4 ms·
Ask HN: What to read during the holidays?
I'm going to the library tomorrow and would love to have some suggestions on what to rent for the break.
What are your favorite fiction books?
I'm not a fan of science fiction or fantastic, but anything that is not programming related is fine.
p.s. Last book I read was The Fountain Head (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead), which was great (except for some long descriptions).
- jaydub 18y agoIf you enjoy history you may want to read Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels (historical fiction). I loved it.
- mwinters58 18y agoThe Da Vinci Code (haha remember when that was huge)
- villageidiot 18y agoNon-fiction but a great read: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Fey...!
- vinutheraj 18y agoif you liked the Fountain Head you can read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins ( insight into evolution ) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
- Jem 18y agoAnything by Terry Pratchett.
- Wesmax27 18y agoI am going to get through Warren Buffett's biography, The Snowball.
- zupatol 18y agoI discovered the fountainhead last year and I found it fascinating although it becomes more and more awkward as you progress. At the end it seemed to me like a journey into a sick mind, which makes it all the more interesting. I would recommend semi-autobiographic books by sick minds. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, by Robert Pirsig who was actually treated by electrotherapy in a psychiatric ward. He ended up writing a not so sick book with a philosophy I find a lot more convincing than Ayn Rand's. Valis, the novel in which Philipp K. Dick describes how he more or less fails to make sense of his religious (or whatever) experience. It's sold as science fiction, but that's just a weak way of saying that book is completely crazy. Since it is semi-autobiographic, the characters are much more alive than in anything else I read from Philipp K. Dick. And if you want to know why Howard Roark has a low life expectancy: Loneliness, human nature and the need for social connection, by John T Cacioppo and William Patrick. This is non-fiction.
- omarchowdhury 18y agoLolita by Vladimir Nabokov The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey Nonfiction: Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders by Jack D. Schwager (1993) Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (history)