Favorite books-list yours (Page 1 of 4)

I've read so many books I don't even know where to begin!!   I know I'm going to leave some out.   And there's so many good ones out there I haven't even read yet so my list might seem lame.  But here's some off the top of my head, but it's by no means conclusive or definitive:

Fiction:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest- Ken Kesey- I LOVE this book, such great writing, great story, great characters. 
The Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger - the first time I picked it up when I was 16 - the same age as Holden Caulfield - I knew nothing about it, and then I found that I couldn't put it down.
The Summer of Love - Lisa Mason- Science Fiction book that I'm sure nobody's ever heard of.   It's about time travel into the Haight Ashbury in 1967 from 500 years in the future.  I love San Francisco and this book really brings that time period to life, it's so incredibly vivid.
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messaiah- Richard Bach - A must read
1984- George Orwell (Eric Blair) - .....but is it really fiction??     I love this book for obvious reasons, very thought provoking and to see the parallels to what is currently happening today is shocking.
A Brave New World- Aldous Huxley - goes hand in hand with 1984.

Non Fiction:

Tales From the Time Loop- David Icke - His best book to date.
The Biggest Secret - His second best ever book.  And the book that started it all for me.
The Time Rivers - Goro Adachi - NOTE - self published book available only on Goro's site, but very high quality and very astounding and mind blowing.  I'll never understand why his discoveries of the Nile River / Delta and the Amazon and Mississippi Rivers have been snubbed by the researchers he admires and gives kudos to.   Oh, I know why - because they're disinfo. agents peddling what TPTB tell them to in order to lead the public down the wrong path, while Goro has actually made genuine and mind blowing discoveries which need to be suppressed.      Got it.   
Prescription For Nutritional Healing - Phyllis & James Balch -  The only book you'll ever need for everything and anything to do with natural medicine.  AWESOME book jam packed with so much useful information on herbs, supplements, and every disorder under the sun and all the natural ways to treat them.  An absolute MUST have.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living and Secret Don't Tell - Carla Emery - Two polar opposite books by the same author.  Who knew!   One about everything you ever needed to know about country / natural living, the other an expose into government mind control and unethical hypnosis.   
The Mothman Prophesies-  John Keel - Great book, much better than the movie.     A great read for anybody who tries to understand the nature of synchronicity.   By the end of the book the synchronicities explode and it's just so all out that everything seems connected, and your head will literally hurt trying to keep up.  Also great if you're interested in Men In Black, UFO's, and other realms which bleed over into this one.   
Subway Lives - 24 Hours in the Life of the New York City Subway - Jim Dwyer - Just thought I'd throw this one in here because I really do love this book and I know nobody's ever heard of it.   I love NYC and have a connection to it, (parallel timeline...) and my whole family is from there.   This book is so unusual, I found it at a used bookstore.  So well written and informative and entertaining all at the same time.  A rare combination!!  I couldn't put it down.  Chronicles 24 hours in the lives of  a group of diverse, randomly selected people as they navigate their way through the day to day life of New York City, as well as a history of the NYC subway system.
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson - What a fantastic book!!   Very unusual.   It's about the Chicago World's Fair, and chronicles the men who made it happen as well as the serial killer who used it to get his victims.  All true.  The entire book is basically a non-fiction account, and anything that appears in quotes is something taken directly from letters, documents, newspaper articles, personal accounts/interviews, etc.   It's SO WELL WRITTEN.  One of the best written books I've ever encountered.  He completely brings to life Chicago in the 1890's.  You're there, it's that good, and you'll learn a lot.

I also enjoy / recommend:

Rule by Secrecy - Jim Marrs
The Gods of Eden - William Bramley
The Ra Material
The C's transcripts
God's Gladiators - Stuart Wilde
Children of the Matrix- David Icke
Return of the Warriors: The Toltec Teachings, Volume 1- Theun Mares
Bringers of the Dawn- Barbara Marciniak
The Holographic Universe- Michael Talbot

There's about a hundred more I'm forgetting, but I'll stop here.

I must have read over a 100 books on various subjects all related to what's on the Montalk site. But here are the ones that have stuck in my mind the most:

Infinite Self by Stuart Wilde

God's Gladiators by Stuart Wilde

The Prophets Way  by Thom Hartmann

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight  by Thom Hartmann

The Power of Now  by Eckhart Tolle

Tales from the Time Loop  by David Icke

The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are  by Alan Watts

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

Illusions by Richard Bach

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

As for fiction I love Dean Koontz. I just finished Dreamcatcher by S. King... whoa! Little did I know when I picked it up that it was going to be about ET's, grays in particular. I also really enjoyed James Herriot's set of books that began with All Creatures Great and Small.

There are so many books listed here that I've never read because I spent so much time in college and didn't have a moment to spare for outside reading, but Bringers of the Dawn was a biggy for me, and of course the C's material.

There is one author that has been mentioned here that I would like to endorse as well, and that's Richard Bach. Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messaiah was the second metaphysical book I ever read after Shakti Gwain's Creative Visualization (also very good, but certainly a book for a beginner). One by Bach is a book I suggest any person read, especially if one is having a hard time understanding the concept of the collapse of time. My copy of One seems to constantly be on lone to someone. It's a great story.

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
------
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we might as well dance.
------
If you spin around on your chair really fast, things around here will make a lot more sense.

"Ancient Mystical White Brotherhood" by Frater Achad (George Price) -- my current favorite book, as it uplifts and balances me everytime I read a couple pages. Sometimes I get stuck in thought patterns that go nowhere and keep me from realizing the bigger picture. It's like losing lucidity in a dream. Then I read some of this book and come to my senses again. Every paragraph contains wisdom. You know how thoughts/feelings held for extended periods of time gain momentum? Well, I've found that reading some good stuff can keep the attention longer - and thus build up more momentum - than simply trying to think of uplifting things which can lead to getting sidetracked onto mundane drag-down thoughts unless the mind is disciplined in meditation. As an intermittent aid, reading high frequency stuff really rubs off.

Channeled: Ra, C's, "Edgar Cayce Companion" (Frejer - great resource), Seth Speaks
ET/UFO: Gods of Eden, Mothman Prophecies, Alien Identities (Richard Thompson)
Metaphysics/Spirituality: Tao of Physics, most Castaneda books, Huxley (doors of perception, island), Monroe's 3 books, Holographic Universe, Autobio of a Yogi, Tertium Organum, Beelzebub (reading it right now, loving it)

What a great topic!
I worked at a huge bookstore in for 8 years and could barely read one word of fiction the whole time, despite being an avid book worm until my terrible teens. I did read a lot of glossy magazines (which are all pornography on some level) and books on plants and food. It's been long enough now since my soujourn in literary retail hell that I can actually ENJOY reading, instead of looking at books as things that hurt my arms.

As a girl, I loved the Chronicles of Narnia and the Tolkein books which my parents read aloud to my siblings and I when we were on driving on vacation.
I don't think I should have been reading as much Kurt Vonnegut as I was when I was 9 and 10, if my parents hadn't wanted me to turn out so antisocial. What were they thinking letting me read "Breakfast of Champions?
"A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'engle was purchased by these same  parents as a bribe to cut out the dreadlocks which had formed while I was away at french camp the summer I was 9.
"Watership Down" was also kind of a bummer for kids but probably good training for what lay ahead. So sad about  the bunnies. I really was into talking animals; "Wind in the  Willows" by Kenneth Grahame, "Gildaen" by Emilie Buchwald, the Richard Scarry picture books and those weird Moomin Family books by Tove Jansson were heavy faves.
I also loved reading all the Asterix comic books because they were funny in both english and french, the Smurf comics weren't as funny but they were cute. Anne of Green Gables, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pippi Longstocking were the girl heroines I most identified with.
I started out with Roald Dahl innocently enough as a young lass of 15 but once I read "Kiss Kiss" and "Switch Bitch", his kids books got a lot more interesting. That was when I lived with my parents in Geneva, Switzerland and I fell in with bohemians who liked to read Herman Hesse and smoke all manner of things.
Things went downhill from there until I met John Brunner at a Science Fiction convention in Portland when I was about 18 and had him sign my leather jacket.  I had snuck into the convention and had no idea he was the  featured speaker until I ran into him right as he was leaving a huge auditorium of applauding conventioneers. He was happy to stop oblige my request despite being hustled off by his reps. Harlan Ellison took one look at him signing an autograph and sneered "Huh, fans!" to which I had a suitable punk rock retort. I didn't know who Harlan Ellison was at that moment but boy I sure heard all about him for the rest of the weekend, as I had accidentally insulted my way into being the darling of some very weird rich people who seemed to be involved in the sci fi industry.  Later I got to hang out with Mr Brunner  in some people from Atlanta's hotel room and drank peach margaritas.He told me he was into all my fave rave bands like UB40, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Crass!  This was a huge honour for me, as I and all my Mad Max lovin' punk rock pals read "The Sheep Look Up" like a bible of the future.

At the same convention I also met a Tennessean from Vancouver BC who was reading from his first  book in a nearly empty conference room. He gave me a button with a picture of  Japan on it that had a little flashing light where Chiba City is located. It was a very high tech button,  if a little too big to look cool on my leather, but I saved it for years anyways. His name was Bill Gibson, he and John Shirley were sharing a room, not at the fabulous Marriot where the convention was occuring, but some mid-priced motel a few blocks away. They let my friend and I sleep on their floor the first night we were there. I used to wear a lot of glow in the dark rosaries (it was the 80's) and at one point Bill sat up in bed and exclaimed "there's girls in my room and they're glowing  in the dark!"  in his amazing drawl. I never read any of his books besides "Neuromancer" but I often wonder if glow in the dark girls ever made  appearances in his subsequent writings. It was a pivotal weekend in my life (4th of July weekend 1984) and made me want to leave boring old Canada for exciting new America, which I did.

Eventually I moved to Eugene, Oregon with the first of many weird guitarists and had nothing to do all day but go to the library and read entire author's outputs all day long. This is a good way to pass the time but it did make it hard to keep all those Phillip K Dick plots seperate in my LSD-addled teenage mind. My favorites were  "Flow my Tears the Policeman Said" , "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and just for fun "Clans of the Alphane Moon." Richard Brautigan also got into heavy rotation along with the Kerouac and the Burroughs.
I read JG Ballard's "Crash" and Harry Crewes' "Car" in the same week which probably did some damage to my psyche.
The "Love and Rockets" comic books series by the Hernandez Brothers came into my life about then and I headed down the slippery slope of alternative comics reading anything from "mainstream"artists like R. Crumb to silly hand drawn comic zines by disaffected misfits.

One of the only works of fiction I read during my stint at the bookstore was "Lives of the Monster Dogs" by Kirsten Bakis, an amazing book about talking Victorian Dogs who come to live out their days in modern Manhattan.
I read "Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy O'Toole to my boyfriend while he was undergoing chemotherapy years ago and it sure took our mind off our troubles.
"The Cure for All Cancers" by Hulda Clark  and "Healing with whole foods" by Paul Pitchford also helped us stay focused. "The Humanure Handbook" by Joseph Jenkins should be required reading for everyone who poops.

Lately my favorite books have again been children's titles. I love Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Material's" Trilogy and I am obsessed with "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket.
When I think about Childrens Literature now I think Mind Control and I'm looking forward to re-reading my childhood favorites with "new eyes".

I'm laughing at how many books I have in common with Lyra's favorites but not too surprised:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-  (and "Sometimes A Great Notion", you can't live in Eugene without reading all the beat hippy literature especially the under-rated Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan )
The Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger - (I have a great deal of synchronicity in my life around Salinger like a very good friend named Seymour Glass, and a friend named Zoe with a daughter named Esme)
1984- George Orwell-(my teenage fake girl band was called the Junior Anti-Sex League)
A Brave New World- Aldous Huxley - there's a great band from England called the Buzzcocks who have a delightful song called "Everybody's Happy Nowadays"
and of course the incomparable
The Encyclopedia of Country Living  - Carla Emery (I am a proud owner of one the early editions mimeographed on multi-colored paper and spiral bound)

In terms of Noble Realms type subject matter, in the past year I've worked my way through the Montauk series, "The Family" by Ed Saunders (a great exoteric read on the Manson Family written by a member of The Fugs), "The Biggest Secret" by Icke and "Love is in The Earth" by Melody (one name-- like Cher! or Madonna!).
Right now I'm trying to give my full attention to David Ovason's "Secret Architecture of our Nations Capital: the Masons and the Building of Washington DC" but it's a dense read. 
I just finished a piece of fluff called "Girl Trouble: The True Saga of Superstar Gloria Trevi and the Secret Teenage Sex Cult That Stunned the World" which is kind of in the same vein as "Tranceformation of America" by Cathy O'Brien and is in prelude to me hunting down a copy of "Secret don't Tell" by Carla Emery.

I'm looking forward to taking a "reading vacation" this winter and will be adding some of the  titles listed here to my "to read"pile, hope to see more recommendations in the coming weeks.

lege librum,

A a