Ask Lemmy

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

it was the first book I ever read, and I decided to do it on my own. I was 16 and it was the greatest thing I had done for myself up to that point. It was such a big thing for me. I had never read a book front to back before, let alone deciding to do it on my own.

And so I checked that book out at the library. Went home and started to read the first couple chapters. Got some tomato soup and a grilled cheese and then next thing I know its 2AM and I read that whole book in almost one sitting!!!

The freedom it gave my mind was a gift I can never reply. Douglass Adams is and always will be one of my favorite humans for what he gave me in that story.

1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Hatchet.

It taight me that you never have to give up. Even when all looks completely lost, keeping your head on a swivel and keeping yourself goal oriented, you can get yourself through almost anything.

Can I say the entire Discworld series? Sure they're funny fantasy stories, but I reckon Pterry's view on humanity formed a lot of how I think about the world.

Also Dark Money by Jane Mayer.

The Selfish Gene.
As soon as the concept clicked halfway through the book my days as an evangelical were over.
It was interesting to me to hear years later that Wall Street types found it influential, because the thing I found most compelling was the explanation of why altruism and social generosity were rational traits.

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guinn

1984 and Brave New World

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Grew up seeing it on the bookshelf and thought it was a horror book. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in book form.

Consider Phlebas

I had been reading, mainly fantasy up until that point because of 2 less understandable sci-fi books. The feel of realism and cynisism, mixed with optimistic philosophy. I'm not a very visual reader, but that book made some awe-inspiring scenes in my head. It's just the very peak of 80s sci-fi

Enders game a it was the only novel I had finished in my life. Took me 3 years but disabilities like ADHD is horrible for me. I can read pretty well but any books like novels just can't do it. Also with aphantasia it gets even worse.

House of Leaves. I don't know if I want to read it again, but that book was a cool experience.

Flowers for Algernon

Blackshirts and Reds - Parenti

These two changed my whole perspective on American history and the public school system, as I learned a lot of information that had been deliberately withheld from me.

• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
• A People's History of the United States

As for fiction:

• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (Beautiful and a little sad)
• The Tapestry Series by Henry Neff (Just a wonderful series to read)
• Night Shift by Stephen King (Read it way too young, in elementary school)
• The Bible (in a bad way, God is an asshole)
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (A trip through my childhood, basically)
• Incidents Around the House (A scary book that touches on all our worst fears as kid)
• The Witches by Roald Dahl (Just a great kids horror book)

Time enough for love - Heinlein

Nor crystal tears - Foster

A world out of time - Niven

Ringworld - Niven

Sassinak - McCaffrey

The Martian - Weir

Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky.

Survivor by Chuck "Fight Club" Palahniuk.

After Fight Club I went on a spree of reading this guys work. Survivor was the last of his written before the Fight Club movie made it big. It was also released a couple of years before 9/11 which killed its chance of being made into a movie.

I think it highlights how being passive in the world isn't enough to avoid doing bad things. You have to make your own choices to avoid a bad result. Interesting story structure and has some dark comedic moments too.

in no particular order:

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• Swallows and Amazons
• How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People
• The Wizard of Earthsea

How to seize the means of computation By cory Doctorow.

Great author love all of his books. Love his its free to read any of his books on craphound. But i ended up buying physical copys because i just needed to own them.

The book talks about how things were with betamax and VHS. And how modern day tech is crap and how to fix it!

Its diffently the most influential books ive read.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The first book I read was "Guards, Guards" and it's still one of my favourites. I own the series and every few years I read through it again.

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson.

The main character’s reflection on his past and continuation of growth really resonates with me.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Gave me fresh perspective on the state of America

Everybody Poops

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

This was a short story, but I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream left me in a depressive state for a few days. Based purely on the feelings I got involved I wouldn't recommend it. It's not necessarily bad though. It's just... Intense I guess.

"What Is a Laser?"

When I saw that book in the elementary school library it was a revelation: There are books explaining the cool mysterious stuff like that! And written for kids to understand!

I think that one book is a big part of what sent me on the path to geekdom.

It wasn't technically my first nonfiction science book, which would be "Our Friend the Atom" but I wasn't old enough to actually read that when I had it (probably got destroyed before I could). I liked the pictures though.

Atomic Habits.

As someone who is likely on the spectrum, it was like someone gifted me a user guide for life where other self-help books have either leaned a lot on the emotions of things or tried to cram all sorts of philosophy down my throat.

Lot's of common sense ideas around how to turn what, where, and who you want to be into actually achievable goals and genuinely helped me figure out who I want to be for myself and not for other people.

I wouldn't say it has any groundbreaking or radical ideas in it, but the structure and presentation of the simple ideas really helped me work out some life things for myself.

Played bloody knuckles with hard copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire once in grade school, and still have a lil mark from it.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight was one that set me on quite the Dragonlance collection and reading journey

2001: A Space Odyssey touched me in that special place between science, religion, and spirituality.

It was always hungry, and now it was starving. When the first faint glow of dawn crept into the cave, Moon-Watcher saw that his father had died in the night. He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness

In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms, and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night. And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm and Sam Hughes.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Cloud Atlas
• 1984

"The Arsonist in the Office" by Pete Havel

Helped me recognize that the incredibly toxic job I was in was not sustainable.

"It's Your Ship" by D. Michael Abrashoff

Excellent book on leadership. Should be required reading for anyone who manages people.

"Psychopath Free" by Jackson MacKenzie

Most people probably have no idea what it's like to be in a relationship with someone who has a personality disorder. It can be absolute hell. It certainly was for me. This book provided some good insights but also helped me feel less alone.

There are other books but those are three big ones for me.

The Lord of The Rings. This book changed reading for me. I always enjoyed fantastical themes, but this one really got me. Then, I found out there was more. More background, more world building, more why.

I've never turned back. I re read it occasionally and I've read much of Tolkien's other works. Next on the list is to begin working through The History of Middle Earth. I will be starting this in the fall. It may take me quite some time to get through.

His Dark Materials

Singularity Sky (and its sequel, Iron Sunrise)

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (a fanfiction novel that is far better than the original series)

What If (and What If 2, by Randall Munroe)

The Planiverse

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Society After an Apocalypse

Sophie's World

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy

• The Gray House, Maryam Petrosyan. It's the story of a house, which is a disabled children and teenagers institution. It's weird, hard, and incredible. It's not a book for children, nor a young adult one – I mean, you can read it if you're a young adult or a late teen, but don't skip this book only because the characters are teenagers. I will reread this one.
• Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy. I read it recently because it was translated in french in 2022, but it's a book from 1976. It's a SF novel, and one of the few fictions which speaks against psychiatry. It's a feminist utopia, but the first pages are pretty hard.

The End of Policing.