2026-10-19 15:43 UTC
Replies (40)
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@BuckFutter@timeyak.com 2026-10-19 15:51
So many, but this one has always fascinated me. The Secret Life of Plants (1973)
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@mushroommunk@lemmy.today 2026-10-19 15:52
The Southern Reach Trilogy House of Leaves Lord of the Rings Narconomics The Library At Mount Char
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@crank0271@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 16:08
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the ensuing (five-book) trilogy were my favorites as a child and I haven’t felt the need to update that. If you enjoy absurd British humor with a side of sci-fi, it will be worth a read for you, too.
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@Eq0@literature.cafe 2026-10-19 16:11
Recently: Plainsong - just the prettiest book out there Anathem - cool sci-fi Perdido Street Station - gritty sci-fi Nostalgic: Lord of the Rings I, robot (light, good to get back into reading) Brothers Karamazov (since you like Russians)
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@crowcore_explorer@piefed.blahaj.zone 2026-10-19 16:16
fiction: the lord of the rings cycle and watership down non-fiction: a paradise built in hell by rebecca solnit
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@ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-10-19 16:21
Tough to answer but currently; The Words We Keep. The Book Thief. Before The Coffee Gets Cold. 1984 The Midnight Library.
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@shifting9810@lemmy.mrpostman.ch 2026-10-19 16:24
Maybe a bit atypical but my favorite book is probably Homo Faber by Max Frisch.
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@red_tomato@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 16:26
Project Hail Mary is my go to recommendation.
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@HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 2026-10-19 16:32
I’m a big fan of Ken Follett’s historical novels, and although I find the Century trilogy kinda jarring (it’s very obvious the author is a social democrat who just doesn’t like communism) his Kingsbridge series was absolutely awesome. Kingsbridge is a fictional town in England, with the books in the series each following several characters throughout their life in a certain time period. First book was 1100s, then 1300s, 1500s, 1700s and a prequel around 998. Also the first book was filmed into a series called Pillars of the Earth.
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@Snowclone@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 16:34
One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, long read, but probably one of the best books written.
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@AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 16:41
Fiction: One Hundred Years of Solitude Nonfiction: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
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@zener_diode@feddit.org 2026-10-19 16:54
Technically not one book, but uhh… one/two book series: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.
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@thesohoriots@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 16:59
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. Kind of a weird one because it’s technically incomplete, assembled by his longtime editor and his wife from materials going back to the 90s. I think it could’ve been his best work, even though I’ve always held that his nonfiction is superior.
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@Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 16:59
I’ve just starting getting into a bit of russian/eastern europe scifi. “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin is incredible if you haven’t read it. It is clearly the main inspiration for 1984, but just so much better. Then, just about any book by Stanislaw Lem is great. Solaris is probably the easiest to find and a pretty good more hard-ish sci-fi book, but I gotta recommend “Futurological Congress”. It’s hilarious! Reads like a Douglas Adams book, with an interesting idea at its core. So I think those are my most recent “favorite” books for the moment.
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@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2026-10-19 17:03
Of all time, a single book that’s not part of a series, I still gotta go with Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), or Cat’s Cradle (Vonnegut)
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@uberdroog@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 17:04
The adventures of the Stainless Steel rat.
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@kurcatovium@piefed.social 2026-10-19 17:20
I would say Dune couple years ago. But given how this whole craze around the movies happen I’m not so sure anymore. Haven’t seen them, scared doing so. I hated 80s Lynch one, because it felt retarded compared to the book and I don’t want to feel this again. Apart from Dune, there are plenty more. Older works of Clarke or Asimov for example, or most of Strugacky brothers works I’ve read were amazing too.
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@almpeter@feddit.org 2026-10-19 17:22
Salman Rushdie writes great novels. Since douglas adams was mentioned a few times, I also highly recommend anything by P.G. Wodehouse if british humor is something you want to get into… I’m currently re-reading Jostein Gaarder with my kids, also a great read I think.
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@ValiantDust@feddit.org 2026-10-19 17:24
Today, I would say Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I don’t really do hard rankings, though. Tomorrow it might be Pride & Prejudice or Persuasion. Either way, y’all, do yourselves a favour and at least try Jane Austen once. She’s often put in a corner with corny romance novels but I mostly love them, because she’s snarky as hell and her characterizations are astonishingly timeless. Sure, there is romance in the novels and I definitely enjoy it, but maybe the following quotes taken from some final chapters give you an indication of the general tone: *** and *** were married, the bells rang and everybody smiled The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade. Who can be in doubt of what followed? When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, ever so imprudent or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other’s ultimate comfort.
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@Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 2026-10-19 17:25
Ada, or Ardor, Nabokov. The Dispossessed, Le Guin. A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace, Martine.
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@Sherad@lemmygrad.ml 2026-10-19 17:38
If you like horror/psychological stuff, I recommend House of Leaves. It’s kind of a gimmicky book in that its style changes a lot and the story is all over the place, but I kind of enjoy how it feels like you’re skimming and ripping out newspaper clippings like a madman and stapling them to the diary of a semi-deranged burnout drug addict with actual brain damage. Certainly an experience.
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@alien_observer@slrpnk.net 2026-10-19 17:40
The Children of the Dead by Elfriede Jelinek is my number one. Second place is a tie between Women and Men by Joseph McElroy and The Tunnel by William H. Gass.
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@SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 2026-10-19 17:50
I’m not an avid reader (anymore) and can’t even tell you any favorites. But since you’ve mentioned liking horror and Russian authors: are you aware of Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch series? I guess it’s more fantasy than horror, and probably not like any of the Russian literature classics, but I just figured you might enjoy it.
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@Nemo@slrpnk.net 2026-10-19 17:55
Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick floowed by Anathem by Neal Stephenson
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@Sackett@thelemmy.club 2026-10-19 17:55
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It will make you laugh and cry… At the same time. A brilliant anti-war book. It’s very similar to Vonneguts, Slaughterhouse 5.
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@crenquis@lemmy.today 2026-10-19 18:36
Two favorites that I reread several times in my teens/twenties/thirties that I was recently thinking about: “Geek Love” by Katherine Dunn “At the sign of the naked waiter” by Amy Herrick
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@TheMinions@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-10-19 19:18
I had taken a pretty long break from reading for leisure. I read Lord of the Rings in high school and was convinced I’d never find something that enjoyable ever again. Then I read Dune and it really got me back into reading again. I also tackled the Mistborn trilogy and then the Stormlight Archive shortly after. There are also some other books by this same author that I picked up, such as Warbreaker. Then I read the first 3 of the Red Rising books (I am waiting for the author to finish the series before I continue). Then Dungeon Crawler Carl, and am now working my way through Wheel of Time. Some of this was fueled by me swapping out my time I spent on Reddit to reading books and a lot of it was just enjoying books once I actually picked them up again. All this to say… Try Dune! If it feels confusing at first, just keep reading. Or you can go into a more YA/easy read of Mistborn. Which is basically medieval fantasy. Think French Revolution era but with magic.
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@HyonoKo@lemmy.ml 2026-10-19 19:28
“Revelation Space” from Alastair Reynolds: a very solid hard science fiction space opera. “Neuromancer” from William Gibson: the seminal cyberpunk novel where the sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. “Destination: Void” from Frank Herbert: starts inside a space ship, a bit dark.
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@cRazi_man@europe.pub 2026-10-19 19:46
I used to read fiction mysteries as a teenager. In adult life I thought reading for leisure “wasn’t for me”. Tried some popular stuff (Davinci code, Harry Potter, etc) and hared it. Tried other universally recommended books like Catch 22 and Hitchhikers guide and couldn’t get through them and found them boring as sin. Thought this meant I just don’t like reading. Turns out non-fiction is my jam. So 2 of the best books for me have been: Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman Criminal: The Truth About Why People Do Bad Things - Tom Gash
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@IDontEvenGoHere@reddthat.com 2026-10-19 19:48
The Fifth Season (first book in the Broken Earth trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin. It’s fantasy but with pretty logical boundries on the supernatural elements. I love the writing, plot, character development, and world-building.
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@sanguinepar@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 20:31
My single favourite book is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Honourable mentions to: Catch-22 - Heller Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut To the Lighthouse - Woolf One Hundred Years of Solitude - Garcia Marquez The Windup Bird Chronicle - Murakami Pride and Prejudice - Austin Burr - Vidal Brave New World - Huxley The Handmaid’s Tale - Atwood Hitchhikercs Guide to the Galaxy - Adams Currently reading, and enjoying, Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 🙂
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@Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 2026-10-19 20:44
Imajica by Clive Barker LA Confidential by James Ellroy
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@Weydemeyer@lemmy.ml 2026-10-19 20:45
Fiction: The Lord of the Rings, it’s a basic answer but it’s just so good. Non-Fiction: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
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@BassTurd@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 20:53
I love all of the books in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe and it’s definitely my number 1. Mistborn, Stormlight Archive, Warbreaker, Elantris, all of them. I think it’s worth looking into reading order. It doesn’t matter too much in the earlier books, but there are some references that add to the experience. In the latest books, there are things that need to be understood from other books for it all to make sense, particularly between Mistborn and Stormlight. Other series I really enjoy: Robin Hobb: Realm of the Elderlings anthology. Jim Butcher: The Dresden Files. Brian Mcclellan: Powder Mage series. Joe Abercrombie: The First Law series. James Islington: The Licanius trilogy. Robert Jordan: The Wheel of Time. This is what got me into Sanderson since he finished the series Unfinished series: Scott Lynch: Gentleman Bastards. Patrick Rothfuss: The King Killer Chronicles
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@ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2026-10-19 21:48
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. Few other sci-fi books do as good a job of depicting how a gift/library economy could work like in practice. It’s quite a hopeful vision of where we can collectively go in the future.
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@sunsofold@lemmy.zip 2026-10-19 22:43
Only ever met one other persons who had ever even heard of her but I have a particular love for the works of Jaqueline Carey. The Sundering duology is gorgeous moral greyness with epic fantasy scale and yet personal characterization. The Kushiel series (the parts I have read so far) is the intertwining of political thriller, historical fiction, magical realism, BDSM romance, and again, has both epic scale plot and personal characters. I recommend the Sundering to everyone and Kushiel’s Dart to anyone old enough their mother won’t come around and attack me for exposing their son/daughter to the sexual parts of the book. There are others but those ones always come to mind when I see/hear this question.
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@yermaw@sh.itjust.works 2026-10-19 23:06
Definitely a Discworld book, but hard to narrow down which exact one. Night Watch should take it, but to get the most you have to read the 4 or 5 books before it in the guards series. It works on its own, but a lot of the flavour will go over your head. After that is a toss-up between Reaper Man and Small Gods. Reaper Man - Death “loses his job” and becomes mortal for a few weeks and becomes a farmhand. Small Gods - A God comes down to Earth to stomp around and inspire fear, but the church no longer believes in him anymore, just the power structure within the church, so he doesn’t actually have any power and ends up stuck as a Turtle, only able to talk to the one guy who believes in him.
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@mesamunefire@piefed.social 2026-10-19 23:27
If you want to read forever, the Wandering Inn is a good series.
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@mub@lemmy.ml 2026-10-20 00:06
I’ve read “Player of games” by Iain M. Banks so many times I broke it and had to buy a second copy.
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@yogthos@lemmy.ml 2026-10-20 01:43
The City and the Stars is one of my all time favorites.