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What is the best book you've ever read? Curious🤔.

I don’t have a best book.

I love many books and authors.

The author with the greatest impact on me is, and always will be, Shakespeare.

I will love him to my dying day 💜

Every book by Trent Dalton has brought me to tears of sadness, or joy, or simply singular moments of extraordinary beauty.

I adore Terry Pratchett and miss him terribly.

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway made me cry an ocean I was so invested in it! It is a masterclass on writing.

In terms of impact on me

Other last century novels like:

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M Persig

Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

LOTR - Tolkien

The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

Older:

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

This century:

Atonement - Ian McEwan

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

Across the Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn (the Otori series)

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Luiz Zafon

Non-fiction

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle (mindfulness)

I’m probably also missing a bunch! Basically lots of books!

I spread the love 🥰

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Discussion

mike 2mo ago

Brave New World

Love that book

You've just given me inspiration for names for my next 2 AI assistants

Helmholtz and Watson 😂

B 2mo ago

That’s brilliant!!!

mike 2mo ago

In fact, I'm renaming Kai, my AI telephone receptionist now 😂

B 2mo ago

Perfection! 😍

. 2mo ago

Thank you for the detailed reply B.

I've actually read 3 or 4 of them on your list.

Our tastes differ, but that's cool. We're both bookish, that is the main thing🙏🏻.

You've probably seen one of my most recent notes, "The Fourth Turning Is Here" has absolutely had the biggest impact on my life, that's for sure, not for it's writing brilliance, more for it's content. It frightened me most awfully and genuinely changed my outlook on life.

Shakespeare has me puzzled, he was obviously and still is one of the greatest authors of all time, I'm a simpleton though, in that respect, and I don't mind admitting so, I find him unfathomable🤷🏻‍♂️ (Without supplementary notes, or an English tutor😂).

One book that did make me cry was "In Harms Way" by Doug Stanhope😭. It's regarding the USS Indianapolis, which was sunk during WWII. It was the ship that actually dropped off the nuclear bomb to Tinian Island, that was then later dropped on Hiroshima. It's a fucking harrowing tale. Many survivors, eaten by sharks, over a number of weeks in The Pacific Ocean before the few survivors were rescued🫤.

My bag, as noted is facts and figures, so, lots of reference books. Also, biographies, autobiographies, tomes about real life spies (Missed my calling there, I wanted to be James Bond😌😂). Politics, History, economics, current affairs and well.....Drugs🤷🏻‍♂️, i have an unhealthy number of drugs, sorry, books, on the subject😬😂.

We're all different though and that's only to be expected. Reading is good, on the whole, as long as it's not some shit rag newspaper🥳.

B 2mo ago

I could never read “In Harms Way”.

I would never set foot on a boat again!

I’ve partially seen a doco on the events. I couldn’t sit through it all 🫣

. 2mo ago

Well, as you know, the books are generally much more moving than any documentary. The captain of the ship survived but blew his own brains out with his service revolver a few years later, on his porch because he couldn't forgive himself. That's how the book actually opens. There's then a lot of historical stuff about the voyage before it was sunk then there's a lot of it about mariners bobbing about in the sea getting eaten by sharks, the chaplain on the ship survived, he was swimming around from one stricken man to another before they were picked off by the sharks, it's a very sombre read😭.

There's another book I've read called "Happy Odyssey" i won't tell you who wrote it or what it's about but what I will do is give you what is to my mind, the greatest opening paragraph in Wikipedia's history, about the author...... Enjoy😂😂😂.

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart,[1] VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (/də ˈwaɪ.ərt/;[2] 5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963) was a British Army officer of Belgian and Irish descent.[3] He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" in various Commonwealth countries.[4] He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, groin, ankle, leg, hip, and ear. He was also blinded in his left eye, survived two plane crashes, tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp, and cut off his own severely injured fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war."[5]

B 2mo ago

😳😳😳😳

. 2mo ago

The Boer War AND The First and Second World Wars, had a few injuries too, and a VC and 2 plane crashes and escaped a POW Camp. Then he settled down for lunch😬😂.

B 2mo ago

Hope he put his feet up for a post lunch nap too!

. 2mo ago

I'd like to think so🙏🏻.