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Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

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Re: Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

#191

Post by decasteve »

ararar wrote: post #127

Don Quixote de la Mancha - M. de Cervantes Saavedra A hundred years of Solitude - G. G. Márquez Foucault's Pendulum - U. Eco Cryptonomicon - N. Stephenson The Dispossessed - U. K. Le Guin

4 of those 5 books are some of my all-time favourites. Ones that I enjoy rereading but I’d be hard pressed to pick just one.

Re: Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

#192

Post by decasteve »

Myrmornis wrote: post #109

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics maybe.

That would be a hard one. A book of appetizers without a main course. I read it when I was an undergrad wanting to get a broad sense of different areas in Math I could pursue.

If I had to pick one math book it would have to be a classic with some depth to it: Euclid’s Elements, Newton’s Principia, or Gauss’ Disquisitiones.

Re: Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

#193

Post by logicalmonster »

For fiction: it's a hard tossup between Snow Crash and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, though Ender's Game, The Bicentennial Man, Rendezvous with Rama series, and Atlas Shrugged also would be contenders for me.

For nonfiction: some current contenders would be Democracy: The God that Failed, The Physics of Immortality (very thought-provoking and mind-bending), and some of Robert Green's books particularly The 48 Laws of Power.

Re: Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

#195

Post by leobg »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #129

If I must pick one without knowing why, I would likely pick Ark by Stephen Baxter. The story is hard sci-fi and is, very broadly, about a multigenerational spaceship which travels across the stars following a planet-scale catastrophe. The writing and the world building are amazing and i've already read it probably a dozen times. I vaguely suspect if I can only have one book forever, some shit has gone down and I'd wa…

Second Alas, Babylon! And, in a similar vein, Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart. I’ve read that one about five times. It’s also about an end-of-civilization scenario. And something about it is strangely grounding and life-affirming.

Re: Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

#196

Post by gHeadphone »

jdkee wrote: post #57
NickNaraghi wrote: post #32

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Came here to say this. I reread it every ten years or so and each time I find something new in it.

Came here to say both these things. I also read it every ten years, and take something entirely different from it each time. A philosophy book, a novel, a road trip story, a discussion of mental illness, and a father and son book alll rolled into one.

Re: Ask HN: Which book would you pick to re-read for the rest of your life?

#197

Post by Myrmornis »

decasteve wrote: post #192
Myrmornis wrote: post #109

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics maybe.

That would be a hard one. A book of appetizers without a main course. I read it when I was an undergrad wanting to get a broad sense of different areas in Math I could pursue. If I had to pick one math book it would have to be a classic with some depth to it: Euclid’s Elements, Newton’s Principia, or Gauss’ Disquisitiones.

Yes, perhaps you're right! It could be frustrating, either because it doesn't give you enough to understand the introduction to an area, or because it doesn't give you any depth. I think it would be a bad mistake not to take a maths book with exercises and solutions to ones desert island.
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