Which book(s) left a lasting impression on you?
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Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too.
Fear of Small Numbers, by Arjun Appadurai
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Learning Perl, 2nd edition
There's therapy for that.
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Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too.
Enders game a it was the only novel I had finished in my life. Took me 3 years but disabilities like ADHD is horrible for me. I can read pretty well but any books like novels just can't do it. Also with aphantasia it gets even worse.
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Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too.
The Lord of The Rings. This book changed reading for me. I always enjoyed fantastical themes, but this one really got me. Then, I found out there was more. More background, more world building, more why.
I've never turned back. I re read it occasionally and I've read much of Tolkien's other works. Next on the list is to begin working through The History of Middle Earth. I will be starting this in the fall. It may take me quite some time to get through.
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I flew through all the Mistborn novels recently, and I started The Stormlight Archive a little while back. I'm on the second book now and loving it. Really looking forward to all the rest!
Highly recommend sneaking in Warbreaker before you finish Words of Radiance if possible.
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Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Grew up seeing it on the bookshelf and thought it was a horror book. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in book form.
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His Dark Materials
Singularity Sky (and its sequel, Iron Sunrise)
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (a fanfiction novel that is far better than the original series)
What If (and What If 2, by Randall Munroe)
The Planiverse
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Society After an Apocalypse
Sophie's World
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy
If you liked Stross's general style, I would also recomend the Merchant Princes (universe hopping smugglers/spies/couriers) and the Laundry Files (co.puter scientists and mathematicians as civil servants fighting against the occult)
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Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Gave me fresh perspective on the state of America
Foundation is great, have you also read the Empire trilogy? Also after reading Empire + Foundation you should read The end of Eternity, it's an amazing book whose impact is only felt if you've read the other books.
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Such a good book, I too went on a tear through his work after Fight Club and I think this and Choke are fighting for my top spot.
I don't think Choke is as good myself. Still a good read but Survivor has stayed with with more in the years since.
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Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer
It isn't just sci-fi, there's a lot of coming to terms with your limited amount of human influence on your environment and life, that there unknowns that will always be unknown, and that's ok, we're no different than the gains of sand by the lighthouse, as subject to nature as the grass, or birds.
There are also clones of people that have to come to terms with their identity as to what they are, even if they themselves don't fully understand it, and can't.
The universe is bigger than you, and your scope is limited, but that's ok. Find wherever you fit and try to find purpose in the chaos.
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Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too.
The ending of the last night angel books really follows you around.
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Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too.
Crime and Punishment.
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Enders game a it was the only novel I had finished in my life. Took me 3 years but disabilities like ADHD is horrible for me. I can read pretty well but any books like novels just can't do it. Also with aphantasia it gets even worse.
This was my answer as well. It's an amazing book amd I always recommend it.
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Crime and Punishment.
... "does the gentleman want his head smashed?"
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Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Grew up seeing it on the bookshelf and thought it was a horror book. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in book form.
I'd say it contains some existential horror...
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::: spoiler spoiler
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:::wrote on last edited by [email protected]Another great short story that I never see mentioned is "Teddy" By J.D. Salinger.
There is also a Dave Eggars short story that always stuck with me from his one collection called, "After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned."
Also, almost forgot, "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce is also fantastic.
Top three short stories imo.
Edit: Yikes... without spoiling anything, I just realized that there is a (kind of dark) theme connecting all of those. Should I be worried?
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1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I loved 1984, but when I was younger, I always found Orwell's treatise on language that takes up a big chunk in the middle to be dull and far-fetched.
Boy was I wrong...
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This was my answer as well. It's an amazing book amd I always recommend it.
Oh it was not a good book. Made by someone who's donated actively to organization that want to make me dead for existing. It was a shit book but the only novel.i ever read.
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Time enough for love - Heinlein
Nor crystal tears - Foster
A world out of time - Niven
Ringworld - Niven
Sassinak - McCaffrey
The Martian - Weir
Time Enough for Love was my favourite book as a young man. Tried re-reading it recently and really struggled. I feel like the last 20 years of social progress has really dated Heinlein's language especially (less so his ideas). Was a shame.
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I'd say it contains some existential horror...
I won't disagree but I was under the impression the guy wrote at least 4 other Slaughterhouse books. With a title like Slaughterhouse I believed the book series was packed to the gills with blood and guts.
