Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
I got asked recently, and I think it's an excellent question.
What's the "best" book you've ever read? By "best", in means whatever you mean.
I got asked recently, and I think it's an excellent question.
What's the "best" book you've ever read? By "best", in means whatever you mean.
Anything from Sagan: Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God could convert the Pope to agnosticism.
Stephen Ray Gould: Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin: will both challenge every preconceived notion you've had, link seemingly impossibly unrelated phenomenon together using similar models and patterns, and leave with a much more intuitive understanding about complexity, randomness, and chaotic systems.
A Briefer History of Time: For those who truly would like to exalt their personal God of the Gaps to the small unit.
'Bashō, dichter zonder dak' with the subtitle 'Haiku en poëtische reisverhalen' by professor Willy Vande Walle, a Belgian Japanologist. It's a translation of Basho's travel diaries with a lot of contextual information, kind of like Martin Gardner's 'The Annotated Alice', if you've read that one. It's an amazing intellectual tour de force by one of the foremost experts in his field, and it helps that the original works are of very high quality of well.
Unfortunately I don't know if there's an English equivalent, and considering how awful of a language Dutch is to learn it may be easier to learn Japanese, read the originals, and look up all the references yourself.
Henry George’s Progress & Poverty conducted what can only be described as a coup on my worldview, and I am not alone in that experience.
It is an incredible argument that will just utterly transform how you understand a walk down the street.
If you’ve been seeing references to the Land Value Tax (LVT) here on HN, this is the book that originated the concept. Like most conceptual breakthroughs, it didn’t emerge solely from George with no related ideas in the vicinity, but this is definitely “the book” behind it.
Godel Escher Bach is the best book I've read. Very interesting topics and the sheer creativity of the writing is amazing.
There are too many…
But I’ll pick The Psychology of Money. There are few books that have so drastically changed my view of reality and affected my behavior.
(Bonus because I couldn’t help myself: Getting things done, Man’s search for meaning, Surrounded by idiots)
There are always better books than the ones I read, and there will never be the best. I’ve tried selecting a few that I can remember at all times, the most interesting book to me, and I’ve listed them on my website at https://brajeshwar.com/#books
If I had to return and re-read, I’d re-read “Leonardo da Vinci.”
One Hundred Years of Solitude -- Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.
Non-fiction: Pale Blue Dot. Fiction: The Diamond Age.
The absolute best for me: The Malazan book of the fallen.
Book 1 is really hard to get into and doesn't reward as much. But if you stick with it, as early as the end of Book 2, you'll know what you're in for.
> I think it's an excellent question.
Because?
I am That - talks with Nisargadatta Maharaj. Best for me.
The Boy's Second book of Electronics by Alfred Morgan(1957) introduced me to electronics in the 1970s, and lead to a technical mindset and lifestyle.
The Engineers Notebook by Forest Mims really taught me the basics of electronics.
What do you care what other people think by Richard Feynman(1988) introduced me to the idea that nobody is really as much of an expert as you might think.
1632 By Eric Flint, and the subsequent series, got me thinking about the nature of civilization and all the things that go into making it.
There are a lot of books in this world, and they all helped author who I am.
"the way things work", the book with all the woolly mammoths in it. Learned a lot from it
Unless youve just read a handful of books in your life it is impossible to give a good answer to the question.
Books are not oranges.
"Books are not oranges."
As an aside, what do you mean by this? I would have an even harder time giving and answer to the best orange I've eaten.
The Hobbit. My brother read it to me when I was just starting to read. When he was done I asked him to read it again. he said no and I learned to read in earnest. I was often shooed out of the adult section of the library. I have read lots of books by now.
I got to thinking -- a handful of books is approximately one book.
And who ranks their oranges?
Depends on the books of course but the old pulp paperbacks were such you could hold 5 to 10 maybe. Today a tablet could hold 1000s (? how many I don't know ?)
Nonfiction: Thinking, Fast & Slow
Fiction: Project Hail Mary
The best book I've partially read is the New Testament. The best book I've actually read is Taleb's Antifragile.