Candide

Does it have to be old to be a "classic"? If not, by far, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez is my favorite novel by a Nobel winner. It's great, epic, and lovely to read. If you include epics, Mahabharata is actually a grand, epic book with war, friendship, love, sex, politics, realpolitik, strategy, and has a reach story line with scores of great side-stories. I also genuinely enjoyed Iliad and Aenied. I was also surprised at how good Candide by Voltaire was to read. Had a ton of fun reading it.

Fiction: - "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin and the whole Three Body Problem/Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. Truly massive, grand SciFi. Would recommend 10/10. [HN] - "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy. Made me face deeper parts of my mind. Attempted to answer some questions I had. Great story. Huge book. Historical fiction is something I like across languages. - "Candide" by Voltaire. Genuinely fun and entertaining, besides it being- you know- Voltaire. - "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. Very good story, world buulding, nice technology. Great thinking by the author. Non Fiction: - "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh. Was very happy to see a Popular Math book where there are so many Popular Science books. Great book. Goes over FMT's solving history, with many many fun anecdotes, short biographies, etc. Truly enjoyable to read. - "Code Book" by Simon Singh. Genuinely fun and learned a lot. Cryptography's history, progress, and so much more. [HN] Self-Help:…

I recently read Candide. What a story! Time well spent reading it, and some good lessons along the way. P.S. Just search for the title, there are a lot of free e-books available online.

I found Candide by Voltaire to be eye opening. I read a lot of philosophy and self help, which is a category you could put this book in to. Since it's fiction though, the message comes through more in the story than it does in the author banging you over the head with "you should".

Traffic by Ruskin I reread quite a lot. For background, it's a lecture he gave when invited to speak, as the eminent architectural critic of the day, to dignitaries on the opening of a new exchange building. Was expected to talk about the architecture, but he talked about capitalism instead > You shall have thousands of gold pieces; - thousands of thousands - millions - mountains of gold: where will you keep them? More technical, but I constantly use Ruskin's Modern Painters as art reference. Each volume has detailed chapelters on natural forms (trees, mountains, etc). The attempts at geometric drawings of the structures of cloud patterns are particularly beautiful imo. He's a phenomenal writer, anyway. Mentioned by others elsewhere in the comments, but Candide and The Count of Monte Cristo are possibly my two favourite books. The first one feels incredibly modern, which is quite impressive given that it's basically the first European novel. Second one I've always thought is like an exceptionally good airport novel (and the sci-fi version is also one of my favourite books, and one of the best sci-fi novels ever written). Very difficult to put down.…

Loved it when I read the first time. Still have the first copy I read, lent to some friends, and every now and then I browse it a bit. Really fun!

Candide by Voltaire It was the first book I read for school that made me laugh out loud and realize that some of these old boring books were actually pretty awesome (which is why people are still reading them centuries later)

Economics: - The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith - Das Kapital, Karl Marx - That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen, Frederic Bastiat Philosophy / Politics: - The Republic, Plato - Second Treatise on Government, John Locke - The Law, Frederic Bastiat - Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes - Meditations, Marcus Aurelius - Democracy in America, Alexis de Toqueville - On Liberty, John Stuart Mill Fiction: - The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Mark Twain - The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin - Metamorphoses, Franz Kafka - Candide, Voltaire - The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

Plato - Meno, Symposium, Parmenides, Gorgias, Protagoras Plotinus -Enneads Markus Aurelius - Meditations Descartes - On method Descartes - Meditations Spinoza - On the improvement of Understanding Leibniz - Monadology Leibniz - Grace Voltaire - Candid Diderot - D'Alembert's Dream Kant - How to orient oneself in thinking Kant - Critique of Pure Reason Kant - Critique of Judgment Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel - Logic von Kleist - Marionette Theatre Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death Heidegger - Being and Time Sartre - Being and Nothingness Sartre - Flies Sartre - Nausea Deleuze - Difference and Repetition Kafka - Metamorphosis Kafka - The Castle Lem - Magellan Nebula Lem - His Master's Voice Cioran - A Short History of Decay Pessoa - Book Of Despair Wolfe - New Sun tetralogy

Candide

The unbearable lightness of being - Milan Kundera Candide - Voltaire