5 ms·
Ask HN: What are the best books you've ever read?
Over the last year I have gotten lazy with my evenings…wasting time on Twitter and YouTube.
I’m recommitting to use the hour before bed to read and so I need recommendations…what are the best books you’ve ever read?
It doesn’t matter what it was, just that it made an enduring impact on you.
Thanks!
- talldayo 2y agoThe Hobbit and Lord of the Rings both stand alone as unparalleled fantasy novels. Buy a version with no foreword or footnotes and just, immerse yourself.
- iambateman 2y agoGreat recommendation, thanks! Unfortunately for me, they’re probably my favorite books of all time. :) Cheers!
- dcminter 2y agoIf you never listened before, can I recommend (to both of you) the lovely BBC radio dramatization of it? The cast is excellent and it plays out over multiple hours so they didn't have to chop it about too much. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(1981_radio_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(1981_...
- taylodl 2y ago- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig) - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (Hofstadter) - Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness (Penrose) - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Suzuki) - Demian (Hesse) - The Stranger (Camus) - Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut) - Another Roadside Attraction (Robbins) I have read many books that have had an impact on me for a time, but these are the books that have had an enduring impact going on now for decades. And yes, one of these books, Another Roadside Attraction, is unlike the others. You can substitute any Tom Robbins book, or read them all!, but this is the book that started it all for me. Tom Robbins' books taught me to not take life so seriously. Demian and The Stranger may be fiction, but let's just say their purpose is to get across a philosophical point. Finally, with regards to Slaughterhouse-Five, you'll just have to read it. Enjoy!
- the-smug-one 2y agoThese aren't "The best" or whatever, but they're very good: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Summer_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Summer_Book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoner_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoner_(novel) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_on_a_winter%27s_night_a_traveler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_on_a_winter%27s_night_a_tra... - I'm currently reading Pyotr Kropotkin's autobiography, it's interesting.
- z303 2y agoA Canticle for Leibowitz I ended up staying up all night reading most of the book
- dcminter 2y agoIt's a bit too bleak for me, but it's certainly beautifully written.
- dcminter 2y ago"Best" is always too hard - here are a handful that I love. Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susannah Clarke The Crow Road - Iain Banks Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson Black Holes & Time Warps - Kip Thorne The Inventions of Daedalus - David E H Jones The Cuckoo's Egg - Cliff Stoll I hope one or two of those float your boat!
- dcminter 2y agoPS my New Year resolution was to "do" more (reading counted) and doom-scroll less. Not 100% on track, but where I managed it I've been much more cheerful for it. I hope you find some nice bedtime reading - I see a lot of other good books being recommended!
- a_bonobo 2y ago>The Cuckoo's Egg - Cliff Stoll This is such a nerd-snipe book, I absolutely loved it. A personal account of one of the first cases of (attempted) military espionage via the internet? A system administrator thwarting intruders with his keys? Government agencies not knowing who's responsible for network-based intruders? Hackers from the Chaos Computer Club spying for the Soviets? Written by the Numberphile guy who's selling all those Acme Klein Bottles? Sign me up.
- dllthomas 2y agoThe author shows up here from time to time, too.
- montgomery_r 2y agoFor the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse Hitch-22, essaysChristopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.
- montgomery_r 2y agoAargh, Formatting! Try 2 : For the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse Hitch-22, essays, Christopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.
- dcminter 2y ago
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoThe only book. The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.
- d13 2y agoIt’s amazing, as is his Hourglass By The Sign of the Sanitorium.
- bubblebeard 2y ago”The Count of Monte Cristo”, one of my favorites. It’s a classic the general story being jailbreak/revenge. A little slow paced at times but the writing is fantastic. If you enjoy fantasy novels I would recommend ”The Wee Free Men” by Terry Pratchett, it’s outstanding.
- clipsy 2y agoLabyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges probably tops the list for me.
- jjgreen 2y agoSartre's Nausea
- keernan 2y agoThe Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- supertofu 2y agoBlue Nights by Joan Didion, in which she grieves the death of her forty-something daughter, just a few years after her abusive husband died suddenly from a heart attack. The contrast between her gorgeous but also coldly precise writing, the grieving mother vs the lauded writer, the tension of watching her muse (very delicately, very distantly) on the nature of being an adoptive mother and wondering as a reader: what sort of wounds did Joan Didion pass on to her daughter and what wounds did her daughter inherit from her biological family, the contrast between the vibrant streets of New York and the cold hospital where her daughter was dying in a coma, knowing as a reader that this writer had just gone through the grief of losing her husband a few years earlier... It was haunting, beautiful, and, naturally, a little voyeuristic by its very nature. I still think about it to this day.
- dyauspitr 2y agoI couldn’t relate to a single line in that book even though I’m a father to two daughters. Very directed towards women.
- supertofu 2y agoThis is an interesting comment. I think part of the mystique of Joan Didion's persona and her autobiographical writing is the fact that she is a wildly, and fascinatingly, unrelatable person, regardless of the reader's gender. The point of her writing generally isn't to reflect to reader. And what makes her autobiographical writing so compelling is the the way she dissects her own supremely unrelatable life and emotional landscape.
- nicbou 2y agoThe Count of Monte Cristo. I rarely get this absorbed by a book. It was a very satisfying read. Grapes of Wrath stayed with me for a very long time. The Jungle too. This is how you lose the time war. It was just damn unique and pleasant. Everyone who reads it loves it. Cryptonomicon, another very entertaining read that every geek loves.
- d13 2y agoThe Count of Monte Christo is a wild read! The first half if about how he gets double crossed by all his friends. The second half is about how how he exacts his meticulous and glorious revenge.
- uncivilized 2y agoCount has gained popularity recently and I’m glad it has. Quite possibly the best fiction piece ever written.
- harryquach 2y agoRemembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. The most incredible, mind bending adventure I have taken, in a book. (The Netflix show although generally true to story does not do the books justice)
- nimih 2y agoParadise Lost, Gravity's Rainbow, Middlemarch, and 2666. edit: The short stories which have stuck with me the most over the years are probably Joyce's "The Dead," O'Connor's "Good Country People," and a solid half of Borges's "Ficciones."
- paviva 2y agoPermutation city, Greg Egan Dictionnaire philosophique, Voltaire The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek The ICU Book, Paul Marino
- langsoul-com 2y agoThe tragicity of the virtuous Justine. Warning r18 book that's pretty messed up. There was a quote about how the wealthy can easily proclaim themselves virtuous and their actions will cost them nearly nothing. But for others, acting such a way will cost everything. Never was the same afterwards. Especially as I also read all of the books referenced in Psycho Pass anime s1 as well.
- mjfl 2y agoThe Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt. Mearsheimer and Walt give a powerful explanation to the predicament of the United States' seeming unlimited commitment to the State of Israel.
- mikewarot 2y ago1632 by Eric Flint - it became a series. I can read them over and over. - Alternate history, contemplative of everything that makes modern civilization possible and keeps it going. The Art of Electronics - Horowitz and Hill - All the nitty gritty details you'll need if you're to be a good electronics designer The adolescence of P-1 - Thomas Joseph Ryan - Introduced me to the idea of random walks leading to AI. Computer Lib/Dream Machines - Ted Nelson -- Quite a bit of ideas about computers, I read it decades ago. Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake 1805 -- By Eric Sloane -- Early Americans really knew their shit, we tend to think of them as simpler people, this book dispelled me of that stupid notion. Boys Second Book of Electronics - Alfred Morgan, 1957 -- Introduced me to the idea that I could make my own radio or anything electronic I wanted to make.
- nbonaparte 2y agoGene Wolfe’s Solar Cycle and Gravity’s Rainbow
- jurassicfoxy 2y agoThe Children's Hospital https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-childrens-hospital https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-childrens-hospital A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
- tardismechanic 2y agoThe Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself - Michael Singer It had such a deep impact on me that I ended up using it as a "holy" book to take my oath of Canadian citizenship.
- novia 2y agoCypronomicon is a pretty fun read
- noitpmeder 2y agoA Deepness in the Sky, hands down. Also worth reading is its companion A Fire Upon the Deep. Both are the pinnacle of SciFi.
- retzkek 2y agoThe Overstory by Richard Powers - an intertwining of lives, as witnessed by the oldest beings on Earth, putting things into a rather different perspective. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - compassion and redemption, set in a terrifyingly plausible near future where the oil and tech companies have been replaced by gene and agro conglomerates. Calories or joules, it’s just energy. Weaveworld by Clive Barker - a dark, fantastical yarn of vivid (sometimes grotesque) imagery, spinning a new take on the oldest tale, that of good vs. evil.
- basementcat 2y agoA few that haven’t been mentioned: Red Plenty by Francis Spufford is a historical fiction story about the mathematicians and engineers who tried to optimize the Soviet economy. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende is much deeper and more interesting than any of the theatrical versions. Reminiscent of the Matrix sequels, the Childlike Empress threatens to crash Fantastica with a stack overflow (via infinite recursion) to force Bastian to give her a name. American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin goes into much more detail than the film (Oppenheimer).
- lotsofpizza 2y agoThe Mist - Stephen King Cannery Row - Joseph Steinbeck Post Office - Charles Bukowski Dracula - Bram Stoker
- fuzztester 2y agoI don't know what is due to, but I loved the book Cannery Row.
- fuzztester 2y agoFiction: Taipan, by James Clavell The Navigator, by Morris West Non-fiction: The Upanishads (not a single book, but a bunch of them) The Bhagavad Gita
- curry798 2y agoRomeo and Juliet he Blue Castle: a novel by L. M. Montgomery A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
- broccolirat 2y agoCosmos by Carl Sagan
- wannabebarista 2y agoHere are books I recommend to everyone and got me interested in economics and philosophy: - The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner - The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes by Stephen Holmes and Cass Sunstein - Wittgenstein's Poker by David Edmonds and John Eidinow - A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
- BrannonKing 2y agoSome books that changed me: R. W. Emerson's Essays, The Bastiat Collection (the why of free trade), Boortz's Fairtax books.