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Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#681

Post by tsukikage »

wruza wrote: post #123
tocs3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Books are not oranges." As an aside, what do you mean by this? I would have an even harder time giving and answer to the best orange I've eaten. The Hobbit. My brother read it to me when I was just starting to read. When he was done I asked him to read it again. he said no and I learned to read in earnest. I was often shooed out of the adult section of the library. I have read lots of books by now.

The best orange has a structure of a peak ripe grapefruit. Peel doesn’t stick, micro-columns separate easily and burst with juice. If grapefruits were orange-flavored, I’d eat them all day.

Ever tried pomelo?

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#682

Post by j0hnyl »

mindcrime wrote: post #26

The truth is, if you ask me this 100 times, you'll probably get 100 different answers, because it's impossible to really pick just one (well two, separating by fiction/non-fiction). But for today I'll go with: Fiction: Neuromancer Non-fiction: The Selfish Gene

Neuromancer is by far my favorite novel. On first reading, it felt to me like someone was finally describing the world in a way that I saw it, but couldn't articulate myself. I come back to it every couple of years and it never fails to entertain me.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#683

Post by miramba »

Based on the amounts of re-reads: Das Boot. A soldier and artist, caught in the strangest of circumstances, either under the most extreme, life threatening danger or waiting for it, both in slow motion. Fascinating, state of the art technology, a miracle of science, but with a need of highly trained, expendable slaves running it for a single immoral purpose. Completely dependent on other peoples decisions, sitting far away in front of a chess board, ready to sacrifice him at any given time for their strategic goals. Any attempt to escape, to scream on the insanity of the situation or even to question it are grounds for immediate execution. Based on a true story. I‘m reading this book for 30 years and the authors ability to describe the nightmare that happened to him still haunts and fascinates me.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#684

Post by Dove »

aporetics wrote: post #234
Dove wrote: post #128

There can be only one answer to that - the Bible . Twenty years ago, I was convinced the content alone justified the claims of a divine origin, which opinion has only grown stronger in the years since. Even if you don't believe in it, it is worth reading as literature - an extraordinarily epic story, and a lot of stuff to say about humanity and divinity along the way. Everything else, comparatively, seems to me like…

Stick with QCT, I’ve been coming back to that essay for 20 years. Given your other recs, you might want to go back to a few of the Dialogues: the Apology, the Laches, maybe the Phaedrus. And if you’re serious about the divine origin stuff, after reading the Apology, read the third chapter of Walden.

Thank you for that, I will.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#685

Post by ultimafan »

carapace wrote: post #45

The best book I've ever read is perhaps "cheating" because it's "The Next Whole Earth Catalog" and, as the name says, it's a catalog of (mostly) books. (You can see it for yourself in all it's glory here: https://www.wholeearth.info/p/the-next-whole-earth-catalog-f... ) Other than that I'd have to say the Tao Te Ching. (The best fiction book I've read is almost certainly "The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe. It's…

For fiction, came here to say the same about Gene Wolfe, the whole solar cycle series by him might honestly be the (for now at least) absolute pinnacle of both the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Great world design, great characters, great writing (and variety of voice, the way he pulls off different characters writing is just brilliant, it really feels like a series written by several completely different authors.) The kind of books you read and reread and taken something new out of them every time. I'd honestly give just about anything to be able to go back into them completely blind again.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#686

Post by zem »

criddell wrote: post #582
analogwzrd wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great line, though it might not have aged well. Younger generations might just think "Oh, the sky was black"

My kids would think the sky is blue because our TV shows a solid blue screen when there's no signal. For people with TVs like mine, I suppose the line still works.

as a genxer I was not sure if he meant blue or grey and snowing.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#687

Post by edanm »

dartharva wrote: post #671
edanm wrote: post #119

Impossible to pick just one. I'll give a few that haven't appeared yet: Fiction: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Non-fiction: Rationality - from AI to Zombies (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Probably no books have impacted me quite as much as these two, barring early-childhood books that have impacted me from a young age. Fiction: Worm (by Parahumans) Best "superhero" fiction ever created. Just on…

> Fiction: The Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson. Best fantasy books ever, IMO. I highly recommend listening to the GraphicAudio adaptation of this series. It's what got me into audiobooks.

Honestly, I've really disliked these kind of full cast recordings every time I've tried them. No idea why.

I'm a fairly voracious audiobook consumer, though.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#689

Post by vonrosen2000 »

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman. The audio book is also great. The writing style is gripping and it's a very funny book despite being about a serious subject: WWI. It also gives a sense of how much pressure the leaders were under and how some managed while others simply broke as initial plans went awry. The author makes clear how individual decisions made huge differences and the entire outcome of the war could have been very different based on the personalities of those involved. These personality insights and descriptions really shine through. The book is not a definitive history of the start of WWI by any means but it is highly entertaining and reads quickly.

The chapters about Turkey can be skipped since they don't seem to fit in with the rest of the book. I found them boring.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#690

Post by reducesuffering »

carabiner wrote: post #508
krupan wrote: post #294

Nobody has mentioned: - The Lord of the Rings. It is the secret gateway for us nerds to get into literature and poetry (do not skip the poems!). Read all the reference materials like The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, J.R.R.'s letters, the books his son Christopher edited and published, etc. If the poems seem weird or don't make sense, research why they are worded and structured the way they are. - The Master and Margarit…

Obscure wtf? It's a classic of Russian literature and taught in every Russian lit class.

Agreed. It comes up a million times on HN and has an enormous amount of ratings on Goodreads, #3 in Russian lit behind only 1 book of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/117833.The_Master_and_Ma.... It is widely popular in the English-speaking world; not obscure.
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