book suggestions thread

i would like to start this thread so we can suggest to each other books/articles or whatever you think its interesting or a must.

i'll start with mine:

1. Nine Talmudic Readings: Levinas
2. The great secret: Maeterlinck
3. Hyperion, or the Hermit in Greece: Hölderlin
4. The Invention of Morel: Casares
5. The Conference of the Birds: Attar of Nishapur

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Robert M Pirsig

In no particular order, a few of my favorites:

The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Emile Durkheim.
The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham.
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.
The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by William S. Baring-Gould.
Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.


I normally dislike self-help verbiage and nonsense, but I found this reading at random on the internet recently and it looks like good advice on the whole -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urFChdLN6nA

https://admin.unhiden.com/sites/defa...r%20Living.pdf

Ten Basic Rules for Better Living (1953) by Manly P. Hall

Apart from that, the author seems to have been a nut-case.

Rule 11 would be Get As Much Education As You Can, preferably in something objective like for example accountancy, physics, mathematics.


I've read six of the top ten novels listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern...00_Best_Novels and twenty-four from the whole 100 list. It misses out older classics and translations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita I've also read twenty-four from this list https://entertainment.time.com/2005/...els/slide/all/

But as I grow older, the more I dislike fiction. Don't waste your life in fantasy. Looking back to the many hours I spent reading thick classics, now I think I would have been better off just going for a walk.


Edit: My favourite novel is Dead Souls by Gogol, because it seems vivid.

Rule Zero for the above would be the Golden Rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

Edit2: Rule 12 would be Self-Monitor. Monitor yourself to check that you are not doing anything unethical or hasty that you will regret afterwards; and also think about how you could have done something better in the past so that you can do it better if the same situation arises again.

Much of these rules are about being egoless.

I think I was always a contrarian. We had to do the classics at school -- mostly Dickens but we did Jane Eyre too. And Kipling's Kim one year. I hated them all. The only Dickens book I liked (loved actually) was A Tale of Two Cities, which is quite untypical of him.

It's the same with fantasy. I read and loved Tolkien at a time when no one else had ever heard of him. If you found someone who had actually read him too, it was like you were exchanging masonic passwords. Then when fantasy became more popular, I went off it because suddenly there were whole shelves full of this stuff and it was always the same sort of thing.

I read mostly trash fiction now. My brain is tired.

In general I'd recommend reading three kinds of books: academic books that teach critical thinking skills (formally or informally), books written by and about the views and experiences of unfamiliar under-represented minorities (could be a religious/ethnic/political minority, a person with a rare disability, etc.), and books promoting, explaining, or favorable to opinions that are opposite to the reader's.

As for something specific, I would recommend Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi novel Children of Time for the theme of seeing things from the perspectives of others (that's something I took away from the book; not necessarily the author's stated theme).

The only Dickens book I liked (loved actually) was A Tale of Two Cities, which is quite untypical of him.

Dickens is what happens when authors are paid by the word.

I read a lot science fiction when I was younger, but I lost interest when it took a dark turn in the 70s and 80s. Real life is dark enough.

I particularly liked the works of Isaac Asimov, especially the short stories, but I also enjoyed older writers, particularly Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

Legend: *Sci-Fi, **Adventure/Detective, ***Crafts/Skills

James S. A. Corey:
*Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse Book 1)
*Caliban's War (The Expanse Book 2)
*Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse Book 3)
*Cibola Burn (The Expanse Book 4)
*Nemesis Games (The Expanse Book 5)
*Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse Book 6)
*Persepolis Rising (The Expanse Book 7)
*Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse Book 8)
*Leviathan Falls (The Expanse Book 9)

Edit: These aren't 'must reads' but a partial list of those I have on my Kindle PaperWhite. I'll list some hard-cover and d/ls from Google Books later.

Andy Weir:
*The Martian: A Novel

Marcus Sakey:
*Brilliance (The Brilliance Trilogy Book 1)
*A Better World (The Brilliance Trilogy Book 2)
*Written in Fire (The Brilliance Trilogy Book 3)

David Baldacci:
**Memory Man (Amos Decker Book 1)
**The Last Mile (Amos Decker Book 2)
**The Fix (Amos Decker Book 3)
**The Fallen (Amos Decker Book 4)
**Redemption (Amos Decker Book 5)
**Walk the Wire (Amos Decker Book 6)
**Long Shadows (Memory Man Series)

David Baldacci:
**The Innocent (Will Robie Book 1)

James Patterson:
**Step on a Crack (Michael Bennett, Book 1)
**Run for Your Life (Michael Bennett, Book 2)
**
**Tick Tock (Michael Bennett, Book 4)
**I, Michael Bennett (Michael Bennett, Book 5)
**Gone (Michael Bennett, Book 6)
**Burn (Michael Bennett, Book 7)
**Alert (Michael Bennett Book 8)
**Bullseye (Michael Bennett Book 9)
**Worst Case (Special Edition)

Lee Child:
**Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, Book 1)
**Die Trying (Jack Reacher Book 2)
**Tripwire (Jack Reacher Book 3)
**Running Blind (Jack Reacher Book 4)
**Echo Burning (Jack Reacher Book 5)
**Without Fail (Jack Reacher Book 6)
**No Plan B: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Better Off Dead: A Jack Reacher Novel
**The Sentinel: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Blue Moon: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Past Tense: A Jack Reacher Novel
**The Midnight Line: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Make Me (with bonus short story Small Wars): A Jack Reacher Novel
**Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Never Go Back (with bonus novella High Heat): A Jack Reacher Novel
**A Wanted Man: A Jack Reacher Novel
**The Affair: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Worth Dying For: A Jack Reacher Novel
**61 Hours: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Gone Tomorrow: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Nothing to Lose: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Bad Luck and Trouble: A Jack Reacher Novel
**The Hard Way: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Jack Reacher: One Shot: A Novel
**The Enemy: A Jack Reacher Novel
**Persuader: A Jack Reacher Novel

Brad Thor:
**Collectors' Edition #1: The Lions of Lucerne, Path of the Assassin, and State of the Union (The Scot Harvath Series)

Eric Toensmeier:
***Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One-Tenth of an Acre, and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City

Jim Hrisoulas:
***The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection

Linda Franz:
***Basic Basket Making: All the Skills and Tools You Need to Get Started (How To Basics)

Anna Hess
***Homegrown Humus: Cover Crops in a No-till Garden (Permaculture Gardener Book 1)

Howard S. Russell:
***Indian New England Before the Mayflower

A taster for mathematics with lots of pictures is David Acheson, 1089 and all that A Journey Into Mathematics

Also, any of Mathematician's Delight, Prelude To Mathematics, or A Path To Modern Mathematics, all by WW Sawyer.

any discworld book
osc enders game, songmaster
susan cooper dark is rising
douglas adams hhgttg specially so long and thanks for all the fish
andre norton star mans son
1984
war of the worlds
snorri sturlesson prose edda
moorcock end of all songs trilogy, 1t 3 books of corum, quest for tanalorn

The Dancing chain by Frank Berto

Japanese Steel by William Bevington

Why We Die by Venki Ramakrishnan
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

'Dubliners' - James Joyce

'Sapiens and Homo Deus' by Yuval Harari.

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa

Novelization of the life of Miamoto Musashi