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Ask HN: What books do you want to read over again?

by arjun_krishna1 on 12/27/23, 4:19 PM with 27 comments

• by wannabebarista on 12/28/23, 2:34 AM

  Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. It's a bit biased and is rough around the edges, but it's a fun journey each time. I read it first in undergrad and pick it up again every few years.

• by hortonew on 12/29/23, 5:17 PM

  Fiction

  - Recursion

  - Red Rising (on book 2 now and I assume I'll want to re-read it)

  - Ender's Game series (I've read some of them multiple times)

  - The Martian (I've read multiple times)

  - An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (series)

  Non-ficton

  - The Model Thinker (super dense, I'll need multiple re-reads)

  - Chief Joy Officer

  - Work Clean

  - Outlive

• by kamphey on 12/27/23, 11:56 PM

  A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth. While the movie "The American" is based on this book, it's vastly stylistically different and I love both equally. The book is a conversation essentially between a man with a past and a priest. It delves into the essence of what we think we are as men. But ultimately we die alone, no matter what. It sounds depressing but gave me a lot of stoic feelings without actually reading stoicism.

  Been looking forward to reading it again almost a decade since reading it for the first time.

• by adamquek on 12/28/23, 4:35 AM

  Alice in Wonderland - I read it once a year, just to remind me of how interesting imagination and paying attention in little things can be.

  I'm also thinking of going back to The Plague by Albert Camus. It felt really surreal when I read it over the pandemic. Want to see how I would feel now that COVID has become an endemic disease.

• by 6R1M0R4CL3 on 12/27/23, 11:23 PM

  Oxford publishes all of Shakespeare in a big book, which it really not expensive at all. It has very good commentary and explanations too. It's the book I'd grab as the only book before leaving this stupid planet for somewhere else. Contains everything there's to know about what the human condition of being is.

• by vunderba on 12/28/23, 1:23 AM

  Lives of the Great Composers by Harold Schoenberg

  The merry adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

  The Magicians Book #1 by Lev Grossman

  Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

• by jurassicfoxy on 12/28/23, 11:37 PM

  The Children's Hospital, by Chris Adrian. So great!

  https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-childrens-hospital

  I've also read A Prayer For Owen Meany (John Irving) more than once.

• by meristohm on 12/27/23, 8:13 PM

  Anything my child enjoys hearing, especially poetry and stories with tight rhymes and/or rhythm. Dr. Seuss is good for that, as is Jack Prelutsky. I've checked out a bunch of poetry books from the library and we've had a lot of fun reading aloud.

• by dudul on 12/27/23, 5:13 PM

  "Ender's Shadow" and the mirror "Ender's Game" are some that I read once in a while too

  "1984" is a big one for me.

  "Lord of the Rings" as well.

• by hackart on 12/29/23, 12:14 AM

  The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. I enjoyed reading both Steppenwolf and Narcissus and Goldmund for the second time.

• by andrei_says_ on 12/29/23, 1:47 AM

  Alastair Reynolds’s House of Suns (novel) and Galactic North. Incredibly fun sci fi.

  I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj. It’s a collection of recorded conversations in QA format. I read from it on a weekly basis.

• by bitzun on 12/29/23, 3:40 AM

  Dan Simmons' Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion

• by mikewarot on 12/27/23, 9:19 PM

  All of the 1632 series by Eric Flint, et al.

• by navyad on 12/28/23, 1:42 PM

  Start reading Bhagvad Gita few days back.

  re-read: 1984, Animal Farm and flowers of algernon.

• by tobinfekkes on 12/27/23, 4:20 PM

  Technopoly.

  Amusing Ourselves to Death.

  Tubes.

  Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World.

• by mfalcon on 12/28/23, 9:03 PM

  Antifragile, Meditations.

• by hardkorebob on 12/27/23, 10:57 PM

  Bhagavad-gita 1972 Srila Prabhupada