Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by sam29681749 » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 3:38 AM UTC

aristofun wrote: post #61

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.

> what do you mean by this That books are not a commodity.

The point _may_ be that oranges can be evaluated based on a few simple variables (eg., richness of flavor, juiciness, etc.), where there's no common set of variables that can be used to evaluate all the different types of books (ie, what makes a good history book differs to what makes a good philosophy book, etc.) and if they can't be compared, a 'best' can't be established.

That said, as the author alluded to, 'best' in this context is vague and can mean what we want it to, eg., person a may consider best to mean the book that has had the widest influence, where person b may consider it to mean the book that they personally found the most insightful, etc.

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

#112

Post by bkgh » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 4:00 AM UTC

Don Quixote

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

#113

Post by sam29681749 » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 4:01 AM UTC

njtransit wrote: post #105

will-burner wrote: post #47

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace It’s kind of cliche for a white male nerd of a certain age, but it has stuck with me. How imaginative the book is, the huge mix of characters and stories in the book, and the style of writing are incredible. The pace of interesting ideas is very fast and engrossing, and the language used to describe things is complex but not overly so.

It’s on my to-read list, but starting is daunting. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (the essay collection) was amazing. I think about it often.

I read this and didn't find it all that interesting, although it was quite funny in parts. I'm curious to know what you found amazing about it?

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

#114

Post by sam29681749 » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 4:12 AM UTC

a_square_peg wrote: post #27

I think this is as meaningful as the question "what's the best food you've ever eaten?", which is to say, it's not a very meaningful question.

Steak and eggs made by my grandfather.

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

#115

Post by RhysU » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 4:13 AM UTC

njtransit wrote: post #105

will-burner wrote: post #47

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace It’s kind of cliche for a white male nerd of a certain age, but it has stuck with me. How imaginative the book is, the huge mix of characters and stories in the book, and the style of writing are incredible. The pace of interesting ideas is very fast and engrossing, and the language used to describe things is complex but not overly so.

It’s on my to-read list, but starting is daunting. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (the essay collection) was amazing. I think about it often.

Read a physical copy. Use two bookmarks, one for the footnotes. Read until the toothbrush photo before thinking about putting it down.

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

#116

Post by RhysU » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 4:15 AM UTC

sam29681749 wrote: post #113

njtransit wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s on my to-read list, but starting is daunting. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (the essay collection) was amazing. I think about it often.

I read this and didn't find it all that interesting, although it was quite funny in parts. I'm curious to know what you found amazing about it?

The idea that entertainment could be all engrossing and some forms of entertainment addictively destructive to our well-being? That we could have cameras in video conferences but would want them effectively off? It was delightfully/scarily prescient in some ways.

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

#117

Post by Goldpiggy » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 5:24 AM UTC

Trillion dollar coach

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

#118

Post by histories » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 6:02 AM UTC

Impossible to pick one... best I can do is five-ish, all fiction:

The Odyssey; David Copperfield; Moby-Dick; Anna Karenina; Borges' short stories, in particular Ficciones & The Aleph

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

#119

Post by edanm » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 6:45 AM UTC

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 one of my favorite books in general.

Fiction: The Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson. Best fantasy books ever, IMO.

I can go on for a long time, but I felt like these haven't been mentioned and absolutely deserve a place on this thread.

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

#120

Post by bloak » Mon, Oct 07, 2024, 7:04 AM UTC

aireo wrote: post #79

Several immediately come to mind. Short stories: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (Ken Liu); Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation (Ted Chiang); The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) Novels: The Monk (Matthew Gregory Lewis); Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

Which edition of Frankenstein would you recommend, 1818 or 1831? (Gutenberg.org has both.)