1. Lives - Plutarch
2. Aesop's Fables - Aesop
3. 1984 - George Orwell
4. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
5. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

1. Midnight at the Well of Souls and the Well World novels - Jack L. Chalker (This is the series that got me started on sci-fi.) 1-5 are the best. The later novels were disappointing.

2. Hyperion and the rest of the Cantos series - Dan Simmons (you cried at the end of the last book didn't you Netrunner.)

3. 1984 - George Orwell

4. Caesar - Colleen McCullough

5. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"

most things by Vonnegut (esp. Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse-5, and Deadeye Dick)

Cormac McCarthy, "The Road"

Ronald J. Glasser, "365 Days"

Richard Bach, "Stranger to the Ground" (and many others)

Honourable mentions: William Gibson, "Neuromancer" -- Murray Peden, "A Thousand Shall Fall" (w/ Google Books preview) -- Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried" -- John Irving, "A Prayer For Owen Meany" -- George Orwell, "1984" -- , Nick Hornby, "High Fidelity" / "About A Boy" -- Roald Dahl, "Skin" / "Over To You" / many others -- Paul Theroux, "The Mosquito Coast" / "Half Moon Street" -- James Howard Kunstler, "The Long Emergency" (preview) -- Vladimir Nabokov, "Lolita" -- many by Bill Bryson -- J.D. Salinger, "The Catcher In The Rye" -- Andy McNab, "Bravo Two Zero" -- Jonathan Safran Foer, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" -- Alice Sebold, "The Lovely Bones" -- Miriam Toews, "A Complicated Kindness" -- Antoine de St-Exupery, "Wind, Sand, and Stars" -- LGen Roméo Dallaire, "Shake Hands With The Devil" -- Ernest K. Gann, "Fate Is The Hunter" -- (and to be continued most likely)

1. Dune by Frank Herbert

2. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

3. Number9dream by David Mitchell

4. Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood (and yeah that's the source of my name)

5. Hmm i wanna include Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson),
Night Watch (Terry Pratchett),
Pattern Recognition (William Gibson),
Lord of the Flies (William Golding),
Starship Troopers (Robert A. Heinlein)
1984 (George Orwell)

Kurt Vonnegut jr. is indeed the master. It's hard to pick just five, so this list might be a little random, but here are five books I have enjoyed immensely:

1. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut jr.
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
4. Mengele Zoo by Gert Nygårdshaug
5. The Brothers Karamasov by Fjodor Dostojevskij

I especially like the religious themes in Cat's Cradle; that's why I picked it out to be on the list. But I have yet to read a Vonnegut book I didn't like, so many others could be there as well.

I really recommend Mengele Zoo to anyone who hasn't heard of it. It paints a horrible picture of the exploitation of South America, and has a main character you instantly fall in love with.

What the heck, I'll throw in a few more:
Everything by Tolkien, the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin, The Eyes of the Dragon and the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, The Knights Templar series by Jan Guillou.

surprised to see this many Camus fans. here's mine:

1 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
2 The Fall - Albert Camus
3 Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut JR
4 Animal Farm - George Orwell
5 Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

I'd give Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and honorable mention, but only because I'm still reading it; great book so far though.

Looking back on it, all are fairly quick reads; great for a weekend or light reading.

I've read so many great books that it's really hard for me to whittle it down to five that I think are the best, so I'm going to go with the first five that come into my head. I'm guessing that the first five must have made the greatest impression on me, so it's a reasonable place to start a favorites list.

1. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut is probably the single most influential author to me. His protagonists and story lines always clicked with me. It was like he was writing them just for me.

2. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller. Everyone's heard of this one, and it's considered by many to be one of the best novels of the 20th century. If you haven't read it yet, put it next on your to-read list. Notice my first two novels are both set in World War II. I don't know if that means anything or not.

3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon. Considered by many to be Chabon's greatest work. I noticed you read one of his book's, dag. I think you owe it to yourself to read this one. I plan on reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union soon, because I've heard good things about it too.

4. The Trial - Franz Kafka. A dark novel, to say the least. To me it's about the absurdity of life and accepting fate. I don't believe in fate, but I sometimes wonder about the futility of existence. Can't help it.

5. The Foundation series - Isaac Asimov. Read the series when I was a teenager. The idea of being able to use science to not only predict but also control future events fascinated me, and that it was set in the future, complete with space travel, made it even more interesting. I liked how Asimov later was able to merge the Foundation series with the Robot series.

Other novels worthy of mention:

- Tropic Of Cancer - Henry Miller - Almost made the Top 5
- Life of Pi - Yann Martel
- Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut
- Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
- 1984 - George Orwell
- Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
- God Knows - Joseph Heller
- Something Happened - Joseph Heller
- Ringworld - Larry Niven
- The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

Why I'm Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

Wedge by Mark Riebling (deals with the rift between the FBI and CIA that caused Pearl Harbor, JFK assassination and 9/11)

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Difficult question, that's like asking for favourite songs or movies... 5 of my favourites:

* "Waiting for the Barbarians" by J.M. Coetzee

* "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

* "The Quiet American" by Graham Greene

* "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

* "1984" by George Orwell

It's not liberal dogma to question the false misrepresentation the media and government created surrounding the capabilites of Al Qaeda. They would want us to believe that they are nebulous enemy in the mists out there, forever a threat, hoping we would willingly concede to any actions in their pursuit going as far as dismantle our civil liberaties in the name of security, dissolving the very freedoms that define the Western world.

Numerous documents have shown that US military action in Iraq created further recruits for Al Q, who sought to tie down the American military in Iraq, the disparity of conduct between different members who cropped up showed that Al Q is not as organized or well finiaced as the West would lead us to believe. Those whose negative views of the West had their views reinforced in illegal unilatarel and unlawful actions leading to attacks in Madrid and London.

The policy created leads to a war that lasts forever, in the words of Bush a task that is never ends. Allowing for the endless war we saw in George Orwell's 1984.

Trying to finish the collected writings, articles and short stories of George Orwell.

Industry-Friendly != Fascism.

The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. — George Orwell, What is Fascism?. 1944

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Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Love it. George Orwell is smiling down (up?) at you.