Common Sense by Thomas Paine

In my opinion, the best novel is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I just LOVE that story so, so much! So powerful and moving and it has so many levels!

whichever book I find when I've read everything I have

The best work of fiction in the world may be "Don Quixote".

Suzanne, I'm curious about your opinion on Don Quijote, I've read both volumes and I've gotta say I liked it, but it wasn't the life changing sort of thing I was expecting it to be.
I mean it's good, you feel for this guy. In a way it's easy to see that we all have our own Don Quixote inside of us, desperate to go chasing dreams and messing around with windmills and wine skins because we've got the way the world (and our dreams) work all upside down. I get serious feels for the Don, especially when he becomes disillusioned with his quest, I was right there besides Pancho trying to encourage him to keep going.

But come on, best book in the world? I'm honestly asking because I will pick that book up again if you give me a good enough reason.
It's always cool to go back to an old read and discover something you never knew was there.

Best book in the world is kinda hard... everyone has their own subjective criteria , so we'll never agree on which is the "best" book. And what exactly best? Best story? Most educational? The book that made you go "THIS! THIS IS TRUE! I LOVE THIS!"; All of the above?
Depending on our definition of best we could even resolve this with a quick search on Amazon xD.

My best book in the world has to be "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White. I've gone back to it time and time again, and every time I look at it, it changes. The first time I read it, I idolized Arthur. The second time I read it, I got seriously fanboyish over medieval history and empathized heavily with Lancelot.. The last time I read it I saw a lot of moral content that I'd never really understood before, and could really feel for Merlin.... I'd never understood why he was so willing to give himself up to Morgana knowing what it meant.
It's just one of those books written for children by an intelligent and sensitive human being who pours his soul into his work, and who doesn't think kids are all idiots.

Sophie's World blew my mind though. On so many levels.

VMLM wrote:Suzanne, I'm curious about your opinion on Don Quijote, I've read both volumes and I've gotta say I liked it, but it wasn't the life changing sort of thing I was expecting it to be.

I choose "Don Quixote" because it is considered to be the first modern novel. That in itself makes it great.

If for many reasons ''Don Quixote'' is the first modern novel, it is pre-eminently because of the different languages spoken in it. Characters in classical literature all spoke the same language. Achilles understands Hector; Ulysses can even speak to Polyphemus. But Quixote and Sancho speak two different idioms. Why? Because the characters are engaged in what the Spanish critic Claudio Guillén calls ''a dialogue of genres.''

There has been some dispute about whether ''Quixote'' is indeed the first modern novel. Ian Watt gives primacy to the 18th-century English novel, which was responding to the rise of a middle-class, book-buying public. André Malraux thought of Madame de Lafayette's ''Princesse de Clèves'' as the first because it initiated inner exploration of character. But I believe that ''Don Quixote'' really inaugurates what we understand modern fiction to be -- a reflection of our presence in the world as problematic beings in an unending history, whose continuity depends on subjecting reality to the imagination. Cervantes does it, as all writers do, in a precise time and space.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/books ... all&src=pm

Excerpt from Anthony J. Cascardi's in the Cambridge companion to Cervantes:

‘…one has to recall Henry Jame’s description of the novel as a ‘loose, baggy monster’ to realise that what Cervantes invented was something without any fixed form. James was hinting at the novel’s ability to incorporate a seemingly limitless number of components and to assume an unpredictable variety of shapes. Think of the differences between Dostoevky’s Crime and Punishment and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, or between Stendhal’s The Red and the Black and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Year’s of Solitude. All of these clearly count as novels, but they are novels of very different, even incompatible sorts… The novel is a polymorphous genre, with a capaciousness that seems to have been built in from the start.’

Following through, he[Cascardi],DQ is the ‘first novel’ because it perfectly matches the criteria of this last sentence. Because it collects, eclipses and transforms pre-existing literary genres, taking fixed topos and forms – e.g. the Romance, the pastoral and the picaresque – and creating something (relatively) anarchic and endlessly potential out of them. Cascardi evokes Bakhtin’s theory of ‘novelisation’ and concludes that the essence of ‘the novel’ as a genre is the ‘discovery that new forms originate from the transformation of old ones’. In other words, the novel is the fictionalisation of fiction itself.

http://tiltingatwindmillsblog.wordpress ... ern-novel/

I will admit, I had a hard time getting through DQ. But when you realize what the novel means to the genre of fiction, fiction in novel form, I can see no other novel that is greater.

This thread reminds me of a story I once read. It was a discussion seminar, and the topic was, "If you were stranded on an island, and could choose only one book, what would it be? The theologian responded, "The Bible." The philosopher said, "The writings of Socrates." The historian said "The Outline of History." Finally the survivalist said, "Either 'Practical Agriculture,' or 'Boat Building with Simple Tools.'"

I've got a vote for the most "over-rated." So many sf fans have raved to me over the years ABOUT the THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY being great. I recently read it again, after many years, to see what I'd missed. I didn't miss anything. It's just a silly little story that goes for obvious humor.

JohnB

If I had to choose just one book in the world it would be the bible.

I think you are correct about the Bible. It is the best book as far as the impact that it has had on people and society. This question is impossible to answer because the term "best" is so vaque. The question includes all books, fiction and non. What does best mean? "1984" is a best book due to the classic message and will be rellevant for generations. However, "Beyond Good and Evil" could be considered a best for the same reason. "One Thousand and one Nights" is a best book because many of the stories have become the basis of today's fairy tales. These tales will remain read and loved for generations to come. A best book may be onethat has an impact and an impact that has longevity. We readers are fortunate to have so many.