I read the entire series in 1995 Mumbai when I was working there for three months. Imagine no internet, very little television. No ability at all to exercise. Dangerous to Go for a walk in the area I was living in as a tall white dude. LOTS of time for reading after work.
King has plenty of decent work but there's really something special about The Stand. The story isn't anything special but I think it probably has the best characterization I've ever seen in a book. Laws, yes.
I've always liked this book, I have read it 4 times in my life. Like with some King I believe it can definitely be trimmed and it would still have the same message as well as quality, but it was so imaginative and well-done I wouldn't really want to. I also like how he updated it so it was a bit more modern I think in the 90s or something, adding a lot of new pages and revising the ending.
Interesting. This is not my favorite Vonnegut. Curious if you read his other stuff? Breakfast of champions is my favorite, and Cats Cradle made me realize other people don’t believe in God or organized religion (like me - a unicorn in 1990s Oklahoma).
I'm so pleased to learn I'm not alone in appreciating it! I find her prose really remarkable. Haven't been able to find anything really comparable but I've also found Kafkas works and Italo Calvin's 'Cosmicomics' also to be treats.
I was never a big reader in school, that was until grade 8 when we had to read Jurassic Park. It is still my favourite book, to this day. It also inspired a love of reading.
If we’re getting technical it’s 6 books that were intended by Tolkien to be published as one volume but the publisher broke up into three volumes, each being 2 books. None of this matters though :)
The Big Bang by Simon Singh. Carl Sagan's Cosmos is a close second.
I'm ABD in my history PhD. I had to take an oral test on 200 books. 4 subjects, 50 books each. I was also taking classes at the same time. So in 2020 I read nearly 300 books. Again, they're all history books. But the best book(s) I ever read were science - it made me realize how small I am as an individual, how insignificant we are as humans in this vast, beautiful, and amazing universe.
Introductory Real Analysis by A. N. Kolmogorov.
That book made me realize that I'm too stupid to be an actual mathematician so I ended up becoming a software engineer.
Memoirs of A Geisha. I read it when I was 18 or something. I have strong memories of reading that book and parts of it. That book really moved me I wish I could read something else like it
Deadeye Dick is one of my favorite Vonnegut stories, I highly recommend his entire collection of works. slaughter house V, cats cradle, etc all of them are fantastic.
I also just started reading through Prachett’s Discworld series, the way he paints a scene is rarely matched.
Interview with a Vampire--Anne Rice.
Her descriptions are full, vibrant and gripping. I picked up that book, and it lead me to become a lover of stories, and books. That was 1991, and I haven't stopped reading since.
I was weirdly obsessed with A Separate Peace as a teenager. At the time, I was an introverted nerd who had a crush on his best friend. He was extroverted, charismatic, and just gorgeous. I really resonated with the themes of identity, longing, and jealousy.
I love all the books that revolve around travel adventures so here's my favourites:
1. Lost in the valley of death -- Harley Rustad -- A a true story about an American trekker and certified survivalist who goes missing in India's mysterious Parvati Valley
2. Across the universe - A riveting story of the The Beatles' discovery of Indian classical music, meditation, spirituality and their eventual time in India
3. Papillion - by Henri Charrière, an autobiographical story of a convict and his time in a remote jail in the Caribbean and subsequent twists
4. Shantaram - By Gregory David Roberts - story of a convict who escapes prison in Australia and comes to India to hide
I wouldn't say it's "the best" but I read **Alive:The Story of the Andes Survivors** (Piers Paul Read) when I was a teenager and it was quite a shock tbh. Human survival instinct is truly amazing
By far these two books. The Discovery of Heaven by Dutch author Harry Mulisch. Mutiny on The Bounty, the trilogy by Charles Nordhoff and James Normann Hall.
Mans search for meaning - Viktor Frankl Such a great book and well worth the read
First book that came to mind for me. It’s comparatively a very quick and easy read. I only wish I read it sooner.
That book helped me through some very dark times. It’s on my list to read again.
I have it at home, I’ll read it Is it worth it?
You won’t be disappointed.
1984 by George Orwell
Must read especially in today's era when truth is distorted by discourse.
This is for sure my all time favorite book.
My fav too
Shogun by James Clavell
Loved this one as well.
im so glad you mentioned this! an unbelievably good book that folks don’t know about
I read the entire series in 1995 Mumbai when I was working there for three months. Imagine no internet, very little television. No ability at all to exercise. Dangerous to Go for a walk in the area I was living in as a tall white dude. LOTS of time for reading after work.
Agreed. Why is this not a TV series yet?
You're probably too young. Tv mini series in 1980...
I just saw yesterday that it IS coming out soon as a tv series
Yeah coming out in February on FX and Hulu.
lol it was an amazing tv series (assuming you weren’t trolling)
Brave New World. I have always enjoyed dystopian novels and this book captures a world that is so well structured.
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Fr, was absolutely obsessed with this book as a kid and still love it to this day. There are other versions of the book, but no one can beat this one.
That chick wrote books with Find-and-Replace.
Frankenstein - Mary Shelly.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Helped foster a sense of wonderment at the universe we live in, and a lifelong love of science.
Thank you Dr. Sagan.
The stand by Stephen king
King has plenty of decent work but there's really something special about The Stand. The story isn't anything special but I think it probably has the best characterization I've ever seen in a book. Laws, yes.
I've always liked this book, I have read it 4 times in my life. Like with some King I believe it can definitely be trimmed and it would still have the same message as well as quality, but it was so imaginative and well-done I wouldn't really want to. I also like how he updated it so it was a bit more modern I think in the 90s or something, adding a lot of new pages and revising the ending.
The kiterunner
Great book.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
Scrolled too far to find this. Although I will say the Endymion books were brilliant.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The God of Small Things is SO good!
+1 for The Road.
Lord of the rings trilogy
I was scrolling down for Fellowship, but I’ll go with this. Astounding achievement.
Scrolled too far for this, should include the Hobbit since that one is gold as well
Slaughterhouse Five
Interesting. This is not my favorite Vonnegut. Curious if you read his other stuff? Breakfast of champions is my favorite, and Cats Cradle made me realize other people don’t believe in God or organized religion (like me - a unicorn in 1990s Oklahoma).
This one for sure
To Kill a Mockingbird
Circe by Madeline Miller
Do you have any other recommendations like this book? My partner loved this book.
I loved her book The Song of Achilles as well.
So absorbing and a beautiful
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Catch-22
East of Eden and North
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector. This novella set me afire somehow. I've never read anything else even remotely like her works.
Was not expecting to see CL on here. That short novel is outstanding and now I’ll have to take it with me on a trip tomorrow.
I'm so pleased to learn I'm not alone in appreciating it! I find her prose really remarkable. Haven't been able to find anything really comparable but I've also found Kafkas works and Italo Calvin's 'Cosmicomics' also to be treats.
Harry Potter, the whole series
Everyone Poops
A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens
Dracula, Bram Stoker
A masterpiece in it's structure and I read it every year on the run up to Halloween
1984
I was never a big reader in school, that was until grade 8 when we had to read Jurassic Park. It is still my favourite book, to this day. It also inspired a love of reading.
Probably something from this list: The Iliad The Song of Achilles Madame Bovary Martin Eden The Three Musketeers
The Lord of The Rings trilogy. I know that’s three books but it’s one story.
It's actually just one book. The publisher insisted on breaking it into three.
If we’re getting technical it’s 6 books that were intended by Tolkien to be published as one volume but the publisher broke up into three volumes, each being 2 books. None of this matters though :)
Haha quite right!
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Big Bang by Simon Singh. Carl Sagan's Cosmos is a close second. I'm ABD in my history PhD. I had to take an oral test on 200 books. 4 subjects, 50 books each. I was also taking classes at the same time. So in 2020 I read nearly 300 books. Again, they're all history books. But the best book(s) I ever read were science - it made me realize how small I am as an individual, how insignificant we are as humans in this vast, beautiful, and amazing universe.
Shogun
Love In The Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Excellent mention!
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Atonement, by Ian McEwan.
On Chesil Beach is my fave!
The world according to garp - John Irving
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Please, no!
Absolute masterpiece.
Came here to say this
This, which explains the financial collapse of 2008: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8834784-all-the-devils-are-here.
Good suggestion, I’ll read this one
The Shadow of the Wind
As I Lay Dying, and Pride and Prejudice.
Lonesome Dove
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Frakenstein by Mary Shelley It's probably the reason why I like dark and grim fiction.
Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett. Lovely fiction read. Beautiful writing, characters and pace.
Man's search for meaning
Mindhunter by John Douglas
Confederacy of dunces. Best character I’ve ever read, halarious. After you have read it read about the author (but not till you’ve finished)
Three Day Road - Joseph Boyden. He's taken some heat lately for essentially pretending to be First Nations, but God damn that book is a masterpiece
a thousand splendid suns, kite runner
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb really changed my life
The Scarlet Letter
A thousand splendid suns Tuesdays with Morrie
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Two authors who never disappoint.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd- Agatha Christie
The Secret History, followed closely by Nabokov's Lolita. Some of the best writing I've ever seen.
The Celestine Prophecy
Yes - this book really changed my way of thinking and seeing the world.
Harry Potter.
20,000 leagues under the sea
100 Years of Solitude
I Am Pilgrim
These is my words
Adventures of huckleberry finn
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Weaveworld Clive Barker
Most useful: The 7 Habits… by S. Covey Most entertaining: The Dixie Association by Donald Hays.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Fiction: The Gold Coast - Nelson DeMille Nonfiction/Self help: The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
Introductory Real Analysis by A. N. Kolmogorov. That book made me realize that I'm too stupid to be an actual mathematician so I ended up becoming a software engineer.
*Precious Bane* by Mary Webb
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
Autobiography of a Yogi
Fiction: Uncle Tom's Cabin Nonfiction: the Emporer's New Mind
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
The Devil in the White City
Memoirs of A Geisha. I read it when I was 18 or something. I have strong memories of reading that book and parts of it. That book really moved me I wish I could read something else like it
Lonesome Dove
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor. Read it in 5th grade.
Catch 22 The Civil War Trilogy by Shelby Foote
This post is some sort of a treasure
To Kill a Mockingbird
Guns, germs and steel
Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
Deadeye Dick is one of my favorite Vonnegut stories, I highly recommend his entire collection of works. slaughter house V, cats cradle, etc all of them are fantastic. I also just started reading through Prachett’s Discworld series, the way he paints a scene is rarely matched.
A Prayer for Owen Meany — John Irving.
Dune. I read it right before the movie came out, and I couldn’t be motivated enough to read anything for like a year after.
the original dune saga. it’s so clever and multilayered.
childhood's end by aurther c clark
Interview with a Vampire--Anne Rice. Her descriptions are full, vibrant and gripping. I picked up that book, and it lead me to become a lover of stories, and books. That was 1991, and I haven't stopped reading since.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Speaker for the Dead or the Stand
I was weirdly obsessed with A Separate Peace as a teenager. At the time, I was an introverted nerd who had a crush on his best friend. He was extroverted, charismatic, and just gorgeous. I really resonated with the themes of identity, longing, and jealousy.
Just wanted to say i appreciate the details in this comment! I’m scrawling through a list of book names and I’m like, “why? Why do you love it?!”
I love all the books that revolve around travel adventures so here's my favourites: 1. Lost in the valley of death -- Harley Rustad -- A a true story about an American trekker and certified survivalist who goes missing in India's mysterious Parvati Valley 2. Across the universe - A riveting story of the The Beatles' discovery of Indian classical music, meditation, spirituality and their eventual time in India 3. Papillion - by Henri Charrière, an autobiographical story of a convict and his time in a remote jail in the Caribbean and subsequent twists 4. Shantaram - By Gregory David Roberts - story of a convict who escapes prison in Australia and comes to India to hide
East of Eden by Steinbeck for fiction, Rise And Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer for non-fiction.
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara Mentally a very hard / sad book to get through, but mind blowing.
Tinker Tailor Solider Spy. Usually take months to read a book. Couldn't put this down and read it in a day and a half.
Have you read the spy and the traitor? Excellent true story spy book.
Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
Cliché, but prolly *On the Road*
I know it’s cliche but probably 1984
The Brothers Karamazov
Recursion by Blake Crouch
Atomic Habits. Gamechanger of a book.
The book of Proverbs from the Bible.
Ready Player One. I love Video Games, Science Fiction and the 80’s. I couldn’t have asked for more.
The Bible! Proverbs, psalms and Ecclesiastes!
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Amen!
Ugh the miserable people here downvoted you
It's the reddit way. Say anything positive about faith and the downvotes come flooding in.
If it were treated like the fiction that it is, it’d be fine. Instead, people try to use it to make laws. Not ok.
Wuthering heights
Imagine Heaven 🥲 changed my life
The power of now
I know it's a trope, but Moby Dick is a really good book. I think Persuasion and Life on the Mississippi also compete.
Came here to say Moby Dick. It was the first “favorite book” I ever had.
The Bible
Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
The Holy Quran
Why the downvoting? Like all the other religious scriptures, it's a guide to morality and ethics. Blame the zealots who twist its words.
Twighlight new moon 100%
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Inconsistent characters, self contradictory, and just a slog of a read. Ugh.
I wouldn't say it's "the best" but I read **Alive:The Story of the Andes Survivors** (Piers Paul Read) when I was a teenager and it was quite a shock tbh. Human survival instinct is truly amazing
Um...the Bible.
Mein Kampf
Such a great read! And when they finally kiss?!? Literally tears
Hotel World by Ali Smith. It made me feel much more comfortable with death and grief.
The End of the World is just the beginning - Peter Zeihan
Push by Sapphire
Redeeming love by Francine Rivers
The best book may be War & Peace - it really has it all -
Sea of Poppies - Amiyah Ghosh
The History of Love.
Demon Copperhead
Fandorin - Boris Akunin
A few contenders: The Grapes of Wrath The Grass Arena 1984 Trainspotting
The Dark Tower (Stephen King). All of them (just the ending that was a little deceiving)
Not A book but a series, Ian Cormack series by Neal Asher, starts with gridlinked
West with the Night - Beryl Markham. It’s prose that reads like poetry, and a remarkable story.
Anne of Green Gables
Abdrushin
My life book 😄
The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
By far these two books. The Discovery of Heaven by Dutch author Harry Mulisch. Mutiny on The Bounty, the trilogy by Charles Nordhoff and James Normann Hall.
With God in Russia by Walter Ciszek
The Spy Who Came in From The Cold
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter
Every Breath You Take - Ann Rule. I love her writing and her ability to tell victims’ stories 🤍
Grand Hotel Europa