Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life? ↗
The books people recommended
2020-03-29 · 679 points · 584 comments · 238 books named by at least one person here and at least 3 people overall. The number on the left is how many people named it in this thread.
- 45
- 21
- 11
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- 9Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
- 8
- 8
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- 7
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- 7
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- 6
- 6Remembrance of Earth's Past
- 6Papillon
- 5
- 5
- 5
- 5The Brothers Karamazov
- 5
- 5
- 5
- 5Harry Potter
- 5
- 5Ficciones
- 5Little Brother
- 4
- 4
- 4
- 4
- 4
- 4
- 4
- 4Jonathan Livingston Seagull
- 4Good Omens
- 4Chronicles of Narnia
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3The Magic Mountain
- 3Illusions
- 3The Mysterious Island
- 3Middlemarch
- 3Gates of Fire
- 3Mother Night
- 3The Futurological Congress
- 3Walkaway
- 3Tropic of Cancer
- 3If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
- 3Lucky Jim
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2The Culture
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2The Old Man and the Sea
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2
- 2Invisible Cities
- 2Lila
- 2Norwegian Wood
- 2Lord of Light
- 2Ender's Shadow
- 2The Stranger
- 2Annihilation
- 2The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- 2Broken Earth
- 2The Lathe of Heaven
- 2The Remains of the Day
- 2The Mote in God's Eye
- 2The Silmarillion
- 2Chronicles of Amber
- 2The Sun Also Rises
- 2Dubliners
- 2The Neverending Story
- 2White Noise
- 2Bluebeard
- 2The Library of Babel
- 2Grendel
- 2Disgrace
- 2The Plague
- 2Journey to the End of the Night
- 2Player Piano
- 2The Awakening
- 2Rant
- 2Journey to the Center of the Earth
- 2Riverworld
- 1
- 1
- 1Permutation City
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1Solaris
- 1
- 1The Quran
The Quran
1 here · 27 all-time · #216 overall
- 1
- 1The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- 1
- 1Rendezvous with Rama
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1Kafka on the Shore
- 1
- 1Starship Troopers
- 1The Cyberiad
- 1
- 1Malazan Book of the Fallen
- 1Shantaram
- 1In Search of Lost Time
- 1Speaker for the Dead
- 1The Name of the Rose
- 1Use of Weapons
- 1Excession
- 1American Gods
- 1Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- 1Narcissus and Goldmund
- 1A Scanner Darkly
- 1Childhood's End
- 1Breakfast of Champions
- 1The Martian Chronicles
- 1The Body
- 1Echopraxia
- 1A Wizard of Earthsea
- 1Ringworld
- 1His Master's Voice
- 1The Rosie Project
- 1Sprawl trilogy
- 1The Decameron
- 1Red Mars
- 12666
- 1Watchmen
- 1Replay
- 1The Peripheral
- 1A Wild Sheep Chase
- 1True Names
- 1Jurassic Park
- 1A Clockwork Orange
- 1The Bridge
- 1What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
- 1The Magus
- 1Demian
- 1Franny and Zooey
- 1A Wrinkle in Time
- 1The Once and Future King
- 1Desert Solitaire
- 1Kitchen Confidential
- 1Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Haruki Murakami
1 here · 7 all-time · #1029 overall
- 1Robot series
- 1The Godfather
- 1Never Let Me Go
- 1Summa Technologiae
- 1A Prayer for Owen Meany
- 1The City and the Stars
- 1Mars trilogy
- 1The Dresden Files
- 1The World of Null-A
- 1Sometimes a Great Notion
- 1Einstein's Dreams
- 1Lilith's Brood
- 1Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
- 1The Nix
- 1Killer of Men
- 1An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith
1 here · 5 all-time · #1252 overall
- 1A Little Life
- 1Blood Music
- 1Wind, Sand and Stars
- 1Zorba the Greek
- 1My Antonia
- 1Labyrinths
- 1Galápagos
- 1The Culture novels
- 1Working
- 1Nine Stories
- 1Snowcrash
- 1Kindred
- 1The Peace War
- 1Demons
- 1Life and Fate
- 1The Postman
- 1All the Pretty Horses
- 1The Corrections
- 1The Savage Detectives
- 1Island
- 1The Earthsea Series
- 1Timequake
- 1When Nietzsche Wept
- 1South of the Border
- 1The English Patient
- 1Fictions
- 1Diary
- 1God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
- 1Muv-Luv Alternative
Muv-Luv Alternative
1 here · 3 all-time · #2085 overall
- 1Death in Venice
- 1The Pilgrim's Progress
- 1Way of the Peaceful Warrior
- 1The Color of Magic
- 1The Humans
- 1Absalom, Absalom!
- 1One Piece
- 1Kallocain
- 1Soldier of a Great War
- 1Southern Reach Trilogy
- 1The Space Trilogy
- 1The Things They Carried
- 1The Schopenhauer Cure
- 1Taltos