Most Memorable Novel You've Ever Read?

[RangerX]

To Kill A Mockingbird

I can't quite put my finger on why, but this is my favorite book of all time. I've probably read it about 25 times.

[Thursday]

I recently finished Fireforce by Chris Cocks, which kept my attention the entire way through. It is a first hand account of Cocks in the Rhodesian Light Infantry during the bush wars between ZANLA and Rhodesia. Highly recomended.

Currently reading Pawme Chete by Ron Reid-Daily. Much tougher read compared to Fireforce, although it has a lot more information. It accounts the birth through the end of the Selous Scouts during the Rhodesian conflict. Truly some amazing things were accomplished.

Up next is Hell in a very small place by Bernard Fall. It accounts the events leading up to and the battle of Dien Bien Phu. I have tried to read this several times over the past 4 or so years and each time, I have such a slow and hard time going through it that I get discouraged and tend to pass it up for the next book, although I am going to make a concerted effort to finish it this time. I also plan to order Street without Joy, which accounts the French Indochina War in its entirety.

Other mentions that I have really enjoyed (with out descriptions):
Blackjack 33
SOG
Black Hawk Down
Robert's Ridge
Jawbreaker
Break Contact, Continue Mission
1984
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

[Julieanne]

Have you seen the movie "Osama", Julieanne?

RGR HObbit, yes I have. We rented it last summer I believe. Very good. Sad.

When I returned from Saudi Arabia I read the Princess trilogy, (Princess, Princess Sultana's Daughters, & Princess Sultana's Circle)

The reaction to the presence of the female Allied soldiers in the Persian Gulf war brought worldwide attention to the lowly status of women in Arabia. Incredibly, the Saudis imposed their restrictions of Muslim women on their non-Muslim women defenders, as well. Public debate on the irony of liberated, democratic men and women defending a government that espoused such restrictions for women caused widespread consternation and commentary. Around the world, the idea begin to form that one positive result of the war would be the loosening of the social customs that keeps Saudi Arabian women relegated to the dark ages. Sadly, this anticipated change did not happen. In the aftermath of the war, because of tightened restrictions on women imposed by the now more powerful religious men, the plight of these women actually worsened.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nifisi

Publisher Comments:
We all have dreams — things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisi?s dream and of the nightmare that made it come true.
For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading — Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita — their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran.

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

From Publishers Weekly
After living for three months with the Kabul bookseller Sultan Khan in the spring of 2002, Norwegian journalist Seierstad penned this astounding portrait of a nation recovering from war, undergoing political flux and mired in misogyny and poverty. As a Westerner, she has the privilege of traveling between the worlds of men and women, and though the book is ostensibly a portrait of Khan, its real strength is the intimacy and brutal honesty with which it portrays the lives of Afghani living under fundamentalist Islam. Seierstad also expertly outlines Sultan's fight to preserve whatever he can of the literary life of the capital during its numerous decades of warfare (he stashed some 10,000 books in attics around town). Seierstad, though only 31, is a veteran war reporter and a skilled observer; as she hides behind her burqa, the men in the Sultan's family become so comfortable with her presence that she accompanies one of Sultan's sons on a religious pilgrimage and witnesses another buy sex from a beggar girl-then offer her to his brother. This is only one of many equally shocking stories Seierstad uncovers. In another, an adulteress is suffocated by her three brothers as ordered by their mother. Seierstad's visceral account is equally seductive and repulsive and resembles the work of Martha Gellhorn. An international bestseller, it will likely stand as one of the best books of reportage of Afghan life after the fall of the Taliban.

RGR Matador 275 wrote:

A really excellent book you should read is:

"Stolen lives - 20 years in a desert prison" by Malika Oufkir and Michelle Fitoussi.

I was very moved by the book after I was done reading it. Handed it to a few other guys on my team and everyone thought highly of it.

It's a true story of a young girl, who grows up by the side of the King of Morrocco, who's father attempts to overthrow the Royal family and documents their subsequent personal hell, which they experience for his betrayal.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll try to find it!

[Flesh Thorn]

I recently read "The Nick Adams Stories" by Ernest Hemingway. Something about his writing style kind of grabs on to you.

[Invictus]

Recently read Jenna Jameson's biography. I found it very...revealing.
An she has some really good tips for anyone wanting to break into the business...

[PocketKings]

Nobody mentioned Gates of Fire? That seems odd given the group. I have to agree with all of the Tolken and Rand folks. I re-read all of them every few years. I love Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series, but that's cause I like weird nautical terms that I can't understand. Most of my collection lately is business related. I have everything Jack London, Mark Twain, and Jim Harrison ever wrote...they're along the same lines of Hemingway.

I'm waiting for Lone Survivor to come in the mail.

[JustErin]

Nobody mentioned Gates of Fire? That seems odd given the group.

You just beat me to it Ranger PocketKings!

I liked Gates so much the first time that I read it again. It's one of my favorites now. The Afghan Campaign was also a good read.

Erin

[IntelToad]

I'm almost finished with "Once an Eagle" by Anton Myrer. I haven't read a book in quite awhile, so I took it on vacation. Myrer was a hell of a writer, you really don't see people with a command of the English language like he had anymore.

[GSXRanger]

Bridges of Maddison County.

[hobbit]

Bridges of Maddison County.

The author, James Waller, a business professor at the University of Iowa, wrote "Bridges of Madison County" on a bet from other faculty members. He bet them he could write something so idiotically sappy and vapid, to include commercially crass product placement spots (Camel cigarettes, Nikon cameras, the National Geographic Magazine, etc.), that it couldn't possibly be anything but a huge hit. He was right of course.

[GSXRanger]

Bridges of Maddison County.

The author, James Waller, a business professor at the University of Iowa, wrote "Bridges of Madison County" on a bet from other faculty members. He bet them he could write something so idiotically sappy and vapid, to include commercially crass product placement spots (Camel cigarettes, Nikon cameras, the National Geographic Magazine, etc.), that it couldn't possibly be anything but a huge hit. He was right of course.

I am Jack's RAGING sense of sarcasm...

[hobbit]

I am Jack's RAGING sense of sarcasm...

So I figured.

[DirtyM]

A good book was "The War Lover" by John Hersey; rival B17 pilots over Europe in WWII. I burned through this in about two days on a deployment once. Picked it up at the USO in the free books pile. Made in to a movie in the early '60's starring Steve McQueen.

"The Power of One" by Bryce Courteney. South Africa in the '40s; cannot summarize it adequately. Follows the life of a young boy growing into adulthood...sounds faggoty, but it is pretty good.

"Papillon" by Henri Charriere. Movie and book are both great. Also a Steve McQueen movie.

"Blink; the power of thinking without thinking" Malcom Gladwell. Another book I burned through in about 3 days. How your Magnum P.I "little voice" is right more often than not. Author calls it thin slicing- spontaneous decisions are often just as accurate or more so, as well thought out and investigated ones. Good shit