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Ask HN: What is the best fiction book you've ever read?
I've been suffering from burnout lately and one of the things I read was that reading books unrelated to work/productivity is supposed to help. I'm headed in vacation in a couple of weeks and I'm curious what the best fiction book you ever read was? If your book is already in the comments below please just upvote it.
- tjr 13y agoTo Kill a Mockingbird
- zlbrooks 13y agoSlaughterhouse 5, Snowcrash, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- david927 13y agoCrime and Punishment, Les Miserables, War and Peace
- stevekemp 13y agoSince you're going with "classics" I'd add: * Les Liaisons dangereuses * The Count of Monte Cristo Plus my personal picks; Taltos the assassin, Chronicles of Amber, Dune & LoTR.
- jtbigwoo 13y agoAll the nerds I know (which is basically everybody I know) like the Vlad Taltos books. As long as you're OK with dragons, sarcasm, and crime you should like them, too.
- stevekemp 13y agoI just hope he comes back to the Lady Teldra plot sometime soon. The last few books have left me hanging for almost as long as I can bear.
- leephillips 13y agoSome favorites: Pale Fire by Nabokov Ulysses by Joyce Et Tu, Babe by Leyner Metamorphosis by Kafka (more a long story) Things Fall Apart by Achebe Hamlet and Coriolanus by Shakespeare The Code of the Woosters by Wodehouse The Doorbell Rang by Stout
- wj 13y agoUsing best and favorite interchangeably as literature is a pretty subjective subject: As a kid: Where the Red Fern Grows As an adult: The Dharma Bums
- joe8756438 13y agoa couple favorites: classic: The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian recent scifi: Stories of your life and others (short stories) by Ted Chiang
- michael_fine 13y agoA Song of Ice and Fire
- thesash 13y agoA few on my "re-read every few years" list: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Speaker for the Dead, Infinite Jest, Watchmen, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- agilecoder 13y agoThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother both by Mark Haddon The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
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- makerops 13y agoReamde by Neal Stephenson, Daniel Surez freedom (tm), deamon, and kill decision. ready player one anything by mark twain
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- stuffchunk 13y agoAnna Karenina by Lev Tolstoj
- smuss77 13y agoIt's been mentioned, but gotta second Crime and Punishment. Great.
- papul1993 13y agoI haven't read many books but till date I have never read a book better than The Godfather.
- latch 13y agoDune 1984 Would greatly help if you told us what type (or examples) of books you like.
- jborden13 13y agoI purposely left it open-ended. I probably haven't read a fiction book in 15 years. I've been so heavy on business/marketing/tech/startup/biography books that I'm not even sure what fiction I would enjoy anymore. Books I've enjoyed recently are Titan, Outliers, Blue Ocean Strategy. I think a portion of my burnout is losing my sense of fun - hence my general attitude towards fiction over the last decade+ has been it's fake and thus a waste of time. While I know that's not true (the waste of time part), it just hasn't been 'productive' to read a fiction book. So I was just curious which fiction books everyone else enjoyed, and I was going to pick a couple from the list that was created.
- jtbigwoo 13y agoLook for page-turners rather than literature as you're getting back into fiction. Business and popular non-fiction books these days are written in a very elementary style. I take nothing away from Malcolm Gladwell, but his writing style is very easy to read compared to many of the books we're suggesting.
- nicwolff 13y agoTop three: Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis; Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban; Glimpses of the Moon, by Edith Wharton Some other favorites: The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller; To Reign In Hell, by Steven Brust; Machine Man, by Max Barry; The Dawn Patrol, by Don Winslow; The Woman, by Hank Ketchum
- leephillips 13y agoRead Machine Man this year: very effective, really chilling.
- fizzbar 13y agoCryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, while maybe not the "best" book ever written, is highly entertaining...
- jtbigwoo 13y agoAll of Neal Stephenson's books have a breezy sense of wonder and adventure with a dash of science-y cleverness.
- saturdayplace 13y agoIf the OP is looking for a page turner, then Stephenson's Snow Crash is another great recommendation. Anathem was slower to me, and Reamde was good. But if I was to pick up Stephenson's stuff again I go to Snow Crash, then Cryptonomicon as my one, two.
- tqh 13y agoThe Baroque cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion and System of the World is awesome as well. Who doesn't want to read fiction about The Royal Society, Isaac Newton and Liebniz mixed in with phrases in the line with "In memory of Englands greatest swordsman, beaten to death with a club by an Irishman". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle
- minusthebrandon 13y agoAmerican Gods by Neil Gaiman is an amazing book.
- meerita 13y agoI seriously recommend the Riverworld series, written by the excellent Philip José Farmer. I think after The Foundation from Asimov I cannot find anything good or exciting for fiction. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Jos%C3%A9_Farmer http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Jos%C3%A9_Farmer PD: I've read a lot, guys. Those were my favs :D
- mast 13y agoIt's so hard to recommend something without a frame of reference. Personally, I've found myself re-reading The Lord of the Rings lately. But, if I had to pick one book that was my favourite, I might say Moby Dick. (I'll admit that I actually read it first after seeing the Wrath of Khan as a kid)
- meerita 13y agoI agree with this. "Fiction" is a really broad term and may lead to many different and, probably, meaningless suggestions to the OP. If he can specify wich kind of fictions he likes maybe he will get better recommendations, I've read so many fiction books from different genres that it's really hard to choose one in particular.
- tptacek 13y agoCatch 22.
- saturdayplace 13y agoCatch 22 is a fantastic read. I don't think I've read anything else where everything in the book is such a great illustration of its main theme. Plus, it's just plain entertaining.
- wglb 13y agoMy daughter first read this in high school, and I think she still rereads it every year.
- foobarqux 13y ago> When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, "Who has?" -- Heller, author of Catch-22
- jtbigwoo 13y agoNeuromancer by William Gibson
- saturdayplace 13y agoContact by Carl Sagan. I first read it as an adult and it took my breath away. The movie was a fair adaptation. Also, I like to read Ender's Game once a year or so.
- halhelms 13y agoA Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
- halhelms 13y agoThe Count of Monte Cristo for a great, rousing yarn
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- chudi 13y agoA confederacy of dunces, amazing book! tragedy, comedy, insane characters, really good book!
- mccolin 13y agoThe biggest tragedy of A Confederacy of Dunces is that it's author, John Kennedy Toole, did not live to see its publishing and success. I also love this book!
- wglb 13y agoJoyce Carol Oates.
- kohanz 13y agoSphere by Michael Crichton. I was quite young at the time, but I remember being completely engrossed. Please don't relate it to the movie version :)
- jborden13 13y agoLoved this book when I was younger. Fascinating read.
- varunkho 13y agoI have found books from Jon Evans very delightful and interesting to read: 1) Beasts of New York – http://www.beastsofnewyork.com/ http://www.beastsofnewyork.com/ 2) Invisible Armies (thriller, drama, computer hacking) – http://www.rezendi.com/invisibleArmies.htm http://www.rezendi.com/invisibleArmies.htm Both books have their digital edition freely downloadable as well.
- Gallefray 13y ago`Do robot's dream of electric sheep` by Philip K. Dick Do not relate to the movie adaptation (Blade runner) as it is completely different. The ending of it is brilliant, and when I had finished it I felt sad and wanted to read it all again :D
- pfedor 13y ago"All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren.
- cpr 13y agoThe Master of Hestviken, by Sigrid Unset (long forgotten, but she was a Pulitzer-winning author in the 1930's), is probably the best novel I've ever read.
- rombdn 13y agoA Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett is usually for me a good way to step back from everyday life and work. It's funny, there are many references to scientific and nerd culture and it helps to reconsider some "serious" things...