3 ms·

Ask HN: What's your favorite book you've read?

15 points by chistev 1y ago

adyashakti 1y ago
Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad, without a doubt. not for the faint of heart or the ignorant.
jll29 1y ago
Torn between It's a poem published in 1979 by the son of a physics Nobel prize winner, and it's about consciousness and artificial intelligence, and how they relate to mathematical proofs, music compositions (especially Baroque organ music) and visual art. It is full of self-references. It's a twelve-episode science mystery called "TAOCP"... eagerly awaiting episode 4c! It's full of passion, hard facts, proofs, code fragments, even music scores and of course jokes.
ratracer2025 1y ago
- Lost Connections by Johann Hari (Life, Overcome depression) - 1946: The Making of the Modern World : Sebestyen, Victor (History, WWII) - Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- chistev 1y ago
  I've seen Sapiens mentioned a lot, but I've read that it's been criticized by the scientific community as not being accurate, so I just haven't read it because of that.
LeonardoTolstoy 1y ago
Middlemarch by George Eliot. Well worth a read, possibly the greatest English novel ever written.
proximityfactor 1y ago
[dead]
HenryBemis 1y ago
Books: Siddartha: to think about myself and my changes/voyage through life. Half-time: to think what-the-hell-comes-next (only if you are 40+)(it won't resonate with a 20yo) Systemantics, Nexus: if you work in mega-big-corpos this will save your life Hold on to your kids, The anxious generation: if you got kids Strong Fathers Strong Daughters: (and mothers/sons) if you got kids (too Christian-y for my taste but an amazing 'manual' to manage the relationship with your kid(s)) 1984, Animal Farm, Gulag Archipelago: ... Light on Yoga: (also do practice yoga, it's good for most-if-not-all) You asked for "one book"... but.. life.. is not 'one' thing. Systemantics (and Dilbert) have helped me stay afloat at work. Siddartha gave me a perspective in live about myself, the different 'people' I have been throughout my life. All the listed ones are books I read and read again every few years. They shaped me the first time I read them, keep me 'grounded'/taking stock/thinking the 'change' in me and my life. I see them as a 'check-diff' and how I have changed/evolved/devolved since the last time I read it/them.
ramanhere 1y ago
Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath (its about why some ideas stick and other dies)
- sexyman48 1y ago
  Kama Sutra Illustrated.
pajamasam 1y ago
Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg was exceptionally well researched and told.
world2vec 1y ago
"The Baron in the Trees" by Italo Calvino.
Aro_oj 1y ago
It's a self-help book called Secrets of Divine Love. It helped me with clearing out so much in my life that I used to worry about. It is a slow read; otherwise, one gets bored other than that, I enjoyed each and every bit of it.
mikewarot 1y ago
1632 by Eric Flint - It's an alternative history in which the real town of Mannington, Virginia is fictionalized as "Grantville" and thrown back in time to 1631 Germany, causing it's citizens to band together, and kick off the American Revolution more than a Century Early. It's a fascinating study of society and the infrastructure that makes civilization work. Their struggles to avoid starvation and being over-run by the armies of the 30 years war are gripping reading. It was so popular it spawned a community of writers and a series that lived until the authors demise a few years ago.
humbleferret 1y ago
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan No better way to be reminded there is a big difference between someone that surfs for fun and someone who is a surfer. Surfing parts aside, this book taught me to appreciate the different parts of your life around your 'obsession' as you get older.
- bwb 1y ago
  I loved this book, slow start, but pure magic after that.
saluki 1y ago
Project Hail Mary, I laughed out loud and mocked the premise of the book but it was a great read, one of my best reads ever. Very well done.
- chistev 1y ago
  I read "The Martian", found it an okay read and didn't bother to read this one. I'll reconsider.
bwb 1y ago
Killer of Men by Christian Cameron Helped me reboot in my early 30s, fantastic series.
jjice 1y ago
The most impactful for me was Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. Made me have a more direct association of time and money and made me focus on the fact free time is more valuable than money (to me) beyond a pretty minimal point. Read it at 18 while working at a hardware store. Probably the best thing that could've happened to me.
- chistev 1y ago
  Did it make you leave the hardware store or what?
  - jjice 1y ago
    It was a summer gig during Uni, so that was going to happen anyway. It made me treat every dollar with respect from that place and begin riding my bike to work instead of driving, though
chistev 1y ago
Hard to choose for myself who made the post. But some of my favorites are - 1. God: The Failed Hypothesis Book by Victor J. Stenger 2. The God Delusion Book by Richard Dawkins 3. Berlin: The Downfall 1945 Book by Antony Beevor 4. A Song of Ice and Fire Novel series by George R.R. Martin 5. A Short History of Nearly Everything Book by Bill Bryson 6. Billions and Billions Book by Carl Sagan 7. Flowers for Algernon Short story by Daniel Keyes 8. I'm Glad My Mom Died Book by Jennette McCurdy 9. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad Book by Peter Bergen 10. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Book by Carl Sagan 11. The Metamorphosis Novella by Franz Kafka 12. The Selfish Gene Book by Richard Dawkins Gun to my head, pick one? The God Delusion.
ofalkaed 1y ago
William Gass - The Tunnel. For the past year or so I have been trying to come up with a good way to help people understand it without explaining it all away. Think I have mostly figured out how to do it, just need to spend a month or two heavily annotating the book and taking notes, and then make a website. So many books these days have terrible online resources that do more damage than good, indices and annotations which seem to index and annotate by whim with no sense of scope or purpose. Quite a few seem like they were personal projects in the creators process of understanding the novel and while I think it is great they shared it all with the world, I wish they had used what it taught them to edit their indices and annotations before they uploaded them. Been dragging my feet on this since I don't really feel like learning all the web stuff, have not made a webpage in 20 years. Eventually I will get to it, or maybe I will find an accomplice.
- chistev 1y ago
  ‎I'd love to be your accomplice for this. ‎ ‎I have my own idea too regarding a book website, but different from yours. I've been thinking about it. ‎ ‎I had a personal Facebook account where I posted interesting quotes from books l read. My Facebook wall was just an agglomeration of interesting quotes I found either from books I read, or movies I watched, or things I found online. ‎ ‎It was like my own personal archive, but yet publicly shared for people to see because those quotes were too good not to be seen by others. Facebook memories made it even more exciting as I could see quotes from years ago that sometimes captured how I was feeling that same day I saw the memory. ‎ ‎But then few months ago my Facebook got suspended for "account integrity" issues and my appeals have failed. I've accepted I'd never get my Facebook back. ‎ ‎So now I've just been storing quotes on my personal notes app, but it's not satisfying that I can't share them with the world. ‎ ‎My idea was to build a website where I can share those quotes and people can comment on them and share their own quotes too. Just a quote website lol. Quotes from books, movies, etc. Profound stuff. ‎ ‎But then the more I think about it, it's like a social network again and I'm not sure I want the stress of that. Moderation and stuff.
  - ofalkaed 1y ago
    It would require you to read The Tunnel, assuming you have not already read it. Why not make a plain old boring website without comments for your quote collection and share it where you can? It would not be much work to do and it might work out better. Or you could put it in the fortune format and stick it on your github.

15 points by chistev 1y ago

Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad, without a doubt. not for the faint of heart or the ignorant.

Torn between It's a poem published in 1979 by the son of a physics Nobel prize winner, and it's about consciousness and artificial intelligence, and how they relate to mathematical proofs, music compositions (especially Baroque organ music) and visual art. It is full of self-references. It's a twelve-episode science mystery called "TAOCP"... eagerly awaiting episode 4c! It's full of passion, hard facts, proofs, code fragments, even music scores and of course jokes.

ratracer2025 1y ago

- Lost Connections by Johann Hari (Life, Overcome depression) - 1946: The Making of the Modern World : Sebestyen, Victor (History, WWII) - Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

chistev 1y ago
I've seen Sapiens mentioned a lot, but I've read that it's been criticized by the scientific community as not being accurate, so I just haven't read it because of that.

LeonardoTolstoy 1y ago

Middlemarch by George Eliot. Well worth a read, possibly the greatest English novel ever written.

proximityfactor 1y ago

[dead]

HenryBemis 1y ago

Books: Siddartha: to think about myself and my changes/voyage through life. Half-time: to think what-the-hell-comes-next (only if you are 40+)(it won't resonate with a 20yo) Systemantics, Nexus: if you work in mega-big-corpos this will save your life Hold on to your kids, The anxious generation: if you got kids Strong Fathers Strong Daughters: (and mothers/sons) if you got kids (too Christian-y for my taste but an amazing 'manual' to manage the relationship with your kid(s)) 1984, Animal Farm, Gulag Archipelago: ... Light on Yoga: (also do practice yoga, it's good for most-if-not-all) You asked for "one book"... but.. life.. is not 'one' thing. Systemantics (and Dilbert) have helped me stay afloat at work. Siddartha gave me a perspective in live about myself, the different 'people' I have been throughout my life. All the listed ones are books I read and read again every few years. They shaped me the first time I read them, keep me 'grounded'/taking stock/thinking the 'change' in me and my life. I see them as a 'check-diff' and how I have changed/evolved/devolved since the last time I read it/them.

ramanhere 1y ago

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath (its about why some ideas stick and other dies)

sexyman48 1y ago
Kama Sutra Illustrated.

pajamasam 1y ago

Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg was exceptionally well researched and told.

world2vec 1y ago

"The Baron in the Trees" by Italo Calvino.

Aro_oj 1y ago

It's a self-help book called Secrets of Divine Love. It helped me with clearing out so much in my life that I used to worry about. It is a slow read; otherwise, one gets bored other than that, I enjoyed each and every bit of it.

mikewarot 1y ago

1632 by Eric Flint - It's an alternative history in which the real town of Mannington, Virginia is fictionalized as "Grantville" and thrown back in time to 1631 Germany, causing it's citizens to band together, and kick off the American Revolution more than a Century Early. It's a fascinating study of society and the infrastructure that makes civilization work. Their struggles to avoid starvation and being over-run by the armies of the 30 years war are gripping reading. It was so popular it spawned a community of writers and a series that lived until the authors demise a few years ago.

humbleferret 1y ago

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan No better way to be reminded there is a big difference between someone that surfs for fun and someone who is a surfer. Surfing parts aside, this book taught me to appreciate the different parts of your life around your 'obsession' as you get older.

bwb 1y ago
I loved this book, slow start, but pure magic after that.

saluki 1y ago

Project Hail Mary, I laughed out loud and mocked the premise of the book but it was a great read, one of my best reads ever. Very well done.

chistev 1y ago
I read "The Martian", found it an okay read and didn't bother to read this one. I'll reconsider.

bwb 1y ago

Killer of Men by Christian Cameron Helped me reboot in my early 30s, fantastic series.

jjice 1y ago

The most impactful for me was Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. Made me have a more direct association of time and money and made me focus on the fact free time is more valuable than money (to me) beyond a pretty minimal point. Read it at 18 while working at a hardware store. Probably the best thing that could've happened to me.

chistev 1y ago
Did it make you leave the hardware store or what?
- jjice 1y ago
  It was a summer gig during Uni, so that was going to happen anyway. It made me treat every dollar with respect from that place and begin riding my bike to work instead of driving, though

chistev 1y ago

Hard to choose for myself who made the post. But some of my favorites are - 1. God: The Failed Hypothesis Book by Victor J. Stenger 2. The God Delusion Book by Richard Dawkins 3. Berlin: The Downfall 1945 Book by Antony Beevor 4. A Song of Ice and Fire Novel series by George R.R. Martin 5. A Short History of Nearly Everything Book by Bill Bryson 6. Billions and Billions Book by Carl Sagan 7. Flowers for Algernon Short story by Daniel Keyes 8. I'm Glad My Mom Died Book by Jennette McCurdy 9. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad Book by Peter Bergen 10. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Book by Carl Sagan 11. The Metamorphosis Novella by Franz Kafka 12. The Selfish Gene Book by Richard Dawkins Gun to my head, pick one? The God Delusion.

ofalkaed 1y ago

William Gass - The Tunnel. For the past year or so I have been trying to come up with a good way to help people understand it without explaining it all away. Think I have mostly figured out how to do it, just need to spend a month or two heavily annotating the book and taking notes, and then make a website. So many books these days have terrible online resources that do more damage than good, indices and annotations which seem to index and annotate by whim with no sense of scope or purpose. Quite a few seem like they were personal projects in the creators process of understanding the novel and while I think it is great they shared it all with the world, I wish they had used what it taught them to edit their indices and annotations before they uploaded them. Been dragging my feet on this since I don't really feel like learning all the web stuff, have not made a webpage in 20 years. Eventually I will get to it, or maybe I will find an accomplice.

chistev 1y ago
‎I'd love to be your accomplice for this. ‎ ‎I have my own idea too regarding a book website, but different from yours. I've been thinking about it. ‎ ‎I had a personal Facebook account where I posted interesting quotes from books l read. My Facebook wall was just an agglomeration of interesting quotes I found either from books I read, or movies I watched, or things I found online. ‎ ‎It was like my own personal archive, but yet publicly shared for people to see because those quotes were too good not to be seen by others. Facebook memories made it even more exciting as I could see quotes from years ago that sometimes captured how I was feeling that same day I saw the memory. ‎ ‎But then few months ago my Facebook got suspended for "account integrity" issues and my appeals have failed. I've accepted I'd never get my Facebook back. ‎ ‎So now I've just been storing quotes on my personal notes app, but it's not satisfying that I can't share them with the world. ‎ ‎My idea was to build a website where I can share those quotes and people can comment on them and share their own quotes too. Just a quote website lol. Quotes from books, movies, etc. Profound stuff. ‎ ‎But then the more I think about it, it's like a social network again and I'm not sure I want the stress of that. Moderation and stuff.
- ofalkaed 1y ago
  It would require you to read The Tunnel, assuming you have not already read it. Why not make a plain old boring website without comments for your quote collection and share it where you can? It would not be much work to do and it might work out better. Or you could put it in the fortune format and stick it on your github.