The Dispossessed

I read/listened/sampled a lot this year but a few have reached out into my life and changed me at least a little bit. - In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan. A brilliant "not diet" book about not eating crap and enjoying chocolate cake with your friends. I followed this up with Ultra Processed People to arm myself with the facts to defend not eating the junk people call food. - The Dispossesed - Ursula Le Guin: recommended in previous year's HN what did you reads. An absolutely triumph for how it manages to portray a believable anarchist society. - Adult Children of Alcoholics: useful to the multitude of us who grew up with an alcoholic parent(s). I used this to identify the common patterns I share with others who grew up like me. You are not alone! - The Invention of Clouds (not finished): I really like the context of "dissenting science" which the author conveys brilliantly. Turns out Dark Academia and Bro Science are not new. - The Art of Frugal Hedonism: Irreverant although it comes off a little pious. This book has helped me accept that I have enough stuff already.

This is gonna sound a bit corny, but it impacted me for reasons that will become clear: "1984", by George Orwell. I was 13 at the time, and I was lucky enough to have a passionate English teacher that gave us challenging books to review. I chose "1984". It was the first book I'd read, up to that point, that didn't have a "Hollywood ending". The hero didn't save the day and get the girl… just the victory of tyranny over individualism. Admittedly, I had read a lot of crap, up till then. As the leader directly tells Winston (i.e. you, the reader): "If you want a picture of the future, think of a boot stamping on a human face - forever." I was gripped by the writing up till the very last words, then a panic set in… I thought that there were pages missing… I literally checked that someone hadn't torn out the last chapter where everything is made right again. No. There was no liberation. I sat stunned for the better part of an hour. "The Dispossessed" by Ursula le Guin: never have I experienced the idea of a working anarchism described in such a genuinely coherent form.

- A Fire Upon The Deep - Brave New World - The Dispossessed - The Sirens of Titan / Slaughterhouse 5 - Recursion - Exhalation - There Is No Antimemetics Division - Foundation Series

If you haven't read Ted Chiang's short stories yet, do so. His first collection (Stories of Your Life and Others) was my favourite, but his more recent one (Exhalation) was also very good (the title story, Exhalation, is gorgeous). Stories of your Life is what the movie Arrival was based on and (as ever) the story was better than the movie. As far as sci-fi novels, I have pretty generic tastes for this crowd: Dune, The Dispossessed, The Martian. The Crying of Lot 49 is one of my favourite books. Not exactly sci-fi but close.

Earthsea is great. Ursula also wrote a lot of amazing science fiction: left hand of darkness, the dispossessed, the lathe of heaven, the word for world is forest etc. All are worth reading.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to reading Solarpunk fiction yet. I've heard Le Guin's "The Dispossessed" is recommended as a proto-Solarpunk novel. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk#Literature for more fiction suggestions.

...then you didn't read it. Try again, it's a brilliant reflection of human nature and really digs into the dystopia / utopia thing.

I also read the dispossessed this year. So, so good. I was shocked at how nuanced the book’s politics were too.

The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin Harry Potter - JK Rowling (re-read it all when the last book came out)

I loved The Dispossessed, as a teenager. Had a huge influence on me.

Dispossessed. le guin. Mon. Grass by the wayside. And then. Soseki.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Leguin. Before I read it, I thought anarchism was just punk-ish people who want to run around Mad Max style with no rules. Reading The Dispossessed helped me to see it's actually a fully fleshed out political system, with many rules, that could work well.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. Surprised at the amount of wisdom about life succinctly communicated on so many of the pages. Recommended. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text by Mary Shelley. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.

I recently read The Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, and will continue reading her stuff over the summer for sure. It's really great. (HN discussion about her obituary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16218439) The other day I started Pictures of a Gone City, a book about the Bay Area by critical geographer Richard Walker. It was recently discussed here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17473141). I'm only about fifty pages in, but I can tell this is going to be worthwhile. I'm also still finishing Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. It's a very compelling account of the crises and pressures confronting today's young adults (among which I can still, just barely, count myself). Other books I've got lined up for the summer: • The Boy Kings: A Journey Into the Heart of the Social Network, by Kate Losse. This memoir by an early Facebook employee came out a few years ago, and I finally want to read it. • Social Creature, by Tara Isabella Burton. Recently published novel that's been getting rave reviews. It's been described as "a literary novel about social media."…

They're not really a series --- just a shared setting that gives her an excuse to have curious but almost human aliens visit strange worlds populated by almost humans. In fact, the Ekumen barely get a cameo in _Dispossed_. Read it; it's really good, and works well as a pair with _The Left Hand of Darkness_. Oh, yeah --- the Old Hainish were Not Nice People.

Thanks for the chuckle, but if Le Guin and Atwood sound SJWish to you, I think you and I have very different definitions of what it means to be SJWish. They are the last two people I can imagine who would agree to the blatant censorship that is taking place in today's academic and literary circles in the name of SJWish-ness. The Dispossessed does get preachy, as does the MaddAddam trilogy, but only because their worlds are chock full of preachy people, each with their own stash of dirty laundry. That's kinda the point that those books are trying to make. I would read them any day over some blogger trying to be preachy about the One True Javascript Framework. So how about I tolerate the anarcho-capitalist stuff that some of the other suggestions not-so-subtly drool all over, and you tolerate a bit of preaching in the other direction.

>If you're into left-wing politics, Ursula Le Guin wrote several novels that combine sci-fi with left-wing preachiness in a package that feels extremely overbearing. My favorite are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Meanwhile, a more recent novel of hers, Lavinia, is an SJWish mockery of ancient Roman epic fantasy. >Margaret Atwood is another author who doesn't get mentioned a lot around here but whose works of SF(she prefers "speculative fiction" to "sci-fi") I've enjoyed a lot. Her MaddAddam trilogy is weird and preachy. You'll probably hate it. Her other works focus on SJW ranting about issues of sex and gender in various past and future settings, some fictional, some historical. >Of course, I as well as a lot of other commenters in this thread are assuming that you'll be into ham-handed left-wing message fiction, because that's what we like. >Le Guin and Atwood are typical ur-SJWs, so you might find them pretentious and tendentious. FTFY.

If you're into social issues, Ursula Le Guin wrote several novels that combine sci-fi with social and political philosophy in a package that feels somewhat non-fiction-y. My favorite are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Meanwhile, a more recent novel of hers, Lavinia, is a fascinating reinterpretation of ancient Roman epic fantasy. Margaret Atwood is another author who doesn't get mentioned a lot around here but whose works of SF(she prefers "speculative fiction" to "sci-fi") I've enjoyed a lot. Her MaddAddam trilogy is weird but entertaining. You'll probably either love it or hate it. Many of her other works focus on issues of sex and gender in various past and future settings, some fictional, some historical. Of course, I as well as a lot of other commenters in this thread are assuming that you'll be into sci-fi and fantasy, because that's what most computer geeks like. But even if you aren't a sci-fi fan, Le Guin and Atwood aren't typical sci-fi, so you might find them interesting anyhow.

Non-fiction, best to worst: Henry Marsh, Do No Harm. A brilliant memoir by a neurosurgeon about his work, the nature of his profession, successes and mistakes (especially the latter). Frequently touches or verges into the personal. Not morbid, but often sad. Keith Johnstone, Impro for Storytellers. Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theater Two very good books about improvisation, although Spolin's is too dry and theory-laden for me (it's meant for teachers more than practitioners). Both, however, pale compared to Keith Johnstone's earlier Impro: Improvisation and the Theater, which is a life-changing book about what improvisation can teach us about spontaneous creativity and relationships between people. I recommend that one first and foremost if you know nothing about improvisation and are curious.…

Just finished reading "Fiasco" by Stanislaw Lem. Between that "Cyberiad" I feel like Lem doesn't get enough credit. Maybe part of it is not being in the Western European writer's camp? At any rate, I would say: Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein The Dispossessed, Le Guin The Stars My Destination, Bester Childhood's End, Clarke Stand out as some of my favorites. I'm pretty terrible at making top-5 lists, but those stand out as ones that I would read again in a heartbeat if there weren't already 50 books on the floor next to my bed waiting for me :)

Doubtless there'll be lots of strong opinions, and (hopefully, usefully) lots of duplicates that you can then tote up to get a bit of a consensus. Iain M. Banks - all his Culture books are fantastic, but I'll single out 'Excession' since you seek titles. Neal Stephenson's 'Anathem' Stephen Donaldson (most famous for the Thomas Covenant tri-trilogy) wrote a 5-book 'Gap Series'. I have very fond memories of it, though it's been two decades since I read it. Philip K. Dick wrote a tonne of good stuff (and a bit of meh) but my two favourite are Clans of the Alphane Moon (the first Dick I read), and Valis (a bit more conventional to have on the favourite list) Ursula Le Guin also has a huge body of excellent work - Left Hand of Darkness, and The Dispossessed are my favourites. I really loved Roger Zelazny's Lord Of Light, though I understand it's not conventionally considered his best work.

Those are my favourite two Ursula Le Guin novels too :) Very well thought-through effects of technology on culture.

Philip K. Dick (Ubik, Man in the high castle, Flow my tears the police man said) Frederik Pohl (Gateway, the Space Merchants) Ursula K. Le Guin (The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness) Iain M. Banks (Culture novels) You will find many Sci-Fi treasures by just going through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks

>> 1. What books are you currently reading? Well, I'm one of those people who has a bookmark in about 15 different books that I'm "currently reading" but some are higher priorities than others, and some will never be finished (probably) and others I'll have to start over since I've forgotten what was happening when I sat it aside, etc. But offhand, I can think of: Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore - re-reading this one The Prime Solution - Jeff Thull - 3rd Jeff Thull book on selling that I've read lately, and I'll probably reread the entire series when I finish this one The New Solution Selling - re-reading this - can you tell I'm starting to try and move into sales? Selling to VITO - more sales stuff. How to Create A Mind - Ray Kurzweil Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter - set this aside over a year ago; about halfway through, will probably finish it, but FSM only knows when A New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram (see above about GEB) Madame Bovary - Meh. May finish one day, may not. Would have to start it over at this point. REAMDE - Neal Stephenson - set this aside a while back, but intend to finish it eventually. Will probably restart from the beginning.…

The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin made me aware that the way society is organised is not permanent and can be changed