:ot: True, but to qualify as a graphic novel it also must be a compilation of comic books, often covering an entire story arc. That is often the difference between a comic and a graphic novel (so I guess that my analogy would have been better if I had compared using a tv series and a movie).

Favourite book? Well, here are the first three I could think of.

- Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The best book you've (n)ever read. Intelligent satire and tragedy.

- On the Road by Jack Kerouac. A splendid road-story with a high influence.

- The Poor Mouth by Flann O'Brien. A hilarious account on the poverty of the Irishmen.

EDIT: I'm not much of a comic reader, but the best I've read would probably be some of the Usagi Yojimbo stuff.

Well you're right - it's a good book, but unfortunately I have grown to dislike it. I was forced reading it - and interpreting it according to the teacher's political believes (it was still in the time of Communism in Yugoslavia when it was first translated into Slovene). That really killed every chance of mine to like it. Maybe I should try and re-read it again...

Also before I forgot to mention Hemmingway - I like most of his work!

I think you definitely should read it again, and try to see the other points of view it offers. The genius of Master & Margarita is that it can be intrepreted in numerous of ways, and still it stays fresh. You might want to try an English translation, too; the Finnish one I found was really inferior to the English edition I had read earlier, as it failed to emphasise the correct occurances and left the story impaired.

I read A Farewell to Arms a while back, and was very confused. I can't understand why it is regarded so highly, as I found the text very primitive (something a teenager could probably muster out at the writing class), and the story wasn't really much of a story. Of course the concept has been used a billion times since and thus has lost much of its effect, but surely there must be something else worth enjoying that I have missed in it?

Well Hemmingway was an author who distanced himself... I mean in Ferwell to Arms (BTW have you seen the old movie with Carry Grant) he's an American involved in the war before America joined WW1. He came for adventure, experianced the war only as a slight inconveniace and left when he was fed up with it.

There was no heroism about it, no patriotism, just a cinical drunk who came, stayed a while and moved on untouched by what was happening. I prefer his For Whom the Bell Tolls or The Old Man and the Sea...
But the main thing was - he's not emotionally involved.
Vompared to Camus - who wanted to control the feelings, by telling The Stranger what to Feel, Hemmingway has a real life cinic - who's emotionally almost untouched by the WW1 - which was a big shocker to the entire world.
It would be like if somebody wrote a book about a janitor in the WTC, how he survied the 9/11 and the only comment would be - at least I don't have to worry about that leak on the 180th floor... The concept was what made it so extraordinary and that perspective on the world (at least that's what I think).

Cycle of the werewolf count for a graphic novel?

I love that book, and it originally was going to be a calendar.

Regular book..changes quite a bit but I love the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series