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A Song of Ice and Fire

George R. R. Martin

20 readers recommend it across 20 discussions

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THE WORD OF MOUTH

What made it worth passing on?

Original Hacker News comments, in the readers’ own words.

chistev
Hard to choose for myself who made the post. But some of my favorites are - 1. God: The Failed Hypothesis Book by Victor J. Stenger 2. The God Delusion Book by Richard Dawkins 3. Berlin: The Downfall 1945 Book by Antony Beevor 4. A Song of Ice and Fire Novel series by George R.R. Martin 5. A Short History of Nearly Everything Book by Bill Bryson 6. Billions and Billions Book by Carl Sagan 7. Flowers for Algernon Short story by Daniel Keyes 8. I'm Glad My Mom Died Book by Jennette McCurdy 9. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad Book by Peter Bergen 10. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Book by Carl Sagan 11. The Metamorphosis Novella by Franz Kafka 12. The Selfish Gene Book by Richard Dawkins Gun to my head, pick one? The God Delusion.
pkszg
I like to read a wide variety of genre from fiction to human psychology. For the mind: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg - A great book on how to communcate more effectively with others. Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman -He is the only psychologist ever to recieve the Nobel Prize if I remember correctly. This book scientifically digests human biases and errors and how they influence our every day lives and decision making. Sometimes it a bit too technical for my taste and I like mostly the first part. (its not an easy read) I rarely had so many Aha-moments. A random walk down on wall street - For investing your income in stocks. What to do and what no to do. Simple, with facts. Sapiens by Harari -Interesting, I remember it was a great read and fun read. Connecting a lot of dots :) On programming: Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann - I am failry a junior web dev, so any material that is clear and explains well is a great source of information and inspiration. This is such a book.…
jaymon
I'll second someone else's recommendation for The Martian, that was just a really fun read you can just burn through because it is so enjoyable. If you want another really fun read, Ready Player One was fantastic. I've also enjoyed the Old Man's War saga, there are 6 books but you can skip book 4 since it is a retelling of book 3 from the POV of another character. This is a space saga and I really like the universe he created. In the hard sci-fi genre, I really enjoyed The Forever War. And for just pure world building fantasy, the Game of Thrones books (The song of Ice and Fire series) are some of the best written books I've ever read.
jlhonora
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Really enjoying it. Interesting how certain times can shape the perspective of the roles of society, companies and government. Before that I read the entire Game of Thrones series. Not really worth the time invested if you ask me, but it was fun nonetheless. Might be one of those few books where watching their TV version is more enjoyable (disclosure: haven't watched the series). On the technical side, I'm trying to read Google's papers once in a while. Good mixture of theoretical background with practical approaches.

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moron4hire
A lot of good suggestions. To try to avoid repeating what others have said too much, here are some from a different perspective. # "JPod" by Douglas Coupland helped me realize that it was corporatism, not me, that was broken. # Benjamin Franklin's autobiography showed me a history that was made of people, a people no different than me and mine, and that success comes from standing up and going your own way. # "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein taught me that, while culture is arbitrary and we should be free to try to make it what we wish, that doesn't make it fake or ignorable. # "Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, re-read as an adult, taught me the importance of formula in consistency and how much a market of fans love predictability. # "Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin taught me that the movie can be a lot better than the book and that there is a problem with modern generations making an affectation out of book reading.
Ecio78
+1 for Wikipedia, not just for reading something but as a reference if you want to verify something as the old Encyclopedias we used to use. To just fill the hours, I would suggest some nice book, even better good series, like Foundation and Robot Series by Isaac Asimov, A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George R.R. Martin etc.. With those I think those 5 weeks will fly..

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russgray
I caved and started reading A Song Of Ice And Fire after Game of Thrones S4 finished broadcasting. First book was good, and I'm just starting the second. I've also been binging on cheap self-published horror and apocalypse ebook collections from Amazon (just can't resist those 99p anthologies), and my ongoing 'serious' book is Work by Studs Terkel. Like a couple of other books mentioned in this thread, this is a real eye-opener that reminds me how lucky I am.

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