Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too. <3
Growing up? Stranger in a Strange Land
MIchael’s way of viewing the world felt so natural to me, and yet so different from almost anyone else around.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
it was the first book I ever read, and I decided to do it on my own. I was 16 and it was the greatest thing I had done for myself up to that point. It was such a big thing for me. I had never read a book front to back before, let alone deciding to do it on my own.
And so I checked that book out at the library. Went home and started to read the first couple chapters. Got some tomato soup and a grilled cheese and then next thing I know its 2AM and I read that whole book in almost one sitting!!!
The freedom it gave my mind was a gift I can never reply. Douglass Adams is and always will be one of my favorite humans for what he gave me in that story.
I agree. I’ve introduced it to a number of people and I find it’s a bit of a litmus test for me. If they come back with “that’s just stupid” I know they’re missing a sense of play that comes with messing with the rules of life.
We lost DA far too early, but he left us a wonderful gift.
1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell.
When I was young and exposed to these stories, they had a different meaning
but as I have gotten older, wow those books sure do hit a bullseye but not always for what meaning popular culture puts on them
1984 to me is not about the government as much as it is about political ideas and opinions. Big Brother only punished the Winston because he broke the rules while being an insider. If he ran away to the proles, he would have been free but nope, he was theirs and they were going to punish him for his deviancy. They prepared for it even.
An in my opinion, those MAGA dupes are Winston of our age.
Animal Farm is similar but even more on point of our nature allowing these pigs to rule us with “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”
Its good we call cops PIGS, because they are.
Add Brave New World by Aldous Huxley to the list. I think he actually managed to get closer to where we were heading before Trump. Things took a right turn though.
I loved 1984, but when I was younger, I always found Orwell’s treatise on language that takes up a big chunk in the middle to be dull and far-fetched.
Boy was I wrong…
Hatchet.
It taight me that you never have to give up. Even when all looks completely lost, keeping your head on a swivel and keeping yourself goal oriented, you can get yourself through almost anything.
I read that book when I was younger and couldn’t remember the name until a few years ago. It resonated with me in a profound way. Having to be resourceful and not just make do, but survive, with what you have around you is something I’ve ingrained into my life. And not just in emergency situations but all the time. Seeing other uses for things, coming up with novel solutions, and yes, not giving up. My boss really appreciates my outlook at work for this reason.
I really liked the movie cast away for the same reasons.
Is that the one where the boy just up and decides to go live in a tree up in the Caskills and ends up with a pet falcon, or is that the one where the kid is stranded in the woods in a plane crash? I read those two books around the same time in later middle school and I think they ran together in my brain.
Plane crash
Can I say the entire Discworld series? Sure they’re funny fantasy stories, but I reckon Pterry’s view on humanity formed a lot of how I think about the world.
Also Dark Money by Jane Mayer.
My opinion of Discworld is that it was always social/historical satire first, fantasy second - and I even more so as the series progressed. And, to be clear, I don’t mean that as a criticism, but as a compliment. Discworld could have been written as any one of a hundred different genres and still have been superb, but by making it fantasy Pratchett made it all the more timeless.
GNU pTerry
Going to add Dark Money to my reading list. Thanks!
The Selfish Gene.
As soon as the concept clicked halfway through the book my days as an evangelical were over.
It was interesting to me to hear years later that Wall Street types found it influential, because the thing I found most compelling was the explanation of why altruism and social generosity were rational traits.The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guinn
1984 and Brave New World
Consider Phlebas
I had been reading, mainly fantasy up until that point because of 2 less understandable sci-fi books. The feel of realism and cynisism, mixed with optimistic philosophy. I’m not a very visual reader, but that book made some awe-inspiring scenes in my head. It’s just the very peak of 80s sci-fi
Still one of my favourites that I have read several times. The pace is relentless.
The Player of Games is my second favourite Culture novel.
Enders game a it was the only novel I had finished in my life. Took me 3 years but disabilities like ADHD is horrible for me. I can read pretty well but any books like novels just can’t do it. Also with aphantasia it gets even worse.
This was my answer as well. It’s an amazing book amd I always recommend it.
Oh it was not a good book. Made by someone who’s donated actively to organization that want to make me dead for existing. It was a shit book but the only novel.i ever read.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Grew up seeing it on the bookshelf and thought it was a horror book. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in book form.
I’d say it contains some existential horror…
I won’t disagree but I was under the impression the guy wrote at least 4 other Slaughterhouse books. With a title like Slaughterhouse I believed the book series was packed to the gills with blood and guts.
These two changed my whole perspective on American history and the public school system, as I learned a lot of information that had been deliberately withheld from me.
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
- A People’s History of the United States
As for fiction:
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (Beautiful and a little sad)
- The Tapestry Series by Henry Neff (Just a wonderful series to read)
- Night Shift by Stephen King (Read it way too young, in elementary school)
- The Bible (in a bad way, God is an asshole)
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (A trip through my childhood, basically)
- Incidents Around the House (A scary book that touches on all our worst fears as kid)
- The Witches by Roald Dahl (Just a great kids horror book)
Flowers for Algernon
Blackshirts and Reds - Parenti
She’s Come Undone and The Hour I First Believed both by Wally Lamb have made a immersion on me. They are both wonderful and hesrtwreathing novels. Also The Long Walk by Stephen King is frightening book that makes me wonder, what would happen if we allowed that in American.
House of Leaves. I don’t know if I want to read it again, but that book was a cool experience.
Yes! You may want to write in this one, it’s kind of made for this.
Time enough for love - Heinlein
Nor crystal tears - Foster
A world out of time - Niven
Ringworld - Niven
Sassinak - McCaffrey
The Martian - Weir
Time Enough for Love was my favourite book as a young man. Tried re-reading it recently and really struggled. I feel like the last 20 years of social progress has really dated Heinlein’s language especially (less so his ideas). Was a shame.
Agreed. Several of his books have suffered the same fate unfortunately.
That said, the ideas do still ring very true… Albeit, many of them are the ideas I wish were more fantasy.
