

Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014? - DanielBMarkham

I just finished Red Rising, which I really enjoyed. And I see a post on the front page about The Martian, which was also good.<p>So what books did you read over the last year that you would recommend to fellow HN&#x27;ers?
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bko
The Masters of Doom. It's about the history of id Software, a game development
company that created Doom among other titles. Even if you're not interested in
games, it's still worth a read. The writing style is very casual, almost
juvenile at times with slang and swear words sprinkled throughout but the
story is certainly fun. It is also very inspiring and made entrepreneurship
look fun. I learned about this book from another HN post.

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nkzednan
Tend read more Sci-fi/fantasy. Some good ones this year: Name of the Wind by
Patrick Rothfuss [http://amzn.com/B0010SKUYM](http://amzn.com/B0010SKUYM) Lies
of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
[http://amzn.com/B000JMKNJ2](http://amzn.com/B000JMKNJ2) The Way of Kings by
Brandon Sanderson [http://amzn.com/B003P2WO5E](http://amzn.com/B003P2WO5E)
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
[http://amzn.com/B002GYI9C4](http://amzn.com/B002GYI9C4) The above four are
the first book in their respective series. I've also enjoyed the sequels to
all of them. Several of the series are not yet finished.

Several of the books are on this list from several years ago by NPR:
[http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-
top-100-s...](http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-
top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books) flowchart of the NPR list:
[http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/flowchart_for_navig...](http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/flowchart_for_navigating_nprs_top_100_sff_books/)

Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

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hellbanner
Blindsight, a brilliant first-contact sci-fi written by a Marine Biologist
that explores the Chinese Room Paradox, "Intelligence" vs "Artificial
Intelligence" with brilliant characters, writing and dialogue.

Comes with a front-cover quote by Charles Stross, a popular post-singularity
author (you may have read his work).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room)
[http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-
Watts/dp/0765319640%3...](http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-
Watts/dp/0765319640%3FSubscriptionId)

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DanBC
I like books by Tibor Fischer. I re-read "The collector collector" which I
particularly enjoy for the sense of entitlement the petty criminals have.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qi...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1420926117&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SY200_QL40)

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0099268191/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1420926117&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SY200_QL40)

There's probably a passive income project in scraping HN once a month for book
recommendations and putting them on a page with referal links to the various
formats of the books on various sites. Not sure how passive that is.

------
wsc981
I started reading (not yet finished) The Innocents Abroad from Mark Twain. The
book was recommended in a previous thread on HN I think.

It's an hilarious read and at the same time it's also interesting to read how
people lived in Europe and the Middle East ~150 years ago.

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tlubinski
"The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel" by Jasper Fforde, it starts slow, so
give it 100 pages but I was hooked then and read all other books from him (and
all are excellent).

"Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine - most underrated
book from Douglas Adams, it's brilliant.

------
relaunched
The Iron Druid Chronicles, by Kevin Hearne - Laugh out loud funny, very
interesting characters and includes themes from multiple religious pantheons.
It's an 8 book series, so far, with several novellas. Very enjoyable and well
written.

------
walterbell
Nine Hundred Grandmothers,
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/roboman/www/sigma/review/90...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/roboman/www/sigma/review/900grannies.html)

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pjlegato
"Game of Thrones" and its successors, by George R. R. Martin.

------
sfronczak
Bird Box by Josh Malerman - I didn't know what to expect and it was a great
book. It's the first time in a while that I've read a book has been
intense/scary.

------
webnrrd2k
I've been really getting into the Discworld novels.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld)

~~~
karambahh
For readers who are afraid to start such a huge amount of books and for
Discworld readers who haven't read them yet, please have a look to The Carpet
People
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carpet_People](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carpet_People))
and The Nome Trilogy
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nome_Trilogy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nome_Trilogy))

They are listed as "children's novels"(1) on WP
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett))
but they are in my opinion even better than some of Discworld books

(1)English is not my first language and for some reason, "'s" sounds wrong to
me, I would have only used a "'" but since WP use it, I guess it is indeed
correct?

~~~
tricolon
“children's novels” is correct. Could you try to explain why it sounds wrong
to you? “Children” is the plural of “child” and so its possessive is formed by
adding “'s”.

~~~
karambahh
I think my reasoning goes that in french, a trailing s denotes a plural much
more regularly than in english (or so it seems to me, I have no way to measure
this in a serious way).

I know the grammar rule that says that "James's bicycle" is not correct,
"James' bicycle" is (and I seem to remember that the only reason is that a
double s cannot be pronounced)

Combine these two facts and you've got "no s as possessive at the end of a
plural" rule that formed in my tired mind :-)

~~~
pjlegato
"James' bicycle" is an orthographic convention; it's pronounced as if it were
written "Jameziz bycycle" (i.e. both Ses are pronounced, as Zs.)

~~~
karambahh
Thanks for this explanation!

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bryanlarsen
I read lots of books in 2014, but I don't think any were better than the
Martian, which you have already mentioned.

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musgravepeter
A Darkling Sea, The Three Body Problem

~~~
JadeNB
According to Amazon, there are at least two "The Three Body Problem"s (ha!),
one by Cixin Liu and one by Catherine Shaw. Which one do you recommend?

