Best Piece of Literature ever Published

[Largo]

In your opinion, what is the best book or comic book/graphic novel ever published?

 

And please don’t post clichés like Lord of the Rings, Gary the Otter, or, worst of all, the Bible

 

For book I am voting for SnowCrash by Neal Stephenson. Blending in techno-punk, and fast forward mall mythology for the 21st century is a work of genius.

 

For graphic novel, I would have to vote for The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. All the artists are fantastic, and the gripping uber-godly story line is extraordinary.

 

I think the runner up for novel is American Gods, also by Gaiman. The allegories to the Bible (god, I mentioned it) are masterful, and the characters are very well drawn out.

 

MOD EDIT: *Switch gasps in horror at the use of a little wizard boy's name on the forums and edits it to something more appropriate!* :P

[surian]

OH NO!!! THE UNMENTIONABLE WORD!!! Please don't talk about *that book*... sigh... that's gonna be a strike against ya.

 

Graphic Novel: The Sandman, without question. (Check my avatar)

 

Book: I have so many favorites, i'll choose one that is underknown. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielweski. I can't actually describe how odd and distrubing this book is. It is the scariest book I have ever read in my life. The book ITSELF is scary, not just the story... I know that's strange but if you actually get a chance to flip through this book you'll see why.

[Largo]

dude, that's Destiny!

 

That's pretty cool. Sandman is indeed the best Graphic novel ever...

 

Id kill for that new one, Endless Nights to come to my book shelf.

[Albareth]

I fear I've never heard the term 'graphic novel' before. Being foreign - I only know what I've come across... would really appreciate it if you could explain to me what that is. Do you just mean novels that are illustrated with art?

 

Anyway, regarding the book portion, it's a very tough call. I find it very hard to compare different genres, but I believe some of the contenders for the title might be John Grisham's "The Partner", Micheal Chrichton's "Timeline" and some of King's stuff. Though the primary genre I read is fantasy I find all authors I've read works by (Tolkien certainly there included) to have strengths and weaknesses. Haven't yet found any fantasy author who has charmed me out of my shoes, so to speak... :)

 

I have a sadly limited selection of books in English to lend or purchase locally though... and I have very limited funds for online purchases. So I fear I haven't got to delve as deeply into the world of English literature as I'd have liked... all in good time, all in good time. :)

[Largo]

Grpahic Novel is just a fancy buzzword for comic book.

 

But not just any comic book! No, these ones have plots and wonderful drawing and characters! It makes DC look like Chimps!

 

I really like Crichton as well. Timeline is pretty good, better then Sphere but slightly inferior to Jurrasic Park. I bought his newest one (Prey)

right when It came out and forked over 50 bucks for a nice sleek hardcover... I was slightly dissapointed, but it was still a great book.

 

Anyone want to buy a slightly used hardcover scifi book?

[Peregrine]

Largo, strike one for ignoring the terms of service.

 

Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations, discussions on Harry Potter or System of a Down (the unnameables) are also inappropriate on the MORROWIND SOURCE.

 

The terms of service are not just a polite suggestion.

[surian]

The order of Michael Crichton books, ranked from best to worst (only the ones i've read) is as follows:

 

1. Sphere <--amazing book!

2. Andromeda Strain

3. Jurasic Park

4. Congo

---anything beyond this line is teh sUx0rz

5. Prey

6. Timeline

7. Lost World

 

He's like stephen king. If you make enough books you'll be bound to have most of them be complete garbage.

 

Oh, another author I would reccommend even though this is not a book recommendation (he never wrote many "books") is H.P. Lovecraft. The father of modern day horror. You have to read his stuff ;) you'd be surprised to see how many people have ripped him off over the years *cough* steven king *cough* Although to be fair steven king was a long time fan of H.P. Lovecraft and wrote "salam's lot" based on Lovecraft's own writings.

[ImmortalSnafu]

Anything touched by Dan Brown is glorious. :)

 

Dan Brown is the author of the Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Digital Fortress.

[Maquissar]

[Hmmm... best piece of literature ever published... well, I don't think that there is an actual n.1... there are several. Hamlet and Macbeth by William Shakespeare are two possible candidates, and even if they were written more than four hundred years ago they can be - contrary to public belief - extremely enjoyable...

 

Even if I haven't read all of it so far, James Joyce's Ulysses is undoubtedly one of the greatest books ever written. It might drive a man crazy, and it might not be completely understandable unless you start studying it in detail, but it is great. No doubt about it. I wouldn't recommend it as a book to read in your leisure time for relaxation purposes, though.

 

Although much less serious in nature, Tom Jones by Henry Fielding is very well written; it is also very long, but I wouldn't call it boring. Speaking of brilliant and witty writers, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of being Earnest is one of my favourite plays... and you can read it in a couple of hours. Even better, you can rent the DVD, which doesn't stray too much from the original text.

And for a different kind of comicity, also try Jerome K. Jerome's Three men in a boat.

 

I'd also recommend Orwell's 1984 and Animal farm, Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 and, although I liked it less, Aldous Huxley's Brave new world. And, since this isn't a thread about the "Best piece of English Literature ever published", I'd include Albert Camus's L'étranger (The Stranger) in this list.

 

And can one forget to mention John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress? ... yes. Definitely. Stay clear of that book!

[Darnoc]

Best piece of Literature? Damn difficult question!

 

OK, this ist, what I think:

 

"Dune" by Frank Herbert is probably the best Science-Fiction novel ever written.

 

"Stein und Flöte - und das ist noch nicht alles. Ein Märchenroman" by Hans Bemmann is the best piece of literature I have ever read, so I think. Since it is not known to most people, I will explain a little bit more.

 

The novel is huge, almost as huge as LotR or Dune, perhaps even larger than Dune. It is the story of "Lauscher" (Listener), from his birth until his death. This is a book with a lot of wisdom about life in it, so make yourself prepared to learn something from this novel. It is one of this novels you can read over and over again and still find something new and refreshing in it. Lauscher isn't a hero, he is more something like an anti-hero, because he makes tons of mistakes during his lifetime, or should I even say, almost his whole life is one huge mistake. Inside the novel there are a lot of other stories which are told, stories inside the story which also develope somehow or tell something new about a character you already know.

 

The story evolves around three objects Lauscher receives, one in every part of the book. First a glimmering, beautiful and very strange stone, which belonged to a strange, peacefull step rider (normally step riders are aggressive and attack all the other people, but Arni was different...).

 

Then he receives a magic flute which has the power to controll other people and manipulate their thoughts and feelings.

 

And at last he receives a talking walking-stick.

 

Always Lauscher thinks, these objects purpose is to bring him power and to help him, so that he can realize his selfish wishes. But everytime he has to learn that these objects are to be used to help others. The problem is that he learns through failure and because of the things he does, a lot of people have to suffer or even die. This goes on until he has enough of live and failure and drinks a potion which turns him into a statue. Only to be released some years later by a woman which has an eye-color just like the color of Lauscher's stone. And then he finally seems to have learned his lesson and he lives to help others, but he also lives to see how his disciples fail him which leads to new tragedy. And so he has to remember all the time "and that is not everything..." (as it says in the title). The story is told through direct story telling (the story of Lauscher) and through other stories, which tell something out of the past (like of the live of Arni or Lauscher's grandfather, the man with the flute) or even through dreams. There are certain mysterious characters which appear all the time, but it is not sure, if they only exist in Lauscher's imagination or if they really exist. The first one is "the grey" how wants to persuade Lauscher to use his power in favor of himself. Lauscher dies rejecting him the last time. Then there is a strange wanderer, who seems to be a miner. He was the one who gave the strange stone to Urla who later on gave it to Arni and then to Lauscher. He also gave the magic flute to Lauscher's grandfather and he gave the talking stick to Lauscher. It is never clear who he really is, he just appears and disappears again.

 

A truly great book, a work of art, worth reading (if you understand German; I'm not sure if it exists in English)