Edit: thank you for sharing your suggestions, everyone. I’ll try to check out the ones I haven’t read. Hopefully the responses in this thread were helpful for you too. <3
This was a short story, but I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream left me in a depressive state for a few days. Based purely on the feelings I got involved I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s not necessarily bad though. It’s just… Intense I guess.
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So much impact for so short a story. Great pick!
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Can I say the entire Discworld series? Sure they’re funny fantasy stories, but I reckon Pterry’s view on humanity formed a lot of how I think about the world.
Also Dark Money by Jane Mayer.
My opinion of Discworld is that it was always social/historical satire first, fantasy second - and I even more so as the series progressed. And, to be clear, I don’t mean that as a criticism, but as a compliment. Discworld could have been written as any one of a hundred different genres and still have been superb, but by making it fantasy Pratchett made it all the more timeless.
GNU pTerry
Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky.
The Selfish Gene.
As soon as the concept clicked halfway through the book my days as an evangelical were over.
It was interesting to me to hear years later that Wall Street types found it influential, because the thing I found most compelling was the explanation of why altruism and social generosity were rational traits.These two changed my whole perspective on American history and the public school system, as I learned a lot of information that had been deliberately withheld from me.
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
- A People’s History of the United States
As for fiction:
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (Beautiful and a little sad)
- The Tapestry Series by Henry Neff (Just a wonderful series to read)
- Night Shift by Stephen King (Read it way too young, in elementary school)
- The Bible (in a bad way, God is an asshole)
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (A trip through my childhood, basically)
- Incidents Around the House (A scary book that touches on all our worst fears as kid)
- The Witches by Roald Dahl (Just a great kids horror book)
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
it was the first book I ever read, and I decided to do it on my own. I was 16 and it was the greatest thing I had done for myself up to that point. It was such a big thing for me. I had never read a book front to back before, let alone deciding to do it on my own.
And so I checked that book out at the library. Went home and started to read the first couple chapters. Got some tomato soup and a grilled cheese and then next thing I know its 2AM and I read that whole book in almost one sitting!!!
The freedom it gave my mind was a gift I can never reply. Douglass Adams is and always will be one of my favorite humans for what he gave me in that story.
Learning Perl, 2nd edition
There’s therapy for that.
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson.
The main character’s reflection on his past and continuation of growth really resonates with me.
I flew through all the Mistborn novels recently, and I started The Stormlight Archive a little while back. I’m on the second book now and loving it. Really looking forward to all the rest!
Highly recommend sneaking in Warbreaker before you finish Words of Radiance if possible.
Was not familiar with this one - thanks for the rec. I’ll look into it!
Hatchet.
It taight me that you never have to give up. Even when all looks completely lost, keeping your head on a swivel and keeping yourself goal oriented, you can get yourself through almost anything.
Is that the one where the boy just up and decides to go live in a tree up in the Caskills and ends up with a pet falcon, or is that the one where the kid is stranded in the woods in a plane crash? I read those two books around the same time in later middle school and I think they ran together in my brain.
Plane crash
