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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?

#421

Post by matrix87 »

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 books

The way that he describes guilt is incredibly accurate. He's very good at seeing and describing emotional conflict

I also grew up as a non-religious jew but reading him made me realize that christianity has more ideological depth than what I initially thought

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

#422

Post by mrexroad »

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).

Came here to say this. I finally read it last year for first time and was delighted. It has aged rather gracefully as well.

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

#423

Post by AnimalMuppet »

d1str0 wrote: post #292
soufron wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, what an ass way of choosing your friends... I doubt it's optimal.

I think you just proved his point. This response is clearly quite aggressive and over the top and thus falls in the camp of being unlikely friends vs. someone who takes a more cordial approach.

I don't view someone giving me a test on first meeting as "cordial" either.

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

#424

Post by aquir »

mindcrime wrote: post #26

The truth is, if you ask me this 100 times, you'll probably get 100 different answers, because it's impossible to really pick just one (well two, separating by fiction/non-fiction). But for today I'll go with: Fiction: Neuromancer Non-fiction: The Selfish Gene

The Neuromancer has the greatest opening sentence of all times imho: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

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

#426

Post by tb_technical »

jachee wrote: post #387
d1str0 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you just proved his point. This response is clearly quite aggressive and over the top and thus falls in the camp of being unlikely friends vs. someone who takes a more cordial approach.

Cordial or not, I certainly wouldn’t want to be friends with someone sociopathically “testing” me like that. It’s literal anti-social behavior.

No one deserves to be friends with anyone, actually - it's something two people decide mutually.

To see it any other way reeks of entitlement.

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

#427

Post by purpleblue »

Catcher in the Rye was the right book for me at the right age. It really set a North Star for me as to what I wanted to be when I looked at myself in the mirror.

Funny how as I grew older, I found myself understanding more and more about what the older characters were saying, without me sacrificing what made what Holden Caulfield ring so true to me.

Fun fact: in university at the bookstore they had a written poll as to what your favorite book was (before the Internet). I was one of the first ones and wrote down Catcher in the Rye. A month later I read in the school paper that Catcher in the Rye was the winner that year, and it was the first time that the Bible didn't come in first place.

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

#428

Post by kukkeliskuu »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #228

Anna Karenina. Nothing mind-blowing. I didn't see a light in the sky. I read a lot, fiction and non-fiction. When I read Tolstoy, I remember thinking "What sort of dark magic is this?" He drew characters in a way I haven't seen since. I _knew_ these people. I remember this book, decades later. I remember a lot of what I've read, but Tolstoy was the man. I have no idea how or why his magic worked.

Actually it is mind blowing. For example, it has exact description of a flow state in few paragraphs.

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

#430

Post by allturtles »

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…

> These threads often end up, with everyone trying to prove they are literary scholars

I see a wide variety of answers ITT. Some are very "literary" fiction e.g. Ulysses, others are lighter fare like Harry Potter, there's also a wide variety of non-fiction works from self-help to electronics manuals to philosophy. Have you considered that other people might actually have different tastes than you, and aren't trying to "prove" anything?

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