Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read? • Hacker News Board

King Lear (Shakespeare). Disgrace (Coetzee). The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky). Тихий Дон (Sholohov's name is on the cover; there are several translations under various titles as Quiet Don or something like that).

Re: Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?

#25

Post by no-espam » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 3:47 AM UTC

pitchups wrote: post #13

Gödel, Escher, Bach - the best book ever hands down!

+1

Re: Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?

#26

Post by sente » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 3:49 AM UTC

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Re: Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?

#27

Post by tokenadult » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 3:51 AM UTC

Best novel about growing up is The Chosen by Chaim Potok.

http://www.amazon.com/Chosen-Chaim-Penguin-Modern-Classics/d...

I got a LOT out of that when I reread it at least thirty years after reading it the first time.

Best nonfiction book full of amazing facts and insights into the human condition I didn't know before I read the book is The Nature of Paleolithic Art by R. Dale Guthrie.

http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp...

There are bunch of others I could remember, but these two in particular took me by surprise by being much better than I would have guessed they would be when I first picked them up.

Re: Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?

#28

Post by foob » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 3:52 AM UTC

Goethe's Faust. It's more densely packed with brilliance than anything else I've ever read.

Re: Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?

#29

Post by shadowhillway » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 4:12 AM UTC

I'm curious if anyone here is going to offer The Bible as the greatest book he has ever read.

Re: Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?

#30

Post by zoowar » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 4:14 AM UTC

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust