Pajiba

Last 15 years?! Okay, okay, let's see...

1. Infinte Jest by David Foster Wallace
2. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
4. Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
5. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

And since we're limited to recent books, meaning Borges, Nabakov, etc, are precluded:

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Maria Pessl

Lamb by Christopher Moore

1. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
2. Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
3. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
4. Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (technically it's 20 years old but, well, it's very relevant, no?)
5. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

1. "On Beauty" - Zadie Smith
2. "Running with Scissors" - Augusten Burroughs
3. "Survivor" - Chuck Palahniuk
4. "The Beach" - Alex Garland
I can't think of a 5th contemporary book

Disregarding 15 yr. rule:
1. "The Fountainhead" - Ayn Rand
2. "Monkeywrench Gang" - Edward Abbey
3. "Franny and Zooey" - J.D. Salinger
4. "Atlas Shrugged" - Ayn Rand
5. "In Cold Blood" - Truman Capote
Runner Up: "The Bell Jar" - Sylvia Plath

Yargh...faux pas, I just realized I put all the book titles in quotes.

In no particular order:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon.
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides.
Doomsday Book, Connie Willis.
American Gods, Neil Gaiman.
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay--Chabon

Assassination Vacation--Vowell

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius--Eggers

The Kid/The Commitment--Savage

Running with Scissors--Burroughs

I know, this list is pretty ho-hum, but honestly, if I'm limiting myself to contemporary novels, I have pretty staid tastes. I read contemporary simply to be amused, with the pleasant side effect of an occasional Kavalier and Klay popping up.

1. The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
2. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
3. The Brother's K, David James Duncan
4. Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

honorable mention: The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), Till We Have Faces (CS Lewis), Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Tolkien), and Wise Blood (Flannery O'Connor)

wow- disregard my comment- completely disregarded the directions. sorry. i'll come up with something later...

1. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon.
2. The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
3. Until I Find You, John Irving
4. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
5. The History of Love: A Novel, Nicole Krauss (though I didn't like the title, made it seem as though it was going to be fluffy, not that there is anything wrong with that.)

*I know most of these authors have other books that are more well known, but these are my favorites...maybe except the Chabon, but I figured Kavalier & Clay would be repeated enough, and Wonder Boys also great. Keep up the book reviews Dustin, I always like to hear about new and different selections, especially from a source that shares so many of my opinions on current films, tv, etc.

1. I, Lucifer--Glen Duncan
2. Good Omens--Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
3. Crank--Ellen Hopkins (really kickass concept, aside from the story)
4. Wicked--Greg McGuire
5. Me and Emma--Elizabeth Flock (Very Bastard Out of Carolina--but there's a twist at the end that nobody saw coming)

Wow! A lot of Hornby love (I'm not complaining). I think High Fidelity will easily make everyone's list so I'm taking it as the Clooney of books here and designating it as a given.

Middlesex: Jeffrey Eugenides
(really about #7 on my list but in the interests of consensus since I don't know if any of my others will be picked up).
The Line of Beauty: Alan Hollinghurst
The Untouchable: John Banville
(if you've tried other Banvilles and given up, try this one: it's very readable)
The Time Travelers Wife: Audrey Niffenberger
That They May Face the Rising Sun: John McGahern
(also published as By The Lake in the US).

Alos props to Lauren H. for cheating iwth Franney and Zooey because it is so great.

1. A Confederacy of Dunces

2. Ender's Game (yea yea)

3. His Dark Materials (trilogy but.. who cares)

4. Goodnight Mr. Tom (read it when I was young, and stayed with me)

5. Having trouble coming up with more.... and I do read quite often. I just got Kavlier and Clay which is on ever other list, so we'll see.

The one above sparked my mind

The World According to Garp.

1. The Memory of Running--Ron Mclarty
2. Einstein's Dreams--Alan Lightman
3. Kite Runner--Khaled Hosseini
4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay--Michael Chabon
5. Motherless Brooklyn--Jonathon Lethem

Okay, I'm doing my list without reading the other comments, to try and remain relatively pure:

1. Black Swan Green (David Mitchell)
2. Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) (those two are really tied for no. 1 in my book)
3. Underworld (Don DeLillo)
4. Little Children (Tom Perrota)
5. You Shall Know Our Velocity (Dave Eggers)

(I don't limit my reading to fiction written over the last fifteen years, although over the past few months I've been reading a few more recent authors and this list kind of reflects that habit. And I know two books by the same author is kind of like cheating, but I think David Mitchell is the best writer I've read in a long time and certainly the best writer of my generation...at least that I'm aware of.)

I am not ashamed to say that I read fluff. I believe that if I am reading to escape the book better have a damn happy ending. I love it and I will proudly mention my top 5:

1. Bridget Jones Diary -Helen Fielding
2. Bridget Jones Diary: The Edge of Reason- Helen Fielding
3. Divine By Mistake-PC Cast
4. Confessions of a Shopaholic- Sophie Kinsella
5. Fairy Godmother: A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms-Mercedes Lackey

I have to contribute! I don't read serious books. Evidently.

Sorry, jumping in again to say please keep going with the book reviews. They may not be as popular as celebrity sex fantasies but I think you'll find you have a growing appreciative audience and isn't the whole point of Pajiba that we consider ourselves to the the "uncatered to" among the masses? So don't dump the book reviews just because you don't get 500 posts in the first hour. That would be akin to Christian Bale deciding not to do The Machinist because more people will go to see Batman. (Yes, Dustin, I just compared you to Christian Bale. You're now officially very fuckable).

I swear I did not look at Amy's list before I wrote mine down. I SWEAR!

I am glad to see the same two books pop up in the same spots from my list, however. :-)

About A Boy by Nick Hornby


American Gods by Neil Gaiman


The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold


In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner


The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. (Cheating, I suppose, but you really have to look at the work as a whole. [Is my English major showing?])

I'll agree with:

The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Saturday, Ian McEwan (or the first half of Atonement)

And then I'd add...

Blindness, Jose Saramago
In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
Sweetness in the Belly, Camilla Gibb

(High Fidelity's definitely up there too, mind you, and Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius would be as well, except I'm trying to stick to fiction.)

(And to cgg, who asked about A Long Way Down ... I've read all of the Hornby novels, and would have to rank it second from last out of the ouevre. But that's just me...)

1. Horse Heaven - Jane Smiley
2. Widow for One Year - John Irving
3. Wicked - Gregory Maguire
4. Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
5. Strivers Row - Kevin Baker

Honorable Mention because it was published in 1980 which of course makes it ancient literature

6.The Land of Laughs - Jonathon Carroll

Wow, I'm going through the list and there are so many great books mentioned...The Namesake, Time Traveller's Wife, Secret History, Assassination Vacation. Love it. Man, I wish more of my friends read often, I NEVER have anyone with whom to discuss books. My best friend and I started a book club last week just for nerdy fun, and we're starting with...Tom Sawyer. Heeee.

1. Invisible Monster's by Chuck Palahniuk
2. Willfull Creatures by Aimee Bender
3. The Elephant Vanishes: Stories by Haruki Murakami
4. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again by Andy Warhol
*2 X 15 years old, but I read it twice a year and impose it on pretty much everyone I meet, and so I'm cheating and including it.
5. Life After God by Douglas Coupland

And every single year I devour The Best American Non-Required Reading anthology.

Shit, I forgot Lamb. OK, knock off Small Gods.

High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon
Microserfs, Doug Coupland
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
The Road, Cormac McCarthy

"Favorite" is probably not the right word for how I feel about The Road, considering that upon finishing it, I spent two days in a weepy, suicidal depression, barely slept for the next month, and hid the book from my wife so she couldn't be damaged by it (damn you, Cormac McCarthy!).

No book has ever moved me the way The Road did, however, and that book, combined with festering post-Katrina anxiety, our presence over an earthquake faultline, and a certain U.S. President's warlike approach toward Iran, caused me to convert our basement into a warren for short- to mid-term survival, followed by taking ourselves out.

I'm surely interested in how Pajibans feel about The Road.

In no particular order:

Running with scissors, Augusten Burroughs
Breakfest of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
The man in the high castle, Phillip K. Dick
Does Freakeconomics by Steven Levitt count? (I love that book!)

House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
Battle Royale - Koushun Takami
The Virgin Suicide - Jeffrey Eugenides

1) The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
2) A Paradigm of Earth - Candas Jane Dorsey
3) Arcadia - Tom Stoppard (technically a play, but.)
4) An Anthropologist on Mars - Oliver Sacks (technically nonfiction, but.)
5) The Telling - Ursula K. Le Guin

this was really hard, seeing as a lot of what i read is a lot older ( i had to check and make sure Arcadia was within 15 years) and/or science fiction. i should read newer stuff!

1. Fight Club by Chuck Palaniuk

2. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

3. Speed Queen by Stewart O'Nan

4. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

5. Election by Tom Perotta

Hmmm. This list makes me out to be violent and/or crazy. I'm only crazy, really. :)

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

It's a good thing Pajiba now will be able to recommend books for me to read, because I'm just a maniac when it comes to literature.

1. An Instance of the Fingerpost / Iain Pears
2. Washington's Crossing / David Hackett Fisher
3. A Short History of Nearly Everything / Bill
Bryson
4. The Black Book of Communism / Stephane courtois
5. Beowulf / Seamus Heaney

1) All the Names, Jose Saramago
2) Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
3) Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
4) Paris Trout, Pete Dexter
5) The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks

1. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

2. The Book of Illusions - Paul Auster

3. Bones of the Moon - Jonathan Carroll

4. Kavelier & Clay - Chabon (FINALLY just reading it and kicking myself for not reading it sooner!)

5. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

I could list 20...Atwood-The Blind Assassin, Pullman-Golden Compass or Amber Spyglass, Parkhurst-Dogs of Babel, John Twelve Hawks-The Traveler...and on and on.

(Thanks redkitten for also including one of my fav authors Jonathan Carroll!!)

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Bone by Jeff Smith
World War Z by Max Brooks
Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About by Mil McMillan
About A Boy by Nick Hornby

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language - Douglas Hofstadter

Any of the Patrick O'Brian series, but if I had to pick one: The Mauritius Command (O'Brian newbies are alerted that they must be read in order...)

Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up! (Shut up! And honestly, it takes a lot of smarts to be that consistently funny...)

And though not perhaps a "favorite," an enjoyable recent read:
Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem

PS, I lurve 'What Pajiba is Reading.' Most of my friends are illiterate hacks, and it's so hard to get a good book recommendation these days.

what an utterly fabulous afternoon comment diversion!
i have to mention that i am an avid book junkie and everytime i go on my break at work i always have a book with me, and for that, most of my co-workers make fun of me while they prefer to waste away precious time by text messaging. what has society come to when people find it more acceptable to make fun of others for enriching their minds instead of spending countless hours on mindless activies.

anyways:

1. Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer
2. The Orchid Thief - Susan Orlean
3. Slouching Towards Nirvana - Charles Bukowski
4. The Captain's Verses - Pablo Neruda
5. Fifth Business - Robertson Davies

Honorable Mentions:
1. Under The Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer
2. No Logo - Naomi Klein
3. The Hours - Michael Cunningham

Okay - I already gave my top five, but had to put my support behind The Time Traveller's Wife, Geek Love (does it meet the 15 year requirement? I'm not entirely sure when it was written), and anything by Douglas Coupland or Tom Perotta. Are top tens allowed?

And I agree with missmie re: The Best American Non-Required Reading. I read it every year.

i obviously disregarded the last 15 years rule, but i don't care.

De-lurking. I LOVE this idea. Can't wait.
So, in no particular order:

"Oryx & Crake" - Margaret Atwood

"Not Wanted on the Voyage" - Timothy Findley

"The Poisonwood Bible" - Barbara Kingsolver

"Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" - Susanna Clarke

"A Fine Balance" - Rohinton Mistry

Ooops. Looks like I can't read directions very well: apologies for the non-novels.

Erase Hofstadter and Barry, insert William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, any other Stephenson, say, Snow Crash, or the Clooney of Novels (as someone aptly said above), High Fidelity.

Perhaps a future Comment Diversion should be devoted to non-fiction, essays, and humorists?

A Song of Ice and Fire (in its incomplete state) George R.R. Martin


The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul Douglas Adams


Ficciones Jorge Luis Borges


Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro


The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler

Great diversion:
1. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
2. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
3. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
4. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (if I have to choose just one, I'll go with Amber Spyglass)
5. The Human Stain, Philip Roth

1. The People of Paper, Salvador Plascenia
2. Atonement, Ian MacEwan
3. Perfect Circle, Sean Stewart
4. Trash Sex Magic, Jennifer Stevenson
5. Cloud Atlas, Scott Mitchell

1- Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Copeland
2- The Pornographer's Poem, Michael Turner
3- Everything is Illuminated- Jonathan Safran Foer
4- All the novels of Siri Hustvedt: The Blindfold, What I Loved, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl
5- Blindness- Jose Saramago ***

So these are mine, but I also acknowledge The Corrections, The Eugenides books, the Sedaris, Burroughs, and Chabon's deserve to be up here, they're just not my favorites.

Oh man, only new stuff?! I guess I will have to disregard my obsession with Dawn Powell.

Okay, no particular order:

1. Atonement by Ian McEwan
2. The Hours by Michael Cunningham (It really helps if you read this right after Mrs. Dalloway, which is what I did. I would also accept Specimen Days, even if I didn't like it quite as much.)
3. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
4. Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
5. Shopgirl by Steve Martin

@Julie -
Give Kelly Link a try, a little darker than Aimee Bender, but just as (if not more) magical.

1. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
2. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
3. The Green Mile (best as a serial)
4. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
5. Middlesex

1. Lullibies for Little Criminals---Heather O'Neill
2. Time's Arrow---Martin Amis
3. High Fidelity---Nick Hornby
4. Everything is Illuminated---Jonathan Safran Foer
5. American Psycho---Brett Easton Ellis

1. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

2. Wicked, Gregory Maguire

3. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire (I must confess that I like this better than Wicked.)

4. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

5. The Color Purple, Alice Walker (Okay, it's not within time constraints, but I adore this book...)

"Why Girls Are Weird" by Pamela Ribon
"Death Rat" by Mike Nelson (I'm a geek, I know)
"Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett

Other than that, the majority of books I have been reading and collecting are political commentary and narrative history stuff, because I completed a history degree not too long ago.

I'm really interested to see how this is going to go. I love getting book recommendations.

Off the top of my head:

Hornby - About a Boy
Miriam Towes - A Complicated Kindness
Douglas Coupland - Generation X
Matthew Good - At Last There is Nothing Left to Say (not really a novel, a collection of manifestos... but shhh, it's dear to my heart)
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell
A Long Way Down, Nick Hornby
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of A B-Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell

I've just recently discovered this site and am really enjoying it. I'd absolutely love for you to do a book review! Here are some of my favorites. Some of these were been written before the 15-year mark, but absolutely none should exceed 25 years.

1)"Kiss of the Spiderwoman"-Manuel Puig. (Okay okay so this is out of the time frame, but it's absolutely brilliant and few people have ever read the book. At most they've only seen the film.)

2) "Love in the Time of Cholera"-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3) "Midnight's Children"-Salman Rushdie

4) "Poisonwood Bible"-Barbara Kingsolver

5) "Middlesex"-Jeffery Eugenides. (You mentioned it already, but I really would love to see a review of this.)

Other honorable mentions

1) "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers"-Mary Roach

2) "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim"-David Sedaris

3) "The Kid" and/or "The Commitment"-Dan Savage

Fiction:

1. Underworld by Don DeLillo
2. A Long, Long Way by Sebastian Barry
3. Leviathan by Paul Auster
4. Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
5. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Honorable mentions: Lord of the Barnyard by Tristan Egolf (may he rest in peace),A Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem, The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills, and anything written by Cormac McCarthy or Don DeLillo

Non-fiction:

1. I Was Vermeer by Frank Wynne
2. Cassavetes on Cassavetes by Ray Carney
3. In a Sunburned COuntry by Bill Bryson
4. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
5. Savage Art by Robert Polito

Honorable Mentions: Blood on the Moon by Edward Steers, Rave On by Philip Norman, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, and Which Lie Did I Tell? byu William Goldman.

Blessed are the Cheesemakers - Sara-Kate Lynch

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore (It ranks equally with Blood Sucking Fiends (a love story) and You Suck (a love story) also by Moore)

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Bel Canto - Ann Pratchett

The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde (the first in a series of books for book nerds. I love it)

Pajiba, it hurts me to only list 5! Runners up: The Tender Bar - J.R. Moehringer; A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby; In Her Shoes - Jennifer Weiner (the book didn't suck like the movie); Foolscap - Michael Malone

The fifteen-year limit cuts out a lot of my favorite books, but here goes:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
Double Duce, by Aaron Cometbus (this is sort of a Bay Area local kind of book, but I'm going to leve it on anyway)
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

(Honorable mention: Stephenson's Diamond Age and Walker Percy's The Moviegoer.)

Jumping back in again to acknowledge the two people who selected Jasper Fforde, a true reader's author.
Also James B., love you for putting Heaney's Beowolf on the list. There should be another comment diversion for poetry (only not just the last 15 years).

"2. The Hours by Michael Cunningham (It really helps if you read this right after Mrs. Dalloway, which is what I did. I would also accept Specimen Days, even if I didn't like it quite as much.)"

I'm 180-degrees away from you on this. Cunningham is an aggressively awful writer. Reading it after Mrs Dalloway only shows up his artless prose. It's bad enough he includes large chunks of MD in The Hours.

That novel -- even thinking about it -- makes me want to take a very long Silkwood shower.

Goddamnit. Forgot to close my tag.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon;
Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin;
The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie;
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri;
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

I've read some, but not all of the comments & am definitely now adding some books to my "must read" list. I'm sort of ignoring the 15 year rule...sorry.

Good Omens
Ender's Game
The first few books in the Dark Towers series by Stephen King. If I had to pick just one, I'd go with the first - The Gunslinger.
The Abarat Series by Clive Barker. They're meant for tweens, but I just love reading them. Although, if he doesn't finish the trilogy soon, I might find him and kill him.
The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I know. I know. And, while the last few books haven't been anywhere near as good, the first...5 maybe just made me laugh and laugh and laugh. It may not be high quality, but it's certainly entertaining.

And, if The Gunslinger is just too old (1982), I'd replace it with His Dark Materials.

Also, I saw Chabon's name mentioned a lot. The only thing of his I've ever read is Summerland, which was very enjoyable, especially if you like baseball.

I have to concur with The Kite Runner and The Eyre Affair.

Also, this is Amazon's description of Double Duce:
"
What Kerouac was to the Beat generation, Aaron Cometbus is to the punk scene in Berkeley, California. In this first novel, his slacker kids ponder life's mundane questions with the seriousness of ancient philosophers: how to get by on no money, where to scam free photocopies, and the finer points of food filching. Through a haze of beer and Top Ramen, they engage in endless debates about the nature of punk rock rage."

It's less a novel and more a series of vignettes about his life in the punk squats of Berkeley and Oakland...but that's still a pretty good description.

Ummm...just one Tower in that Dark Tower series.

Last 15 years? Y'all suck. These are maybe not my favorite books ever, but certainly some of the more intiguing books of the last 15 years.

1. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
2. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
3. The Tale of Murasaki by Liz Dalby (Genji shout-out!)
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
5. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard--neither a novel nor from the last 15 years, but way too damn good to ignore.

OK, I am old. 1990 was more than 15 years ago, ouch.

Rant - Chuck Palaniuk

Survivor - Chuck Palaniuk I would also threw Fight Club or Invisible Monster on here, or Choke or Lullabye for that matter

American Gods - Neil Gaimen

The Color Magic - Terry Pratchett

TimeQuake - Kurt Vonnegut - i think this is his only novel that fits the 15 year period

The Tesseract, Alex Garland
Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje

Until I Find You by John Irving
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (not entirely sure that's w/i the 15 year limit)
Wicked... by Gregory Maguire
I Know This Much is True/She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

Marmotte, Bryan Perro

well i don't recall reading another book (worth mentioning) written after 1995.

Actually de-lurking for the first time... I have to break the rules with most of my selections, but they're my favorites, and books that at any time I can pick up and re-read...

Catch 22, Joseph Heller (hands down the best book ever)

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers

The Stand, Stephen King

D'oh! How could I forget Saramago and Ishiguro? Although for me it would be "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" (Saramago-though if you've got a thin skin about Christian orthodoxy, stay the hell away from this book) and "The Remains of the Day."

1. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
2. Wicked - Greggory Maguire
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
4. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
5. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown

HAHAHAHAH, sorry, not really...

5. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

Confederacy of Dunces is too old isn't it? Dammit. Well then I'm going to go with...

5. Too Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
I don't think that one's been mentioned yet.

I would like to say that I love the Pajiba book column and want to see it continue. I'm in the middle of Lamb, as well as the Fables series, and recently finished The Mysteries of Pittsburgh all because of the suggestions. Don't leave me hanging folks!

Take it for what it is. I think it's pretty obvious that my taste doesn't fall in line with that of the average Pajiban, but in no particular order:

Wicked - Gregory McGuire

The Rum Diary - Hunter S. Thompson

Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King

Hello Darling, Are You Working - Rupert Everett

A Crown of Swords - Robert Jordan

This weird list doesn't begin to be descriptive enough, but the 15 years thing is really killing me.

love the murakami love!
1. haruki murakami the wind-up bird chronicle
2. haruki murakami hard-boiled wonderland or the end of the world
3. patrick süskind the perfume
4. philip roth i married a communist
4. caleb carr the alienist

1. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald.
2. Freddy's Book by John Gardner.
3. The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis.
4. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
5. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

Most or all of these are older than 15 years, but not older than 30, which I hope is close enough.

1. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
2. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
3. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
4. The Human Stain by Philip Roth
5. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

Until I Find You - John Irving

The Time-Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

A Gathering Light(UK title)/A Northern Light(US title) - Jennifer Donnelly

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel - Susanna Clarke

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan
Six Bad Things - Charlie Huston
The Stand - Stephen King
Mystic River - Dennis Lehane

The Romantic - Barbara Gowdy
Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
The Loved and the Lost - Morley Callaghan
Success - Martin Amis
Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon

Prisoner of Trebekistan-Bob Harris
Lamb-Christopher Moore
You Shall Know Our Velocity-Dave Eggers
Wicked-Gregory Maguire
Timequake-Vonnegut (the only Vonnegut that fits the time limit, but also my favorite)

Wow. This is incredibly hard. In no particular order:

1.) His Dark Materials (easily the best fantasy out there)

2.)Brief Interviews With Hideous Men- David Foster Wallace (best collection of short stories, I've read)

3.) The Lies of Locke Lamora- Scott Lynch (action packed, though sensitve, I've never sympathized with a thief more than I did when I read this.)

4.) The Linnet Bird-( A girlier pick, put how can you resist a WELL WRITTEN story of a Victorian prostitute)

5.) Dress Your Family in Courdurory and Denim- david Sedaris. (So, its not fiction, but it reads like it.)

Sweet Jesus this is kind of hard... Aside from #1, these are in no particular order.

1. The Hours by Michael Cunningham. It's simply an astonishingly well-written novel that's infinitely profound.
2. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I'm not a rabid fan of the novel, but I did enjoy it quite a bit and I'm looking forward beyond words to see how Peter Jackson is going to pull off heaven in the film adaptation.
3. The View From Saturday by EL Konigsburg (I think that's her name). I'm sure no one else will put this and it's not even really in the realm of review because it's a children's book, but this is probably the most exquisite piece of fiction I've ever read. For some reason, it's just perfection in terms of character details and narrative drive.
4. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I think Franzen's a really great writer and while the novel is dauntingly dense, it's dense in a way that's interesting, not just dense for the sake of being dense. If that makes sense.
5. The only Margaret Atwood I've read that qualifies for the time period is The Robber Bride and while I thought the novel was good, it wasn't great. The Handmaid's Tale is brilliant, but falls outside the time frame. So just add a vote to whatever Atwood novel's in the lead after the tally. :-)

Love these comment diversions, guys!

Sorry... sorry! Take my Atwood vote away and give it Snow Crash. Now there's science fiction done right.

Eugenides's "Middlesex"
Franzen's "The Corrections"
Robinson's "Gilead"
Oates's "We Were the Mulvaneys" (made-for-television movie/Oprah status be damned - I'm a HUGE Oates fan and I think this is among her absolute best work)
Roth's "The Plot Against America" or "American Pastoral"

Honorable Mentions: Lamb's "She's Come Undone", Lent's "Lost Nation", Smith's "White Teeth",

"What's Eating Gilbert Grape" Peter Hedges
"The Lovely Bones" Alice Sebold
"The Cases That Haunt Us" John Douglas & Mark Olshaker
"An Underground Education" Richard Zacks
"A Density of Souls" Christopher Rice.
Almost every book in Mr. Stephen King's repertoire.

Lamb- Christopher Moore (I'm not bothering with the whole title...)
Curious Incident of the Dog In the Nighttime- Mark Haddon
Golden Compass (or the trilogy as a whole) - Philip Pullman
Wicked- Gregory Maguire
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett

Runner-up: The Little Prince- Antoine St. Exupery

Beloved- Toni Morrison
Brothers K- David James Duncan
Geek Love- Katherine Dunn
Immortality- Milan Kundera
Gospel- Wilton Barnhardt

5c (sorry)
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (read in one night)

Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Beloved - Toni Morrison

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey..We are talking fiction, right? Not because I particularly liked the book but let's talk about it for what it is.

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman

no order:

-- Birds of America: Lorrie Moore
-- Three Month Fever: Gary Indiana
-- From the Teeth of Angels: Jonathan Carroll
-- Guide: Dennis Cooper
-- Music for Torching: A.M. Homes

You've already drummed up enthusiam for Pajiba book reviews/discussions in this household folks! Please do. Last 15 years is tricky for me, being a Georgian (era not country) lit student but I think I can make it

1. On Beauty - Zadie Smith
2. Snobs - Julian Fellows
3. Morpho Eugenia - AS Byatt
4. Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Hadon

• Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
• Marooned in Realtime - Vernor Vinge
• After Dachau - Daniel Quinn
• His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
• Jennifer Government - Max Barry

Card, well, I know he's "the man" and whatnot, but I've only recently begun the Ender series, and frankly I'm enamored at the moment.

Vernor Vinge. Marooned in Realtime is the most compelling of his to me in its mix of hard sci-fi and a really great detective story. I like all his work, but this is the one I hand out. Also check out Rainbow's End.

Daniel Quinn. I read Ishmael. I liked it. It makes you think about things on a fundamental level most people aren't normally apt to do. After Dachau does exactly that again, with Quinn carrying a conceit to the furthest extent of consideration. Excellent reading.

I'm also on the Pullman train. These are fantastic books. I'm going to be very upset if they ruin this movie opportunity.

Max Barry. He's an interesting character, but this book is fantastic. A really interesting look at corporate culture taken to the extreme.

I have no idea how to decide what my favorite books of the last 15 years are. This list is five books I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on that I read recently enough to still be interested in discussing them.

This 15 year rule is rough. Let's see...

1. On Writing - Stephen King (he sounds so normal in his autobiography)
2. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water - Michael Dorris
3. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
4. The Nuclear Age - Tim O'Brien (he's amazing)

Ummm...I can't think of any other ones that I loved that were very recent. All time favorites:
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Gone With the Wind- Margaret Mitchell (Believe me when I tell you it's better than you might think)

Hmmmm... Only five? Okay.
"Others" - James Herbert.
"High Fidelity" - Nick Hornby
"The World According To Garp" - John Irving
"The First Casualty" - Ben Elton
"Still Life With Woodpecker" - Tom Robbins

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
Life After God - Douglas Coupland
The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
Heartbreak Tango (out of PRINT, BITCHES!) - Manuel Puig

Someone up there said something about memoirs...Pajiba leaders - maybe a separate comment diversion??

A Girl Named Zippy -- I liked, but not as much as Too Close to the Falls - Catherine ? or The Glass Castle - Jeanette Wall? or Running With Scissors - (or anything by Augusten Burroughs) or David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day....

I love it when you're laughing and nearly (!) weeping while reading and it's someone's actual life. Or one hopes so, anyway (thanks for the additional reason for cynicism JAMES FREY).

All I've read this year are books for uni, so this is actually a pleasure to think about books that I enjoy.

1. The Time Travellers Wife (Audrey Niffeneger)- never have I feared a film adaptation of a book so much.

2. My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)- Picoult's books are pretty formulaic but I bawled like a baby at this one.

3. The Handmaids tale (Margaret Atwood)- I looooved this book so much, pretty much everything she's done is great but this is the one that stuck with me.

4. His Dark Materials trilogy (Philip Pullman)-
As much as I'm looking forward to the next Potter book, Pullman's proposed addition to this series where Lyra is older (He talked about it on Richard and Judy!)is probably the book I'd rather read.

5.The lost art of keeping secrets (Eva Price)- a book where nothing much really happens but it's just delicious.

Honourable mentions must go to Watchmen, because I just read it, anything by Marian Keyes because I love her and A Room with a view because it's my favourite book ever.

in no particular order:

"The Red Tent"- Anita Diamant
"Remains of the Day"- Kazuo Ishiguro
"High Fidelity"- Hornby, obviously a must
"Interpreter of Maladies"- Jumpha Lahiri
"On Beauty"- Zadie Smith

Oh man, I tried to add mine without looking at everyone else's, and then I realized I left out Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America. Damnit!

In no particular order:

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
A Supposedly Funny Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

I realize I may have stretched the definition of "novel" on the last two, but I had to do it b/c I was precluded from including most (and the best) Vonnegut . . . There's only so much restriction a person can take.

Honorable mention to
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

In no particular order:

Atonement, Ian McEwan.
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood.
Everything is Illuminated, Jonthan Safran Foer.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon.
Martin Dressler, Steven Millhauser.

At least that's what IIIII think.

It seems like a few people are feeling some sort of literary guilt when it comes to the inclusion of anything that's been read by too many people. So, The Life of Pi happens to have a gold sticker on the front, announcing to the world that the author won the Booker Prize. It's not a badge of shame.

If it moves you, who cares whether it's a popular book? Shout it from the rooftops! Tell the world or, at the very least, Pajiba.

The only reason I haven't included the latest adventures from The Saddle Club is that, well, I couldn't choose between the deconstructionism of Horse Capades and the utterly poignant Saddlebags.

1. "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk
2. "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis
3. "Maus" by Art Spiegelman
4. "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
5. "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb

....I just realized one of my picks -was- non-fiction.

Brainfart.

But I'm thrilled to see that someone else loved 'Wolves of the Calla'. It was one of my favorite books in the Dark Tower series.

Gold stars for the book review idea, that would rock! But - ack, I can't even come close to picking...it was a lovely excuse to procrastinate on my thesis though, thanks!

In no particular order, a really geeky list:
* A song of Ice & Fire (series) - George R.R. Martin
* Perdido Street Station - China Mieville
* Anything by Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman that fits in this time period
* The Eyre Affair (series) - Jasper Fforde
* The Last Days of Summer - Steve Kluger

Now I just know I will kick myself for leaving something off. The rest I think you guys pretty well covered: High Fidelity, Life of Pi, Fluke, White Oleander, Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, Kavalier & Clay... love this diversion!

Good think I paid attention to the 15 years stipulation or I would have been flying my English major flag big time with a bunch of Modern Brit lit.

1. Written on the Body-Jeanette Winterson (Which may be older than 15 years, but who cares. It rocks.)
2. We Need to Talk About Kevin-Lionel Shriver
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell-Susanna Clarke
4. World War Z-Max Brooks (Good to see some other nods to Mr. Brooks so I don't feel like I total freak.)
5. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls (I couldn't put this memoir down. Running With Scissors is hysterical but Jeanette spins a more engaging tale of an f'ed up family.)

I also did love Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro... perhaps I'd replace Number 9 Dream... it's a tough one!

Philly-Pajiba book SWAP club I meant to say, though if you guys want to sit around in a bar or starbucks and talk about a book we've read I'm down with that too! Oh this is so cool.

Anne-Oh my GOD yes, The Princess Bride is such a fantastic book.

And I have to concur wuth all those who listed Vowell and Sedaris-I didn't add them since they're non-fiction, but definitely two of my favorite authors of all time. Assassination Vacation was like porn for me: a sarcastic history lesson. Tremendous.

Hee, Theresa, I just saw that you responded-I'd be down with meeting up if you guys wanted, I don't think any book club/swap is complete without alcohol or coffee :)

And I said I wouldn't post any more comments (I believe this is 5 or 6). Ha. You mention books, you may as well hand me speed.

Nothing new here:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon


The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini


Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides


The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon


An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

1. "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell
Did you know Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War? Neither did I.

2. "Nicholas and Alexandra" by Robert K. Massie
An outstanding account of the last Tsar of Russia.

3. "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain

4. "Naked Pictures of Famous People" by Jon Stewart
This book is hilarious, I think I read it in an afternoon last summer.

5. "the Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie
This is the book I would most likely see adapted to a film. It was deemed so controversial at the time of its publication that the Iranian government issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death. This novel deals with the complexities of being a Muslim in the modern world, and provided it was done correctly, would make a hell of a film, particularly the opening hijacking scene and the decent into surrealism.

Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson

Fear Itself, Walter Mosely

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith

The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

The Red Tent, Anita Diamont

WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks
HEY RUBE by Hunter S. Thompson
FIGHT CLUB by Chuck Palahniuk
...This is so pathetic. I love to read but I can't think of any goddamn books! I think perhaps I need to read something more modern.
Hmph.
HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams ...Does that fall in the time frame?
RING by Koji Suzuki. Haha. Honestly. I have nothing of worth to add to this list, apparently.

HMPH.
I vote 5 times for World War Z then.
That book gave me nightmares. I was so ready to kick zombie ass after his first offering (Zombie Survival Guide) but after reading WWZ I lost my fool mind. :(

How Like A God - Brenda W. Clough

Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky

No-No Boy - John Okada

American Gods - Neil Gaimon

Picnic, Lightning - Billy Collins

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman
The Tender Bar by JR Moehringer
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
A River Runs Through It by Norman MacLean

Man, Top Five lists are a bitch! And as I just finished reading and watching High Fidelity (yeah, again! and again!) I've been wandering about composing them in my head all the time now. Thank god you put in the ~15 years clause.
Anyway, I'm totally cheating here but:

Fiction:
1. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
2. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
3. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
4. Little Children - Tom Perrotta
5. The Walking Dead - Robert Kirkman et al (although obviously not finished)

Non Fiction
1. Letter To A Christian Nation - Sam Harris
2. Blood Must Bear Your Name - Sue Walker
3. Nickel And Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
4. Eats, Shoots And Leaves - Lynne Truss
5. Jarhead - Anthony Swofford

Except I know I'm gonna want to change this as soon as I hit post!

Ok fuck it, here goes.

Aaand, I'm back. Because as was just pointed out by friend, I always claim American Gods as one of the best novels ever written blah blah so I guess I have to knock out Little Children and replace it with my beloved Neil Gaiman.

Although looking over the list, I'm not pointing out anything new there.

So, Pajiba book club anyone? Do any of you live in New Orleans or nearby? Hell, I'd be up for keeping it cyber, even. I'm starved for something like this!

Yay!

1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
2. Ignorence (also by Kundera)
3. The Devil Tree by Jerzy Kosinski
4. Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger
5. A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess

Anything by Terry Pratchett or Ian Rankin for me. I have started reading the discworld series again from the start and those books still stand up as being absolutely hilarious and spot on in respect to the strange behaviours that we humans get up to.

1. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk (every and all Palahniuk novels also go here)
2. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
3. Blindness - Jose Saramago
4. Stiff - Mary Roach
5. White Oleander - Janet Fitch (this, along with Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell were two Oprah books I couldn't have agreed with more. They deserved their success, and I weep still for the terrible film version of Oleander)

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

1.) Blue Like Jazz - Don Miller
2.) Love is a Mixtape - Rob Sheffield
3.) About a Boy - Nick Horny
4.) Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
5.) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman

I dunno...I've got something for 90's memoir-type books I think

Before I list my top five I just have to say that a lot of extremely cool people read and post at this site. Seriously. Geek Love? I don't even know anyone else who's read that book! And The Secret History? Loved loved it. You're all so damn cool...

In no particular order...

Famous Last Words by Timothy Findley. Really, anything by Timothy Findley. When I see this book in second hand stores I just buy it because I lend it out so much I lose all my copies.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Glad to see so much love for those books here. Is everyone else scared/excited about the movies?

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I just read this and it was really, really good. Unbelievably well written and sad.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. One of those books you think is really funny until you get to then end and feel like you've been kicked in the gut.

Cloud Street or The Turning (I can't choose) by Tim Winton. If you like to read and you haven't read Tim Winton, check him out. He's a fantastic writer from Australia. Somehow manages to be both economical and descriptive. And sad. I like sad books.

Really, I could make this a top 25. I'm glad for the limitation of the last 15 years (although Famous Last Words probably shouldn't be here but I cannot leave it off).

Okay, gonna keep reading the comments for book buying suggestions.

Aiiii! King Dork! How could I forget?! The Boy Detective Fails is also INCREDIBLE. And Lionel Shriver's book. Also, I am so down with starting an SF chapter of the Pajiba book swap/meetin'. My bookstore as (almost) ideal meeting place (sadly, sans beer)?

p.s. Nimrod Flipout-Etgar Keret
Schrodinger's Ball-Adam Felber

I couldn't think of a fifth before, but now I've decided: The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx.


Highly Commended:
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold;
The Alchemist, Paul Coehlo;
The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory;
The Ordinary Princess, M. M. Kaye;
and Snow Falling on Cedars.

No order, and just random memorable reads from the past 15 years:
Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
Stardust - Neil Gaiman
Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
The Bear Comes Home - Rafi Zabor
Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman

Not sure they fall under the rules, but I second the mentions of The Dictionary of the Khazars and America: The Book.

American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephensen
Turn of the Century - Kurt Andersen
Hey Nostradamus - Douglas Coupland
Lady Oracle - Margaret Atwood

Great lists - can't wait to check out some the authors I haven't read yet. Thanks!

1. We Need to Talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver - couldnt sleep for days after this
2. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
3. The Curious incident of the dog in the nightime I think by Mark Hammond
4. The Iron Tree - Celia Dart Thornton my only fantasy inclusion from a great storyteller
5. Henry's Daughter - awesome but very australian book and a must read

1. The Last Summer of Reason, Tahar Djaout (beautiful, quietly menacing, a sad omen from an assassinated Algerian author).

2. Beloved, Toni Morrison (absolutely one of the greatest authors of our time...I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned her).

3. She's Come Undone/I Know This Much is True, Wally Lamb (Can't choose between the too, but with either one, he deserves accolades for exquisitely inhabiting an unknown voice).

4. Snow, Orhan Pamuk.

5. Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver.

Honorable mention goes to The Sheltering Sky, which is over 15 years old, and to Atonement, which I haven't finished, but whose first section was amazing. Also, poetry shout outs to Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson, and to Meadowlands, Louise Gluck. Both are superb!

p.s. Not to start a flame war, but I find it interesting that the books skew heavily toward male, American authors. (I've noticed this also from the Pajiba book reviews.) I'd be curious to know what motivations people have for picking authors to read and for how they evaluate a book.

ok, i definitely already posted but i found another book i love (so.....top six?). she's not been mentioned yet .... "the cure for death by lightning" by gail anderson-dargatz.

ooooooooh, so hard, plus it shows up my love of fanstasy books instead of literary genius. Well kind of, someone mentioned outlander, i feel its allowed now. So in no particular order

Kushiel Triology - Jaquline Carey
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
The book of lost things - John Connolly
The watch series - Sergei Lukyanenko
On Beauty -Zadie Smith

favorite book of all time goes jointly to Desiree by annemarie selinko and gormanghast trilogy by mervyn peake. I'm nicely fickle i'll think you'll find.

The Crimson Petal and the White - Michael Faber

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Saffran Foer

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

The Baroque Cycle trilogy - Neal Stephenson

All of these books I have read at least three times...including the Baroque Cycle which in total is something like 3,000 pages. Kavalier and Clay and Middlesex also fit that that description, but I wanted to put a few new things in...)

This was a tough one for me since I tend to prefer older novels (my B.A. is in Literature), but I'll do the best I can off the top of my head:

The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenberger
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

OK, those last two are kind of cheesy but I have a thing for both silly fantasies (the first) and vampire tales (the second) so I threw them in.

first time commenter, I couldn't resist this particular diversion. I've only recently completed a literature/history degree so lots of my stuff is too old or non-fiction, but here goes, in no particular order:

Geisha of Gion/Mineko Iwasaki - this is the memoir of the geisha that Arthur Golden interviewed to write the (painful) Memoirs of a Geisha. Her books is a beautifully written look at the intriguing flower and willow world of the geiko.

American Gods/Neil Gaiman

He Died With A Felafel In His Hand/John Birmingham - I think this might technically count as nonfiction, it's a very Australian account of the crazy world of sharehousing. Hilarious.

Temeraire (or His Majesty's Dragon)/Naomi Novik - first of a fantasy trilogy by up-and-coming writer Novik. Based around the concept of having dragons in service during the Napoleonic wars.

Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell/Susannah Clarke

The Ground Beneath Her Feet -- Salman Rushdie (or Haroun and the Sea of Stories, if you're willing to break the 15-year rule by just a little)

Winter's Tale -- Mark Helprin

Fortress of Solitude -- Lethem

Empire Falls -- Richard Russo

Possession -- A.S. Byatt

I know I'm late to the game on this one, but I had to go home and check my bookshelves, since I always forget what I've already read! They're not necessarily all my favorites, but they warrant discussion at the very least. I tried to list books that might not have already been mentioned, since some of my other faves are already on there. Here goes, in no particular order:

Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Naked by David Sedaris
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier (What??? It's a great fiction book. Go see the tapestry at the Musee de Cluny and you'll be inspired.)

1. English Patient

2. Election

3. Bridget Jones's Diary

4. The Alienist

5. Possessing the Secret of Joy

1. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
2. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
3. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
4. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
5. Salamander by Thomas Wharton

I just wanted to throw in my support for the book reviews. They've given me some good ideas for reading and introduced me to Micheal Chabon, and that in itself is a blessing.

Talk Talk, TC Boyle
Self-Made Man, Norah Vincent
The Brooklyn Follies, Paul Auster
Blindness, Jose Saramago
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Aprile: I completely forgot about If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and it was an amazing, wonderful book that made me wish my plane hadn't landed forcing me to close it before finishing in one read.

Caspar: You and I seem to be the only The Line of Beauty fans out there. We must spread the word.

okaaaaay!

Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Klay by M. Chabon

Middlesex by J. Eugenides

A Secret History by D. Tartt

The Little Friend by D. Tartt (I read this one first, and I was hooked. Donna can write her shy, dark, outcasted ass off.)

Lullaby by C. Palahniuk (I love his style, and also he signed this book: To Nexus 6, Break SOME bones." How can you NOT love that??)

1. The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga.

2. Meely Labauve, Junior's Leg, and Logan's Storm by Ken Wells (Trilogy). These are a real treat.

3. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

4. The Society of Others by Willam Nicholson.

5. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

The Secret History, Donna Tartt
His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
Beloved (I;m putting it in, 15 years rule be damned! though please don't delete my post for this insurrection!)
Even Cowgirls Gets The Blues-Tom Robbins-see above re 15 year rule!

Ooh! Ooh! I hope I'm not too late for this! This is my absolute favorite comment diversion. Rather than being annoying and making several lists, I'm just going to be annoying and make one that has more than 5 books:

Bel Canto-Ann Patchett
The Corrections-Jonathan Franzen
Songs in Ordinary Times - Mary McGarry Morris
Something Dangerous-Penny Vincenzi (but read No Angel first)
Enduring Love-Ian McKewen
A Prayer for Owen Meany-John Irving
Behind the Scenes at the Museum-Kate Atkinson
Fay-Larry Brown
The Crimson Petal and the White-Michael Faber
The Red Tent-Anita Diamante
The Way the Crow Flies-Ann Marie McDonald
Shelter From the Storm-Michael Mewshaw

'me talk pretty one day'-David Sedaris
'Wonder Boys'-Michael Chabon
'The Alienist'-Caleb Carr
'Still Life with Woodpecker'-Tom Robbins [there was a 2002 re-print-so it is in the last 15 years]
'Running with Scissors'-Augusten Burroughs

'Dis-honorable' mention: A Million Little Pieces-James Frey [before Oprah] [still works as fiction]

From this list one might surmise that I love drugs, gays, psychology, memoir, writers, and crazy. I could not read 'The Corrections' because the it reminded me too much of my own family and I had to stop.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Untouchable - John Banville
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
The Master - Colm Toibin

gee and SAS - Nick Hornby is bog ordinary. I don't know who will benefit from his books being reviewed? Will also have to read Middlesex again I guess...

I'm sorry, I'm an English teacher. I cannot completely abide by the 15 year thing, but I will try to keep it new-ish:

1. Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury (it's not sci-fi, btw)

2. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

3. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (1930s, sorry)

4. Howard's End, E.M. Forster (sorry, turn of the last century, but still pretty compelling)

5. anything by Kurt Vonnegut

I'm currently reading Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks, very new. I want to read The Thirteenth Tale and just finished The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (SO GOOD) and Speak (YA, but fanfreakingtastic).

I'm not a fan of Oprah's show or of the woman herself (not at all, in fact, I hate how much she interrupts everyone on her damn show!), but I am glad she does her book club, because I'm glad for ANYTHING that gets people reading who might not otherwise read, know what I mean? Anything that makes reading cool and hip, I'm down for. Because let's face it, it's the ultimate in hip. I can't live without my books.

My husband isn't much of a reader, but has discovered audio books and is making his way through the canon of classics. He came home the other day and said "Did you know Mark Twain is incredibly sarcastic?"

LOL. No, hon, I had no idea. He cracks me up.

Oh good Lord, only 5? This is why I have so many overstuffed bookshelves, people!

Perdido Street Station, China Mieville (all his novels are fabulous, but I read this one first and it left the most indelible mark on me)
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood (or The Handmaid's Tale, if we fudge the time limit a bit)
Absolutely anything by Ursula Le Guin, but Tehanu gets my vote for favorite novel ("Rocannon's World" for novella/novelette or whatever it's classified as, and "The Day Before The Revolution" for short story)
The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger (which I resisted reading for at least a year because everybody else was reading it and the hype was unreal; but when I finally cracked the spine, I was forced to admit the hype was more than justified)

Honorable mentions to Snow Crash (Neil Stephenson) and Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)

(Wow, apparently Pajiba doesn't like underline tags. That's what I get for not previewing my post. Sorry!)

Snow Crash- Neil Stephenson

The Brothers K- David James Duncan

Smilla's Sense of Snow- Peter Hoeg

The Blind Assasin- Margaret Atwood

Tie between His Dark Materiels - Phillip Pullman and Lamb- Christopher Moore

I finally figured out why I relate to Pajiba, ofen your reviews go way above my head with little clever refernces of things I am not savvy to, but so many of you have quite delightful taste in books. Lovely.

- Moonlight and Vines by Charles DeLint
- I Know You're Out There by Michael Beaumier (cheating. its a memoir, but it reads like a novel)
- Snow Crash by Neil Stephen (yes I know, outside of the time frame - but if your only reading one of his books it should be the best one.)
- Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers
- The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk

This was terribly difficult in eliminating old favorites and nonfiction. I think it would be fun if you - Pajiba - did a random guide - like the last three books read - to add an element of shame and embarressment to the guides. ( just kidding - anonymous shame of course). Admit the guilty reading pleasures.

by the way MC. I love the Kushiel books. The next one comes out next month - yes!

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
The Debt to Pleasure, John Lanchester
Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver
Midwives, Christopher Bohjalian

1) Atonement- Ian McEwan
2) The Song of the Dodo- David Quammen
3) The Wind Up Bird Chronical- Haruki Murakami (and anything else he's written)
4) The Corrections- Jonathon Franzen
5) I Know This Much is True- Wally Lamb

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle- Murakami
His Dark Materials- Pullman
The God of Small Things- Roy
Naked- Sedaris
And... The Unbearable Lightness of Being dammit! Screw the rules!

Aaaaannndd I can't believe I forgot: The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead and A Friend of the Earth by TC Boyle, who is THE GREATEST!

Fiction
How Soon Is Never? Marc Spitz
How to Be Good Nick Hornby (High Fidelity works as well
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Michael Chabon
L.A. Confidential James Ellroy
Stephen King's Dark Tower series (can't specify one, love the series as a whole)

Non-Fiction
Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota Chuck Klosterman
The Places In Between Rory Stewart
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Mary Roach (in the middle of this now - hilarious
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II Iris Chang
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (I know it isn't modern - sue me)

Props to:
Children of Men PD James
Bernard Cornwell' Sharpe series + Gallow's Thief
Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire Richard B. Frank

Sorry - just realized this should only be novels but I'm leaving the non-fiction in since I when throught trouble of looking up th info on Amazon and typing/pasting it. Plus book learnin' is good for ya

1. The Stranger (don't care how old, best book ever, imo)
2. Killing Rage, Ending Racism (bell hooks)
3. Dark Alliance: the CIA, the contras and the crack cocaine scandal
4. Wasted (marya hornbacher)

Don't know of anything else, haven't read too many recent books. love classics

so i know all of these books have been mentioned but just want to put in another vote for all of them.
1. Lamb by Christopher Moore
2. the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
3. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman (actually havent finished the trilogy but was sent it as a present and am reading book 2 now)
4. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
5. the Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Honorable Mention
the Road Taken by Rona Jaffe

Sorry, there isn't much modern that I like:

1. Three Men In A Boat (Not To Mention The Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome (i.e. The funniest novel in the English language).

2. Goedel, Escher and Bach by Douglas Hoffstader. Makes my brain hurt in a mathematical sort of way.

3. Le Bon Mot De Morreau by Douglas Hoffstader. Makes my brain hurt in a linguistic sort of way.

4. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

5. Stardust by Neil Gaiman, but only the illustrated version, because this story needs pictures or it's only 2 pages long.

I'll go with...

1. About A Boy (Hornby)
2. The Corrections (Franzen)
3. The Road (McCarthy)
4. Me Talk Pretty One Day (Sedaris)
4. Empire Falls (Russo)

Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
About a Boy, Nick Hornby
How Late It Was, How Late, James Kelman
My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult
I'm a lit major, so I always like something a little less... Literary to read over break. But Picoult's are legitimately good, and this one was great.
I also figured that I'd only go with one book from each of these authors, though I would go for others from each of them.

Samantha, I'm right there with you on "A Girl Named Zippy" and check out the sequel "She Got Up Off the Couch." It completes her story. I love me some Haven Kimmel! It's first on my list...

1) A Girl Named Zippy - Haven Kimmel
2) The Little Friend - Donna Tarte
3) A Dirty Job - Chris Moore
4) Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
5) Seventh Heaven - Alice Hoffman

Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Join Me! - Danny Wallace
Pretty Birds - Simon Scott
About a Boy - Nick Hornby

God, this one was painful.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, M. Pessl
The Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories, S. Clarke
Stranger Things Happen, K. Link
The Astonishing Live of Octavian Nothing, M.T. Anderson
The Book of Lost Thinks, John Connolly

1. A Prayer for Owen Meany - Irving
2. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
3. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - Neal Stephenson

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

While The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was amazing, it didn't stick with me the way my list did. Also, Geek Love would absolutely be on my list, except it falls outside the 15-year parameter. Not that most Pajibans seem to care about the rules - I tried to play by this particular set only because most of the fiction I read is from the 19th century.

Dry by Augusten Burroughs
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
A History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Read the comments. Impressive. Goood to see people passionate about books and reading. 3 things:
1. Don't apologize for your selection - you're reading, which is sadly more than most (altough apologizing for not following the rules - which I'm guilty of - is allowed).
2. I copied 6 books from this lsit to look up @ Amazon
3. Where are the choices of our other Pajibans What books does the Orangutan like?

1. We need to talk about Kevin- Lionel Shriver
- Well written and heart breaking although you'll need a dictionary by your side. She's all for big words.

2. Destinations- Sheila O'Flanigan.
- My favorite Irish author by far.

3. Conversations with the fat girl- Liza Palmer
- It was just hilarious and heart- meltingly breaking.

4. Perfect- Judith McNaught
- Yes I'm a great romantic at heart.

5. The Shopaholic series.- Sophie Kinsella.
- To me she just rocks in chick flicks from Can you keep a Secret to Domestic Goddess. She's ace.

If Chins Could Kill - Bruce Campbell

A Feast of Snakes - Harry Crews (might go back a little further than 15 years, but oh well)

Fay - Larry Brown (had a really hard time deciding on one LB novel - guess this will suffice)

The Caddie Was a Reindeer - Steve Rushin

King Dork - Frank Portman

Alphabetically:

The Lone Ranger & Tonto Fistfight in Heaven - Sherman Alexie
Aphrodite - Isabel Allende
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
Jazz - Toni Morrison
Art & Lies - Jeannette Winterson

God this is hard...

1. "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski
2. "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet
3. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon
4. "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
5. "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin

1) David's Story, Zoë Wicomb
2) The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
3) The Book of Daniel, E.L. Doctorow
4) White Teeth, Zadie Smith
5) The Pickup, Nadine Gordimer

1. Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams(b/c really, if you don't know Hitchhikers Guide already, you can blow)

2. Something from the Nightside, Simon R Green

3. Good Omens, Pratchett and Gaiman

4. American Skin, Don De Grazia

5. Fallen Angels, Larry Niven(with Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn)

Dangit... Now I'm wanting to change my Larry Brown pick from "Fay" to "Dirty Work."

Ouch, it's so hard to narrow it down. The top three were easy, but beyond that the pool gets much wider.

1. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - way better than the sadsack movie, it's heartbreaking but funny, too.

2. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon - for an aspiring novelist, what could be better than reading about a dude with the opposite of writer's block?

3. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer - funny, moving ... hell I just love it and the movie's okay too.

4. Wicked by Gregory Maguire - has it's problems, but I am now in love with the Wicked Witch of the West and it's all his fault.

5. Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim by David Sedaris - I laughed out loud all the way on a car trip, annoying my fellow passengers

1.) Running With Scissors -Augusten Burroughs
2.) The Corrections -Jonathan Franzen
3.) The Known World -Edward P. Jones
4.) Tropic of Orange -Karen Tei Yamashita
5.) In the Lake of the Woods- Tim O'Brien

It seems to me that the sci fi and fantasy genres are grossly under represented here, so here is my tribute to that much-maligned and disregarded area of literature. For the record, I do like traditional literature, even if it is mostly older stuff, but I think sci fi and fantasy can give you the same insights and emotional punches that you get from traditional literature without the pretentiousness that often infects authors in that genre. I also like that with sci fi and fantasy you can often read entire series of good books by the same author. This is convenient for those of us who don't have a lot of people in their lives who can recognize and recommend good authors.

That being said, I have decided to post the best sci fi and fantasy authors and series I could think of on short notice which are, in no particular order:

1. Sean Russell's Initiate Brother. I can't believe nobody else has mentioned it.

2. Orson Scott Card's Ender series--both of them. Read the shadow books if you like international politics, and read speaker for the dead, etc. if you want a more philosophical read. Seriously, Card is one of the most brilliant writers I've ever seen.

3. Terry Pratchett's Discworld. They are all good, but I particularly love anything with Vimes or Esme Weatherwax.

4. Greg Bear-Science fiction so well done it sounds like real science. Of course, he is a scientist, so I guess that makes sense.

5. Madeleine L'Engle-I love everything I've ever read of hers, even the religious stuff and I am not remotely religious. Fantasy, but with the most excruciatingly real characters I've ever read.

Honorable mentions: Dianna Gabaldon, Melanie Rawn, Mercedes Lackey, Natsuki Takaya (writes shojo manga, I know, but I don't care).

I have added several of the books and authors mentioned in other posts to my Books To Read list. Can't wait to try them.

Alias Grace-Margaret Atwood
Prodigal Summer- Barbara Kingsolver
The Red Tent- Anita Diamont
A Fine Balance- Rohinton Mistry
Family Matters- Rohinton Mistry

Don't know if anyone will read the last post on such a long thread, but I was pleased to see all the Atwood fans!!!!

Yay Fruba!

Beyond that, I, like many other commenters here, have realized that I have read very few novels written in the last 15 years, and none that I would consider my favorites. I read predominantly nonfiction art, history and art history stuff, and manga of both the shoujo and shounen variety.

Of the top of my head, I would say that The Alienist intrigued the historian me, Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard is laugh out loud funny, and Trinity Blood: Rage Against the Moon Vol. 1 by Sunao Yoshida is nicely disturbing.

The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
World War Z, Max Brooks
As She Climbed Across the Table, Jonathan Lethem
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, Louis de Bernieres
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

1. The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen)
2. The Way the Crow Flies (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
3. The Bride Stripped Bare (Anonymous)
4. Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson)
5. It's a total toss-up between Eats Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss) and Time's Arrow (Martin Amis)...argh! I don't know!

In no particular order:

1. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
3. His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman
4. Holes - Louis Sachar
5. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

Yes, I know that 3. and 4. are technically children's books, although most adults I know have read the His Dark Materials trilogy and Holes is just an incredibly well-written book.

Here's my list. Sorry they're all men, Connie Willis just missed the top 5.



1. Quarantine - Greg Egan

2. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

3. Kiln People - David Brin

4. Pattern Recognition - William Gibson

5. Stamping Butterflies - Jon Courtney Grimwood

Okay, okay, so I'm late in joining in. Frankly, I wasn't going to bother, but I noticed no one mentioned Vollmann or Saunders, and that simply had to be corrected. How can this be?

The Royal Family, by William T. Vollmann
Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom, and Urgent Means, by William T. Vollman (nonfiction, but written as narrative)
The History of Love: A Novel, by Nicole Krauss
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, by George Saunders (short stories)
Aaaaand ... one that pushes the 15-year mark: The Birthday Boys, by Beryl Bainbridge, one of my favorite writers, and a ridiculously underappreciated one at that.

Lovely topic. I didn't really bother to figure out if all of these are within the 15-year cutoff, but they are... contemporary-ish. And so, in a very particular order:

1. Parable of the Sower -- Octavia Butler
2. The Bean Trees -- Barbara Kingsolver
3. Tender at the Bone -- Ruth Reichl
4. Ella Minnow Pea -- Mark Dunn
5. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler -- Italo Calvino

If any of these are hopelessly out of date, I might substitute some guilty very pleasurables (excluded from the above list for various offenses), again in this order:

1. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil -- John Berendt (made into a terrible movie)
2. Outlander -- Diana Gabaldon (basically a romance novel for history nerds)
3. Special Topics in Calamity Physics -- Marisha Pessl (drags a bit and features the most unlikely plot twist to grace my bookshelf)
4. I'm a Stranger Here Myself -- Bill Bryson (Not a novel, but hi-lar-ious!)

Oi, I am not quite as literate as I thought I was. But, fwiw, here goes, in no particular order :



1. The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe (technically 4 books, but one story. Also, anything else Wolfe wrote)



2. Vurt - Jeff Noon (Also, anything else Noon wrote)



3. microserfs - Douglas Coupland (Also, pretty much anything else Coupland wrote)



4. Ilium/Olympos - Dan Simmons (Again, yeah, two books, but they're not independent really)



5. The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson (Also, ah, yeah, you know what I'm gonna say.)

Honorable mentions to the Tales of the Otori series by Lian Hearn, Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, damn near all of David Brin, John Scalzi, Sean McMullen and Guy Gavriel Kay.

1. American Gods- Neil Gaiman
2. Holy Fools- Joanne Harris
3. Discworld series- Terry Pratchett
4. Dark Tower series- Stephen King
5. Black House- Stephen King & Peter Straub

I don't know if these meet the '15 year rule', but they're more recent that most of the other things I read:

Oscar and Lucinda
House of Sand and Fog
Possession
Alias Grace
The Constant Gardner
Me Talk Pretty One Day (which is either fiction or biographical, but hilarious either way)

1. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
2. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
3. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
4. If Nobody Speak of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor
5. The girl most likely - Rebecca Sparrow

Like others, I have to buck your rules. It's more important to me to list the books that changed my reading tastes in the last fifteen years. However, most were published during that period, so I'm not too much of a rebel.

T.C. Boyle--America's best novelist, IMHO--The Road to Wellville

Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

Caleb Carr, The Alienist

Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

Blargh. Sorry.

1. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
2. The amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Miceal Chabon
3. The English Patient - Micheal Ondaatje
4. The Accidental - Ali Smith
5. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
6. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides (since Joseph Heller is disqualified as it was published more than 15 years ago, i allowed myself a 6th choice. )

Huzzah to Pajiba for their desire to (hopefully) add book reviews to the site! A victory for bibliophiles everywhere!! So in no particular order...
Snow Falling On Cedars- D.Gutterson
Cold Mountain-C.Frazier
Angels&Demons-D.Brown
Bee Season-M.Goldberg
And...Sandra Gulland who wrote an excellent trilogy about the life of Josephine Bonaparte.
Also...since summer is around the corner I feel the need to add some awesomely bad books that are great beach reads. Anything by Candace Bushnell (yeah yeah..the Sex in the City lady) her books are pretty much the tabloids of the literary world. Jemima J. by Jane Green, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg, Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns, Wait 'Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin (definitely for baseball lovers!) oh...and Jen Lancaster has two very hilarious memoirs out. Happy reading friends!!

1. "Nervous Conditions" by Tsitsi Dangarembga
2. "Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow" by Faiza Guene
3. "What Was Asked of Us" essays by US military, edited by Trisha Wood
4. "Lucy" by Jamaica Kincaid
5. "Dude, Where's My Country?" by Michael Moore

Off the top of my head, without checking my bookshelf.

Fiction:
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
The Time-Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde (plus 3 Thursday Next sequels, fifth book in the series comes out in July, you have time to catch up)
The Dark Tower Series - Stephen King (1st book published in the early '80s, but 7th and last book published in 2005. He completed the series, I can die happy now! Seriously, read these)

Nonfiction:
Assassination Vacation - Sarah Vowell
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
Naked - David Sedaris
Areas of My Expertise - John Hodgman
Sweet 'N Low: A Family Story - Rich Cohen

one more post (bc i forgot some goodies)

1. Persepolis- a graphic novel about the Iranian Revolution, seen through the eyes of a 13 year old girl (Marjane Satrapi- the author). this is an amazing novel its been compared to Spiegleman's Maus

2. Robber Bride- Margaret Atwood
3. 1984 Orwell
4. The Handmaids Tale- Margaret Atwood

hard once you start thinking about it...
(in no order)
*assaination vacation - sarah vowell
*virgin suicides - jeffrey eugenides
*his dark materials (the whole series) - phillip pullman
*underworld - neil gaiman
*bridget jones diary - helen fielding

and since everyone else is doing it - ignoring the 15 year rule - #1 favorite book of all time: to kill a mockingbird/ harper lee.

Lamb by Christopher Moore
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold

Intuition - Allegra Goodman

This is one of the most interesting books I have ever read, and one of the few realistic books about scientists that I have even heard of. The underlying themes of bias, humanity, and self-deception are applicable to everyone, and placing the story in a laboratory just puts that in the spotlight.

Cruddy - Lynda Barry

This book is hands-down amazing. It's almost a young adult book, but I can think of very few books for young adults where the main character drops acid and kills people.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer.

Already been discussed.

Plus, two non-fiction books I love, because I don't actually read fiction that much:

This is Your Brain on Music - Daniel Levitin


Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo - Sean Carroll

Rudy -
I wouldn't imagine that Bless Me Ultima is that difficult to find. It's required reading in a lot of high schools.

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
2. Abarat by Clive Barker
3. The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
4. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
5. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Oh, I forgot one book, and since I only had four books on my list, I'm gonna add this one, even though it's maybe fiction or maybe not fiction, and it isn't really a novel.

America: The Book - Jon Stewart

Holy heck this was a good read. Just... so good.

1. Snow - Orhan Pamuk
2. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
3. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
4. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
5. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

the catcher in the rye- j.d. salinger

breakfast of champions- kurt vonnegut

the metamorphosis- franz kafka

lolita- vladimir nobakov

on the road- jack kerouac

Douglas Coupland- All Families Are Psychotic
Jeffrey Eugenides- The Virgin Suicides
Nick Hornby- High Fidelity
Augusten Burrows- Magical Thinking
Wally Lamb- She's Come Undone

And ones not published within the past 15 years, but still worth a mention:
Jane Austen- Pride and Prejudice
JD Salinger- Catcher in the Rye
John Irving- A Prayer for Owen Meany
Ken Kesey- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Since Middlesex has been mentioned a hundred times already, ima just leave that out and post my 2nd favourite Eugenides book:

1. The Shipping News by Proulx (great movie, too)
2. Balzac and the little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie
3. Djamilia (or however that is spelled) by Aitmatov
4. The Virgin Suicides by Eugenides
5. Kafka on the Shore by Murakami

Numbers 2 and 3 are short novels, since i consider wrinting a really good short book is way more difficult than writing a long monumental piece. Id love you to review them!

Okay, trying to limit this list to the last 15ish years is nearly impossible, but I'll try.

1. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
2. White Oleander, Janet Fitch
3. The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
4. A Secret Word, Jennifer Paddock
5. I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe

Also, it's not fiction, but I'd like to give a special shout-out to DRY, by Augusten Burroughs.

And for the record: As much as I love all these books, none of them is THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, the greatest book of all time.

Great comment diversion. I've been waiting for this category!

I'm coming in late, so I'm just putting my top five faves, and I'll keep them within a century.

1) Waterland, Graham Swift

2) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers

3) The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

4) A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

5) A Separate Peace, John Knowles

Oh my God, Waterland! An awesome book. I can't believe I forgot it, although I think it's older than 15 years. So well-structured, great story, beautifully written.

The Kite Runner- Hosseini
Middlesex- Eugenides
Life of Pi- Martel
I Am Charlotte Simmons- Wolfe
A Short History of Nearly Everything- Bryson

this is very difficult because all my favorite books were written well over 15 years ago. but I do love books, so here goes nothing.

1. high fidelity by nick hornby.
2. the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky.
3. teacher man by frank mccourt. (I just finished reading this yesterday. but I really dug it.)
4. survivor by chuck palahniuk. (by far, his best.)
5. i am charlotte simmons by tom wolfe.

jesus that was hard.

oh fuck, i love the book reviews. they may not get as many comments because well, books are a lot harder to make fun of than say, jessica simpson.

1. King Dork - Frank Portman. I liked it so much, I did a huge, glowing review of it for a composition class - really fucking good, especially if you've read /I>Catcher in the Rye
2. Anything by Douglas Coupland. Even his less-good ones are still pretty decent.
3. Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. Well within the fifteen year mark AND still amazing.
4. Shopgirl - Steve Martin. It has some flaws but that's part of why I love it.
5. On Beauty - Zadie Smith. Sprawling, yet still coherent.

This is tough since most of what I read is terribly old.
1. Apex Hides the Hurt - Colson Whitehead's latest
2. Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichel
Technically non-fic memoir, but one heck of a story.
3. Holes - Louis Sachar
4. A Season in Purgatory - Dominick Dunne
5. America: the Book - Jon Stewart Is it bad that I want to reference this in every history course I take?

They lived in the wrong half of the 20th century, but I must give a shout out to my all time favorites Evelyn Waugh and Flannery O'Connor

There's nothing Evelyn Waugh loved more in this life than a shout out from the Pajiba Massive. I'm dying to know - what was the right half of the 20th century? Seriously, am not taking the piss, please tell me.

Wicked
Eat Pray Love
Atonement
Anything by David Sedaris, though I guess he's not really a novelist
Confessions of a Wicked Stepsister (Yes, I love me some McGuire)
On Beauty
The Kite Runner

And I apprently need to read this High Fidelity! Oh and I hated hated hated The Lovely Bones. She had me until [SPOILER] the protagonist returned to earth to eff that kid she'd had a crush on who was now like 19. At that point, I finished the book because I'm not a quitter but I hated the rest of it.

In no order, and recent:

The Distant Land of My Father - Bo Caldwell
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

If ignoring the 15-yr limit, I would have to add One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

1. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
2. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
If we can do collections of short stories:
5. Skin by Roald Dahl (he is the master!)

A week late but better than never. I'm trying to list stuff I don't see listed, since it looks like High Fidelity and Alias Grace may as well join Harry Potter.

1. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
2. This Much I Know Is True, Wally Lamb
3. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
4. Fall on Your Knees, Ann-Marie MacDonald
5. The Giant's House, Elizabeth McCracken

I left this off of my list, because it won't count as a favorite. I read CM's The Road last week in one day. It is one of the most fantastic books I have ever read. It is awe-inspiring and it is wrenching. I could never read it again, but I will be haunted forever.

If I could recommend two books to be discussed in detail on the site, it would be Eggers' AHWOSG and Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. Honorable mention goes to Bel Canto.

Martin & John by Dale Peck
The House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The Safety of Objects by A.M. Homes

Oh this hard - I spent my teenage years rooted firmly in the classics. But here goes:

1) "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson.

2) "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman.

3) "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang.

4) "Daughter of Fortune" by Isabel Allende.

5) "Angels in America" by Tony Kushner (I know, it isn't a novel, but I've read both plays dozens of times, and it was reading them for the first time that convinced me I wanted to be a playwright.)

I'd also like to throw some love at Seamus Heaney's translation of "Beowulf," and MG Vasanji's "The In-between Life of Vikram Lall" which I thought were wonderful. And ignoring the fifteen year rule:

1) Jane Austen, "Persuasion."

2) Leo Pushkin, "Eugene Onegin"

3) James Joyce, "Dubliners"

4) Flann O'Brien, "The Third Policeman"

5) Chinua Achebe, "Things Fall Apart"

6) Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera."

7) Toni Morrison, "Beloved"

1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer (I CAN'T BELIEVE no one has mentioned this one!!!!!)

2. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell

3. One Hundred Year's of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

5. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

In no particular order:

1. Lamb - Christopher Moore
2. Sewer, Gas and Electric - Matt Ruff
3. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
4. Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
5. Skinny Legs and All - Tom Robbins (although I'll always hold a special place in my heart for Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, the first TR book I ever read)

1) Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
2) The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
3) Good Omens - glad to see this is getting so much love, brilliant book.
4) 48 Shades of Brown - Nick Earls
5) The Complete Polysyllabic Spree - Nick Hornby. Not strictly a novel, but brilliant writing and has introduced me to so many great books, so I'm giving it the nod.

His Dark Materials just missed out, but I'm sure they've got enough votes already. The Fools Fate trilogy by Robin Hobb is just as good.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Love & Friendship by Alison Lurie (older than 15 yrs but just suck it)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Honorable mentions:
Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
Wicked, etc by Gregory Maguire
Disobedience by Jane Hamilton
Fall on Your Knees by Anne-MArie McDonald

Can't wait to read The Time Traveler's Wife and Zadie Smith's On Beauty.

Late, as ever, to the party:

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Atonement - Ian McEwan
the entire Jasper Fforde and Dougals Adams oeuvre

1. Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
2. Secrets of a Fire King - Kim Edwards
3. Jenny and the Jaws of Life - Jillet Wincy
4. Coin Locker Babies - Ryu Murakami
5. Out : A Novel - Natsuo Kirino

In no particular order:
1. High Fidelity- Nick Hornby
2. The Kitchen God's Wife- Amy Tan
3. In Her Shoes- Jennifer Weiner
4. Naked- David Sedaris
5. Peace Like A River- Leif Enger
(and this is not a novel, but I love it sooo much: The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother- James McBride)

1. About a boy by Nick Hornby
2. Katzenjammer by Jackson McCrae
3. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
4. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
5. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Margaret Atwood's novels Oryx & Crake, and The Blind Assassin.

John Irving's book A Prayer for Owen Meaney.

Not quite sure how old these are but I was on an Alice Hoffman kick for a while and the books of hers that stand out for me (so far, not having read every book she wrote) include: Blue Diary, Illumination Night, Practical Magic, Property Of, and The River King. Illumination Night is probably the most literary, Blue Diary the most haunting, Property Of the most clever, The River King the most atmospheric, and Practical Magic the most fun.

Also somewhat old news: The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan.

My attention span tends to be short and if a book doesn't resonate emotionally right away I will not read far.