Favourite books

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Oh dear, I'm sure this will be something I will want to keep coming back to again and again and again...

Off the top of my head and in no particular order:

Master and Margarita, Bulgakov

The Devils, followed closely by the K Brothers (The Devils was my first encounter with Dostoevsky, at 14, so add sentimental value)

The Devils of Loudun, Huxley

Dead Souls, Gogol

On Heroes and Tombs, Ernesto Sabato - all his (3) books actually (if you're still following this thread, OP, do you know him? He originally studied for his PhD in Physics in Paris and actually worked with Madame Curie. Camus gave his first book a glowing review)

The Philosophy of Tragedy, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, Lev Chestov

I'll be sure to remember a whole lot later, from what has been mentioned, definitely Clockwork Orange and A confederacy of Dunces, hard to choose which Vonnegut

Not a huge fan of poetry but definitely Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Swinburne and William Blake.

Anything Kafka, Camus, Checkov. Oscar Wilde and Emily Brontë are worth at least an honorary mention and then then I have a soft spot for the utterly amazing South American fiction, particularly Marquez, Llosa and Borges... Casares and Cortazar lol

Until next time

When I was young we used to play which book, which record would you take with you on a desert island...

Bible
Luther's Small Catechism
War and Peace
The Brothers Karamazov
Grapes of Wrath
Les Misérables
Wuthering Heights
Vanity Fair
Mere Christianity
Animal Farm

Oh, I forgot the short story greats. I definitely second the recommendations of Kafka and Gogol. I'd throw Stephen Crane in there, too.

You have excellent taste, kdm.

My bookshelves are crammed with books up to the ceiling.

One River by Wade Davis

Survival of the Bark Canoe by John McPhee

For starters.

My favorite is definitely Torey Hayden's Somebody else's kids, but another one of her works, Just another child, isn't far behind, either. Both are true stories by the way.

I'm also a fan of Täällä pohjantähden alla -trilogy (Here under the North star in English) by Väinö Linna and of Tuntematon sotilas (Unknown soldier) by the same author.

Non-fiction (and thoughtful fiction based-on truth) is a favorite. Yet, I've been advised to investigate fiction (as a diversion to facts-based content - common interests with Autism).

To focus on fiction. No specific authors come to mind; yet I've felt my fiction interests are orientated around the genre of metafiction (SEE LINK).

I even feel that interest in metafiction may relate to difficulties in following the subtleties of storylines; that is the Autism Spectrum can present difficulties in following storylines. Metafiction can act as "signposts of sorts" and can help with guidance in following storylines.

Kurt Vonnegut was mentioned a couple of times in this discussion thread. I enjoyed Vonnegut's 'Breakfast of Champions.' 'Timequake' is recommended. These two works thoughtfully apply metafiction.

Metafiction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... onal_works

Fiction/Poetry/Graphic Novels/Other:
A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Borroughs
Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
The Sandman #5: A Game of You - Neil Gaiman
Ariel - Sylvia Plath
The Colossus - Sylvia Plath

Non-fiction:
Birth: The Surprising History of How we are Born - Tina Cassidy
Gardner's Art Through the Ages
Quackery - Lydia Kang
The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down - Anne Fadiman
At Home: a Short History of Private Life - Bill Bryson
Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond

I'm a big fan of children's books too:
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! - Mo Willems
Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel - Adam Rubin
Captain Raptor and the Moon Mystery - Kevin O'Malley
The Dragons are Singing Tonight - Jack Prelutzsky
The Monster at the End of this Book - Jon Stone

I can't really do these in order.

Top of the List:
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Villette, Charlotte Brontë
The Professor, Charlotte Brontë
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Possession, AS Byatt

Runners Up:
Shirley, Charlotte Brontë (minus the beginning)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (minus the ending)
The Foundling, Charlotte Brontë's juvenilia
The Green Dwarf, Charlotte Brontë's juvenilia
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë
Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Vanity Fair, WM Thackeray
Clarissa, Samuel Richardson
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Four Dreamers and Emily, Stevie Davies
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Non-Fiction:
Victorian Literary Criticism particularly by Stevie Davies, Juliet Barker, or Christine Alexander
Victorian Social Histories by Stephen Whitehead
The Letters of Charlotte Brontë

Children:
The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams
Blubber, Judy Blume
Are You There, God?, Judy Blume
Charlotte's Web, EB White
The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne

one, from the most reread books

the pipe-leader, the thinktank
1971 - the pipe-leader
half drawings half text, a story about an undevellopped region inhabited by sheep (a recurring theme), where progress and magic-realism clash, youth movements, bureaucracy and science are sceptically ridiculed.
quote from the shepherd's dog; “It's hard to know what you want. Especially if you believe that young people know what they want, so that you start wanting what the young people think they want. ”[ “Het is moeilijk om te weten wat je wilt. Vooral als je gelooft dat jongeren weten wat ze willen, zodat je gaat willen wat de jongeren denken dat ze willen.”]

1978 - the thinktank gets into property, gas, politics, with the main bear-caracter being again psychiatrically hospitalised for obstructing bureaucracy and big-money , the thinktank is used by the psychiatrist to scientifically re-adjust the client/patient thinking 'always insisting on more positivity

"Under the volcano" Lowry
"A house for mr Biswas" (& any from VS Naipaul)
any or most of IB Singer & GG Marquez
Dostojevski("Notes from the underground") & Tolstoy & most of russian litterature
"A fine balance" R Mistry, "Wild swans three daughters of China" free pdf
Albert Camus, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, G Meyrink, B Traven, N Mahfouz
Metamorphoses of Apuleius