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Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#11

Post by justaguyhere »

thorin wrote: post #10

Travels, by Michael Crichton - a sort of autobiography with some excellent lessons on life. I've never met anyone else who's read it for some reason. Ishmael - recommended on here but doesn't seem well known in the UK. Everyone I've recommended to has enjoyed The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Proof that politics hasn't changed much in 100 years Jonathon Livingston Seagull - again well known on here, but not so m…

I can vouch for Travels - nice to see someone mention it! It is a great book. Crichton had a fascinating career - he was in medical school, but he was insanely productive writing novels and earning a living. He was a fantastic writer, director, traveler, producer...

Strangely, for someone so brilliant, he did not believe in global warming!!!

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#12

Post by justaguyhere »

There was a Russian children's book that I read so many times as a kid - I think it was called Happy Family, but my memory is fuzzy.

A big part of the book is a story about two boys (and the sister of one of the boys) creating an incubator at home to hatch eggs. It is a fascinating read - how they use books to adjust heat, how they take turns watching their home made incubator, how they are so sleep deprived that one of the boys wears shoes on opposite foot...

Today's kids grow up with smartphones and ready made robot kits. But there is a lot of charm in making things with whatever stuff is around you at home.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#13

Post by kleer001 »

Fragment - Warren Fahey

A Michael Crichton-esque thriller set on an island that's been cut off from the rest of the world for 1/2 a billion years and the crazy nitro fuelled funny car of an ecosystem that's there.

It's not a surprise philosophical treatise that'll revolutionize your cognition, just a bit of good fast fun.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#14

Post by tmaly »

kleer001 wrote: post #13

Fragment - Warren Fahey A Michael Crichton-esque thriller set on an island that's been cut off from the rest of the world for 1/2 a billion years and the crazy nitro fuelled funny car of an ecosystem that's there. It's not a surprise philosophical treatise that'll revolutionize your cognition, just a bit of good fast fun.

Thanks for posting this. I think I read about this in an HN thread years ago, but I could not remember the name.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#16

Post by satvikpendem »

croo wrote: post #9

Haruki Murakami - The elephant vanishes As I searched for the author after reading this book by chance it seemed to me that he is quite famous - but nobody around me has ever heard of him. The book I recommend is a collection of short stories, most rooted in reality with a hint(or sometimes a container) of surreal.

Murakami is great. Have you read his other books? The latest one, Killing Commendatore, was a good read.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#17

Post by thorin »

justaguyhere wrote: post #11
thorin wrote: post #10

Travels, by Michael Crichton - a sort of autobiography with some excellent lessons on life. I've never met anyone else who's read it for some reason. Ishmael - recommended on here but doesn't seem well known in the UK. Everyone I've recommended to has enjoyed The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Proof that politics hasn't changed much in 100 years Jonathon Livingston Seagull - again well known on here, but not so m…

I can vouch for Travels - nice to see someone mention it! It is a great book. Crichton had a fascinating career - he was in medical school, but he was insanely productive writing novels and earning a living. He was a fantastic writer, director, traveler, producer... Strangely, for someone so brilliant, he did not believe in global warming!!!

Yes, he had some strange beliefs, I think he decided he wanted to be Arthur Conan Doyle.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#18

Post by wonsh »

Adventures in Immediate Unreality by Max Blecher

Translation from the Romanian available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/AdventuresInImmediateUnreality

About Max Blecher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Blecher

This book is a masterpiece. Very few people have heard of it, and until roughly a decade ago, Blecher was almost completely unknown outside of Romania.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite book that nobody you know has heard of?

#19

Post by chrisbennet »

This is one of my favorites: "The Sprite: The Story of a Red Fox." It was first published in 1924 I think, I have a later copy from 1927? It's the true story of a pet fox.

Another one I liked is "Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II". This one isn't that rare but I haven't anyone mention it.

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