I'll start off.

BEST:
-American Gods by Neil Gaiman
-The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
-The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
-The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
-One Flew Over's The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
-Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
-Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
-The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
-Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
-High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
-The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
-King Dork by Frank Portman
-To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

WORST:
-Gossip Girl series
-Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer--so BORING I wanted to kill myself twenty pages in
-Those Stephanie Meyer vampire books
-Chicken Soup For The _____ Soul

BEST:
-Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
-His Dark Materials (Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman
-Atonement by Ian McEwan
-1984 by George Orwell
-Brave New World by A. Huxley
-Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
-Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
-Nightrunner series (Luck in the Shadows, Stalking Darkness, Traitor Moon) by Lynn Flewelling

WORST:
-Paradise Lost
-Beowulf
-Great Expectations
-Wide Sargasso Sea
-Shopaholic series (started the first one and couldn't get past the fact that she's a stupid waste of air space; I hear she never learns responsibility.)
-Heart of Darkness
-A Walk to Remember

EDIT: Have taken "Arms and the Man" off the list, as it has been repeatedly pointed out that it's not a novel. Just for the record: that was the one play I missed most of when it was being read aloud and had to go back and reread it on my own, which made it feel very much like a book and not like a novel.

Paradise Lost (which I suppose is a poem and not a novel but I don't care) is staying on there because I think the plot is terrible (and yes, I know where it comes from) and because I don't like that style of writing.

BEST:

-Harry Potter by JKR
-The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
-The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Greggory
-A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
-I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
-Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

WORST:

-Chicken Soup for the...
-A Separate Peace by John Knowles
-The Natural by Bernard Malamud

----
Title: *to be decided*
Word Count: 0

NaNoWriMo 2007: A Loss of Place (Winner: 51,627 [andcounting])
Script Frenzy 2007: Loveman Lane (Winner: 20,334)
NaNoWriMo 2006: Freedom on the Horizon (Winner: 80,337)

Best:
1. Harry Potter by J K Rowling
2. Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey
3. Sandman by Neil Gaiman (Technically it's a comic book, but it's just sooo good)
4. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Worst: (Watch me hating the classics, there are some I like really!)
1. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
2. Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn
3. 1984 by Orson Wells (Sorry I like Brave New World sooo much better.)

_____________

I discovered Nano in the MIDDLE of November 2007 .... *facepalm*
However I can still do script frenzy! Yay!

Sorry for the double posting - I figured I could at least make it shorter!
_____________

I discovered Nano in the MIDDLE of November 2007 .... *facepalm*
However I can still do script frenzy! Yay!

BEST

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Mossflower
Fahrenheit 451

WORST

The vast majority of crud that passed as "literature" I read in high school

---
Scriptfrenzy '07: Darkness Rising (winner!)
Scriptfrenzy '08: Quest for the Soul Stone

BEST
-Cat's Cradle
-Catch-22
-Frankenstien
-Animal Farm
-1984
-Lord of the Rings
-The Hobbit
-The Three Musketeers
-The Count of Monte Cristo

WORST
-War and Peace
-Crime and Punishment
-Most things from high school

I have yet to read Brave New World or Slaughterhouse Five but I intent too. After I finish about 8 other books that is.

--
Class of '09

I was in the park, wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger as they get closer. Then it hit me.

This is pretty sad, guys. To say that "Arms and the Man" (which is technically a play, but whatever), "A Separate Peace", "1984" and "Paradise Lost" are the worst books you've ever read is really, really sad -- and I dont know if it's because you honestly feel that way or because it was taught that way in high school.

May I gently suggest you re-consider and put them on the shelf, then come back to them in about ten years, when you might see them in a new light? For example, I struggled with the complete DON QUIXOTE when I was in high school and came out of it thinking it was the worst piece of crap ever written... but I re-read it again when I turned 50, and it was a completely new experience, one that made me appreciate what Cervantes was doing in those nearly 2,000 pages. I had a similar experience with CANDIDE -- it took some years of being out in the world to fully embrace the wonderful dementia that is Voltaire.

But whatever you do, dont write these books off so early in your literary career.

While I do not feel mentally capable of deciding the best and worst books I've read at this moment, I did find it rather odd that so many 'great' literary works were being included in the worst list. I will say that I was never able to finish 'Red Badge of Courage' because I kept getting lost in all the adjectives, but I was also all of 13 or 14 at the time. Also, I blame the current American education system for 'Arms and the Man' being listed as a book. Some misconception entered into the world of education that plays and books could be taught and understood in the same teaching format. Being in a written format does not make it the same as other literature. If the playwrights wanted to write novels then they would have written novels not plays. Sorry, it's a bit of a sore spot for me.

Oh yes, and Candide is excellent : )

Best:

-The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
-Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
-And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
-The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
-The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Worst (in my own, young opinion):

-The Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
-20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (I read it too early in life; I'll probably give it another go later) by what's-his-face (boy, am I feeling pathetic)
-The Left Behind series by Timothy Lehaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

I know there are many more, but my brain is too confuzzly to sort them out.
_________________________________
2007 WINNER!: "The Method" (screenplay)

BAPTISTA: Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?
HORTENSIO: Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.

20,000 Leagues -- Jules Verne

The Left Behind series -- OMG, YES! I struggled through Book 1 and could *not* wait to get to the end just so I could say I'd read it. Those boys seriously needed an editor.