What is your favourite book?

  • spicy pancake@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Cannery Row by Steinbeck

    Steinbeck’s style is incredibly immersive. It has the perfect balance of illustrative/poetic/flowery descriptions and cerebral/analytical language. I love the characters and their antics, and how relatably they’re written. I can identify with their feelings and motives even though I’m the furthest thing from a bunch of 1930’s Californians.

    My mom bought it for me to take on my high school band trip to San Francisco (which involved a long flight and some long bus rides). I think I remember more about the book than I do the trip :)

    • elauso@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I totally agree regarding Steinbeck’s immersive style! I’ve only read ‘Beyond Eden’ so far, but I really liked the immersion (neither being American nor a person from the 19th century…)

    • ltwixster@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Steinbeck is just so special. Having grown up in California I appreciate his depictions of Monterey/Salinas, but his writing is just something else. Currently reading Travels with Charley for the first time and loving seeing the rest of the country through his eyes!

  • Cyder@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    The one I think about most often is Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. Specifically the Priest’s tale and the Scholar’s tale.

    • Hotchpotch@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I haven’t read it for some years, but i remember it fondly. I was very impressed by it. It got me starting to read Keats btw.

    • Moonguide@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Damn, I’ve heard great things about that book and I’ve had it on my shelf for a decade but every time i try to read it i get distracted about a third of the way and drop it. I’ll have to sit down seriously to try it some day.

      • Cyder@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        The first book has an overarching story, but it is the tales that the pilgrims tell each other that really stand out. They are basically like little novellas within the main narrative and can almost be taken as stand-alone. The two tales I mentioned (Priest and Scholar) were the two that really stood out to me, but they are all interesting. I re-read those two tales specifically every few years.

        The overall universe that Simmons depicts in the story is also amazing. The second book (Fall of Hyperion) focuses more on the overall narrative but shows how the tales have some commonality. The key plot device behind the Priest’s tale also sets up the narrative for the sequel books (Endymion and Rise of Endymion).

    • Hotchpotch@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I love the poetry focused version by Ursula K. Le Guin:

      I wanted a Book of the Way accessible to a present-day, unwise, unpowerful, and perhaps unmale reader, not seeking esoteric secrets, but listening for a voice that speaks to the soul. I would like that reader to see why people have loved the book for twenty-five hundred years.

  • BunBunInTheSun@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Man, that’s such a tough question that really depends on my mood but based on the number of times I’ve revisited/ reread it, it looks like Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger by Jonathan Maberry.

  • jaw@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Maybe not the best book I’ve ever read, but favourite for sure goes to Kafka on the Shore. Had me hooked the entire way through, and it’s a book I’ve thought of for years after reading it initially.

    If I can pick another, Siddhartha is an all-time favourite too.

  • OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Anathem by Neal Stephenson. It’s a book about math monks. It has a lot of interesting ideas about philosophy and the nature of the universe and so on. It’s the sort of book that has surprisingly a lot of heart for what you’d assume based on the above.

  • dianne@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    The Witch’s Handbook by Malcom Bird

    It’s a children’s book, I’ve loved it my whole life haha

    • dave_r@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      I guess I didn’t really think about it. But Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (And other Richard Scary books) make up about 60% of my sense of humor. So, yes - those are favorites.

      Along side McCarthy’s Blood Meridian

  • lemmyng@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    It’s a really tough choice. I think “Night Watch” by Terry Pratchett (GNU STP) wins by a hair.

    • Coniferous@thegarden.land
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      1 year ago

      The longer I live, the more value I find in (re-) reading the Discworld series. Both in discovering an additional gem of a joke, and finding some internal value I hold dear was from Discworld all along. They’re the kind of books I imagine myself reading to my future children.

  • sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net
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    1 year ago

    I always come back to the art of war by sun tzu. It’s a dense, readable book that’s filled with advice you can consider outside of a war context.

    Lately I’ve been really enjoying the hell mode series. Seeing the MC go from being the weakest character in the world to protecting entire countries through the power of bravery, treating others well, ingenuity, and hard work is the exact sort of story that appeals to me.

  • BobQuasit@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling is the story of a boy coming of age in colonial India. Kipling grew up in India himself, and the sheer richness of the many cultures that Kim experiences as he travels across India and up into the lower Himalayas with a Tibetan llama is mind-blowing. Meanwhile Kim is drawn into the “Great Game” of spying between the European powers. It’s a deeply moving and beautiful book. Best of all, you can download it for free in all the major ebook formats!