What's the best book you've never read?

[BlueIris]

You know, the one you're saving for a rainy day, the last book by your favorite author that you just can't commit to finishing yet or the one you know you're going to read for your next airport nightmare?

Mine's Julia Glass's The Whole World Over. I can tell it's going to be and emotional and personally significant read, when I finally get to it, which I've been avoiding, because I don't want to be done with it. I'm also saving Judith Guest's The Tarnished Eye for a rainy day or a sick day, and I have three Valerie Martin books left to finish (if you've never heard of Valerie Martin, BTW, you should go read everything she's written right now.)

[and-justice-for-all]

1. 'DUNE' by Frank Herbert...nt

[Speck Tater]

2. I was going to say "Atlas Shrugged"

just to sit back and watch the reaction. But no. I can't be that mean spirited.

My real problem is that very often when I'm reading a book I think, wow, this is the best book I've ever read. I tend to enjoy the hell out of whatever book I have in my hands at the moment. I guess I'm not very discriminating that way.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. "Gravity's Rainbow"

I know I'll have to invest some time and thought into that one.

[larkrake]

4. Lord of the Rings

[Hardrada]

5. Moby Dick

[nevergiveup]

6. "My Pet Goat"

Just joking..... In answer to your question it would be "All Quiet on the Western Front". I bought a copy many years ago and have never gotten around to reading it.

[Warpy]

7. "The Satanic Verses"

I got it just before I went blind the first time and have just never sat down to read it. A long, boring airplane ride when they won't let me take my knitting needles (maybe a European vacation, can't take 'em on the return flight) is just what I need to get into it.

[SheilaT]

8. My initial reaction is to point out that if I haven't

read the book yet, I don't know if it's even good, let alone the best book I've never read.

It's my opinion that a lot of books out there are over-hyped, and I've learned to be very cautious about reading something that "everyone" says is so fantastic. I'm almost always disappointed.

The best book that probably few if any of you have read or even heard of is Lost Girls by Andrew Pypher. A Toronto attorney, with a bit of a drug problem, goes off to a town in northern Canada to defend a schoolteacher on trial for killing two girls, although their bodies have not been found.

I found the book to be utterly engrossing, and the language was so amazing, so lyrical, that I found myself continually reading passages out loud to my husband.

T respond to the question you actually asked, I keep on hoping to get around to reading War and Peace. Someone recently passed a copy on to me along with the Cliff Notes for it, because she felt that otherwise it was impossible to keep track of the characters.

[applegrove]

9. "Confederacy of Dunces". Don't know who it is by. Saw it in the bookstore the other day and thought

... not right now but some day.

[BlueIris]

11. That's by John Kennedy Toole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces

[Moe Shinola]

10. War And Peace, I guess,

One Hundred Years of Solitude in the original Spanish, Pere Goriot in French, Goethe in Deutsch, a great many books in Greek, Latin, Japanese, etc...
I envy the multi-lingual.

[Rowdyboy]

12. Take your pick: Faulkner, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald......

and I read constantly. Just haven't made it around to the "classics".

[Kablooie]

13. Remembrance of Things Past by Proust

But my mom read the whole thing .
She said it was hard to get through but was very proud that she had done it.

[Jim__]

14. Ulysses.

I'm assuming it's a good book - Modern Library ranked it #1 on its list of Best English language novels of the 20th century. It's always on top of my to-read list, but it always gets bumped down by something that comes along.

[libodem]

15. Piiiars Of The Earth

By Ken Follet. I rented the epic saga, took 8 hours to watch. Loved that book!

[calvin_re]

16. Re:

I love Sidney Sheldon that's why I read books that was written by him. If Tomorrow Never Comes is the best book that I read from him.

[ForeverFlashy]

17. Mistborn

It's a fiction novel, I know, but somehow I just can't effing finish it. But it's a very great read, and I'm literally dying to get the chance to finish reading it soon.

[closeupready]

18. The Two Towers and Return of the King. I started the trilogy as

a child, but never finished the Two Towers, as it started to drag.