Ask HN: What are the best books you've read that few others have?

Sapiens was very concise and felt like the product of years of careful thought.

If you liked that one, you might also like "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by him.

his more famous Sapiens

Sapiens

If you've ever read "Code" by Charles Petzold, it's as illuminating as that was.

the book won the pulitzer, it's about now defunct Data General and implementing a new machine in the early 80's

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Chinese Science Fiction, really different perspective of hard questions particularly from a Western perspective.

it's the best book for me. The Tao Te Ching (I have the Stephen Mitchell translation).

The Book of the New Sun is not Lost the TV show.

Note: if you read this past the spoiler alert, do not be afraid, read the book!

This book ought to be at the top of every SF aficionado's reading list. It's that good.

If reading Gene Wolfe does not fire up your neurons, nothing will.

it towers above all texts I have read.

Understanding good idioms in Java, instead of learning from scattered pieces of folk knowledge:

Wonderful series

I also enjoyed Jonathon Livingston Seagull, which seems to have fallen out of favour recently.

its still probably the greatest novel I've read.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Jam packed with ideas crucial to the next 100-150 years.

I felt like Homo Deus was largely a retread of Sapiens.

Homo Deus by Yuval Harari is off the chain.

Homo Deus