[quote=@POOHEAD189][list]
[*]1. What is the book you recommend to about everyone?
[*]2. What are your top 5 favorite books you've read? 
[*]3. Top 5 authors? 
[*]4. Worst book you've ever read?
[*]5. What book seemed really popular but you didn’t like?
[*]6. What five books have you always wanted to read but haven’t got round to?  
[/list]
[/quote]

1. [s]The Bible, Quran, etc.[/s] -- okay. OKAY! Gosh. But remember that serious literature (and bland every-day society) all over the world and from all time, basically, references what's in these books. So even if the religions aren't interesting (though I recommend at least SOME of the religion, personally), academically speaking everyone should read religious texts. 

Let's rewind, that sucked.

1. Everybody should read War and Peace. It's stupidly long which makes it impressive (you can totally show off!); it's educational (how much do you know about the Napoleanic wars? NOT ENOUGH!), and to my shock and amazement the prose is friggin' great. Since it's translated from Russian, the translator matters -- I've tried a couple of different versions and the one I like best (by far) is [url=https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/war-and-peace-pevear-volokhonsky-translation-leo-tolstoy/1106029184/2691305241366?st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Core+Catch-All,+Low_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP79700&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2KHWBRC2ARIsAJD_r3fnseTbN7eaJdi4HYqT0g7ynXCRFUuhSyuXVkm6hTL3jWBA3ML_mD4aAu70EALw_wcB]This one.[/url] Paperback recommended because footnotes/endnotes are actually worth flipping to and keeping track of. I am dog-earing the hell out of my copy and loving it.

2. Cormac McCarthy is life-changing and I could fill all five slots, but let's not -- simplify his contribution down to one choice, which I guess would be [b]Blood Meridian.[/b] Then in no particular order, [b]the Nikki Heat series by Richard Castle[/b] (fluff police drama, fantastic books-on-tape for car rides); [b]the Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut[/b] (he's sorta getting the McCarthy treatment here, I could fill the list again); [b]The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky[/b]; and probably [b]The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson[/b] (but not necessarily any of the rest of the series, it kinda jumped several sharks).

3. I'm just gonna put McCarthy and Vonnegut here, the only two authors who I've ever been like "Know what? I'm gonna go buy their entire library and read it all." Did not finish with Vonnegut, but he's great.... McCarthy though. Jebus. [i]VERY[/i] challenging reading, like, have a dictionary standing by, he'll make you feel like you don't speak English and you don't know what humanity even is and you need some kind of existential hot chocolate and blanket. Christ he's good.

....let's get some more fun authors in here though. Lee Child writes a very enjoyable Thing; aforementioned fictional author Richard Castle writes a likewise enjoyable Thing; Michael Chrichton does a Good Thing in a very enjoyable way. Kurt Vonnegut probably belongs closer to this list, but he's got points to make too, so I'll leave him up top with Cormac.

4. Worst book, I mean, I got the cheat code because a friend picked up the second "Eragon" book on CD for a long drive once and we sat through all of it. 

5. HATER OLYMPICS! I don't know what everyone likes about Ted Chiang. He starts with a premise and then doesn't go anywhere or say anything other than "Wasn't my premise clever though?"

6. Still working War and Peace. I "Got serious about it" like three years ago and I'm still pretending to be serious. More than halfway through though. Uh.... Tom Clancy's "Rainbow Six" is a weird one. Every time I start reading it, something terrible happens and I don't finish. Started with just losing it; then someone crashed my car and I got distracted; then my whole campsite got stolen, along with the book; then I lost a leg. I'm, uh.... I'm probably not gonna try to find out what the next escalation is, Rainbow Six might just stay on the shelf forever now.