Y Hacker News Books

Ask HN: What are your favorite books? I'm bored ↗

The books people recommended

2014-07-30 · 38 points · 75 comments · 103 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.

  1. 4

    Siddhartha

    Hermann Hesse

    4 here · 97 all-time · #31 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 18,150 ratings on Amazon
  2. 3

    Gödel, Escher, Bach

    Douglas Hofstadter

    3 here · 347 all-time · #1 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 2,713 ratings on Amazon
  3. 3

    Thinking, Fast and Slow

    Daniel Kahneman

    3 here · 178 all-time · #6 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 48,679 ratings on Amazon
  4. 3

    Discworld

    Terry Pratchett

    3 here · 50 all-time · #87 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 28,137 ratings on Amazon
  5. 3

    Ishmael

    Daniel Quinn

    3 here · 44 all-time · #104 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 7,045 ratings on Amazon
  6. 2

    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

    Robert Pirsig

    2 here · 193 all-time · #5 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 13,921 ratings on Amazon
  7. 2

    Meditations

    Marcus Aurelius

    2 here · 165 all-time · #10 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 21,552 ratings on Amazon
  8. 2

    Foundation

    Isaac Asimov

    2 here · 110 all-time · #20 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 36,591 ratings on Amazon
  9. 2

    The Hard Thing About Hard Things

    Ben Horowitz

    2 here · 56 all-time · #67 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 15,933 ratings on Amazon
  10. 2

    The Alchemist

    Paulo Coelho

    2 here · 52 all-time · #77 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 184,313 ratings on Amazon
  11. 2

    Slaughterhouse-Five

    Kurt Vonnegut

    2 here · 34 all-time · #153 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 40,601 ratings on Amazon
  12. 2Small Gods

    Small Gods

    Terry Pratchett

    2 here · 14 all-time · #466 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 9,536 ratings on Amazon
  13. 2Poor Economics

    Poor Economics

    Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo

    2 here · 6 all-time · #1130 overall

  14. 2The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

    The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

    Marcus Aurelius

    2 here · 3 all-time · #2554 overall

  15. 2Job

    Job

    Robert Heinlein

    2 here · 3 all-time · #2631 overall

  16. 1

    Dune

    Frank Herbert

    1 here · 250 all-time · #3 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 104,032 ratings on Amazon
  17. 1

    The Selfish Gene

    Richard Dawkins

    1 here · 178 all-time · #7 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 8,966 ratings on Amazon
  18. 1

    The Lord of the Rings

    J.R.R. Tolkien

    1 here · 114 all-time · #18 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.9 out of 5, 14,620 ratings on Amazon
  19. 1

    The Martian

    Andy Weir

    1 here · 103 all-time · #25 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 187,449 ratings on Amazon
  20. 1

    1984

    George Orwell

    1 here · 94 all-time · #34 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 126,118 ratings on Amazon
  21. 1

    The Fountainhead

    Ayn Rand

    1 here · 90 all-time · #36 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 12,667 ratings on Amazon
  22. 1

    Zero to One

    Peter Thiel, Blake Masters

    1 here · 89 all-time · #37 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 40,093 ratings on Amazon
  23. 1

    Guns, Germs, and Steel

    Jared Diamond

    1 here · 83 all-time · #39 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 14,634 ratings on Amazon
  24. 1

    Fooled by Randomness

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb

    1 here · 81 all-time · #41 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 6,682 ratings on Amazon
  25. 1

    Masters of Doom

    David Kushner

    1 here · 69 all-time · #53 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 3,851 ratings on Amazon
  26. 1

    Brave New World

    Aldous Huxley

    1 here · 67 all-time · #55 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 48,055 ratings on Amazon
  27. 1

    Getting Things Done

    David Allen

    1 here · 62 all-time · #61 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 10,742 ratings on Amazon
  28. 1

    The Hobbit

    J.R.R. Tolkien

    1 here · 53 all-time · #75 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 82,135 ratings on Amazon
  29. 1

    Tao Te Ching

    Lao Tzu

    1 here · 53 all-time · #76 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 1,771 ratings on Amazon
  30. 1

    Founders at Work

    Jessica Livingston

    1 here · 51 all-time · #80 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 689 ratings on Amazon
  31. 1

    Animal Farm

    George Orwell

    1 here · 48 all-time · #90 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 94,716 ratings on Amazon
  32. 1

    Catch-22

    Joseph Heller

    1 here · 46 all-time · #96 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 14,669 ratings on Amazon
  33. 1

    The Expanse

    James S. A. Corey

    1 here · 43 all-time · #112 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 38,667 ratings on Amazon
  34. 1

    The Making of the Atomic Bomb

    Richard Rhodes

    1 here · 42 all-time · #114 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 4,174 ratings on Amazon
  35. 1

    The Elements of Style

    William Strunk Jr.

    1 here · 38 all-time · #129 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 7,297 ratings on Amazon
  36. 1

    Predictably Irrational

    Dan Ariely

    1 here · 35 all-time · #144 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 11,450 ratings on Amazon
  37. 1Walden

    Walden

    Henry David Thoreau

    1 here · 35 all-time · #146 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.2 out of 5, 2,309 ratings on Amazon
  38. 1

    I Am a Strange Loop

    Douglas Hofstadter

    1 here · 33 all-time · #159 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 1,069 ratings on Amazon
  39. 1

    The War of Art

    Steven Pressfield

    1 here · 33 all-time · #163 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 31,336 ratings on Amazon
  40. 1

    The Republic

    Plato

    1 here · 32 all-time · #174 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 1,034 ratings on Amazon
  41. 1

    The Innovator's Dilemma

    Clayton Christensen

    1 here · 30 all-time · #185 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 4,076 ratings on Amazon
  42. 1

    Fahrenheit 451

    Ray Bradbury

    1 here · 28 all-time · #199 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 61,227 ratings on Amazon
  43. 1

    The Odyssey

    Homer

    1 here · 28 all-time · #200 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 5,214 ratings on Amazon
  44. 1

    The Iliad

    Homer

    1 here · 28 all-time · #201 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 5,214 ratings on Amazon
  45. 1Coders at Work

    Coders at Work

    Peter Seibel

    1 here · 27 all-time · #213 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 330 ratings on Amazon
  46. 1

    A Song of Ice and Fire

    George R. R. Martin

    1 here · 26 all-time · #219 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 83,380 ratings on Amazon
  47. 1

    Freakonomics

    Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

    1 here · 26 all-time · #225 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.2 out of 5, 7,647 ratings on Amazon
  48. 1Rendezvous with Rama

    Rendezvous with Rama

    Arthur C. Clarke

    1 here · 25 all-time · #233 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 16,602 ratings on Amazon
  49. 1

    The Road

    Cormac McCarthy

    1 here · 24 all-time · #243 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 39,314 ratings on Amazon
  50. 1

    A Brief History of Time

    Stephen Hawking

    1 here · 23 all-time · #259 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 11,605 ratings on Amazon
  51. 1

    Wool

    Hugh Howey

    1 here · 23 all-time · #262 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 53,808 ratings on Amazon
  52. 1

    Steppenwolf

    Hermann Hesse

    1 here · 22 all-time · #272 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 1,837 ratings on Amazon
  53. 1

    Think and Grow Rich

    Napoleon Hill

    1 here · 21 all-time · #287 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 75,414 ratings on Amazon
  54. 1

    Skunk Works

    Ben Rich

    1 here · 21 all-time · #302 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 5,053 ratings on Amazon
  55. 1

    Letters from a Stoic

    Seneca

    1 here · 20 all-time · #311 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 4,127 ratings on Amazon
  56. 1

    History of Western Philosophy

    Bertrand Russell

    1 here · 20 all-time · #312 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 2,074 ratings on Amazon
  57. 1

    The Gulag Archipelago

    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    1 here · 20 all-time · #313 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 5,474 ratings on Amazon
  58. 1Jonathan Livingston Seagull

    Jonathan Livingston Seagull

    Richard Bach

    1 here · 20 all-time · #316 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.7 out of 5, 16,386 ratings on Amazon
  59. 1Quantum Computing since Democritus

    Quantum Computing since Democritus

    Scott Aaronson

    1 here · 20 all-time · #319 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 287 ratings on Amazon
  60. 1

    Why Nations Fail

    Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson

    1 here · 19 all-time · #329 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 10,898 ratings on Amazon
  61. 1

    Mere Christianity

    C.S. Lewis

    1 here · 19 all-time · #332 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 14,091 ratings on Amazon
  62. 1Flash Boys

    Flash Boys

    Michael Lewis

    1 here · 17 all-time · #368 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 18,690 ratings on Amazon
  63. 1The Signal and the Noise

    The Signal and the Noise

    Nate Silver

    1 here · 17 all-time · #372 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 3,922 ratings on Amazon
  64. 1Orthodoxy

    Orthodoxy

    G.K. Chesterton

    1 here · 16 all-time · #393 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 2,701 ratings on Amazon
  65. 1Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

    Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

    Christopher Bishop

    1 here · 15 all-time · #428 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 801 ratings on Amazon
  66. 1Capital in the Twenty-First Century

    Capital in the Twenty-First Century

    Thomas Piketty

    1 here · 15 all-time · #442 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 5,772 ratings on Amazon
  67. 1The Prophet

    The Prophet

    Kahlil Gibran

    1 here · 14 all-time · #449 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 13,665 ratings on Amazon
  68. 1The Confessions

    The Confessions

    Augustine of Hippo

    1 here · 13 all-time · #484 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 2,059 ratings on Amazon
  69. 1The Blind Watchmaker

    The Blind Watchmaker

    Richard Dawkins

    1 here · 13 all-time · #485 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 2,322 ratings on Amazon
  70. 1The Quantum Thief

    The Quantum Thief

    Hannu Rajaniemi

    1 here · 12 all-time · #530 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.2 out of 5, 2,607 ratings on Amazon
  71. 1Ecclesiastes

    Ecclesiastes

    1 here · 12 all-time · #532 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.8 out of 5, 1,535 ratings on Amazon
  72. 11491

    1491

    Charles C. Mann

    1 here · 12 all-time · #541 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.6 out of 5, 6,857 ratings on Amazon
  73. 1Ringworld

    Ringworld

    Larry Niven

    1 here · 11 all-time · #569 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.3 out of 5, 8,555 ratings on Amazon
  74. 1The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

    The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

    John Maynard Keynes

    1 here · 11 all-time · #599 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.1 out of 5, 1,182 ratings on Amazon
  75. 1The Undercover Economist

    The Undercover Economist

    Tim Harford

    1 here · 10 all-time · #635 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.4 out of 5, 1,821 ratings on Amazon
  76. 1Self-Reliance

    Self-Reliance

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    1 here · 9 all-time · #699 overall

    Buy on Amazon4.5 out of 5, 1,724 ratings on Amazon
  77. 1True Names

    True Names

    Vernor Vinge

    1 here · 9 all-time · #763 overall

  78. 1Contact

    Contact

    Carl Sagan

    1 here · 8 all-time · #785 overall

  79. 1City

    City

    Clifford D. Simak

    1 here · 8 all-time · #851 overall

  80. 1Racing the Beam

    Racing the Beam

    Ian Bogost, Nick Montfort

    1 here · 8 all-time · #869 overall

  81. 1Le Ton Beau de Marot

    Le Ton Beau de Marot

    Douglas Hofstadter

    1 here · 7 all-time · #908 overall

  82. 1Das Kapital

    Das Kapital

    Karl Marx

    1 here · 7 all-time · #915 overall

  83. 1Shop Class as Soulcraft

    Shop Class as Soulcraft

    Matthew Crawford

    1 here · 7 all-time · #930 overall

  84. 1The Swerve

    The Swerve

    Stephen Greenblatt

    1 here · 7 all-time · #934 overall

  85. 1The Neverending Story

    The Neverending Story

    Michael Ende

    1 here · 7 all-time · #971 overall

  86. 11776

    1776

    David McCullough

    1 here · 6 all-time · #1108 overall

  87. 1Fight Club

    Fight Club

    Chuck Palahniuk

    1 here · 6 all-time · #1119 overall

  88. 1The Story of B

    The Story of B

    Daniel Quinn

    1 here · 6 all-time · #1161 overall

  89. 1What the Buddha Taught

    What the Buddha Taught

    Walpola Rahula

    1 here · 6 all-time · #1177 overall

  90. 1Behind the Cloud

    Behind the Cloud

    Marc Benioff

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1263 overall

  91. 1The Way of Zen

    The Way of Zen

    Alan Watts

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1275 overall

  92. 1Momo

    Momo

    Michael Ende

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1311 overall

  93. 1The Launch Pad

    The Launch Pad

    Randall Stross

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1313 overall

  94. 1Qur'an

    Qur'an

    Abdel Haleem

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1400 overall

  95. 1Romance of the Three Kingdoms

    Romance of the Three Kingdoms

    Luo Guanzhong

    1 here · 5 all-time · #1456 overall

  96. 1Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

    Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

    Paul Reps

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1688 overall

  97. 1India: A History

    India: A History

    V.S. Naipaul

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1864 overall

  98. 1Nudge

    Nudge

    Richard H. Thaler

    1 here · 4 all-time · #1878 overall

  99. 1Shakespeare

    Shakespeare

    Bill Bryson

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2030 overall

  100. 1The Diary of a Young Girl

    The Diary of a Young Girl

    Anne Frank

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2082 overall

  101. 1The Now Habit

    The Now Habit

    Neil Fiore

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2128 overall

  102. 1Millennium

    Millennium

    Stieg Larsson

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2316 overall

  103. 1The Coming of the Third Reich

    The Coming of the Third Reich

    Richard J. Evans

    1 here · 3 all-time · #2487 overall