper by Ray Tremblay

The Source, James Michener
George R. R. Martin can also write a good story.

The Little Engine That Could

Too many good books out there to pick just one but a few at the top of my list are...

Alaska's Wolf Man...Rearden

Hell West And Crooked...Tom Cole

Empire Of The Summer Moon...Gwynne

Goodbye To A River...John Graves

Old Jules...Marie Sandoz

I really liked Alaskas Wofl Man.

And I also enjoyed Castner's Cutthroats

Got a first edition of For Whom The Bell Tolls around here somewhere.

TreeMutt, you'd love my favorites. The 20-volume continuous novel of British sea wars in the 1800s by Patrick O'Brien. It starts with "Master and Commander" and is (in my opinion) the finest prose ever written.

ONCE AN EAGLE BY ANTON MYER

I also very much enjoyed The Last Ship by William Brinkley.

Blood Ties by Ted Kerasote is pretty good too but the kill everything that moves crowd around here probably wouldn't care much for it...

Similar tastes. Dumas is a master. Atlas Shrugged is one that makes you say 'wow' out loud in several passages. Makes such an impression- so in that sense, could be THE best. It should be mandatory reading in college. Just brilliant. I liken it to Plato's Apology which is rather fun in a way. The logic used to present the arguments in both are infallible. Like the Bible, it yields this sense of truths.

I love the classics, The prose in Iliad. People on the Optics forum think they know how to insult- they haven't a clue- or the class.

Two more modern (by my standards :-) ) ones I thought were superb and completely 'whole' were A Tale of Two Cities (could be just about any Dickens- I read a bunch and they start to run together in my head).

I finished Middlemarch recently and the writing is magnificent. Wish I could complete a line of thoughts so succinctly.

Question of best book is more than how well it was written though.

I Claudius- a definite. One more- and don't laugh but Dracula is an absolutely beautifully written. suspenseful, page turner.


My all time favorite, probably - The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham.

By the way- thank you to the OP for this thread. It will give me some choices after I finish my current read.

The Catcher in the Rye

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest- Ken Kesey
Sometimes a Great Notion- Ken Kesey
The Travels of Jamie McPheeters- Robert Lewis Taylor
Dangerous River- R M Patterson
Far Pastures- RM Patterson
Grass Beyond the Mountains- Richard Hobson
Timeline-Micheal Crichton
There are numerous modern authors whose books I enjoy reading. John Sandford, John Lescroart, Wilbur Smith, Stephen Hunter.
GD

The Sackett series

Most stuff by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Orwell, George Eliot

Enjoy the Russian writers Dosotoyevsky and the Brothers karamzov is an excellent read as is Master and Margarita by Bulgakov and anything by Nabokov

Anything by Martin Cruz, Michael Crichton, Patrick Obrien, Uris, Michener

reading this now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Thieves_(novel)

Yep, that's it

I forgot- War and Peace. Marvelous. Mention of Russian authors triggered that.

Mark Twain, Puddin Head Wilson
Winston Churchill, The history of the English speaking language

I have red most of the books mentioned, but the 2 above are my fav's. Rio7

Ah! More fans of Russian authors! Ever read and Gogol???

I to have a copy of Bulgakov!

"And then there are some like "Popular Sporting Rifle Cartridges" by Clay Harvey that transcend both categories..... "

Funny stuff there, JIm. (I have a copy. He could turn a phrase now and then; a shame he turned out to be essentially a gun thief.)

Walden, by H.D. Thoreau

In no order

Northwest Passage
War on the Run
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Rights of Man
One Second After

AH.Fox - The Finest Shotgun in the World / by Michael McIntosh
I have read several of McIntosh's books and all have been great.
The man had a very special way of writing about shotguns.

Same author, different kind of book; "The Walking Drum". Really bummed me out that Louis L'amour died before he got around to the planned sequels.

The Cruel Sea - Nicholas Monsarrat
The Horatio Hornblower books - C.S. Forrester
Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett

Also loved The Count of Monte Cristo

Some of my other favorites:
Lonesome Dove
Lord of the Rings trilogy
just about anything written by Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Twain, Tom Clancy, Harry Middleton, Cormac McCarthy many others

Clay Harvey's book was my favorite reference until I started to hear about his exaggerations and "sticky fingers". Oh well, I have since found better reference material.

Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow is a fantastic story that really encouraged me in my marriage and in being a good member of the communities of which I'm a part. Pretty deep.

The Green Hills of Africa by Hemingway is well written and beautiful in its descriptions.

Hard for me to talk in terms of "best".

'They shoot Canoes.....Don't they?'

One of my definite favorites.

CLASSIC FOR SURE!

My boys speak of igils & Bahrs all the time. Great bedtime reading.

Horses hitches and rocky trails. Joe Back. The old Man and the Sea. Hemingway. The one minute Manager. Dr. Spencer ? , ,,, Smokey the cow horse. Will James.

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. He has a Shakespearean grasp of human nature, a fantastic imagination and a razor sharp sense of satire. There's over 40 books in the series but it's still not enough. (They stand alone well, you don't have to read them all to find out how it ends.)

A big +1 to Lord of the Rings, My Side of the Mountain, Master and Commander and The Old Man and the Boy.

The overcoat and Dead Souls by Gogol

Great reads

Read in Russian

Also a gifted writer as were Chekhov and Pushkin

Since no one else has mentioned it - West with the Night by Beryl Markham. She grew up in Africa, nearly got eaten by a lion as a child, then went on to have many adventures. She became a pilot, and was the first person (not just the first woman) to fly across the Atlantic from east to west. The stories she tells range from hysterically funny to very sad. Her command of the language was so strong that Hemingway himself called it "Bloody superb".

Corbett's The Temple Tiger is also one of my favorites.

There are many others, too numerous to list, that I have enjoyed.

Currently[about to finish] The Chief Culprit, Stalin's Grand Design to Start WWII

Recommended by someone here.
It will be one of my top five.

never read one in my life.in fact i haven't watched a movie in 30 years. even with a broken leg i can't do that crap.

WOW......

sounds interesting

another to add to my list

There is another book about the attempted assassination plot of Stalin at Yalta, trying to remember the title but sounded like a good read

Tom Wolf wrote some good novels. The Right Stuff, Bonfire of the Vanities and others.

Detective - James Lee Burke

storytelling fiction. Another plug for Wilber Smith

This guy very good historian and interesting well written books. Read of the them. The Stalingrad book is very good

https://www.amazon.com/Ardennes-1944-Battle-Antony-Beevor/dp/0670025313/ref=pd_sim_14_29?ie=UTF8&dpID=61t3in9FBcL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=PM6EW2A2VN59JTBQGRK6

I started reading heavily at a very young age, almost anything I could get my hands on. Most of what I know about the world was picked up incidently from novels and outdoor books, as well as history books and good magazines. Without all that reading, I'd be a pretty dull boy, I think.

Way too many to just pick one...
The Old Man and The Boy
Use Enough Gun
Shogun
The Sackett Series
Point of Impact
The Third Bullet
and, and,and...

Kama Sutra

Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler

"Sacajawea"
by Anna Lea Waldo

"The rivers ran East"
by Leonard Clark

“I suspect that I am the result of particularly weak conception on the part of my father. His sperm was probably emitted in a rather offhand manner.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces


Some pretty good dry humor in that book!

For fiction, I’ll second The Road. McCarthy is an amazing writer. His writing flows. The setting (post-apocalyptic) is engaging and the theme (a parent’s love for his child and his willingness to sacrifice) is powerful.

I love his word choice. Here is part of the end. At first it may not seem to fit with the story, but if you think about it afterwards, it does.


"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."


His No Country for Old Men is a good read. His Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain are some of the most well written and engaging books I’ve ever read.


When I first read Horses I read the line that goes something like, “He stood with his hat in his hands like a supplicant to the darkness that overshadows us all.” I read the page over a few times and the connotations were amazing. The end of Cities of the Plain was almost inevitable and I never saw it coming. They are books that have so much in them, and they aren’t heavy-handed at all, that I needed to read them over to just try and process.


I liked The Great Gatsby and the short Winter Dreams, also by Fitzgerald. I also really enjoy some Bradbury. His short R is for Rocket has some astronauts floating in space to their deaths. They talk to each about their lives and what matters. For a sci-fi short story, it is very well done.


I loved Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In the novel people spend their time watching huge TV sets and become less and less involved with each other, and ultimately, unhappy. There are parallels with our society’s involvement in social media (Facebook, et al.) and many peoples’ inability to interact with real people and have real relationships. It’s not just his theme that is good, like McCarthy, I love his choice of words and the impact they create for me.


One of my all-time favorites is Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. In the story a carnival comes to town, granting people’s wishes. Later, the people pay a really bad price. The protagonist, Charles Halloway (A bit obvious of a name for the good guy!) needs to decide if he wants to be young again. It makes for a good read. The screenplay for the movie adaptation was written by Bradbury and is also really good. Jason Robards is the good guy and Jonathon Pryce is a great bad guy. If you want to spend four minutes, here’s Pryce:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK02PA0IVK4


I also love the short story Gods, by Vladimir Nabokov. The imagery he creates is unreal.

“Here is what I see in your eyes right now: rainy night, narrow street, streetlamps gliding away into the distance. The water runs down the drainpipes from steeply sloping roofs.”
“Under the snake’s-mouth of each pipe stands a green-hooped bucket. Rows of buckets line the black walls on either side of the street. I watch as they fill with cold mercury. The pluvial mercury swells and overflows. The bareheaded lamps float in the distance, their rays standing on end in the rainy murk. The water in the buckets is overflowing.”

“Thus I gain entry to your overcast eyes, to a narrow alley of black glimmer where the nocturnal rain gurgles and rustles. Give me a smile. Why do you look at me so balefully and darkly? It’s morning. All night the stars shrieked with infant voices and, on the roof, someone lacerated and caressed a violin with a sharp bow. Look, the sun slowly crossed the wall like a blazing sail. You emanate an enveloping smoky haze. Dust starts swirling in your eyes, millions of golden worlds. You smiled!”


It didn’t click for me what was going on in the story until the end. Then I had to re-read it and try not to choke-up.


Hemingway, and yes he was a misogynist who battled alcohol abuse and emotional problems throughout his life, is, in some of his works, literally transcendent. He takes his art to a level that can leave me stunned. An End to Something and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber are two of my favorite short stories. For Whom the Bells Toll is truly great. I know many people read The Old Man and the Sea in school and it’s just a story about a guy catching a big fish, but it’s really about the masculine ideal and suffering to prove ourselves and so much more. It’s another one I’ve read several times and really enjoy.


For just fun reading, I read all 20 Jack Reacher novels within the last year. I guess I shouldn't call violence fun, I just mean as easy to read page turners, they are good.


I’m typed out, but as someone wrote above, I appreciate these threads, too. From one of these threads a few years ago I read River of No Return (Roosevelt in South America.) and The Heart of the Sea, and some other really good ones. I also really liked Endurance. (Those are non-fiction, and I wasn’t going to get started on another category of books!)


Oh, I like the Nick Jans essay collections. And I like…all right, I’m stopping now.

A couple I liked.

The swallows and Amazons series (its a family tradition to read them to our kids)

Where the Red Fern Grows

The Caine Mutiny (another book that was butchered by hollywood).

Lord of the Rings

Wheel of time series.

And recently the Martian, the movie was ok, but the book was much better.

"A Short HIstory of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson is a phenominal book that covers the history of the evolution of geology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc...all of that and alot more with a humorous slant to it all.

I forgot about Bryson. If you haven't read The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, your life is not complete. A co-worker brought it to me one day and said, "This man wrote about your life." She was very right.

I was a voracious reader as a kid. Literally thousands of books have gone through my hands.

Hard to say "best" but there are 3 that I read over and over and over as a kid and still could as an adult.

1. Moby Dick - Herman Melville.
2. The Talisman - Stephen King.
3. Big Red - Jim Kjelgaard.

Man, that was a hell of a long series to read. I think it took me about 20 years from the 1st to the last, waiting for the next one to be published. In the same vein, Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series was also excellent.

Lonesome Dove Larry Mcmurtry

The Liberation Trilogy: Rick Atkinson
Army at Dawn
The Day of Battle
The Guns at Last Light

Undaunted Courage Steven Ambrose

The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe

got another one , a series of short stories by Ed Hertfelder, " Duct Tapes" written in motorcycle magazines, Cycle, or Cycle World?, some of the same stuff I used to do on a bike, made me laugh till tears in my eyes.

Best...

Blood Meridian is pretty incredible. I'd have to put it at the top.

For Whom the Bell Tolls has a lot of great stuff in it and extremely well written. You can't go wrong with Hemingway.

Hemingway also has some really fine short stories.

Hemingway is pegged as a misogynist but he's not any easier on men. Sometimes the truth hurts. There's a whole lot of truth in his writing, real people and real situations. Not saying he wasn't misogynist to some degree, but I think it's fair to say he's misunderstood with regards to his writing about women.


Nonfiction:
Undaunted Courage by Ambrose is just awesome. He puts the whole Lewis-Clark expedition in perspective; the history, the hardship, the importance, the toughness. I love history. I love biographies. This one is extremely well done.

Junglebook
Call of the Wild
Old Yeller
Tom Sawyer
Huckleberry Finn, Damn, I bet my grandkids never get a chance to read Mark Twain in school. I will need to do something about that
Andromeda Strain, and also by Michael Chrighton: his translation of Beowolf....The Thirteenth Warrior
Run Silent Run Deep
Up Periscope
Torpedo Run
Failsafe
The entire Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy

There are just too many genres, and too many volumes

Not one of the classics, or probably even well remembered... but I think for me it was "Shogun" by James Clavell.

Phil

"Old longings nomadic leap chafing at custom's chain,
Again from the brumal sleep awakens the ferine strain"

Lonesome Dove
Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy
Band of Brothers
Gates of Fire
Most by Hemingway

Just started With the Old Breed

Letters to Penthouse
Vol 50


Riveting.

Lonesome Dove is hard to beat.
Unbroken was good but made me question my own makeup and capabilities a little too much.

What he said ^

Just about to finish Hemingways for whom the bell tolls

First fiction I've read in some time now

Just can't seem to glean what all the fuss about Hemingway is about.

He seems to be a more interesting subject than what he actually wrote about

Why did the chicken cross the road? To die. In the rain. Alone.

In the gutter

Hahaha that's great

Last of the Breed by Louis L'amour

Too many to pick one. These and others. A lot of good writers out there.

Shadow Country, Peter Matthiessen. About a bad guy that people got tired of being afraid of. Some of it takes place in South Carolina and Oklahoma but most of it's in the 10,000 Island/Everglade country of SW Florida before and after 1900. It was originally three separate books with different titles.

Aubrey/Mautrin series, Patrick O'Brien.

Hornblower series, C. S. Forester.

The Third Bullet, Stephen Hunter. JFK Assassination.

Night Soldiers, Alan Furst. All others by him about politics, people and espionage in Europe and Russia before and during WW II.

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry.

The Word of God
Nosler Reload Manual

For the classics, it's hard to beat Don Quixote and The Count of Monte Cristo

Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy is one book I've read probably 5-6 times over the past 30 years.

The Man Eaters of Tsavo was terrifying; I couldn't put it down.

A Hunters Wanderings in Africa is the absolute best hunting book I've ever read.

I have some books with short stories from Slovensko. They are similar to Grims fairy tails, with a moral story to be understood. To me these are meaningful. Thought and interpretation of life, not just existing. Very powerful cultural indoctrination.

Elmore Leonard's Fire In The Hole is a great book of 'short stories'.

Factory Man
A book about how John Basset fought to keep Chinese furniture makers at bay is another D good book.

The most influential on my thought process: Atlas Shrugged.
John Galt's speech was about 100 pages too long.

Most enjoyable read: Jurassic Park. No you can't watch the movie.

Have you read "Stormy" by Kjelgaard as well? I found it in my school library in 7th grade. I decided then and there that whenever I was out on my own in life, the first dog that I would ever own by myself would be named after Stormy. She turned out to be a GSP and the greatest companion I ever had.

Two years before the Mast- R.H. Dana Jr.
and recently-
Around the world by Slocumb

Yup, "Stormy" had a pretty big influence on me when I was about 12 years old. I just had one of my boys read it last year, but I don't think he was old enough to actually grasp the coming-of-age motifs.

I'm another Michner fan. There are a couple of his that I didn't particularly like, though, like Mexico and Iberia. I've read many of the old classics that I really liked like Ivanhoe and Count of Monte Cristo (the recent movie was pathetic).

I was hospitalized recently for six weeks recently. Still never had the notion to pick up book and read it. Hate filling my mind with stories of other people's losses or fantasies.

That said, Harbor Freight catalog is a pretty good read.

Alaska sucked too - imo, he is overrated.

Great thread though!

Half of a book spent setting the stage is not going to hold my interest.

I'm also a big James Michener fan. Chesapeake was my favorite, followed by Texas and Space. A couple books I read as a kid that really kindled my interest in outdoor adventure were Two Against The North by Farley Mowat and The Lonesome Traveler by Weldon Hill. My favorite of all was The Cheechakoes, by Wayne Short. Wish I could have been there....

Out of Africa is poetry in book form.
So is West with the Night by Beryl Markham, a friend of Dineson's. I see that this was mentioned before but it's good enough to mention twice.

One of the best I've read:

The Holy Earth, Liberty Hyde Bailey

Lots of good stuff like this in it:

"As a city is much more than a collection of houses, so is a forest much more than a collection of trees." p. 152

A few others that made an impression:
A Sand County Almanac, Leopold

A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity, Col Ethan Allen

The Journals of the Corps of Discovery, Lewis, Clark, et al.

1984, Orwell

The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway

Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, Steinbeck and Ricketts

The Boy Scout Handbook.

Many others too numerous to list.

Geno

I go long periods without watching tv where I sometimes read about three books a week. Hard to pick a favorite.

The Fountainhead,,Ayn Rand

Point of Impact,, Hunter

The Agony and the extasy,, the bio of Michaelangelo

Lonesome Dove,, Larry M,,

All the Harry Bosch books,,,

On a serious side, anything by the late great Gene Hill.

On a lighter side, anything by Patrick McManus. I just about break a rib reading McManus. The Night The Bear Ate Goombaw is just classic McManus.

No true favorite, but I rave read a few multiple times:

The Fountainhead
Atlas Shrugged
Alas, Babylon
Undaunted Courage

Band of Brothers- Stephen Ambrose

Deep Enough for Ivorybills by James Kilgo. The Fragrance of Grass by Guy de la Valdene.

I really enjoyed "The Last Lecture". Lots of good stuff in there about life lessons in general.

SS

hustler


a bunch of you have been on the azzhole of the month page

bwahahahahaaa!!!!

Reacher books

Yes I did.

In all fairness the best I have read was a comic not a book, at seven years of age I read a Donald Duck comic with Donald, Huey, Dewey and louey finding a viking treasure in a mountain and absconding with it whilst being pursued.

It was the very first thing I read from cover to cover and started me on course for a lifetime of reading, I can still see the pages in my mind as it made an everlasting impression on a small lad sitting in the messhall at a shearing shed his grand-mother was cooking at in the middle of Queensland in 1971.

The engineering curriculum was an absolute grind for me. Last exam was on Thursday and I was in the office starting a 30+ year career on Monday.

West With The Night is a personal fave.

I really liked Nabokov. Laughter In The Dark was a wonderful book. Lots of brilliant Russian authors in fact.

Kundera.

I liked Hemingways shorts as much or more than his novels.

Ruark

Clancy wrote some great pulp. As did Capstick.

Both good choices....I need to go back and re-read some of their stuff....I have a pile of it.....



Loved the few Capsticks I read.....he's a piece of work.......................and Gin.....

My favorite book would have to be
death in the long grass
Peter capstick

McManus is a hoot. I too should read him again.
Another that I enjoyed as a youngster, who was always good for a laugh, was Lewis Grizzard. Loved reading his articles in the AJC as a kid.

Whilst the wife raised the kids, mowed the lawn and played golf.

It's good to know who wheres the pants.

I still read that one every few years.

Spotshooter;
Good evening to you sir, thanks for starting the interesting thread and as always thanks to the respondents.

Even though I've been here for a fair while, the diverse tastes and reading/viewing appetites of the denizens of the 'Fire still pleasantly surprise me.

For me it's tough to narrow it down to one.

I think for fiction it'd be Lonesome Dove as the author absolutely drew me into the world he'd created. Funny though I've read a few of his other works and really didn't care for them nearly as much.

In the historical category my favorite is Bear Child, The Life and Times of Jerry Potts by Roger Touchie.

A close second would be Farley Mowatt's "And No Birds Sang" which was his account of a Canadian unit fighting in Europe.

Sorry I see that's two extra already so I must stop there.

Thanks again for the interesting reading and reading recommendations therein. All the best to you all this upcoming hunting season.

Dwayne

The thing I enjoy reading the most is this internet primarily on forums!

This has taken over for me from books, magazines or newspapers.

We don't get a paper anymore but we still watch news TV some and talk to each other. We both read on the computer and write some like this.

I have not gone to the library in a while, the local newspaper building is for sale and I only get the magazines that come with the NRA life memberships.

Tim O'Brien's The things they carried.

I think Tim O'Brien is one of the best writers of his generation. He also wrote Going After Cacciato, which is also highly regarded.

Colin Fletcher's "The Man Who Walked Through Time" made a big impression on me as a young teenager.

Sycamore

[quote=IntruderBN]Tim O'Brien's The things they carried.

Yep Obrien is one heck of a writer

i am surprised you didn't mention "the monkey wrench gang" about that abortion to the north and east of you.

atlas shrugged. also pretty partial to "obsessions of a rifle loony"

Exodus, by Leon Uris, along with the rest of what he wrote, I will throw in Tom Clancy, Brad Thor and Vince Flynn for page turners! Its really hard to say what is the best I ever read, since I have not read every single book ever published! Till you do its are to say. Its like trying to fined the end of a Rainbow,you physically can't do it, like wise you will never be able to read every single book ever published!

Dick Russsell's The Man Who Knew Too Much is very thought-provoking for those who don't choose to be ostriches.

The Cowboy and the Cossack...Huffaker

To Kill A Mockingbird...Lee

HMS Ulysses...MacLean

Yellowstone Kelly...Fisher

All Creatures Great and Small...Herriot

Mila 18...Uris

Favorite book? Hell, that'd be like a favorite food, or favorite color. I guess for some there is such a thing. Recently I've been highly hooked on Roy Chandler. Couple months ago my gunsmith pretty much demanded I read 'Shooter Galloway', which I did...bastard. Amazon is now at least $50 richer, $4.99 at a time and 10 chandler books latter.

Theme is always the same, good guy and bad guy; uncomplicated yet rich. He keeps a common lineage across his series, which starts in colonial America, through westward expansion, to present, even one post apocalyptic...and all the same family from Perry county PA.

I'd say start with Shooter Galloway and be prepared for more. It's not Faulkner nor is it Hemmingway just some real nice reading after a day of work.

tag, gotta give this some thought

" The Ginger Man"

Wonderful thread!!!

I've read and enjoyed many of these and wish to read just as many more!

On a light note I'll mention Pat McManuses "Modified Stationary Panic"

Thanks for the thread of ideas... list of books to read just got longer.

A heartfelt "second" for any of Gene Hill's books/collections. Few writings can immerse one in the "feel," the texture, of what we cherish like Hill's writing. A finger, make it two, of whiskey, dogs at my feet, and one of his books is one of my favorite evening escapes.

Hard to narrow to just one - I do like the Steven Hunter books mainly the old "Bob the Nailer" ones. Last of Breed by Lamour was a good one. Lee Child has some good reads as well as William Johnstone mountain man books. Undaunted Courage gave a new view on the Lewis and Clark journey as opposed to the books we read in school. Humm, can't really narrow it down to a dozen let alone one!

Reacher books

Just finished The Arsenal Of Democracy by A.J. Baime. Definitely in my top 2 or 3.

a couple of random thoughts.
You can tell a lot about a person by what they read and don't read. You can tell the depth of their mind so to speak.
I couldn't begin to list the number of books i have read, on all kinds of different things. Many people have already mentioned.
I had a new acquaintance over one day, first thing he did was make a beeline to the bookshelf. He said he could tell a lot about me by what was there. He didn't know about the other bookshelves.
I was educated by nuns. reading was not optional.

Where the Red Fern Grows
The Sackett series
Lord Grizzly
Outlaw
Give a Boy a Gun
The Walking Drum

Selous Scouts by Col. Ron Reid Dailey and To Fight the Wild by Rodney Ansell.

Nelson DeMille books

A lot of James Micheners stuff is really interesting. A few of them that I particularly liked:

Poland
Chesapeake
The covenant
Texas
The Journey
Hawaii

I've read a lot of Clancy books and they were all riveting.

I really like Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead was perhaps, my favorite.

Last of the Breed by L'Amour was good.

Count of Monte Cristo as others have mentioned.

Hard to have a "favorite" just ones that I really liked.

I recently tried to read some of the classics. I have a hard time reading Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Hard to believe he sold that many books.

Monkey Wrench gang was a fun read, read it a couple of times when it was new, because I like the country it described. Desert Solitaire I could take off the shelf and enjoy right now, though I haven't done that in a while.

I liked the Tony Hillerman novels because of the way he described the weather across Northern Arizona, and he had some great descriptions of different indians.

Sycamore

Michener's formula wears thin with his later books. I've read most of his stuff and prefer the earlier books. "The Source" is the one I find is the best of his works.

"Guns, germ and Steel" is a good read.

"Captured" by Zesch. I just finished this. It is about the children captured by the Comanche, Apache and Kiowa on the Southern Plains. Interesting

"Best" book may be a bit hard for me to choose . . . BUT, a few that were memorable enough for me to read more than once -

Northwest Passage
Undaunted Courage
Instant Replay
Mila 18
The Journals of Lewis and Clark (edited version)
Black Elk Speaks

As at least one other member has said, I had to read so much for my college courses, my desire to read anything longer than can be accomplished in the time it takes to drop a load in the commode has to be something of much interest to me nowadays .

Bob Lee Swagger

I've read all Tony Hillerman's books several times. Love the settings and the way he describes stuff.

The Prize by Daniel Yergin

Pulitzer prize book about oil, energy and power. He is still writing books and is seen as an expert in energy and oil.

LD hooked me hard, couldn't wait to get my hands on the other tomes McMurtry wrote.

after reading them, I wondered if he'd plagarized LD, or just was just churning out books to get paid.

didn't even feel like they were by the same author.

I forgot about Tony. I've read most of his and can relate to them, having spent the majority of my life in the southwest.
Good writer.

Last of the Breed was good.

Gold Buckle Dreams .The Rodeo Life Of Chris Ledoux.

The Frontiersman by Allan Eckert. It was about the life and times of Simon Kenton. Great book!

I had that book,The Frontiersman.Lent it to a friend never got it back .It was a very good book.

Believe that book was titled "The FrontiersmEn" as kenton wasn't the only subject. Great book, read it 40+ years ago in high school.

I started to read one. Don't remember the title.

For me, an author should have some base of knowledge about his subject. Even in, or maybe particularly in writing fiction. If it's not believeable it's simply not any good.

It quickly became evident that Lee Child had no concept of the U.S. military establishment and no clue about the military police. I put the book down and won't read his stuff again.
Fiction without a believable base is simply fluff. Enter Lee Child, and Jack Reacher.

In the same genre as Child/Reacher, albeit immensely better written, are the Doc Ford novels by Randy White.

White also strains for believability in some aspects, but his social commentary is very apt and his portrayals of S.W. Florida life are worth reading all on their own.

The clandestine affairs of Doc Ford stretch the imagination a bit, but Ford as a marine biologist is very realistic. Likely so because the author himself is educated as a marine biologist, and lives in the area he writes of. The flights of imagination in Ford's escapades just might have happened.

RockyRaab, I have to plug your books here. I have many favorites but when I started His 2, I could barely put them down to do anything else. Only problem is that He quit after 2. Ya need to get busy. miles

I liked Rocky's books. He has the knack of telling about what happened and making it sound like a story. The best stories follow real life closely.
A story woven around real events is tough to beat.

The Holy Bible. Nothing else remotely close

The Book of Man by Bill Bennett

Of course, The Bible. The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter. The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. Any of Tom Kelly's turkey hunting books, but start with Tenth Legion.

put me down for Blood Meridian too. My favorite. I figured that would have been the first of Cormac McCarthy's books mentioned.

Patton: Genius for War by Carlo D'Este.

The Old Man and the Boy by Ruark is a close second.

I just bought the Patton book, I bet it is good.

"All Creatures Great and Small" by James Herriot

The whole series is excellent - much laughter and a few tears. I've read them many times. My son and I often quote from them.

Gun Gack...just saying!

The "Cat in the Hat". Must be a good book. I have probably read it 10,000 times between kids and grandchildren.

The Road by McCarthy. I couldn't put that one down.

Good one. My favorite is The Grapes of Wrath. Everything by Steinbeck is good.

Second that and will add Man in Full and his book of short stories is good, especially Little Mummies.

My favorite living author.

If you like Man in Full, grab the audio version. It is very well done.

I too enjoyed His work. Wonder where my books went, as I have not seen them in a long time. I bet they are in storage somewhere around here, along with a lot of other stuff that I can't find. miles

This might not go over well, but honestly The Hunger Games. I couldn't put it down.

So far I haven't read the entire thread so do not know if my favourite author has been mentioned. Most anything written by James Lee Burke is filled with descriptive prose. Not necessarily every ones type of stories but the man has a way with words found by few other writers.

Is anyone else here a fan?

Jim

Missed this thread because I was in moose camp...

I agree Michener wore thin, but I think it came a lot earlier. I would rather have bamboo shoots under the fingernails than have to read a large part of "his" compilations. He hires writers and then assembles and edits the work. His work is often very uneven as a result.

Really like David McCullough's biographies, especially John Adams and Truman. Mornings on Horseback was also very good.

In reading this thread it is obvious that a lot of us like the same books. There is no favorite for me as there are many many wonderful books out there on varied subjects. Fiction, Nonfiction, History, Technical. How could a person pick just one book as their favorite?

If I were going to be on island by myself for the rest of my life I would take a Bible.

I would also like to have:

Lonesome Dove
Anything by Craig Johnson (Longmire)
Tony Hillerman mysteries set on Navajo land.
Shelby Footes Narrative of the Civil War

AGREE on both counts. Got victimized in a a similar fashion when I decided to read the unabridged version of Les Miserable. A top ten read for sure but one where some editing and shaving of a hundred pages or so would have added to the enjoyment.

Shoot Low Boys There Riding Shetland Pony's Lewis Grizzard

The Old Man an the Sea

In the modern era, Cold Mountain. If all you've done is seen the movie, forget that maudlin POS and get ye to Amazon and read the book.

I have a group of answers instead of a single one, but I'd say a short list might be:
- The Law - Bastiat
- Christianity & Liberalism - Machen
- Cryptonomicon - Stephenson
- Blink - Gladwell

Always a fan of Kipling and McManus, too.

Could probably come up with a few others if I wandered over my bookshelf for awhile.

I required my wife to read Atlas shrugged, before i would marry her.

Anything Louis L'Amour penned

“But the rest are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Kidnapped, RLS...

The Gospel According to John would have to rank pretty high.

Steve.

tag. t

True Grit

You don't need a book. Sometimes good writing can say plenty without a book.

"Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is, listening to Texans"

John Steinbeck

The Guards Themselves
Honor Among Thieves
The Float

(all written by myself, of course)