Ask HN: What is the best fiction book you've ever read?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5832407

by jborden13 • 13 years ago

12 46 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've been suffering from burnout lately and one of the things I read was that reading books unrelated to work/productivity is supposed to help. I'm headed in vacation in a couple of weeks and I'm curious what the best fiction book you ever read was? If your book is already in the comments below please just upvote it.

tjr• 13 years ago

To Kill a Mockingbird

zlbrooks• 13 years ago

Slaughterhouse 5, Snowcrash, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

david927• 13 years ago

Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables, War and Peace

stevekemp2• 13 years ago

Since you're going with "classics" I'd add:

* Les Liaisons dangereuses

* The Count of Monte Cristo

Plus my personal picks; Taltos the assassin, Chronicles of Amber, Dune & LoTR.

jtbigwoo4• 13 years ago

All the nerds I know (which is basically everybody I know) like the Vlad Taltos books. As long as you're OK with dragons, sarcasm, and crime you should like them, too.

leephillips2• 13 years ago

Some favorites:

Pale Fire by Nabokov

Ulysses by Joyce

Et Tu, Babe by Leyner

Metamorphosis by Kafka (more a long story)

Things Fall Apart by Achebe

Hamlet and Coriolanus by Shakespeare

The Code of the Woosters by Wodehouse

The Doorbell Rang by Stout

wj• 13 years ago

Using best and favorite interchangeably as literature is a pretty subjective subject:

As a kid: Where the Red Fern Grows As an adult: The Dharma Bums

joe8756438• 13 years ago

a couple favorites: classic: The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian recent scifi: Stories of your life and others (short stories) by Ted Chiang

michael_fine• 13 years ago

A Song of Ice and Fire

thesash• 13 years ago

A few on my "re-read every few years" list: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Speaker for the Dead, Infinite Jest, Watchmen, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

agilecoder• 13 years ago

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother both by Mark Haddon

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

makerops• 13 years ago

Reamde by Neal Stephenson,

Daniel Surez freedom (tm), deamon, and kill decision.

ready player one

anything by mark twain

stuffchunk• 13 years ago

Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoj

smuss77• 13 years ago

It's been mentioned, but gotta second Crime and Punishment. Great.

papul1993• 13 years ago

I haven't read many books but till date I have never read a book better than The Godfather.

latch• 13 years ago

Dune

1984

Would greatly help if you told us what type (or examples) of books you like.

jborden132• 13 years ago

I purposely left it open-ended. I probably haven't read a fiction book in 15 years. I've been so heavy on business/marketing/tech/startup/biography books that I'm not even sure what fiction I would enjoy anymore.

Books I've enjoyed recently are Titan, Outliers, Blue Ocean Strategy. I think a portion of my burnout is losing my sense of fun - hence my general attitude towards fiction over the last decade+ has been it's fake and thus a waste of time. While I know that's not true (the waste of time part), it just hasn't been 'productive' to read a fiction book.

So I was just curious which fiction books everyone else enjoyed, and I was going to pick a couple from the list that was created.

jtbigwoo4• 13 years ago

Look for page-turners rather than literature as you're getting back into fiction. Business and popular non-fiction books these days are written in a very elementary style. I take nothing away from Malcolm Gladwell, but his writing style is very easy to read compared to many of the books we're suggesting.

nicwolff• 13 years ago

Top three: Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis; Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban; Glimpses of the Moon, by Edith Wharton

Some other favorites: The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller; To Reign In Hell, by Steven Brust; Machine Man, by Max Barry; The Dawn Patrol, by Don Winslow; The Woman, by Hank Ketchum

leephillips2• 13 years ago

Read Machine Man this year: very effective, really chilling.

fizzbar• 13 years ago

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, while maybe not the "best" book ever written, is highly entertaining...

jtbigwoo4• 13 years ago

All of Neal Stephenson's books have a breezy sense of wonder and adventure with a dash of science-y cleverness.

saturdayplace3• 13 years ago

If the OP is looking for a page turner, then Stephenson's Snow Crash is another great recommendation. Anathem was slower to me, and Reamde was good. But if I was to pick up Stephenson's stuff again I go to Snow Crash, then Cryptonomicon as my one, two.

minusthebrandon• 13 years ago

American Gods by Neil Gaiman is an amazing book.

meerita2• 13 years ago

I seriously recommend the Riverworld series, written by the excellent Philip José Farmer. I think after The Foundation from Asimov I cannot find anything good or exciting for fiction.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Jos%C3%A9_Farmer

PD: I've read a lot, guys. Those were my favs :D

mast• 13 years ago

It's so hard to recommend something without a frame of reference. Personally, I've found myself re-reading The Lord of the Rings lately.

But, if I had to pick one book that was my favourite, I might say Moby Dick. (I'll admit that I actually read it first after seeing the Wrath of Khan as a kid)

meerita2• 13 years ago

I agree with this. "Fiction" is a really broad term and may lead to many different and, probably, meaningless suggestions to the OP. If he can specify wich kind of fictions he likes maybe he will get better recommendations, I've read so many fiction books from different genres that it's really hard to choose one in particular.

tptacek• 13 years ago

Catch 22.

saturdayplace3• 13 years ago

Catch 22 is a fantastic read. I don't think I've read anything else where everything in the book is such a great illustration of its main theme. Plus, it's just plain entertaining.

wglb2• 13 years ago

My daughter first read this in high school, and I think she still rereads it every year.

foobarqux• 13 years ago

> When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, "Who has?" -- Heller, author of Catch-22

jtbigwoo4• 13 years ago

Neuromancer by William Gibson

saturdayplace3• 13 years ago

Contact by Carl Sagan. I first read it as an adult and it took my breath away. The movie was a fair adaptation.

Also, I like to read Ender's Game once a year or so.

halhelms2• 13 years ago

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

halhelms2• 13 years ago

The Count of Monte Cristo for a great, rousing yarn

chudi• 13 years ago

A confederacy of dunces, amazing book! tragedy, comedy, insane characters, really good book!

mccolin• 13 years ago

The biggest tragedy of A Confederacy of Dunces is that it's author, John Kennedy Toole, did not live to see its publishing and success. I also love this book!

wglb2• 13 years ago

Joyce Carol Oates.

kohanz• 13 years ago

Sphere by Michael Crichton. I was quite young at the time, but I remember being completely engrossed. Please don't relate it to the movie version :)

jborden132• 13 years ago

Loved this book when I was younger. Fascinating read.

varunkho• 13 years ago

I have found books from Jon Evans very delightful and interesting to read:

1) Beasts of New York – http://www.beastsofnewyork.com/

2) Invisible Armies (thriller, drama, computer hacking) – http://www.rezendi.com/invisibleArmies.htm

Both books have their digital edition freely downloadable as well.

pfedor• 13 years ago

"All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren.

cpr• 13 years ago

The Master of Hestviken, by Sigrid Unset (long forgotten, but she was a Pulitzer-winning author in the 1930's), is probably the best novel I've ever read.

rombdn• 13 years ago

A Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett is usually for me a good way to step back from everyday life and work. It's funny, there are many references to scientific and nerd culture and it helps to reconsider some "serious" things...

Ask HN: What is the best fiction book you've ever read?

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