

Ask HN: Book recommendations? - projectileboy

I know this comes up from time to time, but I'm looking for some summer reading, and was wondering if anyone would care to recommend one or two good works of fiction, as well as one or two good works of non-fiction.
======
iuguy
During the summer I go on holiday to a remote island in the mediterranean
where I sit on my patio atop a hill overlooking the sea and read for about a
week. The only electronic devices I have are my e-book reader and a charger.
Here's some of the best summer reading I've gone through:

The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski - [http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Bird-Jerzy-
Kosinski/dp/0802134...](http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Bird-Jerzy-
Kosinski/dp/080213422X)

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - [http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-
Splendid-Suns-Khaled-Hosseini...](http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Splendid-
Suns-Khaled-Hosseini/dp/159448385X)

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - [http://www.amazon.com/Brave-World-P-S-
Aldous-Huxley/dp/00617...](http://www.amazon.com/Brave-World-P-S-Aldous-
Huxley/dp/0061767646/)

Burmese Days - George Orwell - [http://www.amazon.com/Burmese-Days-Novel-
George-Orwell/dp/01...](http://www.amazon.com/Burmese-Days-Novel-George-
Orwell/dp/0156148501)

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway - [http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Also-Rises-
Ernest-Hemingway/dp/074...](http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Also-Rises-Ernest-
Hemingway/dp/0743297334)

Catch 22 - Joe Heller - [http://www.amazon.com/Catch-22-50th-Anniversary-
Joseph-Helle...](http://www.amazon.com/Catch-22-50th-Anniversary-Joseph-
Heller/dp/1451626657)

The Road - Cormac McCarthy - <http://www.amazon.com/Road-Oprahs-Book-
Club/dp/0307387895>

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee - [http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Mockingbird-
Harper-Lee/dp/0446310...](http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Mockingbird-Harper-
Lee/dp/0446310786)

The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger - <http://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-
D-Salinger/dp/0316769487>

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway - [http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Bell-
Tolls-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/06...](http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Bell-Tolls-Ernest-
Hemingway/dp/0684803356)

For non-fiction it really depends on what you're looking for but I really
enjoyed Joel Bakan's The Corporation and Mark Thomas' As Used On The Famous
Nelson Mandela.

------
staunch
I _always_ recommend, to anyone who hasn't already read them, that they read
Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars and The Civil Wars.

One of the greatest generals and leaders of all time personally wrote amazing
war journals, and they survive mostly intact today. Nothing else like these
exist.

~~~
cafard
Grant's memoirs are very well worth reading, too.

------
vijayr
I'm reading this one, and it is pretty good (It is just a month old, I think)

[http://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Revolutionary-Approach-
Succe...](http://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Revolutionary-Approach-
Success/dp/0670026557/)

------
tokenadult
I'm reading Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century by
James R. Flynn,

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1107609178>

the latest nonfiction book by an expert author, and I'm really liking it a
lot. I highly recommend at least one book by Flynn for your summer reading.

------
a1a
I would recommend the following book:

Bruce Schneier - Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain
World

[http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fear-Thinking-Sensibly-
Uncertai...](http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fear-Thinking-Sensibly-
Uncertain/dp/0387026207/)

------
seanccox
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith, is of the funniest books I have ever read and it
contains the most important lesson about getting to the root of a problem that
I have yet seen articulated: "The shit is not the shit. The pigeon is the
shit."

------
nullandnull
Here are the first books that crossed my mind. The Road. Daily Rituals: How
Artists Work. How to Read a Modern Painting: Lessons from the Modern Masters.
The Sun Also Rises. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. Reamde: A Novel. 1984.

------
mo
Science Fiction:

* Walter Tevis: Mockingbird

* Karin Boye: Kallocain

Non fiction Computing:

* John Markoff: What the Dormouse Said

* Jef Raskin: The Humane Interface

Non fiction society:

* P.M.: Bolo'bolo

------
cafard
_Gilead_ by Marilynne Robinson for fiction.

 _The Jeffersonion Transformation_ (the first and last chapters of a much
longer history) by Henry Adams, selected and introduced by Gary Wills.

------
efferifick
I love everything by James Gleick. I recommend Faster, The Information, and
Chaos.

------
keiferski
Infinite Jest is a great book to tackle over a summer. Highly recommended.

~~~
cju
Over an infinite summer : <http://infinitesummer.org/>

