The time has come.
This is the hardest prompt for the Buccaneer Blogfest …
What are your top five favourite books of all time?
Five? FIVE? How I am supposed to pick five books from six hundred? I could pick by authors and still not get them all in. So here are the novels that started various points of my reading obsession …
1. Dragonflight – This was the the first fantasy/science-fiction novel I’d ever read. This novel started my love for the genre of fantasy (I consider it fantasy though it is sci-fi in origin) and my obsession with Anne McCaffrey’s world of Pern. They’ve got dragons. DRAGONS! Big, fire-breathing, golden-scaled dragons! Need I say more?
2. The Diamond Throne – David Eddings introduced me to the wonderful Sparhawk, a knight with more than a few rough edges. Young teen me was besotted, both by the quest to save the young queen, stop an evil god from taking over the world and the knights on this quest. This led me to the Belgariad series, where they were also trying to stop an evil god. I didn’t care the premise was the same, the stories were completely different.
3. Gryphon’s Eyrie & The Year of the Unicorn – Two novels, both by Andre Norton. I was entranced by her style of writing as well as Kerovan’s plight of being different. It led me to consider The Year of the Unicorn, which gave me Gillan and Herrel to obsess over and fully committed me to the Witch World series.
4. Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit – You didn’t think these wouldn’t get a passing glance, did you? Since I’ve read both numerous times, I cannot recall which one came first. Most likely Lord of the Rings as I read it before the films came out. But they were both equally good.
5. The Sea and Little Fishes (Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy) – What? A short story in my ocean of series-long works? Well, this was the one that opened me to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. After suffering years of hearing my other half harp on about this and that in various Pratchett works, I finally bowed and read this short piece. I went on to read Strata, then The Colour of Magic. I’ve now officially read more Pratchett novels than him and can fling back what he used to give. ^_^
There you have it. Five points, with seven stories that affected me and my reading tastes. You know the sobering thought? All but one of those authors have passed away …
Aldrea Alien 
I've read McCaffery (OMG I was so sad when she died! Her husband's books just aren't as good) and Hobbit/LOTR, but I never read Diamond Throne!!! Love Eddings though, so I'll have to pick it up!
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You mean Todd? He's her son.
I've yet to read anything just by him. Closest I've come is Dragonkin and that was alright, but still a joint effort.
You must read The Diamond Throne! Sparhawk is better than Garion. Older, rougher … no less a good guy. ^_^
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I love the Belgariad series! I'll have to check out The Diamond Throne. 🙂
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Oh yes, I read the Elenium (the diamond throne's trilogy), then moved on to the Belgariad, the Mallorean and the two prologues, then I discovered the Tamuli: a second trilogy with Sparhawk ^_^ (went on to read the Redemption of Althalus, then the Dreamer series. Yes, I'm a big fan).
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I read the Elenium and the Tamuli when I was in college. I have some of Eddings's other books, just never have gotten around to reading them.
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I read most while in high school. Oddly enough, with all the horse riding, writing and school work, I had far more time to read than now being a stay-at-home mother.
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Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are two of my all-time favs. But I hear you about it being too hard to pick, and narrow your favs down to just five choices!!
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LotR was good, but I keep falling asleep reading it. Especially during the fellowship. Fumed over the movies, though. I fully believe it should've been four, not three. They missed out so much in the last one.
Now the Hobbit … I picked it up one afternoon and didn't leave the couch for several hours, not even to turn a light on.
The movies better be good. I wanna see what they do with Smaug.
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I have Relic from Lincoln / Child, Angels and Demons, To Kill a Mockingbird. Sword of Shanarra, and my book Breakthrough. Okay, so I'm a bit biased.
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I have most of Terry Brooks' books. But, so far, I've only read Magic Kingdom for Sale.
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Sweet choices! Hobbit has to be my all-time favorite fantasy. 🙂
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It sure is an interesting read. ^_^
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Tolkien was up there on my favorite list of authors. Nice choices!
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Thanks. ^_^
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Nice list! I love how you include a little blurb about each one. 🙂 It's always interesting to find out how/why people love certain books.
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Thank you. ^_^
Discovering what people dislike and why can often be just as interesting.
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