Let's start a Farcaster book recommendation thread. What are the TOP3 fiction books you've ever read and why do you love them? My titles below 👇
1. Harry Potter & Methods of Rationality. Entertaining and intellectually challenging HP fanart saga that teaches you about psychology, philosophy, economics, science & more.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towels The list is heavily biased by recent reading but they're all great.
just finished reading the first book of Game of Thrones world building is insane, the only metric I use when rating fiction-fantasy books is how easily and intensely can I be transported to a different realm going to watch the show now for the first time
Fiction: Stranger in a Strange Land (Added bonus for best cover art) Three Body Series (duh). Short stories: Manna (Marshall Brian) and The Gentle Seduction (Marc Stiegler)
1. Dark Forest - The book is inexplicable. Every time you think you know what's happening, you don't.
Mistborn trilogy. It’s the perfect story. Each book works perfectly as a standalone while somehow raising the stakes and setting up for the next book just as well. Then all the threads are woven together at the end in a way that makes you say “wow.” Really perfected the landing.
Tenth of December by George Saunders - creepy cerebral short stories
Wheel of Time. So many perspectives, cultures, character development, magic system, philosophy, and ties to our own world/current turning of the wheel.
Don Quijote (quixote) Mindblowing to think it was written 500 years ago, it is both amazing fiction and a poignant commentary on fiction itself.
Kurt vonnegut player piano - comedy about a dystopian future where quality of life is ruined by automation, Peter Watts blindsight - 1st contact novel exploring Consciousness, JG Ballard Highrise - explores how modern social & technological landscapes could alter the psyche
The player of games - the culture is a futuristic decentralized society where humans + AI have eliminated scarcity. The fractal prince - (book 2 in series) Virtual worlds within worlds. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- describes a compelling philosophy through story.
Non sci fi: Homers The Odyssey - timeless classic about a heroes struggles to return home. Voltaire Candide - comedy about painful disillusionment with the real world, Dostoyevsky - crime and punishment, story about a man who thinks he should not be bound by normal morality
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. Incredible world-building and character development, all without leaving the central hotel location! It was a very fitting book for COVID lockdown time.
1. Midnight's Children - a "magic realism" take on the history of post-independence india 2. Kafka on the Shore - a meandering, metaphysical tale that goes nowhere and everywhere 3. Trainspotting - hilarious, nihilistic, tragi-comedy about a group of scottish heroin addicts
haven't read this myself but I keep getting it recommended to me, Negative Space by B.R. Yeager for a ~spooky fall read
Childhood favs: Atlas Shrugged 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Cat's Cradle Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Clockwork Orange
If you cast “@whatrocks book”, my userbot will reply with one of my favorite books at random
1) Women in Love by DH Lawrence - he is so so underrated. He writes not just fiction, but philosophy + literature, as the norm once was. His characters are wholly relatable and capture real life with fleeting emotions and grounded thoughts
2) Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley - amazing if you are British. If not, Brave New World is an all time classic. No better thought experiment to think about politics and tech together
3) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - even if you don’t agree with her philosophy, her writing is as captivating as gamified modern crap but actually thought provoking
An Artist of the Floating World (Ishiguro) — art, artists, politics, and pride Sirens of Titan (Vonnegut) — cosmic satire The Little Prince — love, and silly grown ups
Candide by Voltaire. I love classics. This is imo one of the best. It teaches absolute optimism through a fake story of a boy who lives through all the bad things that happened to humans in the 300 years before and the boy argues why it is the best thing that happened.
A Scanner Darkly is one I keep re-reading now and again! Loved it because it’s prose at its best. I once read that science fiction is the first draft of history. This book reads like a late draft of history that could have been, should we’ve taken one too many questionable turns
The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea, authors Bob Burg and John David Mann
A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Backman (heartwarming; reminds me of a happy time in my life) Lightbringer series - Brent Weeks (epic fantasy; unique magic system; incredible character development) The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson (I just love spooky stuff)