SCL

stargirl – jerry spinelli (i come away different every time i read it)
redeeming love – francine rivers
the truth about forever – sarah dessen

Same Kind of Different as Me – Hall and Moore
The Count of Monte Cristo – Dumas
King Lear – Shakespeare
God Came Near – Lucado
Into the Deep – Rogers
The Hiding Place – ten Boom
A Tale of Two Cities – Dickens
The Great Bridge – McCullough

Christ Commission by Og Mandino. A fictional, merciless interrogation of everyone associated with the life and death of Jesus.

The Walk by Michael Card. Regarding his relationship with his pastor, Bill Lane.

Traveling Mercies, by Ann Lamott – For the most candid, poetic writing I have ever read, and the most beautiful conversion story.
The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran – For making all parts of life – the grand, fun, beautiful, messy, broken, hard – sound like something I want to be a part of.
Jesus for President, by Shane Claiborne – For giving me a third way to live.

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

I've read many books since this one, but this book started my journey into literature and religious thinking.

I also like:
Raymond Carver (short stories)
Anton Chekhov (short stories)
Ethan Canin (short stories)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera

Dune by Frank Herbert…I've read it 20+ times. Amazing.

I didn't take my time to sift through all the posts but I haven't seen to many books I haven't read. I have other best books, but if I were to be stranded with only one non Bible book, it would have to come from this list.

Paradise Lost…John Milton
The Wheel of Time series by the late Robert Jordan (particularly the fourth book The Shadow Rising)
The Sword of truth series… Terry Goodkind (Wizard's First Rule the best)
The Great Divorce… C.S. Lewis (favorite all his books)
The Confessions… St. Augustine
Faerie Queene…Edmund Spencer (particularly book a.k.a chapter 4)
Elantris…Brandon Sanderson

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers

The first 2 books that come to mind RIGHT NOW are…

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. Changed the way I view God's love, redemption, sacrifice…

Miss Invisible by Laura Jensen Walker. Yes, it's "chick-lit," but it's about a girl who's overweight and the way she deals with it. She thinks the way I think. She made me feel not so alone.

In no particular order…

Se Una Notte d'Ivnero Un Viaggiatore (If One Winter's Night a Traveller) – Italo Calvino
Mere Xianity – CS Lewis
The Football Factory – John King (NOTHING like the film!)
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
Inferno – Dante Alighieri (yes it's a poem, but still…)
Cryptonomicon – Neil Stephenson
The Dark Heart of Italy – Tobias Jones
Ruthless Trust – Brennan Manning
The Road To Serfdom – Hayek
LOTR The Two Towers – Tolkien

So many good books have already been mentioned, but I just wanted to make special note of The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Timothy Keller (http://www.qualitychristianmarket.com/shop.php?c=...

The book is a new and interesting perspective on the famous parable. The book is pretty short, but definitely not on wisdom.

I LOVE novels…I've read about 100 books in the last 2 years and here a two series of novels that really kept my attention.

1. Erynn Mangum's "Miss Match", "Re Match", and "Match Point" – These are very good "young, single, Christian female books. They are hilarious and are told from the point of view of a single gal in a small group that over the years, as friends got married, turned into a young marrieds group.

2. Steven James's "The Pawn", "The Rook", and "The Knight" with 3 more books to come, I believe. They are INCREDIBLE murder mysteries told from the point of view of a VERY SMART FBI agent. Kind of gruesome, but very intelligent mysteries with endings that surprised even me!

And of course, there are the forever greats of "Redeeming Love" – Francine Rivers and "The Shack" – William P. Young. I have read both twice and will definitely be reading them again in the next couple of years.

On one hand, I play the Trump Card. It was written by C.S. Lewis. On the other hand, it was the Space Trilogy. Snobbish and obscure, right there. I think that earns me a special place in heaven.

You have to check out BORDERS!! I just love their section. The book I'm currently reading is Forgotten God by Francis Chan. I'm also to get Counterfit Gods by Tim Keller Check it out!!

Mark of the Lion Series – francine Rivers
Redeming Love – Francine Rivers
Prodigal God – Tim Keller
The Shack

1) The Weight of Glory (C.S. Lewis)
2) Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)

Wait, is there where we all say "Stuff Christians Like"??

My list might include…
Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk
279 Days to Overnight Success by Chris Guillebeau
Practice the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson

Ted Dekker–anything!!! But "The Circle Series" is by far my favorite set of books ever.
"Emma" and "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen (I think I was born in the wrong era)
"The Mark of the Lion" Series by Francine Rivers
"Anne of Green Gables" Series by LM Montgomery

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee: If you read it in high school, pretended to read it in high school, or have never read it, put it on your list.

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine Engle: my first favorite book in elementary school.

Giving Tree: Shel Silverstein: loved it as a kid, love reading it my kids.

The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
The brothers K – David James Duncan
Peace liek a River – Leif Enger
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – annie Dillard
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Anything by Wendell Berry. For starters, try Hannah Coulter or Jayber Crow.
The Know it all – AJ Jacobs

Oh my goodness, literature is the love of my life, after my Jesus. (Really *because of* my Jesus, because the written word is one of the primary ways–perhaps the most powerful way–that I connect with God.) Top few:

~Perelandra, C.S. Lewis (Mindboggling. Absolutely gutwrenching, heartbreaking, knock-the-wind-out-of-you beauty in his ideas and prose.)
~My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok (Gorgeous prose, profound insight into the hearts and minds of religious people and our struggles and how we think about life and God and art.)
~Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, James Joyce (A masterpiece. Period.)
~Pilgrim's Inn, Elizabeth Goudge (Novel that is beautiful and simple and makes me remember that there is goodness and hope in the world.)
~The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker (No one has a wit like Parker.)
~The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (Except for Wilde. But this novel is tremendously powerful in a very serious way.)
~As You Like It, William Shakespeare (Just plain funny.)

I could post so much more but I won't bore you.

I do book reviews on my blog so I read waaaay more than 16 books a year. I have a couple of books that I absolutely love:

*Redeeming Love by Francine River (fictional account of the Book of Hosea)

*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (fictional classic novel)

*A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken (non-fiction Sheldon shares what lengths God will go to turn our hearts toward him)

*The Bait of Satan by John Bevere (non-fiction about not allowing unforgiveness to take over our lives)

*Divine by Karen Kingsbury (fiction of Christ love for us)

"Jesus and Empire" by Richard Horsley
"The Barbarian Way" by Erwin Raphael McManus
"Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell
"Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis

[...] of creating impact and motivation for life change.  Jon Acuff of Stuff Christians Like calls it the book that saved his book so that’s pretty high praise.  Buy it for anyone on your list whose dreaming of finishing [...]

Second the "Jesus for President" and "Irresistible Revolution" books by Shane Claiborne. For a kid who grew up in the Bible belt, these books made me look at how I really should be following Christ in a big way.

Besides the Bible, i would have to say:
"The Barbarian Way" by Erwin Raphael McManus
"Crazy Love" by Francis Chan
"Vintage Jesus" by Mark Driscoll
"Wide Awake" by Erwin Raphael McManus

All these books have impacted my life. Each, in its own way.

I'm a lit major, which pretty much means I'm a professional reader at the moment. I'm gonna have to agree with a few I've seen, namely anything by CS Lewis. He was not only a fabulous and crafted writer but an intensely funny and thinking man. Actually, anything by anyone in The Inklings and Charles Williams. After I studied these men in depth, everything else became intensely difficult to read because I was just so used to reading well-written literature.

I'm also going to agree with Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, Austen, The Glass Castle (the person posting didn't know it was Jeanette Walls who wrote it), The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner, Wuthering Heights by Bronte, Beowulf, and Peter Pan by JM Barrie, which is a FANTASTIC book!
For poetry, it's Wordsworth and Walt Whitman, with a little Shelly and Poe thrown in.

I also love the Harlem Renaissance and black american lit–just finished Up From Slavery, an autobiography of Booker T Washington, and next on my list is The Souls of black Folk by WEB Du Bois.

The Bible, Blue Like Jazz, The Case for Christ, Finding the Groove by Robert Gelinas, Searching for God Knows What, Through Painted Deserts.

Best books after the Bible (just felt obliged to type the capital B…what's that all about?!):

The Return of the Prodigal – Henri Nouwen
Waking the Dead (The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive) – John Eldredge
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

These books have all moved me and changed me.

How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth- Stuart and Fee
Mysteries- Knut Hamsun
A Theology of the New Testament – G.E. Ladd
There are many more, but these are pretty far up there.

In my opinion, the greatest books I've read have been the most influential and eye-opening. I do a lot of reading, so here's a list:

1. The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis. I love these books. They were brilliantly written and really showcased God's love for us while alerting (or re-awakening) me to the fact that we need to be responsible and good stewards of what God has given us in this world.
2. My Guantanamo Diary by Mahvish Khan. This non-fiction book details the cruel treatment suffered by the innocent detainees at Guantanamo Bay. This book is not the most well written one you will ever read, but it will either deepen or awaken the conviction that God calls us to be loving and just in response to many issues, not just abortion and gay marriage.
3. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien was brilliant, but this is easily the best written (if not the most inspired) of his books.
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I realize that at this point it is rather cliche for a teenage girl to be an Austen fan. However, studying this book in school allowed me to better understand the social commentary and has actually allowed me to become more mature in my interactions with others.

The Dresden Files series, by Jim Butcher. Urban fantasy series about Harry Dresden, Chicago-based wizard and private investigator.

Though I'm not sure about the writer's beliefs, the series has a few strong Christian characters, including Michael Carpenter, Knight of the Cross (wields a holy sword with one of THE 3 nails embedded). There are also strong themes relating to the temptation of power, friendship & loyalty. Book 10 has the main character throwing his anger in God's face in a hospital chapel when his friend, the aforementioned Michael, lies in the ICU with critical injuries.

First book in the series is Storm Front. 11 books out so far, with # 12 due out this spring.