> > What would you say are the best fiction books ever written?
>
> I wouldn't presume to make a list of the *best*, but I can tell you some of my favourites. My definition of that is any book that I can happily read six million times, year after year, even when I just about know it all by heart, and STILL want to read it again. Some of them I can read numerous times a year, others need to settle in and be semi-forgotten before I come back to them like old friends. These aren't in any particular order.
>
> The Lord of the Rings
> Treasure Island
> King Solomon's Mines
> Kidnapped
> Any of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple or Poirot stories
> Shogun (James Clavell)
> Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)
> Herodotus's "History" (all right, all right, he didn't intend it as fiction, but it is one awesomely entertaining read)
> The Guns of Navarone (Alistair Maclean)
> The Golden Rendezvous (Alistair Maclean)
> Moby Dick (I'm probably the only person in the *world* who reads *that* for pleasure)
> My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell)
> Hmm, most of Gerald Durrell's other books, too
> The Ladies of Mandrigyn (a heroic fantasy thing whose author I can't remember)
> Innumerable books by Terry Pratchett
> Les Miserables
> The Wind in the Willows
> The first Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogy
> Le Morte D'Arthur (Malory)
> The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
> Beowulf
> Njal's Saga (not quite sure if that qualifies as fiction, but what the heck)
> Huckleberry Finn
> Under the Mountain (a children's book by NZ author Maurice Gee)
> The Odyssey
>
> I think I'd better stop there or I'll end up with a list longer than the Adventures With Dave story. Besides, I know as soon as I hit "post" I'll think of another 20 books that should have been right at the top of the list.
>
> Brunnen-"does this reveal anything about my personality?"G

I just recently finished reading Moby-Dick for the first time. I was nervous to start a book which sets most people groaning and moaning at the thought of reading. I loved it. I can't wait to start it again. There is so much in that book. Granted, I'm a literature geek, but this book seemed to encompass almost every form of written expression I can think of. Mostly written in prose, it also had some peotry, and even a few chapters which seemed dramatically written, like a play. Also, there are so many levels of meaning. I tried, on the first run through, to read it mainly for its plot and more blatant literary symbolism etc.. But as a commentary on the history of American whaling, or as a Biblical story, or as almost anything you want it to be, this book can be read and enjoyed. After finishing it, I couldn't quite grasp why it is so hated (feared?) by the majority.

Gr"all these things are not without their meanings"ace