Les Misérables is easily the best book I've ever read in my entire life. A few years ago I read a shorthened version of it and even then I was fascinated by it. I finished reading the full text two months ago and oh my fucking god this book is the best thing ever written.
I'm Turkish so I read the Turkish translation (will read the full text in English and French when I learn it) and on the back of it, it says something along these lines:
"... Les Misérables is the third and the most majestic collumn of the author's novel trilogy that tells of the society..."
And I completely agree with that. This book is simply timeless. The characters, situations, unjustice, inequalities, all the suffering in it could be applied to any society. This book is real.
The messages that it sends are solutions to topics that seemingly anybody with a functioning brain should be capable of thinking and realizing. And yet, these solutions are ignored and refused because of greed, revenge, bloodlust and most important of all, ignorance.
The main character of the book, Jean Valjean is the embodiment of redemption. His entire arc teaches us how to treat criminals. Some countries today are taking these lessons and applying them. The lessons being; treat them as human, rehabilitate them. The result? They actually do heal and return to society as normal human beings.
And yet you see people against this practice. Those kinds of people are blinded by bloodlust and revenge. They are the same kind of people that were racist, sexist and much more back in the day. The arguments that these people bring don't hold up either. The most common one I see (at least from my perspective) is this:
"You wouldn't react this way if they hurt one of your loved ones!"
The fact that these people don't know anything about me aside, this argument is pointless as it implies that I would be blind to fact and logic when I'm in pain. And while that is true, me being angry over an apple falling onto my head won't make gravity any less real. In other words, so what?
The biggest victims of this mentality are pedofiles. Not the ones that do engage in action. But rather the ones that don't harm anybody are aware of their issue. For instance, if a non-engaging pedo went to a therapist and told them of their issue, what would the therapist do? Call the police of course. And what would that do? Their life would be pretty screwed from that point forward. Assuming they are the non-engaging type, of course. I don't believe this to be the correct attitude towards these kind of cases.
I would also like to dive into other topics that the book covers (and perhaps extend on this one) but it would be way too long for a comment. Thank you anyone reading this far. I would like to hear your opinions on the matter and discuss even!
The Wheel Of Time, by Robert Jordan
The entire series, start to finish, repeatedly. I've read it at least a dozen times since the late 90s when I first discovered it. I'd read the entire series over again whenever a new book in the series was released so the first few books I've read far more frequently.
Then the TV show came out and now I can't bring myself to look at it ever again.
" When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. "
Currently there is a Humble Bundle with Cory Doctorow's books. I liked Little Brother and read it twice. Maybe I'm going to read some more of his work.
Excession, by Iain M Banks.
Genar-Hofoen felt the Diplomatic Force officer's kiss through the few millimetres' thickness of the gelfield suit as a moderately sharp impact on his jaw followed by a powerful sucking that might have led someone less experienced in the diverse and robust manifestations of Affronter friendliness to conclude that the being was either trying to suck his teeth out through his cheek or had determined to test whether a Culture Gelfield Contact/Protection Suit, Mk 12, could be ripped off its wearer by a localised partial vacuum. What the crushingly powerful four-limbed hug would have done to a human unprotected by a suit designed to withstand pressures comparable to those found at the bottom of an ocean probably did not bear thinking about, but then a human exposed without protection to the conditions required to support Affronter life would be dying in at least three excitingly different and painful ways anyway without having to worry about being crushed by a cage of leg-thick tentacles.
Gorgeous.
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum
I know I'm 8 hours late, but please attach the genre of your books.
The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird - Psychology, Self-Help, Study-Help, Non-Fiction. Please, this one. It's short. Even if you aren't a college student anymore. Their other books are also good fun plus maths.
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Spy the Lie - Psychology, Self-help, Non-Fiction
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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini - Psychology, Self-help, Non-Fiction
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Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs - Non-Fiction, Rhetoric, Self-Help
Fun:
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The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini - YA Fiction, High Fantasy.
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The Guild Codex (Universe) by Annette Marie - Urban Fantasy, Magic, YA
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Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews - Urban Fantasy, Magic, YA
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Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs - Urban Fantasy, YA
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Edited to include, almost anything by Tamora Pierce - Fantasy, Low-Magic
My mother would have said:
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Little Women, Coming-of-Age and Semi-Autobiographical.
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Cassandra Palmer - High-Fantasy, Fiction, Time-Travel, Magic
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Twilight - Unhealthy-Female-Romance, Fiction, Fantasy,
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His Dark Materials trilogy.. still so excellent.
I have reread several books but most of them have several years or decades in between.
Especially Terry Pratchetts' books are better after and worthy of a second read.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Malazan Book of the Fallen, Gentlemen Bastards series, most of Neil Gaiman's work, The Library at Mount Char, the Baru Cormorant series, Gatsby, Flowers for Algernon, and most of Plath's work - I go back to most of those every few years.
Brandon Sanderson’s entire cosmere.
The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear
Robin Hobb’s Farseer, Fitz and the Fool, Liveship Trader, and Tawny Man trilogies. All interconnected.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Dirk Gently
Harry Potter
- H.G. Wells’ Time Machine
- Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide
- J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter
- Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
- Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club
When I was 7, I got brought to the school library and told to pick a book to read over the summer. I picked The Hobbit. I got told no. I Insisted. Read that, then moved on lotr. I then read those I don't know how many more times over the years. As far as I remember, those are the only books I ever bothered to read more than once. Not counting listening to the audio books at work, as well.
I have read hitchhiker's guide four or five times, also the next two books. I've listened to them as audiobooks at least 10 times I'm not exactly keeping track but I used to have that on as my driving music.
I read snow crash twice and listened to it probably about a dozen times years ago. Now that I have teenage kids I'm not quite as impressed by its treatment of people in the book.
I've read most of the popular Cthulhu lure more times than I will freely admit.
The trilogy that Silo is based on is really good. Lots of bits you didn't know the first time thru, so reading again gives a lot more info because you know what's important.
When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth by Cory Doctorow
When I finished reading Blood Meridian I said WTF, turned to the first page and read it again.
Stephen King's Dark Tower series is my go-to epic fantasy. I'm about to start a 4th trip to the tower once I'm done with my current listen.
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, and a select few other books in the series (Speaker for the dead and Enders Shadow most notably) - Card at the top of his game is fantastic, I just wish he didn't dive completely off the deep end.
Tangentially, Berserk, if you include manga. Hands down my favorite piece of media altogether.
Read X times Title
2 Everybody Lies
3 Storyworthy
3 The Design of Everyday Things
3 Think Again
2 Beyond Command and Control
3 Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
2 First Break All the Rules
3 Never Split the Difference
2 Antifragile
2 Fooled by Randomness
2 Skin in the Game
2 Black Swan
2 Talking To Strangers
3 Call Center Management on Fast Forward
4 The Effective Manager
2 Atomic Habits
2 Never Eat Alone
2 An Economist Walks Into a Brothel
2 The Tipping Point
3 Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes
7 Powerful
3 Effective Hiring Manager
7 The Total Money Makeover
2 Dare to Lead
4 Great at Work
7 The 4 Disciplines of Execution
5 Unlearn
2 The Hard Thing About Hard Things
2 The Best Service is No Service
9 The Effective Executive
5 Financial Intelligence
2 Understanding Complexity
2 How to be an Antiracist
2 Deep Work
2 Happier Now
2 The Fearless Organization
3 Algorithms to Live By
3 Four Thousand Weeks, Time Management for Mortals
3 Thinking in Systems
2 Multipliers
2 The Scout Mindset
2 High Conflict
2 The Prince
2 Not Nice
2 The Value of Everything
2 Born a Crime
2 Freakonimics
2 Human Sigma
2 Getting Things Done
3 Rework
2 Linchpin
2 White Fragility
2 Complexity
2 Parenting with Love and Logic
2 The Five Temptations of a CEO
2 21 Laws of Leadership
2 Failing Forward
2 Our Iceberg is Melting
2 TNIV Bible
2 Graveyard Shift and Other Stories
2 The Dictators Handbook
2 The First 90 Days
2 Where the red fern grows.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Ascendance of a Bookworm series by Miya Kazuki (Light Novel) and on every reread i discover something new that was forshadowed.
There is whole instance dedicated to that series.
Ascendance of a Bookworm, shoutout to !aoblightnovel@bookwormstory.social
I’ve never been one for reading. Even for books with movies I love, I always found reading books myself a chore.
But when I saw the Ascendance of a Bookworm anime, I wanted to know what was going to happen after the season ended. This lead me to the Manga, which was behind at the time, then the light novel.
The word is rich and it has a depth that isn’t daunting. The character you meet feel like they have their own lives, and the sheer number of side stories which isn’t about our main character is wonderful.
This was the series the made me get an eReader just for the books and the many spin offs. And I now preorder it to get the prerelease chapters to get my bookworm fix every mynesday.
The translation work is amazing the story is my cup of tea, and I will recommend it to those who want something new.
The Little Prince, because nothing cuts so quick as real life disguised as a silly bed-time story.
There are many. The Idiot and Crime & Punishment both by Fedor Dostojevskij among the others.
A more obscure author David Eddings, did a bunch of fantasy series. The Belgirad and the mallorian were two that I've read the most but the others are great also.
Also Tolkian. And Harry Potter
Foucault's pendulum by Umberto Eco. Just thinking about it makes me want to read this masterpiece again.
Harry potter series
Harry Potter The Martian The Cosmere (all for Sanderson's cosmere I've done a few times) The First Law Trilogy
One I will reread but just haven't yet: Uprooted Codex Alera Legends and Lattes
Stewart O'Nan, "Last Night at the Lobster". It's about the night a Red Lobster runs its last shift before closing for good in gritty upstate New York town. It's SO good. All his books are really, The Speed Queen is about a woman on death row being interviewed by Stephen King. Can't recommend them enough.
I reread most of my books but "player of games" by Iain M. Banks I read so many times I broke it and had to buy a new copy. Weirdly, I don't think it is the best of his books, it is just a fun read.
Metro 2033
The Kingkiller Chronicle
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (all five)
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Ulysses, Siddharta, On the Road.
The Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven, and The Left Hand of Darkness - by LeGuinn
The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion
Dune
The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
Stranger in a Strange Land
Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, What If, Percy Jackson, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (all 5 books), Isaac Asimov's Robot series, It's not Rocket Science, The End of Everything.
- How to live safely in a science fictional universe
- The forever war
- Catch 22
Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling.
The Revival, Stephen King (×3)
East of Eden, John Steinbeck (×5)
Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, H.P. Lovecraft (×2)And I plan on rereading:
The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty
Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy (after a bit of therapy)
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurthy
Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy
The Things Our Fathers Saw, Matthew A. RozellChildhood's End
Ray Bradury's "From the Dust Returned".
It keeps getting more relevant, as I age and understand the world a bit more.
Freedom^tm by Daniel Suarez
Dean Koontz: “Phantoms” and “Sole Survivor”.
"Dark Star" and "Night Soldiers" by Alan Furst. Both are about Soviet spies in the run up to World War 2. Great combination of atmosphere and action.
Man's Search for Himself - Rollo May
The rise of red shadow and the series (book of deacon). Also angry ghosts trilogy.
Looking for Alaska. Its not really my type of read, but I was recommended it a few times and I was hooked immediately
All the King's Men. I like how the different characters grapple with what goodness is and what it means to implement it in the real world. Doesn't hurt that Penn Warren was also a poet, and his prose reflects that.
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Sentenced to Prism by Alan Dean Foster. It's set in his wider universe, but is a stand alone. The main character is a jack of all trades that fixes unique situations. When a far off base on an unregistered planet stops responding, the corporation sends him in to figure out what went wrong. The planet is very, very different. It's an interesting take, don't think too hard about the physics, and it's a neat writing style. The characters are very interesting.
The Practice Effect by David Brin. Essentially, the more you use a thing, the better it gets at that thing, even if that's not what it was made for, but that effect decays if it's left unused. A modern day physicist is transported there and gets caught up in political and physics shenanigans.
- Neuromancer by Gibson
- Snow Crash by Stephenson
- the Uplift series by Brin
- the Amber series by Zelazny
- the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit by Tolkien
There are a number that I've realized I really enjoyed, but read so long ago that I've forgotten a lot and will reread soon. Those include Blood Music by Bear, and a whole bunch of Clarke novels.
Behave by Robert Sapolsky. It's an excellent book if you're trying to understand why the people around you are like.. well, that way. But if you didn't study neuroscience, you'll likely have to re-read it to get at least the most important points to stick.
