
Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books. - vips
Mine are 
Pixar Touch and
IWOZ
======
mahmud
The Story of Civilization; 11 volumes of pure joy. Will and Ariel Durant will
make you fall in love with mankind. The most humanist take on history I have
read. I read them over 6 years and I still live under the Durants' spell.
Exquisite and delightful read.

Muqadimat Ibn Khaldun. History, Sociology, Political Science, Scientific
Empiricism, Theology, Superstition, Gossip, Leadership, Trivia .. it's
everything. It feels like a collaboration between the Grim brothers, Karl
Marx, Douglas Adams and Plato. People well versed in Islamic history will get
the most out of it. It's a book written by a scientist for a religious and
superstitious audience. You can see him walk the fine line, appeasing his
princely sponsors while speaking his mind. It's full of code-language written
for a better enlightened generation while accommodating the religious and
cultural beliefs of his era. Read his biography and you should see bits and
pieces of Rousseau; a hypocritical, pan-handling snob who makes his living
saying one thing, and living his life doing another .. while still being a
fucking genius :-D

~~~
Scott_MacGregor
Muqadimat Ibn Khaldun. You make this book seem very interesting. Based on your
description and explanation of it, I think many people from outside the
Islamic culture might find this book fascinating (buy a copy) if it came with
a running dialog inserted into the text as needed that explained the history
and cultural beliefs of that time. Might be a best seller in the west.

~~~
mahmud
The unequaled Franz Rosenthal did a translation of the Muqadima (Prolegomena
in Greek) in English:

<http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/index.htm>

My copy of it is Arabic but heavily annotated by researchers. A translation of
_that_ would be great, I know.

Short bio:

<http://www.cis-ca.org/voices/k/khaldun.htm>

Longer bio (PDF):

<http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/books/ibn-khald.pdf>

N.B: This is a medieval personality and the text is ancient. Please read it
under that light. He lived 1332 - 1406 CE.

~~~
Scott_MacGregor
Interesting cultural material, thank you.

------
Scott_MacGregor
I only read technical and business material, I love this type of stuff.

1\. The Windows 3.1 manual. A hardcopy in a small grey ring binder that
shipped with the operating system when I bought it new. I read it cover to
cover to cover 3 times because I wanted to know everything about it. I kept
thinking this is a lot like UNIX but nicer to use except for the fact that it
had less features than UNIX. Every time I re-read the manual I would think of
new things I wished it would do! Which lead me to examine--every--file in the
operating system looking for a way to make it better, until Windows 95 came
out, lol.

2\. EMC Retrospect for Windows Users Guide. I read it cover to cover twice
(it’s a 300 page pdf). It is my absolute favorite. If you ever want to learn
about backup, this is a great read. Pure tech stuff, no fluff. Here is link if
anyone is interested, it’s free:
<http://www.retrospect.com/assets/en_rug_win75.pdf>

~~~
Tichy
Seriously hardcore

------
ekpyrotic
'Elements of Style', Strunk & White.

It has changed my life. For the last two years I have endeavoured to simplify
my thoughts/ideas, so they can be communicated precisely. It's hard, painful
work.

That aim has recoloured my being: music; literature; art. Philip Glass.
Hemingway. Mondrian.

I am not the same person.

~~~
lsd5you
Elements of Style, is well written and thoughtful, but it should not be taken
as an prescriptive authority - as it commonly is - on grammatical minutiae. Or
in other words Strunk & White, a.k.a Drunken Shite (only when discussing
grammar rules!!).

~~~
eggoa
Exactly. Regarding the "passive voice" see Victims of Page 18:

<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1485>

~~~
jfager
For a rant on language, that's amazingly unreadable.

------
unalone
House of Leaves - What literature should be. Innovative both in design and in
prose. It's very long but you can finish it in a maddening evening, it's
hilarious, it's terrifying. Along with Steven King's _It_ , one of two books
to give me nightmares. Incredibly complex. It's a puzzle I still haven't fully
solved. I consider it the first modern-era novel, and expect others will come
like it. When I wrote a novel a year and a half ago, its design was my
greatest inspiration.

Finnegans Wake - This book can't be explained until you've seen it. The
pinnacle of the English language.

~~~
jeremyw
Unalone's enjoyment of Finnegans Wake notwithstanding, deciphering the
footnotes and expository ultimately doesn't have the upside that learning the
English of Shakespeare and Chaucer do.

I'd suggest readers try Joyce's wonderful short stories, then making an
assault on Ulysses. Nabokov, a Joyce admirer, called Wake, "that petrified
superpun."

~~~
unalone
Beckett, on the other hand, who was Nabakov's moral and intellectual superior,
developed his style as an antithesis to Finnegans Wake and cited it as his
greatest inspiration.

Ulysses is similarly a masterpiece, but if I could only pick one it would be
the Wake. It's a testament to the power of language. I've always seen Lolita
as a lesser Wake, actually. It does nothing as original or quite as beautiful,
though it comes close with its opening passage.

------
cesare
\- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

\- Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy

~~~
javery
I bought Hackers thinking it was about crackers (which my 16 year old script
kiddie self was very interested in) but ended up reading it cover to cover and
it helped me realize that real programming and hacking was much cooler than
cracking some system ever would be.

------
jey
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

------
rjett
The Man Who was Thursday by GK Chesterton....very well written allegorical spy
novel.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas... I'm a sucker for a good plot
and this has always been a favorite of mine since I first read it in 5th
grade.

------
rgrieselhuber
Shogun, James Clavell - read it when I was 9 or so, put me on the course to
live and work in Japan. Has obvious faults but changed my life at an early
age.

The Brother's Karamazov. Pleasantly surprised to see Dostoyevsky mentioned a
few times in other comments.

------
anatoly
It's hard to name only two. I'll choose two that deserve to be more famous
than they are, in my opinion.

Helen DeWitt's _The Last Samurai_ (no relation to the Tom Cruise movie) is the
best novel I've read in years, a brilliant tale of an absurdly precocious
childhood, with several more rich tales of their own value nested inside.
Anyone who finds curiosity and love of knowledge one of their defining
qualities should read this book.

Vikram Seth's _The Golden Gate_ is a smart, funny and moving novel set in the
Silicon Valley of the early 80ies. Astonishingly, it's written in verse, in
the rhyme scheme of the classic Russian masterpiece _Eugene Onegin_ by
Pushkin, which Seth read in translation and loved so much he decided to write
a modern American novel in verse. His execution of this unorthodox idea is
terrific.

------
sateesh
Siddhartha -- Hermann Hesse

Dragons Of Eden -- Carl Sagan

~~~
theblackbox
I would Second ANYTHING by Hesse, not got round to a thorough read of
Siddhartha yet, but Damien is most excellent and The Glass Bead Games is a
revelation for anyone who feels there is something just a little bit ill with
the mind and motion of our modern age.

Oh, and something along the lines of The Neverending Story (The
Silmarillion/LotR), because it's something to lose yourself in with kids and
doesn't even have to be read.

------
hristov
Ok I read a lot so I will just give you my favourite authors just in case
someone is looking for new writers to explore. I have read the majority of
books written by each of the ones below, and really cannot choose a favourite.
So here they are:

sci fi: PK Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Vonnegut (some of Bradburry's work may join
this group but be careful not all of his stuff is brilliant)

crime: raymond chandler, dashiel hammett

russian lang lit: dostoevsky, bulgakov

english lang lit: vladimir nabakov, joseph heller, evelyn waugh, joseph conrad

All of the above writers are absolutely brilliant and you will not be wasting
your time picking up any of their books (except for bradbury, make sure you
only get martian chronicles or farenheit 451).

------
timwiseman
Fiction: I am fan of The Fountainhead, though I still have fond memories of
The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe from when I was younger.

Nonfiction: So many good ones, but I think Surely your joking, Mr. Feynman! is
probably the top.

------
loumf
"Cat's Cradle" Kurt Vonnegut "Frankenstein" Mary Shelley

------
simanyay
Everytime I read a very good fiction book (or series) like Asimov's
Foundation, Simmons' Hyperion Cantos or (currently reading) Stephenson's
Cryptonomicon I think 'hey, this one is going to be my favorite'.

~~~
leif
Whoa. I just finished Cryptonomicon and am currently on Hyperion.

spooky

------
tejus
The Prize - Daniel Yergin. Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

The first is a fantastic history of oil. It brings out the politics, economics
and personalities that have lit up the history of oil very well. Especially
relevant in this day and age, when oil is behind so many geo-political
conflicts.

The second is a bit more personal. I could write an entire essay about this
book, but suffice it to say that it was exactly the right book at the right
time for me. Sometimes, a book just comes along and changes your perspective
and way of thinking. This was one of those books for me.

------
arijo
Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The (Mis)behavior of Markets - Benoit Mandelbrot

The Stuff of Thought - Steven Pinker

The Logic of Scientific Discovery - Karl Popper

The Four Steps to Epiphany - Steven G. Blank

------
ori_b
Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter

Fiasco - Stanislaw Lem

~~~
callmeed
Been wanting to read "Godel ..." for years. Care to elaborate a bit on why
it's a favorite?

~~~
KC8ZKF
I first read it years ago, 1979 or 1980. It was the first time I ever thought
about how math related to music, art and nature. I had never heard of
recursion or self-reference, never programmed a machine to do anything, never
thought about how it could be done, or why I might want to do it.

So the book opened up new worlds for me. It changed the way I think.

~~~
gnaritas
How do you think you'd rate it today, already knowing about all those things?
It's sitting on my table in my to read stack but I haven't managed to get to
it yet.

~~~
trominos
My (potentially unpopular) feeling about GEB is that it's a book that explores
some very interesting areas but that doesn't say all that much of interest
itself. Reading it I felt like different sections could be put into two
categories: (good and somewhat romantic) exposition about something
interesting, and observations that seem profound until you think about them
and realize that they're stupid (e.g. Hofstadter spends some time discussing
how a Bach piece that ends up one semitone higher than it starts [and can
therefore be repeated to form an infinite ascension] embodies self-
referentiality and that this is the critical component of self-awareness, and
that therefore the two are connected; of course, this is all just more-or-less
meaningless fluff).

So I'd say skip it.

~~~
guitarjunkie
I have to agree. I found the dialouges mind numbing.

~~~
peterbraden
Yeah - I much preferred "The Emperors New Mind" Which covers many of the same
themes without the pretentiousness.

------
pg
_My Family and Other Animals_

 _Medieval Technology and Social Change_

~~~
kirubakaran
_'Civilisation ~Kenneth Clark'_ comes #3 or later?

~~~
gruseom
The OP shrewdly asked for two _of_ your favorite books. Had it asked for #1
and #2, I for one couldn't have replied. A sort requires an ordering function,
which is a category error here.

~~~
kirubakaran
Ah! Got it now.

------
niyazpk
Two good books I read recently:

1) Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the
Future of the Cosmos by _Michio Kaku_

2) The Fountainhead by _Ayn Rand_ (I haven't read Atlas Shrugged yet. So
cannot compare them.)

Yesterday I finished Outliers by _Malcolm Gladwell_ and it is a very good book
too.

Currently reading: What They Teach you at Harvard Business School: My Two
Years Inside the Cauldron of Capitalism by _Philip Delves Broughton_

------
pgbovine
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience [http://www.amazon.com/Flow-
Psychology-Experience-Mihaly-Csik...](http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-
Experience-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/dp/0060920432)

The Design of Everyday Things [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-
Donald-Norman/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-
Norman/dp/0385267746)

------
hamilton
Lately I've been staring at the Codex Seriphinianus quite a bit. Worth finding
a copy if you haven't seen it before.

From a technical point of view, The Elements of Statistical Learning, by
Tibshirani, Friedman, and Hastie. Far and away the most illuminating
demonstration that so many ML / AI techniques have a long-standing statistical
foundation, and, essentially, everything boils down to the linear model.

------
ComputerGuru
1\. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

1\. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

And, sorry, but I have 3 "number 1 fav" books:

1\. 1984 by George Orwell

------
teehee
Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

~~~
guitarjunkie
Um, awesome!!?! What kind of hacking do _you_ do?

------
jseliger
I listed six here: <http://jseliger.com/top-five-books> :

These books are worth reading immediately:

1\. Lord of the Rings 2\. All the King’s Men 3\. High Fidelity 4\. Get Shorty
5\. Cryptonomicon 6\. Almost anything by Robertson Davies, though I recommend
starting with The Deptford Trilogy and skipping The Salterton Trilogy

------
zzzmarcus
The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene. The mind boggling science of the very
big and very small laced with small doses of humor and philosophy.

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle. I haven't ever read a single other new age
book in my life but this one really changed me. I feel consistently happier
and more peaceful since reading it more than a year ago. YMMV.

------
mynameishere
I don't have any favorites, but the books I've read the most are "Notes from
the Underground" and Walden. The last time I read Walden I didn't enjoy it
much, so maybe I shouldn't mention it...

The first should be read by everyone though
<http://www.gutenberg.org/files/600/600.txt>

------
lux
1\. The Count of Monte Cristo 2\. The Great Gatsby

And yet I read mostly non-fiction... :)

It's hard to say these are my absolute top two (that's probably an eight-way
tie in reality), but Gatsby definitely hit me at a pivotal time and became a
subtle but big influence, and Monte Cristo was just a brilliantly entertaining
yet very deep and touching story.

------
kirpekar
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid; Douglas Hofstadter.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies; Jared Diamond.

------
niels_olson
1) The Way Things Work, by David Macaulay, first edition, first read when I
was, maybe 12. Taught me half-adders. Degrees in physics and medicine, and I
still refer to this cartoon book.

2) The House of God by Samuel Shem. It's about a medical intern 30 years ago.
Raunchy, smart, and, now that I'm an intern, all too true.

------
david927
Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

Lolita, Nabokov

------
akeefer
The Windup Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

. . . and really, basically anything else by either of them.

------
plinkplonk
Technical: Paradigms Of Artificial Intelligence Programming by Peter Norvig

Fiction: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

------
dangoldin
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Rise and Decline of Nations by Mancur Olson

------
fogus
"House of Leaves" by Mark Z Danielewski

and

Catch-22 by Josepf Heller

~~~
zzzmarcus
Catch-22? That book drove me absolutely insane. I think I could appreciate the
point but after awhile it was like the same joke(?) about the absurdity of the
world being told 222 times in a row.

What makes you list it as one of your top two?

~~~
eob
Sometimes a work is best appreciated as a meditation on a particular _feeling_
, and the evolution thereof. Catch-22 was like that for me.

It is the same humor, told over and over, but at the beginning of the book
you're laughing while at the end of the book you're crying because the humor
in the situation has turned to horror at the inhumanity of it.

------
marcamillion
Words that work: It's not what you say...it's what they hear - by Frank Luntz
(awesome book about the power of language and linguistics - a must read for
anyone that wants to know the power of communicating)

Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely - haven't finished but pretty interesting
so far.

Oh...I have been consumed by life recently and want to start slowing
down...looking forward to digging into this book when I get a chance:

In praise of Slowness - [http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Slowness-Challenging-
Cult-Speed...](http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Slowness-Challenging-Cult-
Speed/dp/0060750510/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254849194&sr=1-1)

------
mrlyc
"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes (the short story, not the novel)

"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton

------
coffeemug
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

------
jackdawjack
The Brothers Karamazov

Gravity's Rainbow

------
defen
Tough to pick just two. For now I would say:

 _War And Peace_ (Pevear & Volokhonsky translation)

 _Dune_

~~~
StevenHodson
Herbert or Heinlein ... a tough pick

------
jsackmann
Moby-Dick

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

~~~
zzzmarcus
Nice. Hadn't heard of Tristan Shandy, starting vol. 1 tonight.

------
throw_away
Gödel, Escher, Bach

Infinite Jest

~~~
ghotli
throw_away: he who can withstand exceptionally long, dense books.

------
cromulent
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig

Asterix in Britain - Goscinny, Uderzo

~~~
eob
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is one of the few books I've ever
read where I practically celebrated when I finished because I didn't have to
read it anymore. I read it (and forced myself to finish it) because so many
people seem to absolutely love it, but I found myself having to force myself
to pick it back up like a job.

So, if I may ask someone who cites it as his/her favorite book: would you mind
writing up a comment with why you found it so profound and enjoyable?

I'm really curious because I feel like I'm in the minority for not
appreciating it.

~~~
miked
>> would you mind writing up a comment with why you found it so profound and
enjoyable?

It's been many years since I read it, but I can still remember the terror of
identifying with its hero and his struggle against insanity and alienation.
His struggle to create a connection with his son, his deep sense of caring for
him and yet not being able to fully reach him.

Pirsig's genius was to get us to identify with its hero Phaedrus, a deeply
damaged human being fighting to make sense of his world. Phaedrus is rather
clearly an INTP/INTJ personality type, which should only deepen the
identification with him by HN readers.

His clear explanations of the scientific method in terms of motorcycle
maintenance are a big plus as well, especially for me. I worked for several
years repairing electronics and, being a philosophical type, was often struck
by how similar the process was to scientific experimentation and theory
formation. Great read.

My books:

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand -- A sharp, bitter, and ultimately soaring defense
of the individual against the conformity of the compact majority, without the
didacticism and moralizing that marred Rand's later novel, Atlas Shrugged.

Ecce Homo, Nietzsche (Kaufmann translation). Nietzsche's last full work,
completed days before his descent into insanity. Shatteringly beautiful prose
that will rearrange your soul, from one of history's most original (and
misunderstood) thinkers. One of history's great fighters against political and
cultural correctness. This boy could write.

------
jakkals
Right now, Anathem by Neal Stephenson is my favorite.

I read through the comments before adding my 2 cents. I saw a lot of my
favorite books, including a few by Neal Stephenson. But I did not see Anathem.
Hmmm...

I also saw a few references to James Clavell's Shogan. Excellent book. But I
liked Tai Pan more, and in fact, I would say that this is my second favorite.

Just to add another title that nobody here is likely mention, the first book
that I read that blew my mind (admittedly in my very young days) was "When the
Lion feeds" by Wilbur Smith.

------
ErrantX
Brother in the Land, Danny Swindells

That needs explaining. It's a teenagers book I read about when I was 16. Of
all the books I've ever read it is the one that sticks with me most strongly -
it is about passion, anger, compassion and loss. I always think it captured
humanity really well. EDIT: for the plot think "Day of the Triffids" style end
of the world, but bleaker and more realistic.

I suspect it was just my age and I have given the book more weight than it
deserves - but it affected me strongly.

The other book is probably 1984, Orwell

------
monos
Ha Shu'al B'Lool Hatarnagolot - Ephraim Kishon. funny from page one & my first
contact with the strange world, rules and absurdities of political systems
(couldn't find the english title, sorry)

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - Fred Brooks.
introduced the concept of an essays to me, and that the software wolrd is
really as strange as i always felt

of my favorite books, those are probably the two best fitting into HN, since
they enlighten in some way :)

------
pingswept
Here's a list we maintain at work:
[http://blog.greenmountainengineering.com/greenmountain_engin...](http://blog.greenmountainengineering.com/greenmountain_engineering/our-
bookshelf.html)

I contributed Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder and Desert Solitaire
by Ed Abbey, among others.

For nonfiction: Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of
1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact by Vaclav Smil

------
Radix
"Les Miserables", I hated Thenardier, Javert too until I learned to pity
him... The book rambles a bit, but it's wonderful. In parts uplifting and
crushing. I don't communicate well enough to express how much I think of it.

"Where the Red Fern Grows", I believe it was the first book of quality writing
and compelling characters I read. A perfect book for a seven or eight year old
boy.

------
ghotli
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett

------
qeorge
Bonfire Of The Vanities by Tom Wolfe

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

------
mortenoffline
Accelerando - Charles Stross. Has the fast speed feel of "the flow" coding
throughout half the book. Really good for keeping motivated.

~~~
dejb
Much agreed. Thinking of a second favourite is much less certain. Possibly
'The Selfish Gene' for me.

------
tokenadult
How Children Fail by John Holt

[http://www.amazon.com/Children-Fail-Classics-Child-
Developme...](http://www.amazon.com/Children-Fail-Classics-Child-
Development/dp/0201484021/)

The Nature of Paleolithic Art by R. Dale Guthrie

[http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-
Guthrie/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-
Guthrie/dp/0226311260/)

------
electromagnetic
Fiction: The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, it made me realize that the things I
wanted wouldn't just come to me if I waited around.

Non-fiction: Surely, you're joking, Mr Feynman! It made me realize that even
the most highly qualified people are still just people and can just as easily
be wrong as anyone else, a fact Feynman appeared to use to his advantage
constantly.

------
Confusion
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (first part of the Gormenghast trilogy), because
of the wonderful flowing prose.

The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, because once I truly understood the
_full_ text of aphorism 125 (The Madman, with the famous line 'God is dead'),
I felt liberated. It's an extremely powerful aphorism and 'God is dead' is a
poor summary.

------
walesmd
1984 and A Brave New World

------
DanielStraight
Best non-fiction book I've ever read:
<http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com/>

One of the best fiction books I've ever read: <http://www.amazon.com/Piano-
Tuner-Daniel-Mason/dp/0375414657>

------
slig
1984 and "the art of war"

------
jlees
These books are both ones I read as a kid and hold in lifelong regard as a
result:

 _The Fellowship of the Ring_ \- long before the movies were a glint in Peter
Jackson's eye, this was my introduction to fantasy, a genre I adore.

 _The Way Things Work_ \- I still remember the frabjous day when I understood
how an internal combustion engine worked.

------
arethuza
1984, Orwell The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan

------
cperciva
Peregrine Worsthorne: In Defence of Aristocracy <\-- an examination of the
role of aristocracy (both de jure and de facto) in the modern democracies of
Britain and America.

Michael Ondaajte: In the Skin of a Lion <\-- a modern retelling of the Epic of
Gilgamesh via immigrant settlers in early 20th century Toronto.

------
mjfern
"Into to Thin Air" by John Krakauer and "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

------
rmanocha
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie Ulysses - James Joyce (keep going back to
it - to understand it better)

~~~
anatoly
I'm slogging through Ulysses now - it sure ain't easy, but I love it.

I loved Midnight's Children the first half of the book or so, then it became
more and more forced and strained to my taste.

------
gsk
Read both the books when I was a teenager. I have read other great books but
as two most favorite books, these will stay.

A Story About a Real Man by Boris Polevoi. A wartime russian novel about love
and courage told in a simple and endearing style, based on a true story.

Surely, you're joking, Mr Feynman!

------
JangoSteve
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)

Second is a tossup between Hyperspace (Michio Kaku) and Made to Stick (Chip &
Dan Heath)

------
sidmitra
Just to name two out of the many i love:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy and The adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

------
Kaizen
The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox How I Found Freedom in an Unfree
World by Harry Browne

Even though "The Goal" is a story about process improvement for a factory,
I've also used the thinking from it (basically, lean manufacturing) for
software development.

------
rimantas
_The Little Prince_ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

 _The Inmates Are Running the Asylum_ by Alan Cooper

------
joeld42
Nanowrimo (www.nanowrimo.org) is coming up. Try /writing/ a book, it will have
a more profound influence on you than any reading could have.

my recs: "Godel Escher Bach", as previously mentioned, and "The Fifth Head of
Cerebus" by Gene Wolfe (or any Gene Wolfe).

------
genieyclo
Thoughts in Prose and Sun Tzu's Art of War are great. To tell you the truth, I
rarely read much these days, but back in my prime I would literally stay up
for days on end and go years with my nose stuck in a book at every possible
chance.

------
jazzdev
The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling (non-fiction). Interesting history of
hacking.

------
olifante
Frederick Bodmer's "The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many
Languages", an oldie but goodie from 1944.

Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid".

Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies".

------
prawn
Just one for now:

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

~~~
anatoly
Haven't read that one yet, but his _All the Pretty Horses_ was one of the
highlights of the year.

~~~
prawn
Haven't got to that one yet, but Blood Meridian was incredible and so I plan
on buying the rest of his work. I also really liked The Road - have read it
twice, each time in 1-2 days (I normally struggle to make time to read).

------
nahumfarchi
That's a really tough question. Narrowing it down to two is almost impossible
but I'd definitely name The Stranger. I'm less certain about the second one,
maybe Nine Princes to Amber by Zelanzny, or Crime and Punishment.

------
axod
Gregory Maguire: "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West"

The other would be this 8088 chip reference book I had. I loved that book. Had
all the instructions with timings etc etc Blue cover but I forget the exact
name.

------
KC8ZKF
_Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid_ --Douglas Hofstadter

_Moby-Dick_ --Herman Melville

------
ramidarigaz
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (shame on you if you don't know it)

and Shogun, by James Clavell

~~~
knv
+1 for Shogun. It's one hell of a book.

------
Locke1689
This is really tough.

Dune probably had the greatest effect on me as a person.

GED was probably the most thought provoking.

Heart of Darkness influenced basically all 20th century literature.

Tolstoy may have been the most thorough.

Darkness at Noon may have been the best political critique ever.

------
systemtrigger
Don Quixote

Shogun

------
chett
Cursed is the Peacemaker - Boykin. Excellent biography/narrative of an
American diplomat working in the Middle East.

Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut. Not my favorite of his but my first. I've been
hooked since then!

------
dlgtho
Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau

Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

~~~
dantheman
Also by Umberto Eco check out Foucault's Pendulum

------
falsestprophet
I'm not sure I have two most favored books. But, I'll recommend two:

    
    
      The Life and Death of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
      Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

------
spudlyo
Burning Chrome, William Gibson

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.

------
dandrews
Mister Dog

[http://www.redbug.org/cgi-
bin/blosxom.cgi/2003/11/10#Peanut_...](http://www.redbug.org/cgi-
bin/blosxom.cgi/2003/11/10#Peanut_butter_cookies)

------
artost
Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

------
chops
_Atlas Shrugged_

and

 _Masters of Doom_ : The story of Carmack, Romero, and id Software

------
secos
Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching

Dave Thomas & Andy Hunt - Pragmatic Programmer

------
joubert
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien

------
wynand
The unbearable lightness of being - Milan Kundera

Candide - Voltaire

~~~
transmit101
The unbearable lightness of being - fabulous novel with some deep wisdom

------
trafficlight
House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski

The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall

~~~
unalone
How was Raw Shark? I heard it praised as being an ergodic piece, but the
preview I read seemed fairly straightforward.

------
chris123
"Hero With a Thousand Faces" (by Joseph Campbell). On Amazon.com:
<http://tr.im/hwatf>

------
Tichy
Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem

Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

~~~
narag
Star Diaries +1 (what a surprise that you... :-)) Brave New World.

I read those when I was 12... then everything I could find by Lem and Huxley
too.

~~~
Tichy
Me too - also when I was a kid.

------
chrischen
The Lost World - Michael Crichton Harry Potter -

------
Avenger42
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

------
newsdog
The Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The first is insanely superior. The second just really really good.

------
jfarmer
The Great Gatsby and The Book of the New Sun

~~~
dallas
I've yet to meet another person who's actually read New Sun :-) It's one of my
absolute favorites too.

~~~
jfarmer
I've read it twice. The first time was because the book was a gift from a
friend.

The second time was for a philosophy class at the University of Chicago. I
wrote an essay about Severian's memory and Nietzsche's cow.

Gene Wolfe is my favorite sci-fi author by far. I also liked the Wizard-Knight
series.

------
danspodcast
Maverick - Ricardo Semler (For inspiration) The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest
Hemmingway(For enjoying the process)

------
gruseom
Dostoevsky, _The Double_

Keith Johnstone, _Impro_

~~~
jlees
interesting, I did improv with a group and then bought Johnstone's book, and
couldn't stand it. I think because it was turning something I had been
'trained' to do instinctively into rules and analysis.

~~~
gruseom
Really? I'd have said Johnstone was the last person to turn improv into "rules
and analysis". In fact, that's the opposite of what he's known for.

The book is as much about life in general as it is about theatre. But it's
really just the first half that's great. The second half, about trance and
maskwork, seems like it ought to be more interesting than it is.

------
catone
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman and maybe Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke

------
owid
The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels by Agota Kristof

Love and Exile by Isaac Bashevis Singer

------
white_eskimo
I really enjoyed recently reading Snow Crash. Watership Down was great back in
the day

------
benl
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Firestar, Michael Flynn

------
dminor
Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell

Post Captain (well, basically all of the Patrick O'Brian series)

------
maxklein
Picture of Dorian Gray and the short story collection of William Hope Hodgson.

------
nikolayv
1\. _Guns, Germs, and Steel_

2\. _Hackers and Painters_ (expected to see this more here)

------
StevenHodson
Time Enough for Love - Robert Heinlein, Small is Beautiful - E.F. Schumacher

------
vital101
Atlas Shrugged American Gods

~~~
ramidarigaz
American Gods is awesome. One of Neil Gaiman's best works, along with the
Sandman series.

------
sjs382
The Last of the Savages by Jay McInerney Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

------
redact207
Guerrilla Marketing - Jay Levinson Quantitive Finance - Paul Wilmott

------
patternexon
1\. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich 2\. The Soul of a new machine

------
aharrison
Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig

------
edw519
"The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair

"When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Harold Kushner

------
admp
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Still not sure about the second one. :-)

------
knv
Quantum Psychology, Robert Anton Wilson Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

------
Ixiaus
_Dune_ by Frank Herbert and _Anathem_ by Neal Stephenson

------
richieb
"War and Peace" Tolstoy "Wind< Sand and Stars" Saint Exupery

------
tim_osin
Unforgiven by Kazuo Ishiguro The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

------
wgj
Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion

The Power of Now

------
dschobel
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky

All Quiet on the Western Front - Remarque

------
ptomato
The Elements of Style, Strunk & White.

Leave it to Psmith, P.G. Wodehouse

------
adw
"Spies" by Michael Frayn, "Words and Music" by Paul Morley.

------
bayareaguy
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

------
gtt
Nassim Nicholas Taleb -- The Black Swan

Sun Tzu -- The Art of War

Lao Tzu -- Tao Te Ching

~~~
lsd5you
I found the black swan to be unfinishable. It started very (even extremely)
well, but then got a lot worse quite rapidly. His attempt to create a
structure around anecdotes from his life (and of his acquaintances) does not
really work and at times his writing is ego-centric to the point of vulgarity.

The main problem however is that it would be much better (for the reader)
condensed down as a long essay. Although many books in the genre are
essentially essays flanneled out into books, the problem is particularly acute
in The Black Swan.

Sun Tzu, which edition/translation?

~~~
patternexon
I agree, after reading Fooled by Randomness, black swan was a let down,
repetitive and ironically snobbish for a book thats about understanding the
unknown

------
rgiar
Non Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny The Mating Mind

------
CrazedGeek
It's Not News, It's FARK by Drew Curtis

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

------
rokhayakebe
The world is flat..

From Beirut to Jerusalem (not done yet).

Both from Thomas Friedman.

------
lackbeard
_Understanding Comics_ and _King Rat_

------
ilitirit
Franz Kafka - Metamorposis

Roald Dahl - James and the giant peach

------
revorad
The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

------
keefe
lord of light and in search of the miraculous

~~~
huhtenberg
+1 for Lord of Light

------
bcl
I'll pick 2 at random:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson

------
MikeMacMan
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Anything from Elmore Leonard

------
justlearning
among my favorites. Every time you pick a page to read, it's just like
watching a sunset; it's never the same.

 _Hackers and painters_

 _Gitanjali_

------
tjpick
Rocco by Sherryl Jordan

The Dragon's Birthday by Margaret Mahy

------
nazgulnarsil
fiction: time enough for love - robert heinlein non-fiction: on power -
bertrand de jouvenel

both are treatsies on the human condition.

------
ctingom
Founders at Work

~~~
yurylifshits
Me too

------
thunk
All of Sherlock Holmes

 _Glasshouse_ by Charles Stross

------
iang
Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder

Lives - Hendrik van Loon

------
jacquesm
only two ? tough!

The diamond age

Manifold: time

edit: this thread is going to seriously mess with my productivity in the next
couple of weeks.

~~~
vips
Its tough, but choose it to reduce the some of noise

------
joe_bleau
Dune. The Soul of a New Machine.

------
elmindreda
City by Clifford D. Simak

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

------
gr366
"The Mezzanine" by Nicholson Baker

and

"White Noise" by Don DeLillo

------
chaosmachine
Neuromancer

Dune

~~~
neuromancer2600
+1 for Neuromancer.

I recommend a non-fiction book for a different read: The Four Steps to the
Epiphany by Steve Blank.

------
chickamade
The Analects of Confucius

------
matthewking
Dove by Robin Lee Graham

------
kingnothing
Fuqua and Ugly Americans

------
paraschopra
Brief History of Time

Fooled by Randomness

------
elblanco
Dune, The Rama Series.

------
garyrichardson
Starship Troopers

Day of the Triffids

------
grendel
grendel - john gardner bluebeard - kurt vonnegut

------
utx00
all the kings men - warren

the floating opera - barth

------
entropie
aldous huxley, island

stephen king, the dark tower

------
akamaka
Tale of Genji

Brave New World

------
TrevorJ
The Hobbit,

I, Robot

------
baddox
1984

(I don't read much)

------
socratees
Maybe you should use proper grammar. "What are your favorite books?" or
"Please name two of your most favorite books."

~~~
jacquesm
Maybe you should not snipe about the grammar without at least naming your
favorite books ;) ?

