The best book you've ever read.

[Erja_Perttu]

Past Mortem by I [edit] Ben Elton.

God-damn, that was an amazing book.
Have you read Dead Famous? It's by the same guy.

Dead famous has got to be my favourite of his, and then probably Popcorn. You can't deny the genius of the guy who wrote most of Blackadder.

OT:I'm going to go with Where Eagles Dare. Brilliant book and a brilliant film, but the book made me laugh a lot more.

 

[Shameless]

The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov

such simplistic yet fascinating book.

 

[GonzoGamer]

War Of The Spider Queen.
By: R.A. Salvatore.

Is he still writing those books? I got to pick up the last.... few? I loved them when I was in High School and I picked up some of the graphic novel adaptations a couple of years ago.
I can't pick a best book ever.
If you like mystery type books but what to break out from them a little, try The Illuminatus Trilogy. It's trippy and will force you to abandon the conventions. A good companion to that is Prometheus Rising.
I guess my favorite genre however would be contemporary post-modern British lit: Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin, JKR.

No, it's over. There are six books in the series.

Six? I don't think I know those.
I think the Drizzt book I read was Passage to Dawn but I'm not sure.
I'll have to check those out again.

 

[Lord_Nemesis]

... All I've read in the past 6 months or so is Dean Koontz. He's an amazing writer and if you've never looked into him you should check him out.

Well said friend. I am a big fan off Dean Koontz too.

Anyway as to your question: Dark and sad. Hard to get that combo from what books I know. If you are up for trying new genres I suggest the Laurell K. Hamilton, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. Please do not let Twilight (goddamn those books) let your impression of vampire books be bad. These books are amazing. Gritty, compelling and adult themed through out (in all aspects). Failing that, check out Brent Weeks: Night Angel Trilogy. It's a Fantasy genre, not a vampire books despite the name. another really good series that most haven't heard of (unfortuently) is Robert Scott and Jay Gordon: The Eldarn Sequence.

Hope this helps.

 

[Polyintrinsic]

Dune by Frank Herbert

 

[Shakaar9267]

War Of The Spider Queen.
By: R.A. Salvatore.

Is he still writing those books? I got to pick up the last.... few? I loved them when I was in High School and I picked up some of the graphic novel adaptations a couple of years ago.
I can't pick a best book ever.
If you like mystery type books but what to break out from them a little, try The Illuminatus Trilogy. It's trippy and will force you to abandon the conventions. A good companion to that is Prometheus Rising.
I guess my favorite genre however would be contemporary post-modern British lit: Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin, JKR.

No, it's over. There are six books in the series.

Six? I don't think I know those.
I think the Drizzt book I read was Passage to Dawn but I'm not sure.
I'll have to check those out again.

Oh no, it's not the Drizzt series. Sorry about that. War of the Spider Queen was 2002-2005. It's a different story, set in Menzoberranzan. Check out Wikipedia to see if this is something that might interested in.

If it's Drizzt you want, these are the books in the main series;

The Crystal Shard (1988)
Streams of Silver (1989)
The Halfling's Gem (1990)
Homeland (1990)
Exile (1990)
Sojourn (1991)
The Legacy (1992)
Starless Night (1993)
Siege of Darkness (1994)
Passage to Dawn (1996)
The Silent Blade (1998)
The Spine of the World (1999)
Servant of the Shard (2000)
Sea of Swords (2001)
The Thousand Orcs (2002)
The Lone Drow (2003)
The Two Swords (2004)

Hope that helps.

 

[Drakane]

A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin, is the best book I've read. The only book to ever make me cry.

as to not spoil anything, you should toss me a message as to what made you cry. I am a big fan of the series and can't wait for the next 2. and have finished the current 4 that are out.

 

[GonzoGamer]

War Of The Spider Queen.
By: R.A. Salvatore.

Is he still writing those books? I got to pick up the last.... few? I loved them when I was in High School and I picked up some of the graphic novel adaptations a couple of years ago.
I can't pick a best book ever.
If you like mystery type books but what to break out from them a little, try The Illuminatus Trilogy. It's trippy and will force you to abandon the conventions. A good companion to that is Prometheus Rising.
I guess my favorite genre however would be contemporary post-modern British lit: Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin, JKR.

No, it's over. There are six books in the series.

Six? I don't think I know those.
I think the Drizzt book I read was Passage to Dawn but I'm not sure.
I'll have to check those out again.

Oh no, it's not the Drizzt series. Sorry about that. War of the Spider Queen was 2002-2005. It's a different story, set in Menzoberranzan. Check out Wikipedia to see if this is something that might interested in.

If it's Drizzt you want, these are the books in the main series;

The Crystal Shard (1988)
Streams of Silver (1989)
The Halfling's Gem (1990)
Homeland (1990)
Exile (1990)
Sojourn (1991)
The Legacy (1992)
Starless Night (1993)
Siege of Darkness (1994)
Passage to Dawn (1996)
The Silent Blade (1998)
The Spine of the World (1999)
Servant of the Shard (2000)
Sea of Swords (2001)
The Thousand Orcs (2002)
The Lone Drow (2003)
The Two Swords (2004)

Hope that helps.

So I missed quite a few.
Thanks. I think I will check those out.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

Frank Herbert's Dune.

Atlas Shrugged is a close second.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Best book is like best cup of coffee. They're all good at the time...even if they're stone cold chicory presses.

 

[Samwise137]

I loved Nikki Sixx's memoir and I'm looking forward to the new one this spring!

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Metro 2033. It is amazing.

 

[Autolykos]

Best one read in school: George Orwell - 1984
Should be read in school: Stanislaw Lem - Golem XIV
Best entertainment: Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

[Toaster Hunter]

The Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R.Martin. it is insanely well written and the characters are fully fleshed out rather than being flat caricatures. Still waiting for Dance With Dragons, any time now George, any time now...

 

[ajofflight]

"The Name Of the Wind" by Patricks Rothfuss. His first novel, and a Quill award winner to boot.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

But I'm really looking for something a little darker. This might sound a little dumb but I want something dark and possibly depressing...

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick is fairly dark and depressing (don't base your opinion on the movie), and you may know that Dick was friends with Koontz.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is classic and definitely gets rather dark and frenetic especially towards the end.

Dead Lines by Greg Bear is a scifi "ghost story". Its fairly dark and similar in general style to Koontz's work but Bear is more towards "hard" scifi (personally I liek Bear better). The science in this book is not very "hard" but it does involve some "real" theoretical physics ("theoretical" being the operative bit there).

Queen of Angels by Greg Bear is also good and dark in another manner. Its a strange sort of scifi futurist cross between Silence of the Lambs and Virtuosity [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114857/](IMDb link incase you are unfamiliar with the movie).

I'm trying to think of more. What sort of dark are we looking for here exactly? I don't think much of my reading has been particularly dark unfortunately. Lately reading Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, but I don't really consider them very dark.