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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?

#691

Post by tb_technical »

jrflowers wrote: post #670
tb_technical wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised that in over 1000 pages, a parallel can be drawn by a statement, from a character from the work in question, and a sentiment I hold. Stopped clocks and all that.

> Stopped clocks and all that. It’s the fundamental point of the entire story. Like it is literally the thesis of the 1000 page book. Guy figures out that there are two tiers of people, good or smart or whatever (John Galt, you) and less good or smart or whatever (me, your childhood friends (???)), and the way to address this is for the Smart Goods to protect themselves from the Dumb Bads through their wily tricks. I…

Yeah as I've said before - don't remember much of the book. But freedom of association isn't exactly a concept the rand lovers have a monopoly over.

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

#692

Post by edanm »

bityard wrote: post #608

As long as we're using "best" in air quotes, I'll throw in a suggestion for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. It's victorian-era alternate reality fantasy. Which is something I never would have imagined liking. Yes, it borrows a LOT from existing stories. To the point that it's nearly a pastiche. But it is incredibly well done and you appreciate it more when you learn that it was the author's first…

A wonderful, wonderful book. Highly recommended.

> Yes, it borrows a LOT from existing stories.

Honestly, I don't connect to this - this book has such a unique voice, so unlike most fantasy. And the plot is so different from the typical Tolkien-esque fantasy you normally find.

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

#693

Post by edanm »

delecti wrote: post #277

Diaspora by Greg Egan. No other book has caused such a seismic shift in how I think about consciousness, personhood, continuity of self, the enormity of the universe, and practicalities of galactic timescales. It also triggered quite a few existential crises (which nearly goes without saying, given all that).

A great book.

I personally prefer Permutation City - for similar reasons. I don't think a book has quite affected my thoughts on what consciousness means quite as much as that book, and it's very interesting to boot.

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

#694

Post by m463 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #362

These threads often end up, with everyone trying to prove they are literary scholars. I prefer junky fantasy books. I'm really too old and cynical to give a damn what y'all think of me. I probably liked David Edding's Belgariad series, along with the Mallorean series, the most. I reread them, regularly, and go through all ten books, in a couple of weeks. They are an easy read. Also, Glen Cook's Black Company books ar…

> I prefer junky fantasy books.

Kindle books like that are what fill in the gaps in my free time. One recent fantasy series I liked was The Good Guys/The Bad Guys by Eric Ugland. Somehow kept me turning pages.

some others (not fantasy) Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey; Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin;

But sometimes there is a lot of dreck to wade through.

Been thinking of making a "stop reading and discard book" list like:

- main character has unknown/dead parents, is secretly "the chosen one"

- no plot, character goes there, minimal opposition, gets all the stuff.

- anything harem

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

#695

Post by dmonitor »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #677
dmonitor wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was interested in the series until I heard the worldbuilding bit about how the aliens have FTL 12-dimensional supercomputers the size of an atom that can cause hallucinations and interfere with particle accelerators from orbit. Author basically just gave the antagonists god-powers to prove some kind of point about how hopelessly pathetic humans are?

> FTL They are not FTL, they are lightspeed. They managed the computers through quantum entanglement. It's not god powers, imagine 21st century humanity vs middle ages humanity. Like Arthur C. Clarke said, "advanced enough science is no different than magic" or something along those lines.

My understanding was that they sent the computers faster than light while their ships were traveling at sub-lightspeed, or something like that, which is why they could get here and fuck up the planet centuries before their fleet would make it.

My point, though, is that we're making up a fantasy world where the impossible is possible, and a bleak universe isn't more "realistic" than a hopeful one. It bothers me that people try to praise the "realism" in these books. They might as well have just sent Frieza to blow up the planet. It's within the same realm of possibility.

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

#696

Post by 015a »

tb_technical wrote: post #468
015a wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you Scott Alexander? https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/12yn28h/com...

No, and I don't know who he is either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Star_Codex

Its at least a bit interesting that this idea that "Ayn Rand exists as a roundabout litmus test for assholes" is quite weird, one I've never heard before, except from him. To arrive independently at the exact same, weird conclusion, there must be something to it.

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

#697

Post by mikhmha »

matrix87 wrote: post #421

Probably Brothers Karamazov I didn't really understand what it was trying to tell me when I first read it, the ideas just sort of ruminated. I read it when I was either 19 or 20, was completely at odds with who I was then but helped me grow as a person The way that we think about individual agency and self-interest in modern society is at odds with what our emotional needs are. He makes this point in many of his book…

I read it this year. I loved it. I think if I read it a few years earlier it would be totally lost on me.

For my self what I found interesting is the depiction of Russia in the 19th century, and the on-going transition from a peasant agrarian society into "modernity" and all the confusion it creates. I am not Russian, yet it all seemed so familiar to me. Why? Because I think this same transition is going on in my ethnic country - though 200 years later. Because the archetypes of people shown, the attitudes among former aristocrats and landowners, inefficient (and unserious) bureaucracy, conflicting ideas about religion vs secularism, inferiority complex towards "modernism", changing views of women's role in society, etc I've seen all the same things.

And of course, the book finally convinced me that I should not give into nihilism and pessimism even when everyone around me does.

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

#698

Post by throwaway7772 »

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…

Numbers and Leviticus are the worst slog of a book I've come across. Don't think people are very honest with themselves when they read through it and think, yes God made this so beautiful.

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

#699

Post by [deleted] »

tb_technical wrote: post #142

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

[deleted]
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