Stephen King’s Dark Tower series is my go-to epic fantasy. I’m about to start a 4th trip to the tower once I’m done with my current listen.
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, and a select few other books in the series (Speaker for the dead and Enders Shadow most notably) - Card at the top of his game is fantastic, I just wish he didn’t dive completely off the deep end.
Tangentially, Berserk, if you include manga. Hands down my favorite piece of media altogether.
When I re-read Ender’s Game as an adult it felt pretty mary-sueish the second time. I got why I loved it as a kid because the smart socially maladjusted kid (omg he’s just like me) was kicking everyone’s ass and being great at everything. As an adult it seemed a little much. Then again maybe I’m just projecting the hatred I have for my past self onto the book.
I can get that. Its the parts around him being a Mary Sue that work so well. His ultimate draw towards pacifism despite his clear knack for death. I feel like it captures a bullied, maladjusted youth with a clear talent pretty well, all considered.
The stand, by Stephen King
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum
I remember the VCR instruction manual.
Otherwise Terry Pratchett’s discworld novels and the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy (the 3 first ofc).
If you don’t mind, why the “ofc”. Are the others considered bad? I think I enjoyed the most “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish”, the fourth.
I think all were very good, but I read them so long ago that I have them a bit mixed up.
The 6th I couldn’t finish.
The trilogy is considered a sort of masterpiece. The 4 5 (and his other books) not so much.
Read X times Title 2 Everybody Lies 3 Storyworthy 3 The Design of Everyday Things 3 Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know 2 Beyond Command and Control 3 Good Strategy/Bad Strategy 2 First Break All the Rules 3 Never Split the Difference 2 Antifragile 2 Fooled by Randomness 2 Skin in the Game 2 Black Swan 2 Talking To Strangers 3 Call Center Management on Fast Forward 4 The Effective Manager 2 Atomic Habits 2 Never Eat Alone 2 An Economist Walks Into a Brothel 2 The Tipping Point 3 Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes 7 Powerful, Building a culture on freedom and responcibility 3 Effective Hiring Manager 7 The Total Money Makeover 2 Dare to Lead 4 Great at Work 7 The 4 Disciplines of Execution 5 Unlearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life 2 The Hard Thing About Hard Things 2 The Best Service is No Service 9 The Effective Executive 5 Financial Intelligence 2 Understanding Complexity 2 How to be an Antiracist 2 Deep Work 2 Happier Now 2 The Fearless Organization 3 Algorithms to Live By 3 Four Thousand Weeks, Time Management for Mortals 3 Thinking in Systems 2 Multipliers 2 The Scout Mindset 2 High Conflict 2 The Prince 2 Not Nice 2 The Value of Everything 2 Born a Crime 2 Freakonimics 2 Human Sigma 2 Getting Things Done 3 Rework 2 Linchpin 2 White Fragility: Why it is so hard for White People to Talk about Racism 2 Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos Counted w/ Schedulers Guide User Management Guide Counted w/ Schedulers Guide WFM Administrators Guide 2 Parenting with Love and Logic 2 The Five Temptations of a CEO 2 21 Laws of Leadership 2 Failing Forward 2 Our Iceberg is Melting 2 TNIV Bible 2 Graveyard Shift and Other Stories 2 The Dictators Handbook 2 The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting up to Speed Faster and Smarter 2 Where the red fern grows.
Well that formatted like shit… But the number before the title is how many times I’ve read it.
Next time use two line breaks after each line and it will work.
Ah, thank you
Fixed!
No worries, it’s quite an odd behaviour. It was the same back on Reddit. No idea if there is a good reason for it or if they copied it to be the same as with Reddit.
The entire series of Culture books by Iain M Banks, they’re just phenomenally written.
Others I’ve reread at least twice:
Frank Herbert’s DUNE series
Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash
The Thievesworld anthology series
Alastair Reynolds House of Suns
William Gibson’s Jackpot books
Neuromancer might be my favourite cyberpunk book of all time but so far Jackpot has failed to hook me.
I’ve liked the Jackpot series, but I absolutely adore the Sprawl series. I also loved the bridge series.
The appeal is Gibson’s writing, he’s developed a lot in the intervening decades. IMO he’s a much better writer these days than he was at the start of his career. The plot of the Jackpot books might not hook you as much as the sprawl but his writing is great.
Check out Ian McDonald’s River of Gods and Cyberabad Days if you liked Neuromancer, those are in the same vein and exceptionally well imagined. Skip the novella titled Vishnu at the Cat Circus until after River of Gods, it spoils everything set in the India 2047 setting (it’s the last thing in the Cyberabad Days collection.)
Stranger in a Strange Land. Read that many times.
Ascendance of a Bookworm, shoutout to !aoblightnovel@bookwormstory.social
I’ve never been one for reading. Even for books with movies I love, I always found reading books myself a chore.
But when I saw the Ascendance of a Bookworm anime, I wanted to know what was going to happen after the season ended. This lead me to the Manga, which was behind at the time, then the light novel.
The word is rich and it has a depth that isn’t daunting. The character you meet feel like they have their own lives, and the sheer number of side stories which isn’t about our main character is wonderful.
This was the series the made me get an eReader just for the books and the many spin offs. And I now preorder it to get the prerelease chapters to get my bookworm fix every mynesday.
The translation work is amazing the story is my cup of tea, and I will recommend it to those who want something new.
A more obscure author David Eddings, did a bunch of fantasy series. The Belgirad and the mallorian were two that I’ve read the most but the others are great also.
Also Tolkian. And Harry Potter
Foucault’s pendulum by Umberto Eco. Just thinking about it makes me want to read this masterpiece again.
That chapter where they try to figure out the password to the computer though…
Baudolino is my favourite BTW, maybe I should re read it (struggling with time to get into Pragues Cemetery ATM).
Childhood’s End
Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling.
When I was 7, I got brought to the school library and told to pick a book to read over the summer. I picked The Hobbit. I got told no. I Insisted. Read that, then moved on lotr. I then read those I don’t know how many more times over the years. As far as I remember, those are the only books I ever bothered to read more than once. Not counting listening to the audio books at work, as well.
I have 2 in mind.
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- Thieves Emporium by Max Hernandez (WARNING: sexual assult in chapter 10 but can be skipped)
Watership Down.
Also some Philip K. Dick books, like A Scanner Darkly and Eye in the Sky.
But I also enjoyed the Bartimaues trilogy so much when I was somewhat younger.
Went into comment section to suggest Watership Down. It’s a children’s book which reads like an adult treaties on free will, totalitarianism, good vs evil, leadership … and, oh yeah, the value of overwhelming seagull power.
