[aerovistae]

The Harry Potter series remains the most enjoyable books I've ever read. The Pillars of the Earth comes close though.

Terrific sci-fi reads were Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Hyperion, Ringworld, and to a lesser extent A Deepness in the Sky. Also Excession, whose human characters are poorly developed and written but whose world-building and AI characters are amazing.

Terrific fantasy reads were The Time-Traveler's Wife, as well as The Name of the Wind and its sequel The Wise Man's Fear. The latter two have rather bad writing and TERRIBLE female characters, but the story is extremely engrossing anyway and some of the ideas are really original (the Cthaeh!).

Catch-22 was an amazing read as well. Watership Down, After Dark, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, and Blood Meridian all dazzled me.

Oh, and The Sandman, Watchmen, Maus, and Persepolis for graphic novels.

For short stories: MMAcevedo (https://qntm.org/mmacevedo), The Last Question by Asimov, The Library of Babel by Borges, and The Dead by Joyce (whose final sentence is my favorite of all English-language writing).

Lastly, The Design of Everyday Things changed how I saw man-made items.

Edit: I almost forgot-- Ecclesiastes, from the Old Testament. I am not religious and this work stands out strongly from all the other writings collected in the bible. It's a poetic work on finding purpose in a world that lacks any inherent meaning. Considered one of if not the most well-written book of the entire bible. Recommend the NIV translation.

[tenpoundhammer]

As a counterpoint to the praise of "The name of the wind" I read it on an HN recommendation and didn't enjoy it. The writing, characters, and story were all boring and poorly constructed, I kept thinking to myself, 'This is starting to get exciting I bet something good will happen' but nothing ever did. The world building and magic system was pretty well thought out but within the confines of 'The name of the wind' it was never put to good use.

If you like great world building and magic systems I would recommend Brandon Sanderson series 'The Stormlight Archives' or 'Mistborn'

[aerovistae]

Sorry it didn't appeal to you! I actually did read two books of The Stormlight Archives though and found it not too bad but ultimately rather generic sword & sorcery. I forgot nearly everything about the book as soon as I put it down. The only idea that stayed with me was that of a blade that passed through everything unhindered and didn't harm organic matter except to sever the nerves it passed through, that was a neat battle concept.

[fredzel]

Maybe try Malazan Book of the Fallen, in terms of worldbuilding and plot/lore depth it is far ahead of any other (modern) fantasy books. Sheer scale of the world and its history might be a bit overwhelming at first, as it is not an easiest read, but often if you don't understand something it means that it will be referenced later in the book (or later in the series).

[aerovistae]

I've had this recommended before actually. I'll get a copy soon!

[tenpoundhammer]

That's actually really interesting how subjective reading experiences can be. It's amazing that we basically had opposite reactions to these books. I wonder what is the best approach to sharing subjective reviews? It would be nice to give reviews in a way that helps others make a better choice.

[mindcrime]

The downside of reading The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear is that the third book isn't written yet, and no one seems to know exactly when it's going to appear (if ever). That is, unless something has changed very recently regarding this.

[MerelyMortal]

If you like Harry Potter, and you're a regular reader of HN, I highly recommend Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR).

I'm not a "fan fiction" person, but after seeing it recommended so many times, I gave it a try. It is very good.

[kej]

As a counterpoint, I found HPMOR to be incredibly disappointing. It felt like a brilliant idea squandered on author-insertion proselytizing. This review sums it up better than I can, and I think I enjoyed reading the review more than HPMOR itself: https://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor/

[aerovistae]

This reviewer and I had similar reactions - a quick page search for "Ender" shows he too finds the fanfic repeatedly imitating that story.

[aerovistae]

I actually did check this out about a year ago. It started off beyond hilarious, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. The beginning is worth reading by any measure.

Then it started trying to heavily incorporate elements of the plot of Ender's Game and went a bit off the rails. The poor quality of writing combined with the tediously pointless plot tangents lost my interest. The idea it was getting at was fascinating - finding the source of magic - and I've been meaning to try reading it again by skimming past the Ender's Game nonsense and back to where the plot hopefully gets back on track.

[MerelyMortal]

Having read Ender's Game half a dozen times as a kid, I never got that vibe from the story. I've only read HPMOR once (it's super long), but if there's bad writing, I didn't notice it because I was so engrossed in the story.

[aerovistae]

I'm referring to the subplot where Harry and Malfoy start organizing the other students into armies and having them battle on the grounds outside the castle.

[melonbar]

Wow, I love this edit, I’m agnostic myself but that seems rather neat. I remember reading about how Warren Buffet, despite not being particularly religious, has read the Bible like 7 times or something. I always found that rather interesting. Thanks!

[aerovistae]

If you do read it, try to spot the point where the authorship switches. It's believed that at some point after the original author's death, a later cleric decided to expand the original work. The change in writing style is extremely apparent.

[RickJWagner]

After reading it once, find a good reference that points out the threads between the old and new testaments. Taking into consideration the time between the writings, these are amazing.

[gaws]

> The Name of the Wind and its sequel The Wise Man's Fear. These are far from terrific. There are better -- and actually finished -- fantasy series out there.