3 ms·
Ask HN: Book recommendations?
I know this comes up from time to time, but I'm looking for some summer reading, and was wondering if anyone would care to recommend one or two good works of fiction, as well as one or two good works of non-fiction.
- tokenadult 13y agoI'm reading Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century by James R. Flynn, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1107609178 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1107609178 the latest nonfiction book by an expert author, and I'm really liking it a lot. I highly recommend at least one book by Flynn for your summer reading.
- iuguy 13y agoDuring the summer I go on holiday to a remote island in the mediterranean where I sit on my patio atop a hill overlooking the sea and read for about a week. The only electronic devices I have are my e-book reader and a charger. Here's some of the best summer reading I've gone through: The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski - http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Bird-Jerzy-Kosinski/dp/080213422X http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Bird-Jerzy-Kosinski/dp/0802134... A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Splendid-Suns-Khaled-Hosseini/dp/159448385X http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Splendid-Suns-Khaled-Hosseini... Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - http://www.amazon.com/Brave-World-P-S-Aldous-Huxley/dp/0061767646/ http://www.amazon.com/Brave-World-P-S-Aldous-Huxley/dp/00617... Burmese Days - George Orwell - http://www.amazon.com/Burmese-Days-Novel-George-Orwell/dp/0156148501 http://www.amazon.com/Burmese-Days-Novel-George-Orwell/dp/01... The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway - http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Also-Rises-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0743297334 http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Also-Rises-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/074... Catch 22 - Joe Heller - http://www.amazon.com/Catch-22-50th-Anniversary-Joseph-Heller/dp/1451626657 http://www.amazon.com/Catch-22-50th-Anniversary-Joseph-Helle... The Road - Cormac McCarthy - http://www.amazon.com/Road-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/0307387895 http://www.amazon.com/Road-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/0307387895 To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee - http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Mockingbird-Harper-Lee/dp/0446310786 http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Mockingbird-Harper-Lee/dp/0446310... The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger - http://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769487 http://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769487 For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway - http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Bell-Tolls-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684803356 http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Bell-Tolls-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/06... For non-fiction it really depends on what you're looking for but I really enjoyed Joel Bakan's The Corporation and Mark Thomas' As Used On The Famous Nelson Mandela.
- keiferski 13y agoInfinite Jest is a great book to tackle over a summer. Highly recommended.
- cju 13y agoOver an infinite summer : http://infinitesummer.org/ http://infinitesummer.org/
- staunch 13y agoI always recommend, to anyone who hasn't already read them, that they read Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars and The Civil Wars. One of the greatest generals and leaders of all time personally wrote amazing war journals, and they survive mostly intact today. Nothing else like these exist.
- cafard 13y agoGrant's memoirs are very well worth reading, too.
- vijayr 13y agoI'm reading this one, and it is pretty good (It is just a month old, I think) http://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Revolutionary-Approach-Success/dp/0670026557/ http://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Revolutionary-Approach-Succe...
- nullandnull 13y agoHere are the first books that crossed my mind. The Road. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. How to Read a Modern Painting: Lessons from the Modern Masters. The Sun Also Rises. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. Reamde: A Novel. 1984.
- a1a 13y agoI would recommend the following book: Bruce Schneier - Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fear-Thinking-Sensibly-Uncertain/dp/0387026207/ http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fear-Thinking-Sensibly-Uncertai...
- efferifick 13y agoI love everything by James Gleick. I recommend Faster, The Information, and Chaos.
- mo 13y agoScience Fiction: * Walter Tevis: Mockingbird * Karin Boye: Kallocain Non fiction Computing: * John Markoff: What the Dormouse Said * Jef Raskin: The Humane Interface Non fiction society: * P.M.: Bolo'bolo
- seanccox 13y agoWhite Teeth, by Zadie Smith, is of the funniest books I have ever read and it contains the most important lesson about getting to the root of a problem that I have yet seen articulated: "The shit is not the shit. The pigeon is the shit."
- cafard 13y agoGilead by Marilynne Robinson for fiction. The Jeffersonion Transformation (the first and last chapters of a much longer history) by Henry Adams, selected and introduced by Gary Wills.