The idea for this series of posts was inspired by Lashaan at Bookidote. He asked what some of my favorite books were during my initial start of my Malazan Journey. That got me thinking, as I do have a “favorite” tag that I use in Calibre. So I did some exhaustive investigating [typing in “favorite” and hitting enter in Calibre is a real workout!] and out of the roughly 2900 3100 books that I’ve read since 2000, there are around 300 that earned the Favorite moniker. There are a bunch of Favorites that are duplicates, as I’ve obviously re-read some of my Favorites time and time again.
This post is the final one in this particular series of posts. I have really enjoyed going through some of my favorite books and authors and remembering them. Sometimes I forget just how good I’ve had it when it comes to reading. I hope you all have enjoyed this series as well.
So without further ado, let’s finish on up.
Tad Williams
| The Very Best of Tad Williams |
| To Green Angel Tower, Part II |
| To Green Angel Tower, Part I |
| The Stone of Farewell |
| The Dragonbone Chair |
| Sea of Silver Light |
| Mountain of Black Glass |
| River of Blue Fire |
| City of Golden Shadow |
Technically To Green Angel Tower is one book, and it is in hardcover. But the mass market paperbacks couldn’t handle such a massive amount of awesomeness. The whole Memory, Sorrow, Thorn trilogy was good epic fantasy.
The Otherland tetralogy was written right before, during, around when the internet was just taking off for mainstream America. I think these 4 books are his best works.
Takeshi Obata & Tsugumi Ohba
| Death Note #1-13 |
A great manga about a very smart and twisted young man who is given a deathnote. Anyone’s name written in it dies. It turns into a battle of the minds between said twisted main character and several other extremely smart private detectives, all of who are no older than college kids. Very text heavy and not a shonen, battle laden, power up kind of manga.
Terry Goodkind
| Wizard’s First Rule |
I read the whole Sword of Truth series. I enjoyed the first 5 or 7 and then it turned into a soap box for the author. Him being a disciple of Ayn Rand should tell you how that went.
Anyway, this first book was great and it tells a complete story on its own. I plan on re-reading it sometime in the near future but no more than this one book.
Terry Pratchett
| Hogfather |
| The Colour of Magic |
| The Light Fantastic |
These are all discworld books. I enjoyed the whole of Discworld but these were the ones that I especially enjoyed. Your mileage with Discworld will vary from my recommendations, I guarantee it.
Tim Powers
| The Anubis Gates |
I initially read this back in highschool and have loved it ever since. I read On Stranger Tides well before it was even considered for the Pirates of the Caribbean movie adaptation. But the rest of his stuff I’ve never cared for.
Timothy Zahn
| Cobra series |
| Dragonback series |
| Star Wars: Thrawn trilogy |
| Cobra War series |
| Cobra Rebellion series |
Zahn is a prolific writer. I didn’t bother adding individual titles of his standalones. But if you check out my Most Read Authors Post, you’ll see he leads the pack. His most recent books have been disappointing but I am not sure if that is because of him changing or me as a reader changing. And Thrawn. Probably the most awesome addition to the Star Wars pantheon. Fans know who he is. The End.
Tom Clancy
| Patriot Games |
I’ve read other Clancy books, but only Patriot Games got the Favorite Tag.
Ursula Le Guin
| The Farthest Shore |
| The Tombs of Atuan |
| A Wizard of Earthsea |
This trilogy [and I do mean trilogy. Not any of the other books she tacked on later] are the only books by Le Guin that I enjoy. But I enjoy the spit out of them! and the original woodcut picture covers? Love’em!
Yu Aida
| Gunslinger Girl series |
The gunslinger girl manga. What an action packed, disturbing and ultimately heart breaking series about little girls turned into anti-terrorist cyborgs who just want to please their “big brother” handlers. I almost cried at the end.
And there you have it folks. All of my Favorite Books and Authors. Below are the previous posts with all the other awesome gems.
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
I read Tehanu which comes after the Farthest Shore. Its good but it’s something I would be ok with not having read. I’ve been so close to reading Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn for awhile now and some other book always comes along and distracts me.
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I actually do own Tehanu, just because I’m a completist. But I don’t bother reading it anymore.
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Love Thrawn, but I have to say the trilogy was overrated. I blaspheme, I know! 😛 Granted, it was probably heads and shoulders above the rest of the EU stuff at that point, but I don’t think it aged too well. To Zahn’s credit though, he did leave us with some of the best characters we’ll ever see in Star Wars, so the Thrawn trilogy will always have a special place in my heart because of that.
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I still miss Mara Jade…
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Same. One of my dogs is named after her (she’s a Cav – a ruby one of course)
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I think my wife loved the death note anime, and I also think she mentioned a live-action version.
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Yep, there are 2 movies. I own them too 😀
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There are TWO movies?
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Yep, deathnote part I and part II. Hang on…
amazon.com/Death-Note-Action-Tatsuya-Fujiwara/dp/B0017SVH5Q
&
amazon.com/Death-Note-II-Last-Name/dp/B001JTTJ94
Technically there is a third one as well,but it is really more about L in his last days and has nothing to do with the Death Note.
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Okay, I see! Subtitled?
This caught my eye because David and I recently tried to watch Deathnote on Netflix, their rendition from this Manga. It was laughably horrible. I can already tell by looking briefly that it is not even similar. We’ll have to check these out. MAYBE I’ll even try a Manga and learn how to read a book backwards.
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Holy smokes, I didn’t even realize there was a netflix movie.
Looking at the reviews, well, definitely check out the other version. They might be a little cheesy, but they get the story pretty good.
As for the manga. You should definitely check it out 😀
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Now I think you should watch the Netflix version and confirm for me that it’s awful, LOL.
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You know, that actually might be a great idea for a post. Compare the manga [the source of it all] to the anime and the various movies.
And since I love Death Note, that would be awesome…
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Yes, do it!
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I’ll watch the various movies this week and then do a post next Saturday. Thanks! I love getting post ideas from other people…
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I’ll see what I can do about the Manga. Most of those I have to order somewhere because our library carries a pitiful selection.
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Just try the first volume. If it doesn’t float your boat, then don’t bother with the rest.
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I just asked the library to buy it for me, pretty please. Fingers crossed!
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I read it from the library the first time around. Then I bought the whole set for myself for the 2nd or third read…
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A great post. Let me fanboy a little about “Anubis Gates”.
The Anubis Gates is still in print. One can still find it in the Gollancz Masterworks series.
Additionally, those familiar with the novel might be interested know that “Powers: Secret Histories”, a bibliographic companion to this author’s works is available from PS Publishing. The section specific to The Anubis Gates features a tribute to the book by China Miéville, early outlines and drafts, drawings and notes by Powers and also a twenty thousand word extract (the original opening of the novel) that was trimmed prior to its initial publication.
“The Drawing of the Dark”. One word: AWESOME!
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After The Stress of Her Regard, I gave up on hiis works. Maybe if I ever see a good review for Drawing of the Dark I’ll be tempted to read it.
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I need to get around to reading Tad Williams.
I read Wizard’s First Rule a long time ago when I was a kid. I actually didn’t realize that I had read it for a long time. Of course all I remember from it are the salacious bits.
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And that’s another reason I want to read it. I didn’t think there were any salacious bits in the first book. I thought all of that started off in the second book. So I need to re-read it to see if my memory is actually correct or if I simply glossed that over. That kind of thing is important to me for if I ever recommend a book to others or not.
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First of all, a gazillion thanks for doing this feature and honouring us with your amazing list of favourite books. I had a feeling I’d discover countless amazing books to add to my collection through your experience and ruthless scrutiny. 😀
Glad to see Death Note being part of the list. That was a nice surprise. It’s also one of my favourite series as well. Heard about the Netflix movie adaptation and all its controversies? 😀 I do plan on checking it out soon just for the heck of it; even if it turns out to be absolute garbage hahah
I also didn’t realize that I hadn’t added any of the Tom Clancy books to my TBR although it has always been an author I wanted to try and tick off my bucket list as a reader hahah
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You are welcome. I have to thank you, because sometimes I forget about all the good stuff I’ve read with all the trash that is out there.
I was just talking with BookCupidity about the netflix adaptation. She and her hubby watched it and thought it was garbage. And they haven’t seen the original movies, manga or anime. I’ve got a free trial of netflix and think I’ll probably go back just to watch this to see how bad it is. Probably watch the original movies this week and then do a post next weekend comparing the movies to the each other and the manga 🙂
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Hahahah no problem man.
Sweeeeet! I’ll definitely be looking forward to those posts. I know the Jap movies were really decent, so hopefully (if those are the ones you plan on checking out) you’ll have a good nostalgic time with them.
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Yeah, I’m going to watch the netflix version this afternoon then the japanese sub-titled ones this week.
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I started out with ‘The Color of Magic’ and it will always have a special place in my heart 😀 Rincewind and the Luggage remain my favourite characters of the Discworld (next to Greebo & Nanny Ogg haha).
Uh, Tad Williams and Terry Goodkind.. I tried both but both just weren’t my cup of tea. I started the Dragonbone Chair and the main character was way too whiny for me, I couldn’t stand him at all.
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Rincewind was always my favorite discworld character. His bumblingness just made me laugh.
If you couldn’t finish dragonbone chair, then the rest of the trilogy definitely wasn’t for you.
Thankgoodness there are plenty of authors to go around though, right? 😉
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Ah some of my own favorites on here. I loved Death Note. It and Pratchett happen to occupy my shelves. Although, I admit the film on Netflix for DN was disappointing for me. They completely altered characters 😦 I am happy to see Tad Williams on here. He is in my mountainous tbr.
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Hahahaa. I just watched, and reviewed, the Netflix deathnote movie. My biggest complaint was the character changes too. Great minds I guess 😉
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I just read it and was like well.. I commented too soon on this post haha. I am going to try a rewatch and see if I can let go of some expectations 😉
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I hope it works out better the second time. For me, first impressions are usually the ones I keep 😦
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As well for me, but you never know.
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Yay to the Discworld getting on this list!! 😀 I love Hogfather in particular 😀
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Yep, it is my top one too!
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