7 ms·
Ask HN: What literature do you read?
I know a lot of people here are futurists and Phillip K. Dick fans, so I look forward to hearing what other literature you enjoy.
- pavel_lishin 13y agoDoes Goodreads allow "groups"? That could be handy. Edit: yes they do, and that's exactly what they're called, and there's already one for Hacker News: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/94469-hackernews http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/94469-hackernews
- a_bonobo 13y agoI'm in that group as well, but it's more or less dead - a problem is that Goodreads doesn't really define what groups are about, and users don't really see in their "timeline" when something new happens in a group. Maybe the mods of that group could have a monthly book club or so?
- speakr 13y agoA Song of Ice and Fire
- amjd 13y agoReading The Book Thief at the moment.
- zalzane 13y agoI came across an excellent list of science fiction awhile ago; http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Science_Fiction http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Science_Fiction
- bra-ket 13y agoFrederik Pohl's Gateway
- deletes 13y agoHarry Potter; Tales of Pirx the Pilot (Stanislaw Lem)
- lars512 13y agoIf you haven't read "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality", you're in for a treat: http://hpmor.com/ http://hpmor.com/
- deletes 13y agoI have set my mind years ago to completely ignore Potter fan-fiction, regards of its quality.
- lcedp 13y agoYou're missing out. I'd liked HPMOR much more then original story. Thought it's quite geeky which not everyone likes.
- melloclello 13y agoLike yourself I resisted reading HPMOR for years. Give in to your dark side, the book is both remarkably compelling and extremely self-aware.
- gillianseed 13y agoNothing 'exotic' really, my all time favourites are Asimov, Heinlein, Philip K.Dick, Stephen King (particularly dark tower series), Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card (Ender series), William Gibson, Douglas Adams. I was recently coaxed into reading the 'Kingkiller chronicles' by Patrick Rothfuss, I was sceptical thinking it would be something like Harry Potter (not my cup of tea) but I ended up really liking it, looking forward to the third book.
- kvu787 13y agoHuckleberry Finn
- babuskov 13y agoMy favorite is still Frank Herbert's Dune series.
- jackjeff 13y agoJudas Unchained
- wsc981 13y agoI recently started Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. From what I understand, in the US the book is viewed as a must-read for students, but it's much less known here in Europe.
- mjn 13y agoI don't think that one is really read in schools. We did read an Ayn Rand book in my high school (in Texas), but it was Anthem, a much shorter novella, with a more general theme of future-utopia-is-actuallly-dystopia, ending with a paean to individualism. It bears some similarities to a more recent book, The Giver, which is also popular as young-adult literature. I haven't read her other books, but from a literary perspective, Anthem has the same problem that I gather her other works have, just in miniature: there is a core of an actual novel there and it's starting to build an interesting world and characters, but then at some point it degenerates into a pages-and-pages-long non-fiction essay in Ayn Rand's voice pasted into the book, with a pretty flimsy excuse for what these pages of text are doing in a novel (I think in Anthem it's the character thinking out loud or something).
- neilbowers 13y agoOne of the few titles on my list of books that I tell people not to read (http://neilbowers.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/book-review-atlas-shrugged-by-ayn-rand/ http://neilbowers.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/book-review-atlas...)
- jgg 13y agoYou are horribly misinformed. Opinions or merits of the book aside, Ayn Rand is viewed as a crackpot and is generally (I'm sure there are exceptions) not taken seriously in academia, and I have never heard of any public highschool that views Atlas Shrugged as critical reading.
- mdellabitta 13y agoWe read "The Fountainhead," if that's anything. Doesn't mean the rest of what you said is wrong.
- niels_olson 13y agoKafka. Catch 22. Orwell. Hemingway. Plato. But mostly pathology these days.
- incidence 13y agoH.P. Lovecraft :)
- rch 13y agoHow about David Foster Wallace? Also China Miéville and Haruki Murakami.
- L_Rahman 13y agoI went of a bit of a Murakami bender after reading The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. While it's still my favorite of his works, Kafka on the Shore is pretty fantastic as well.
- rch 13y agoThe Crying of Lot 49 -- Thomas Pynchon
- WesternStar 13y agoThis is quite possibly the best book I have ever read.
- BWStearns 13y agoI've been chewing through some Neil Stephenson books lately. I think a lot of his earlier work was somewhat prescient (in terms of general themes) and some of his newer work bring up some interesting societal points especially about the role of government with regards to technology. Another theme that I feel is particularly relevant lately is the bifurcation of the technically skilled (or even aware) and the technically unskilled. He puts up an interesting split in Anathema which wittingly or not might well represent a lot of the current hacker/tech-elite discussion in society at large. Anathema is well worth a read and Cryptonomicon is just plain fun (perhaps more relevant lately than it was in its own time).
- mehmehshoe 13y agoCouldn't agree more about Cryptonomicon.
- dragonwriter 13y agoPedantic, perhaps, but the author's name is Neal Stephenson, and the book is Anathem (its a blending of "anathema" and "anthem")
- BWStearns 13y agoHaha, Sorry, wish I could edit that now. No more posting to HN after more than three beers :) . Anathema was just a typo but I changed N[ie|ea]l back and forth a few times. My stupidity aside, awesome author and Anathem is definitely worth a read.
- archenemy 13y agoAnathem (especially the last third of it) is an awesome reading. It's slow-building and the first two thirds took some will to get through, but it was really worth the struggle. Incredibly high-concept (for me at least).
- enra 13y agoAfter reading Game of Thrones I wanted to read more book series, so went with science fiction ones: Started with: Dune, by Frank Herbert (+ 5 books in the series) Continued to: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (+ 3 sequels) Now reading: Foundation by Isaac Asimov (+ 5 books) All those are pretty great in sense of that they take set in span of thousands of years, and touch bit different ideas around society, myths, religion, morals, physical and mental technologies. Other than that, been been enjoying some classic literature, Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, James Clavell, Haruki Murakami and books about Richard Feynman.
- thejulielogan 13y agoRobert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series is rather epic, as well.
- msh 13y agobut far too long, he should have tied it up after the first five books or so.
- thejulielogan 13y agoagreed. Sadly GOT seems to be going down the same path
- pharrington 13y agoReading The Second Sex right now. I need a bit of brush up on some history and philosophy.
- bsenftner 13y agoHerman Hesse "The Glass Bead Game" is incredible. For great mind fucks, check out the crime fiction of Jim Thompson: 1st person, you're a petty crook, dumb & scared, people trying to kill you are right behind you, and most the books end with you being caught and killed in the last sentence. It takes a day or two to shake off his books' reality.
- dshipper 13y agoKazuo Ishiguro is a favorite: Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go
- pasbesoin 13y agoI know from past threads on this topic that I am not the only person here who has found Robert Pirsig's work worthwhile. I mention it because it is currently on my nightstand, for the first repeat visit in too many years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig
- craftsman 13y agoThe two books I have active right now: From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves, Emilio Segre A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean
- finin 13y agoWool by Hugh Howey
- brudgers 13y agoWhile I often read Science Fiction and recently enjoyed Corey Doctorow's Rapture of the Nerds, Last week I finished Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis. Currently, I am reading the third volume of Rick Atkinson's history of the second world war, The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945. I've enjoyed all three volumes over the past decade.
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoI'm surprised no one's mentioned Philip José Farmer and his Riverworld series. The last book is comparatively weak, but the rest are great.
- mehmehshoe 13y agoWeird Life: The Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own. I am cheating with an audiobook though....spend a lot of time in a car=)
- wallflower 13y agoI love biographies/auto-biographies of people not in technology (directly) who live an interesting life. "Giant Steps: The Remarkable Story of the Goliath Expedition From Punta Arenas to Russia" by Karl Bushby Unbelievable what it feels like to just take off... http://www.amazon.com/dp/0751536954 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0751536954 "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination" The first third of the book is remarkable in that Walt Disney constantly struggles with failure. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679757473 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679757473 "Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer" by Lynne Cox Her story is all about single focus on doing what you want to do. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013L8AQQ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013L8AQQ "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life" by Steve Martin http://www.amazon.com/dp/1416553657 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1416553657
- crisnoble 13y agoI tell everyone I meet who is into books to read "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski.
- sown 13y agoI liked Rainbows Edge because in addition to a nifty story, it felt like a blueprint or use case for the near future. Marshall Brane's Manna did something similar, even if you don't consider it fine literature. Charles Bukowski for poetry, which for some reason I can relate to, despite not sharing any experiences with the author ... which kind of worries me. Various practical books such as Secrets of Power Negotiation by Roger Dawson if that sort of thing will help you.
- archenemy 13y agoRainbow's Edge read to me like an up to date, go-with-the-times version of Neuromancer. I'd should probably revisit it.
- mdellabitta 13y agoCatch 22 One Hundred Years of Solitude The Infinite Jest Cryptonomicon
- xanth 13y agoCatch 22 Subtext: One Hundred Years of Solitude The Infinite Jest Cryptonomicon :P
- macrael 13y agoEast of Eden is my favorite book I've read in the last several years. Beautiful end to end and very moral. If you've read it it's totally worth reading Journal of a Novel: a collection of letters Steinbeck wrote to his editor every day as he was writing East of Eden. It's a fascinating window into the mind of a master deliberately creating a masterpiece. Other favorites: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, In Our Time by Hemingway, The Magus by John Fowles, 100 years of solitude, Moby Dick (perhaps a precursor to all modern fantasy?) Stranger in a Strange Land, and Infinite Jest. I've also loved both of DFW's big essay collections: Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll never Do Again.
- PankajGhosh 13y agoLast 3 books: Game of thrones (1, 2, 3) Currently reading: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (one of the comprehensive and popular works on the topic)
- kyzyl 13y agoAs has already been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, most of Neil Stephenson's work is just great. Cryptonomicon is my favorite, but The Baroque Cycle (three books) is very good as well. If you're into crime/mystery fiction, the recently deceased Elmore Leonard was one of the best. A few of his books have been made into movies (Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, The Big Bounce) with mixed results, but I do I highly recommend reading the books, which are numerous. For a different sort of fiction, James Clavell's Shogun, Taipan, and Noble House are great. In fact, Noble House very well be my favorite book. It's a long (~1400 page) book about business dealings, political intrigue, and more. All set in the context of 1963 Hong Kong. Those who like a touch of historical fiction could take a look at Conn Uggulden. One of his series, The Conqueror, which is about the rise and fall of the Mongol empire is pretty interesting. The books are a light read, and not particularly complicated, but it's entertaining and has some neat historical bits.
- rfergie 13y agoI think "King Rat" might also be part of James Clavell's series. Even if it isn't, you should like it if you like the others
- kyzyl 13y agoYeah the Asian Saga includes King Rat, Shogun, Noble House, Taipan as well as Gai-gin, The Whirlwind. They're all pretty good books but I believe Taipan, Noble House and Shogun are considered Clavell's best work, in that order (personally I like Noble House best). Thanks for the recommendation though.
- FennNaten 13y agoFor me, mostly Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Phillip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Georges R.R Martin, Tolkien, Raymond E Feist, David Gemell, Robin Hobb, Anne Mc Caffrey, Fritz Leiber, J.V. Jones, Moorcock, Jack Vance, Van Vogt, Robert Charles Wilson, Lucius Shepard, Ray Bradbury, Scott Lynch, Peter V Brett, E.E Knight... just for those coming to my mind right now and internationally known. I also read french writers in the same genre: Roland C Wagner, Claude Ecken, Lionel Davoust, Fabien Clavel, Pierre Pevel, Justine Niogret, Eric Wietzel, Alain Damasio, Ayerdhal, Sylvie Miller, Philippe Ward, Thomas Geha, Laurent Whale, Jeanne A Debats, Anne Fakhouri... And a lot more. I'm a bookworm so the list's always growing ^^'
- svag 13y agoI am currently reading a book called "The Housekeeper and the Professor" of Yoko Ogawa. I haven't finished it, but I find it quite interesting. It's the story of a housekeeper and a professor of mathematics who can remember new memories only for 80 minutes. Here is a link to the relevant wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Housekeeper_and_the_Professor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Housekeeper_and_the_Profess...
- waterhouse 13y agoIsaac Asimov's robot series (start with "I, Robot" and "The Caves of Steel") is good, as is his Foundation series. Ender's Game is also good; I've heard other people complain about the other novels in that universe (Speaker for the Dead and sequels, Ender's Shadow and sequels), but I liked them fine. Cryptonomicon is rich, fascinating, and entertaining. Dune is rich and pretty fascinating. Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Time Enough for Love" are somewhat scandalous, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. Outside science fiction: P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster novels, as well as what of his other books I've read, are hilarious and brilliant; I would suggest "Right Ho, Jeeves" as a starting point.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mjn 13y agoI recently read one of Victor Hugo's shorter books, The Toilers of the Sea, and quite enjoyed it. I like Hugo's writing in general: has a rich feeling of time and place, with the style of the sentences he crafts sort of feeding into it. He's not exactly underrated in general, but I don't meet many people in my circles who read his novels. I also recently read Kafka's The Trial, which I've long known about but never read, and it was good but not at all what I expected. For some reason I expected Kafka to be an intimidating, serious writer, based on how his name has come to be used metaphorically. But The Trial is a very easy read, engaging and plot-driven, moving along at a fast pace. You can read it in a few hours, and it feels like light reading, despite having some serious content.
- veidr 13y agoThe trilogy of Neuromancer, Burning Chrome, and Mona Lisa Overdrive is still my favorite work of fiction, and also, to my mind, exemplifies the kind of taut, awesome writing that I would want to do if I wrote novels. It the only series of 3 books I have read more than once. I caught these books at just the right time in my life (age 13 or 14), leading my high-school fascination with Japan and rekindled interest in computing, and probably played an inordinately large role in me ending up as a programmer who lives in Tokyo, two decades later. I like great sci fi best, but I think most of it is crap, including virtually all of the old pulp sci fi and Asimov I grew up reading (which was basically all of it), Star Wars/Trek, etc. Other than Gibson's stuff, some of the truly spectacular sci fi I have read is the very-dense-and-not-at-all-thriller-ish Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars), and the fast-paced-and-awesome Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. That led me to read all of Wilson's books, many of which are also good. Also Haldeman is an author worth reading, though not all of his books hit their mark. Great sci fi is my favorite fiction, but IMO most of it is broken by being fundamentally implausible. Other fiction I consider great in other genres include Memoirs of a Geisha, Cold Mountain, REAMDE, The Son, The Road, the lighter but still version of that post-apocalyptic concept The Dog Stars, City of Thieves, and All the Pretty Horses and its sequels. It's probably symptomatic of a major flaw in my character that despite also buying dozens of nonfiction works (Lincoln, On China, and so forth) over the past few years, I haven't finished any of them.
- veidr 13y agoOops, I meant Count Zero, not Burning Chrome. The latter isn't part of the Sprawl trilogy, but rather a collection of short stories (some good, some not so good).
- tartuffe78 13y agoDan Simmons Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion are two of the best novels I've read. I read a lot of scifi, and I think they have held up very well compared to some other works that came out in the 80s through the early 90s. They present a lot of challenges that mankind may face in the future as our technology exceeds us, but they are also very entertaining.
- b3b0p 13y agoMy favorite fiction book is Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry. I am not a fan of the Star Wars books nor am I a hardcore Star Wars fan, but this book captures me every time. Other favorites, not including those mentioned by others already are Jurassic Park and the Harry Potter series. I like to go back and read these often. For fun, my favorite, far and away is Foxtrot by Bill Amend.
- acl2149 13y agoreading stanley milgrams obedience to authority. Hoping to start a biography on oppenheimer soon. Don't know which biography to choose though
- Nekorosu 13y agoEverything from Vernor Vinge is top notch. Start with A Fire Upon the Deep. If you like it read the other two books of the trilogy. It's a space opera by degree of events but it never gets cheesy. The amount of ideas put into these books never cease to amaze me. Rudy Rucker's Postsingular followed by Hylozoic are great books. It's a rather humorous view on postsingular way of life. It's hard to describe his books and Rucker's writing style is not everyone's cup of tea but William Gibson likes it. Also if you haven't read anything from Michael Swanwick you should give his books a try. It's not strictly science fiction because he likes to slide into more psychedelic and surreal areas of fiction. But I consider that his charm. Start with The Iron Dragon's Daughter. I also have to mention Cory Doctorow's Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom. I actually don't really like Doctorow's works. Some of them are boring. But this particular book is an exception and absolutely worth reading. A lot of interesting ideas are in play there including reputation based currency, eternal life (through ability to backup/restore body and memories) and extreme transhumanism.
- dietervds 13y agoI'm a huge fan of Daemon and Freedom(tm) by Daniel Suarez. I guess you can call it a 'technology thriller', with some amazing ideas and impressions of our society. His most recent book, Kill Decision, is along similar lines and also great. I love reading actual sci-fi too, and was most impressed by the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell. Can absolutely recommend those. Note: I didn't come to these titles myself, they were recommended by Steve Gibson from the 'Security Now' podcast. I couldn't agree more with his taste.
- od2m 13y agoVonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5), Bukowski (Postman). Steinbeck (Tortilla flat). All their stuff is good, but those are my favorites :)
- pstack 13y agoI think I have read two pieces of fiction in my adult life. I'd love to read for recreation much more, but if I have time to read a fantasy or horror or science fiction novel, I have time to read something related to my field, instead.
- elehack 13y agoA lot of stuff: Asimov's Foundation (I only recommend the trilogy, though; Foundation's Edge is good but will make you want to read Foundation and Earth, which does severe damage to the universe. Haven't read the prequels.) Asimov's short stories Tolkien Ben Hur The Count of Monte Cristo (brilliant revenge story) A lot of Brandon Sanderson's work (The Stormlight Archive is promising to be fascinating) Too long a list of other stuff to put here.
- msh 13y agoanything by Charles Stross, the atrocity archive could be a good place to start: humor, computers and cosmic horrors, whats not to like ;) Another would be halting state but time have properly overrun it. He even have a interesting background as a programmer/tech writer/pharmacist, read it here: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/07/how_i_got_here_in_the_end_my_n.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/07/how_i_go...
- meerita 13y agoI read history books but also, many others. One of the best classics Sci-fi I've read ever is The Riverworld saga by Josep Filip Farmer. I barealy guess another serie can match the awesome of this story, maybe as some hackers point out, The Foundation is another great series and will entertain you a lot.
- bpizzi 13y agoWell I'm definitely into sci-fi literature. There's simply nothing else nowadays (being in my early thirties) which can caught my attention and limited free time. It's hard to sum it up to a couple of favorites... If you prefer hardcore sci-fi over the rest - as I do, those are definitely first choices: - Iain M. Banks Culture books ("Excession" being the best of all to me) - Simmon's "Hyperion" and "Fall of Hyperion" Some authors managed to bring some good pieces of space-opera without being too much cheesy: - Hamilton and his Void books, - and, of course, Herbert and the Dune stuff. But I must warn the casual reader here: those kind of books can get really massive. Second choices - but still really good books, would be stuff written by great guys like Asimov ("Foundation"), OS Card ("Enders game") or RC Wilson ("Spin").
- jdrenterprises 13y ago"Arguably Essays" by Christopher Hitchens "Letters to a Young Contrarian" by the same. and "Unpopular Essays" by Bertrand Russell.