7 ms·
Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
I just finished Red Rising, which I really enjoyed. And I see a post on the front page about The Martian, which was also good.
So what books did you read over the last year that you would recommend to fellow HN'ers?
- musgravepeter 12y agoA Darkling Sea, The Three Body Problem
- JadeNB 12y agoAccording to Amazon, there are at least two "The Three Body Problem"s (ha!), one by Cixin Liu and one by Catherine Shaw. Which one do you recommend?
- wsc981 12y agoI started reading (not yet finished) The Innocents Abroad from Mark Twain. The book was recommended in a previous thread on HN I think. It's an hilarious read and at the same time it's also interesting to read how people lived in Europe and the Middle East ~150 years ago.
- webnrrd2k 12y agoI've been really getting into the Discworld novels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld
- karambahh 12y agoFor readers who are afraid to start such a huge amount of books and for Discworld readers who haven't read them yet, please have a look to The Carpet People (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carpet_People http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carpet_People) and The Nome Trilogy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nome_Trilogy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nome_Trilogy) They are listed as "children's novels"(1) on WP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett) but they are in my opinion even better than some of Discworld books (1)English is not my first language and for some reason, "'s" sounds wrong to me, I would have only used a "'" but since WP use it, I guess it is indeed correct?
- tricolon 12y ago“children's novels” is correct. Could you try to explain why it sounds wrong to you? “Children” is the plural of “child” and so its possessive is formed by adding “'s”.
- karambahh 12y agoI think my reasoning goes that in french, a trailing s denotes a plural much more regularly than in english (or so it seems to me, I have no way to measure this in a serious way). I know the grammar rule that says that "James's bicycle" is not correct, "James' bicycle" is (and I seem to remember that the only reason is that a double s cannot be pronounced) Combine these two facts and you've got "no s as possessive at the end of a plural" rule that formed in my tired mind :-)
- DanBC 12y agoI like books by Tibor Fischer. I re-read "The collector collector" which I particularly enjoy for the sense of entitlement the petty criminals have. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1420926117&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SY200_QL40 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qi... http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1420926117&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SY200_QL40 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=... There's probably a passive income project in scraping HN once a month for book recommendations and putting them on a page with referal links to the various formats of the books on various sites. Not sure how passive that is.
- pjlegato 12y ago"Game of Thrones" and its successors, by George R. R. Martin.
- walterbell 12y agoNine Hundred Grandmothers, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/roboman/www/sigma/review/900grannies.html http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/roboman/www/sigma/review/90...
- bko 12y agoThe Masters of Doom. It's about the history of id Software, a game development company that created Doom among other titles. Even if you're not interested in games, it's still worth a read. The writing style is very casual, almost juvenile at times with slang and swear words sprinkled throughout but the story is certainly fun. It is also very inspiring and made entrepreneurship look fun. I learned about this book from another HN post.
- hellbanner 12y agoBlindsight, a brilliant first-contact sci-fi written by a Marine Biologist that explores the Chinese Room Paradox, "Intelligence" vs "Artificial Intelligence" with brilliant characters, writing and dialogue. Comes with a front-cover quote by Charles Stross, a popular post-singularity author (you may have read his work). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640%3FSubscriptionId http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640%3...
- sfronczak 12y agoBird Box by Josh Malerman - I didn't know what to expect and it was a great book. It's the first time in a while that I've read a book has been intense/scary.
- tlubinski 12y ago"The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel" by Jasper Fforde, it starts slow, so give it 100 pages but I was hooked then and read all other books from him (and all are excellent). "Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine - most underrated book from Douglas Adams, it's brilliant.
- relaunched 12y agoThe Iron Druid Chronicles, by Kevin Hearne - Laugh out loud funny, very interesting characters and includes themes from multiple religious pantheons. It's an 8 book series, so far, with several novellas. Very enjoyable and well written.
- nkzednan 12y agoTend read more Sci-fi/fantasy. Some good ones this year: Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss http://amzn.com/B0010SKUYM http://amzn.com/B0010SKUYM Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch http://amzn.com/B000JMKNJ2 http://amzn.com/B000JMKNJ2 The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson http://amzn.com/B003P2WO5E http://amzn.com/B003P2WO5E Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson http://amzn.com/B002GYI9C4 http://amzn.com/B002GYI9C4 The above four are the first book in their respective series. I've also enjoyed the sequels to all of them. Several of the series are not yet finished. Several of the books are on this list from several years ago by NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-s... flowchart of the NPR list: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/flowchart_for_navigating_nprs_top_100_sff_books/ http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/flowchart_for_navig... Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- bryanlarsen 12y agoI read lots of books in 2014, but I don't think any were better than the Martian, which you have already mentioned.