Rory is afraid of running out of interesting authors to read.  That leads us to know that the best damn book he's ever read is Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.  I have been meaning to give this one a try.

In furtherance of this idea, James Avery lists his best of all time.  I'm kind of with him on the list thing, I've read so many great books and it's hard to narrow them down to the best ever.  But, unlike James, who is chickening out on the challenge of finding one ;-) I will now attempt to name the best all-around book I have ever read:

this sucks...it's quite hard.

I mean...what are the criteria that defines the absolute best?

I mean seriously, as has been said, Vonnegut is in fact the shit...but then again, so are so many others.

And on the other hand, I read a whole lot more non-fiction than I do fiction...

Fuck it.  Here's my Top 5, Desert Island, All-Time-Best in Fiction and Non-Fiction

Fiction:

• Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
• 1984 - George Orwell
• Good as Gold - Joseph Heller (yes, Catch-22 is very good, but this is better)
• Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
• Jaws - Peter Benchley (as good as the movie was, the book is infinitely better)

Non-Fiction:

• The Art of the Deal - Donald Trump
• Hackers - Steven Levy
• The Simpsons and Philosophy - William Irwin, et al.
• Greed is Good - Jonathan Hoenig (GenX Financial Management at its best).
• What Would Machiavelli Do? - Stanley Bing

So there you have it...books from the SharpSide.