
Ask HN: Best non-business books to read on vacation - grdeken
I&#x27;m forcing myself to take a vacation from my startup. Looking for some good stories to get lost in. No business books. Help me Hacker News, you&#x27;re my only hope.
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Bilters
Some suggstions on my end would be: Ready player one - Ernest Cline Mistborn
trilogy - Brandon Sanderson A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson
Dune - Frank Herbert

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jokab
i second these suggestions.

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alexmingoia
_Children of Time_ by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Sci-fi action-adventure involving
AI, terraforming, and a man-made race of intelligent spiders.

 _The Book of Tea_ by Okakura Kakuzō. Philosophy, history, and aesthetics in a
1906 treatise on tea.

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banjo_milkman
Try Murakami, Knausgård and Ursula Le Guin.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the end of the world is the most scifi Murakami.
Wonderful stuff. Then read all his others. Knausgård 'My Struggle' is a very
compelling personal story (5 volumes!) where you get inside his head. Not a
novel. Ursula Le Guin - the Lathe of Heaven. More scifi.

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dpeck
Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett. I’d start with the DEATH series (Mort is
first book in that one) but a lot of folks like the City Watch. (Guards!
Guards!). Lighthearted, hilarious, and some real insights into the human
condition in a tongue in cheek way.

Can’t go wrong, good vacation reads. M

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mindcrime
Some suggestions:

Any of the "Laundry Files" novels by Charles Stross, or _Glasshouse_ also by
Stross.

 _Permutation City_ by Greg Egan.

 _Off To Be The Wizard_ by Scott Meyer.

Any of the "Dresden Files" novels by Jim Butcher.

 _The Shockwave Rider_ by John Brunner.

 _Neuromancer_ by William Gibson.

 _Snow Crash_ by Neal Stephenson.

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macando
Neuromancer is horrible. One of the few books where I gave up midway through.
My expectations were so high. I guess it's famous because it pioneered the
genre.

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mindcrime
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I couldn't disagree more on
_Neuromancer_. I've read it 3 or 4 times and - FSM willing - will read it a
couple more before I die. It's definitely one of my all time favorites.

I guess that's what makes these threads so interesting. Seeing just how
radically different two people's respective opinions on the same book can be.

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macando
I wanted to love that book. The only bigger sci fi disappointment to me is The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the movie.

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frompdx
I'm on book four of The Expanse series. They are long, but easy reads. I
picked them up at the start of the month. Depending on how long your vacation
is, you could start with the first three and probably have enough to last.

It's a fun series. If you are a fan of the show I think you really should read
the books. Even if you haven't watched the show I think most people will enjoy
the books. They are page turners and I've stayed up way to late almost every
night since I got them.

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macando
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

 _Kurt Vonnegut 's novel Slaughterhouse-Five has also faced censorship for its
political message. Published in 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the most
censored books in recent years._

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

 _The story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious
Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect
alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture._

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Jtsummers
I'd actually recommend almost anything by Vonnegut. Somehow I lost my
collection of Vonnegut books in my last move, which makes me a bit sad because
I had the Library of America editions and hadn't finished reading his later
novels (a bunch of missing books, like someone left a box on a curb).

 _Slaughterhouse-Five_ is a great read, and really gets to Vonnegut's style of
writing.

 _Player Piano_ is his earliest novel and reads very differently (a more
conventional style), but the story and writing are fantastic. It's a world
where machines can do most kinds of work, so the majority are unemployed
except a few specialists (primarily management and engineering).

 _Cat 's Cradle_ is closer in style/tone to _Slaughterhouse-Five_. While dark,
both of them are, it's another really good read.

 _Mother Night_ is among my favorites, if not my favorite, of his writings.

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macando
I need to read more of his books, his writing style is beautiful, very simple
and clear yet so deep. Player Piano sounds interesting.

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Jtsummers
If you tend to collect books (like I do), I can recommend the Library of
America editions of his books. I think they have all his novels and most, if
not all, his short stories in them. Those are the copies that disappeared in
my last move.

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macando
Will check it out. Thank you.

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oriolgg
The trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past by Cixin Liu:

The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death's End.

I really liked this sci-fi trilogy, can't talk more about it without spoiling
it. Enjoy your vacation!

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schwartzworld
I had a really tough time with the Three Body Problem. The first chapter is so
strong and then it goes downhill from there.

It straddles subgenres, like the author thinks that all science fiction needs
to be Hard SF, but has never actually read hard SF. You can leave things
unexplained in speculative fiction, but if you're going to explain them, at
least make the explanations sound plausible to a lay-person like me.

Nevermind the fact that nothing in the story has to do with a 3-body system or
the 3-body problem. It is referenced in name, but the author botches that too.

The characters are so flat, you can't even call them 2-dimensional with the
exception of the cop, who btw has the magic gift of always being able to
outthink a roomful of scientists. The other characters are so interchangeable
I had to take notes to remember who was who.

I tell friends to avoid this book at all costs. When the big reveal came, I
got so angry I threw the book on the floor, left the room and debated
finishing it at all. The setup is so intriguing and the reveal is so
hackneyed, unpredictable only because who would choose to write something so
mundane?

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muzani
If you want non-business non-fiction, I've always enjoyed Robert Greene's
books. They're short history snippets first and foremost, with some Aesop-like
morals of the story.

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giantg2
I liked _One Man 's Wilderness_.

