"The Rediscovery of Man" by Cordwainer Smith
There's no other science fiction like this, he had a unique style. It's a collection with most of the SF he wrote, excepting the novel "Norstrilia".
Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
91–100 of 307 posts
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#92Passage by Connie Willis
Passage follows the efforts of Joanna Lander, a research psychologist, to understand the phenomenon of near-death experiences by interviewing hospital patients after they are revived following clinical death.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#93It is already 6 years old. I had a great time reading it when a friend recommended it to me about 3 years ago: The Circle by Dave Eggers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel) And do yourself a favour, never watch the movie version from 2017. The end has been butchered which ruins the whole message of the story.
Horrible, just horrible ending...
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#94Lost Connections by Johann Hari
About the sources of depression and anxiety of the current society. Interesting book backed with a lot of studies.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#95There is a book I've read at least 6 times:
"The problems of philosophy" by Bertrand Russell.
And for a completely different turn:
"Revolt against the modern world" by Julius Evola.
The first book in my mind is a great read no matter what place you are coming from. The second one is a bit esoteric and might be controversial from some people. But for me it offered a biggest shift in perspective out of all the books I've read so far.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#96I'd have to recommend 'A deepness in the sky' and 'A fire upon the deep' by Vernor Vinge. Both really good science fiction books where your initial perception is slowly shown to be incorrect as more details appear about the characters, and with great storylines. Despite being thick tomes with small print, I got through both reasonably quickly as they were so addictive to read - 'just one more chapter', etc...
If we're recommending scifi I'd like to add Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward.
Except he's now up to three books.
It's hard scifi of a neutron star passing through the solar system and Earth scrambling to research it. At the same time life is developing on the neutron star.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the genre of Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius has intrigued me for some time. I have yet to read any of Seneca's work though but imagine that it is any bit as much quality(!). I would like to add a candidate for the recommendation on Stoic philosophy - "Meditations by Marcus Aurelius".
Meditations disappointed me, it was so obviously never meant as a coherent whole. Just long lists of notes in more or less random order, lots of repetition, not everything intelligible, few things applicable. I think reading a randomly selected 1/6th of Meditations gives more or less the same experience as reading all of it.
I find it great to dip into. Open at random and read a page. Like you said, it's just not meant to be read as a whole.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#98the Baroque Cycle (three large novels, in fact) by Neal Stephenson
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#99I'd have to recommend 'A deepness in the sky' and 'A fire upon the deep' by Vernor Vinge. Both really good science fiction books where your initial perception is slowly shown to be incorrect as more details appear about the characters, and with great storylines. Despite being thick tomes with small print, I got through both reasonably quickly as they were so addictive to read - 'just one more chapter', etc...
If we're recommending scifi I'd like to add Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward. Except he's now up to three books. It's hard scifi of a neutron star passing through the solar system and Earth scrambling to research it. At the same time life is developing on the neutron star.
No limits on genres or types of books. There are so much wonderful stuff to read I've never heard of, so by imposing any kind of limits or suggesting genres I would limit people to suggest stuff I might already like, not stuff I might like but would never otherwise hear about.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?
#100I'd have to recommend 'A deepness in the sky' and 'A fire upon the deep' by Vernor Vinge. Both really good science fiction books where your initial perception is slowly shown to be incorrect as more details appear about the characters, and with great storylines. Despite being thick tomes with small print, I got through both reasonably quickly as they were so addictive to read - 'just one more chapter', etc...
I did not expect to see sci-fi here but I'd like to add anything in the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds. I just got done reading it for a 2nd time, and Elysium Fire for the 1st time and I'm in love with his style of writing and the universe he's created.
I just want more information about all the things like Ultras, Rust belt, Glitter band, Belle epoque and so forth.
In my opinion it's not as poetic as Dune but it's not action filled like The Expanse. The fascinating parts that make me keep reading are all the cultural and technical details he brings out between the story line.