The absolute best for me: The Malazan book of the fallen.
Book 1 is really hard to get into and doesn't reward as much. But if you stick with it, as early as the end of Book 2, you'll know what you're in for.
Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
11–20 of 980 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#12There are always better books than the ones I read, and there will never be the best. I’ve tried selecting a few that I can remember at all times, the most interesting book to me, and I’ve listed them on my website at https://brajeshwar.com/#books
If I had to return and re-read, I’d re-read “Leonardo da Vinci.”
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#13Non-fiction: Pale Blue Dot.
Fiction: The Diamond Age.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#14Godel Escher Bach is the best book I've read. Very interesting topics and the sheer creativity of the writing is amazing.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#15The Boy's Second book of Electronics by Alfred Morgan(1957) introduced me to electronics in the 1970s, and lead to a technical mindset and lifestyle. The Engineers Notebook by Forest Mims really taught me the basics of electronics. What do you care what other people think by Richard Feynman(1988) introduced me to the idea that nobody is really as much of an expert as you might think. 1632 By Eric Flint, and the subse…
"the way things work", the book with all the woolly mammoths in it. Learned a lot from it
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#16Henry George’s Progress & Poverty conducted what can only be described as a coup on my worldview, and I am not alone in that experience.
It is an incredible argument that will just utterly transform how you understand a walk down the street.
If you’ve been seeing references to the Land Value Tax (LVT) here on HN, this is the book that originated the concept. Like most conceptual breakthroughs, it didn’t emerge solely from George with no related ideas in the vicinity, but this is definitely “the book” behind it.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#17One Hundred Years of Solitude -- Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#18'Bashō, dichter zonder dak' with the subtitle 'Haiku en poëtische reisverhalen' by professor Willy Vande Walle, a Belgian Japanologist. It's a translation of Basho's travel diaries with a lot of contextual information, kind of like Martin Gardner's 'The Annotated Alice', if you've read that one. It's an amazing intellectual tour de force by one of the foremost experts in his field, and it helps that the original works are of very high quality of well.
Unfortunately I don't know if there's an English equivalent, and considering how awful of a language Dutch is to learn it may be easier to learn Japanese, read the originals, and look up all the references yourself.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#19> I think it's an excellent question.
Because?
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#20There are too many…
But I’ll pick The Psychology of Money. There are few books that have so drastically changed my view of reality and affected my behavior.
(Bonus because I couldn’t help myself: Getting things done, Man’s search for meaning, Surrounded by idiots)