what’s the best book you’ve ever read?
Discussion
Torn between Shibumi, Welcome To The Monkey House, and Stranger in a Strange land.
I do like Duna, Battle Mage by Peter. A Flannery and Reboot trilogy by Amy Tinters wasn't that bad too. And now I'm reading one about Lighting network
Anything from the discworld series. Terry Pratchett is a 🐐
I read Atlas Shrugged many years ago, and like it more and more as it is being revealed as alarmingly predictive of the present US.
damian (herman hesse)
1984 (george orwell) (even the movie made in 1984 is very good)
richest man in babylon (george clason)
the price of tomorrow (jeff booth)
4 books off the top of my head that had the biggest impact on my thinking. sorry couldn’t just choose one
„If this is a man“ written by
Primo Levi
I read it in German:
„Ist das ein Mensch?“
That's a toughy. I don't think I can give you a "best". So many are tied, imo. Here's a list of my top 5, though.
‘chariots of the gods’ Erick von daniken
Machiavelli ‘The Prince’
Many of Aleister Crowleys works
Haven’t heard of any of these, thank you so much brother 💜
What's your favorite Crowley?
I *really* like part 1 of Book 4, the first half on Yoga
I actually dont have a favourite. A while back I spent a year reading through as much of his works I could get my hands on. I got so much from all of them. Every time I read one there was always a moment where something hit me so hard I had to stop and take it all in. It was like getting a blast of divine knowledge.
I have to laugh when you mention Yoga because I remember one of his writings saying ‘you might know pain but you won’t know agony until you do yoga’ Followed
His "autohagiography" was pretty entertaining, but I agree I got something out of just about everything he wrote, most of which I read 25-30 years ago now.
we just did a podcast about him recently. Have you ever read ‘secret agent 666’ it show a side of him most of us are unfamiliar with
The Book of Lies is beautifully stunning in its complexity and symbolism
Malazan Book of The Fallen - Steven Erickson
It’s the only 10 book long series I’ve ever read multiple times through.
wait what?
10 book long series?
Yeah. For some light reading.
Kinda have to work up to Robert Jordan.
I started on the Wheel of Time at 14 when there was only one book out.
So are you pro-Sanderson or do you hate Sanderson? 🤣
Honestly around book 4 or 5 I realized I'd been reading this for most of my adult life and worried he might not live to finish it. I was heartbroken when I first heard Jordan has a terminal illness, and doubly so when he said the series would die with him.
Then he made that epic comeback and cranked out all but "the last" book, so he decided it could be finished by someone else. But I just couldn't stomach the idea that anyone else could do it justice, especially someone my own age.
Then I read Brandon's blog, where he said he read book 1 at 14, then 1 and 2 when 2 came out, 1 2 and 3 when 3 came out, etc (just like I did) so I immediately knew he was the right guy for the job.
Honestly, I think Harriet did a great job editing and the transition from Jordan to Sanderson was relatively seamless. I think Sanderson did a great job imitating Jordan's verbose writing style, and since he was working off Jordan's notes, hopefully didn't color the story with too many of his own ideas.
Honestly, Sanderson is a pretty good author in his own right too. The Stormlight Archives are coming along very nicely, and Mystborn was one of my favorite recent trilogies to knock out.
I didn’t grow up with these, I was a LoTR kid, but Erickson was the first long series to suck me in, and Jordan made me a believer that fantasies should have at least a dozen books. 🤣
The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
No bests. I have my favorites, but which one to choose? Some are meaningless without the rest of the series, some were incredibly interesting back then, but aren't as great on further readthroughs...
The book thst changed my life the most is probsbly "What is seen and what is unseen" by Fréderic Bastiat.
The book that I enjoyed the most is probably "Zelená" (green) by Martin D. Antonín. (A great quirky fantasy book about goblin engineers)
My all time favorite is tied between the "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" by Douglas Adams and "Dobrák" (a good guy) by Jiří Kulhánek. (An apocalyptic novel where one day out of the blue aliens show up and abduct most of humanity and turn the rest into some sort of zombies)
Damn, I feel like naming 20 more now that I started to think about it. Don't ever ask people to choose just one book. That's torture. :D
A small correction: The last book is part of a series called "cesta krve" (the trail of blood) which is part of the title.
Catch 22