Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#491

Post by maremmano » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 8:28 AM UTC

harshalizee wrote: post #104

maremmano wrote: post #23

Hands down: Papillon by Henri Charrière. If you think you are going through a difficult period. If you don't know what resilience means. If you really want to change the way you see life. Read this book. Really.

Wasn't this book proven to be completely made up and the author was never actually in prison?

In my opinion, even if it was invented in some parts, this does not detract from the great power of this book. Apart from this, I have read that some events have been invented and, it is said, but it is not proven, that some events have not happened to the protagonist but to his fellow prisoners. Even if it were true I would still suggest reading this great adventure.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#492

Post by alltakendamned » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 8:41 AM UTC

palerdot wrote: post #45

The Count of Monte Cristo If you find yourself HOPELESS (which whole world is experiencing right now), just read this. Because this book is all about HOPE. Edit: Go for the 'unabridged' version to truly experience this novel.

hope, and vengeance...

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#493

Post by gatorek » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 9:21 AM UTC

newen wrote: post #449

Gollapalli wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the sequel? He literally spends the rest of his life making up for that mistake as speaker for the dead.

Speaker for the Dead is the book that the author originally wanted to write. Ender's Game was written as a prequel for it.

Seriously? I have read them in exactly that order. In comparison with Speaker for the Dead, the Ender's Game seems little childish...

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#494

Post by 4x5-Guy » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 9:23 AM UTC

There are so many. Just a few.

- Flatland - An old book, but opened up the other dimension idea for me a lot. - The Mote in Gods Eye - The idea that you can't always count on your preconceptions to be true, and some people will always look out for themselves first. - Dune - For all the reasons others have mentioned.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#495

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 9:24 AM UTC

throwqwerty wrote: post #391

TulliusCicero wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read > ender's game is nazi apologia in your comment, I was pretty sure that there would be a point in the quoted article where the author went from reasonable background/description, to instantly jumping to a completely nonsensical argument, and I was not disappointed. > The difference between Peter and Ender is not in what they do, but in what they are What? That's incredibly dumb. This like saying a serial…

>Maybe Ender went too far, but he did act in self-defense the book is literally about a kid committing genocide and the reasons why he should feel okay about it (ie a pretext). or did you not read it through to the end?

By this reasoning, if tomorrow we found out that the violent video games we've been playing controlled robots somewhere killing real people, that would make everyone who played those games ruthless killers who should at the very least be imprisoned for life, if not executed.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#496

Post by lamby » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 9:30 AM UTC

> I suspect that it doesn’t very much matter what one reads in the early years once one has acquired the essential ability to read for pleasure alone.

— Christopher Hitchens

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#497

Post by betageek » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 9:42 AM UTC

adaisadais wrote: post #251

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. My best friend in 7th grade had older siblings and they had all read Ender’s Game. He read it and told me I had to read it. Being the impressionable 7th grader (2006-7) that I was I gladly obliged. I found the book to be deeply fascinating. It opened my eyes to ‘new’ technology like ‘ansible’ (can communicate anywhere in the universe instantaneously) and really opened up my imaginati…

It is one of the great mysteries of life how an author can write a couple of books (this and Speaker for the Dead) that are literally all about loving the 'other' and still be homophobic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Homosexuality

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#498

Post by Dowwie » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:05 AM UTC

hprotagonist wrote: post #12

see my nick, but in addition to stephenson, the books i come back to over and over again for comfort and wisdom include: - Lord of the Rings: The other bible. Not even the very wise can see all ends; be of good cheer. - A Wrinkle In Time: 9 year old me, there is such a thing as a tesseract, and there is also Mrs. Beast. - The Master and Margarita: apocalyptic reading from someone who knew, and a cat who always pays h…

HBO better not disappoint us with their Snow Crash series. This was such a fun book.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#499

Post by Dowwie » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:07 AM UTC

barnabee wrote: post #430

William Gibson. The Bridge trilogy and the Sprawl trilogy, at a minimum. They still feel like maps to the future even now. You have to work at it, the map is not the territory after all, but the realisations about the impact of technology, progress, and the choices we make when we let society work a certain way have been profound, for me at least. Also The Peripheral, and Gibson’s essay in Wired about undersea cables…

Seveneves until the fast forward was engaging but I stopped reading shortly after.

Re: Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?

#500

Post by tomspeak » Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace has been the most impactful, but due to the length of the book it's hard for others to compete on the impact-per-page metric. I wrote about it in detail here https://speak.sh/posts/infinite-jest

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera showed me another perspective of love I had never considered. Gave me insight into vulnerability.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes showed me how by looking through the world via a lens of intellect, you can often miss the point.

The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God by Etgar Keret a collection of some of my favourite short stories. Highly recommend.