Sup guys,
taking the arrival of my new book 'the unix programming environment' by kernigham and pike as a reason, I want to ask you whats your favorite book and why it is.
I am not talking exclusively about technical related books, but books in general. I am curious about that since I am always searching for new stuff to read :)

it's not very topical anymore, but i _REALLY_ enjoyed
KeithPeters's Flash Math Creativity: http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Math-Creativ...1590594290
it was a neat mix of cool visuals (the demos could be an art book on their own), technical explanations, and math.

I've read so many books I can't seem to find which I would give the status of favorite.

Every single one of them has kept a specific image in my mind from the time I've read them, from the mood I was in when I was reading them, or the memories they bring back, even the technical books.

Paul Graham wrote a related article about this: http://paulgraham.com/know.html

For the sake of arguing, I wouldn't put any technical/programming book in my favorite list, it would be equivalent as putting my old school maths book in my favorite list. Those books are nice to have as a reference and very enjoyable but not the kind that moves you or transfer you to another dimension of yourself.

I have a few but Time Management for System Administrators is a gem.

The ice people, from Barjavel. Because it's just awesome.

I guess I'd have to say, Absolute OpenBSD (2nd ed).

Though I do also have Sudo Mastery & The Book of PF to read sometime.

:)

I really liked The Wheel of Time (by Robert Jordan) and have read the series (of 14 books, so maybe this isn't an appropriate answer) 3 times. It's not for everyone and maybe I just like it so much because I've been reading it for 15 years and the nostalgia has overcome my good judgement.

Non fiction -
K&R: what I'm reading now and its great!

The elements of style: helped me not write like a 10 year old

Structure and interpretation of computer programs:
Just kidding.


Fiction -

If on a winters night by italo calvino:
Amazing book.

House of leaves:
Look at my name? Course I like this book


Honorable mentions -
Installing Linux on a dead badger
Game of thrones
Crying of lot 49
Snowcrash

The FreeBSD Handbook
Absolute FreeBSD
Currently enjoying The C Programming Language

Other than that
The Kite Runner
Crypto
The Shockwave Rider
The Legend of Drizzt
The Xanth Novels
Ishmael

After Crypto, I can't wait to start The Puzzle Palace

Absolute OpenBSD is fantastic read. I think the way it's written, organization, and clarity should be a standard for technical-for-non-technical styled books. I've been making my way through it as I wanted to learn more about pf and I'm currently learning C, so where better to look than OpenBSD's src?

In the realm of fiction, I've just finished the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson. He and his friend Ian C. Esslemont began trying to create a world for the GURP table-top RPG, and someone convinced them to write books set in the universe instead. If you like world-building, magic systems, high fantasy, epic stories, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

If you're more in the mood for science fiction and you've never read Frank Herbert's Dune, please do so immediately. Don't even go to work. Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos is amazing too.

(12-08-2015, 04:35 PM)thetornainbow Wrote: f you're more in the mood for science fiction and you've never read Frank Herbert's Dune, please do so immediately. Don't even go to work.

+1. The Dune series is brilliant. I also really like Assimov's Foundation series.

Favorite fiction book has to be The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Don't really have a favorite non-fiction but I like WW2 so I have a lot of books about that.

@dsplayer
I completely forgot to add the Tolkien books to my list!
The Silmarillion was by far the greatest I've read from him/them so far. Looking forward to reading The Children of Hurin next.

Ender's Game is surprisingly good -- every 30 pages or so you learn something that changes your perspective on what really happened.

Daemon by Suarez is the most nixers-like fiction I can think of.

Any other fiction that's close to nixers?

Foundation series - sci fi, good stuff
The idea factory - the rise and fall of bell labs (surprisingly little about unix, but surprisingly interesting anyways)
The Futurica Trilogy - (cyberpunk philosophy)

@gaak loved the enders game and enders shadow series, I'm overdue for a re-read there.

I'm currently mostly listening to this series, which is mostly traders with big egos trying to outmanuver each other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asian_Saga

(31-12-2018, 09:53 PM)gaak Wrote: Ender's Game is surprisingly good -- every 30 pages or so you learn something that changes your perspective on what really happened.

I loved that book as well!

Best read of all time will be "La nuit des temps", a sci-fi book from René Barjavel (French writer).

In a more cyberpunk fashion, I enjoyed "snow crash" and "neuromancer", both providing a different approach to "hardcore hacking".

@neeasade Clavell's Noble House and Tai-Pan are good schlocky fun -- especially Hong Kong in the 60's with the water rationing and bank failures.

@z3bra Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Diamond Age rock, and Anathem is good as something to think about / adjust one's lifestyle.

Hacking in film or fiction seems to be in a deplorable state. Like we get all excited when something even remotely legit is covered (OMG Trinity command-line ssh hack!!!!111!)

Ender's game was good.

Dune, I didn't read the sequels - I thought that it wasn't the best book ever by a long shot, and a lot of people hype it up a lot. I couldn't care about Paul, he seemed pretty unpleasant, and I read it mainly as a bunch of overentitled politicians taking advantage of the planet and beliefs of another race.

Tolkien bored me. He was better at writing action (imo) but didn't do much, and chapters were long and rambly.

Normally I prefer reading stuff very detached from computers etc. Jonas Jonasson wrote some humorous books (they didn't make me laugh too much, but they were enjoyable). Kate Atkinson's books have some very complex plots. They're fun to read. My favourite author is Rachel Joyce - her books are nothing particularly unique, but cover a range of topics in a sensitive and humourous way.

In terms of non-fiction, I like reading Pike's papers, even if I don't agree with everything he says, I think he's pretty good at writing and has an interesting perspective.

Peter Singer's "ethics in the real world" is a nice selection of short essays which are enjoyable to read too. They cover everything.

yeah, Dune is a weird mix of Satire and Noble Savage -- fairly on the ball geopolitically though.

Ender's Game is a well-constructed Tragedy: we think Ender's going up, but in reality he's going down; and we think Peter is going down, but he's actually going up. And then you add in all the carefully laid logic behind Peter and the Queen... freaking awesome.

I love reading novels myself, especially fantasy. It would hard to pin down a favourite but i can definitely recommend the Kingkiller chronicles by Rothfuss , The Mistborn series by brandon sanderson and some others (The first mistborn book can serve as a standalone book)

Automate the boring stuff with Python. Non computer related? Harry potter series for sure.

(23-06-2019, 05:16 PM)Deathbox Wrote: Automate the boring stuff with Python. Non computer related? Harry potter series for sure.

Hey! That's an awesome book!

21st Century C: C Tips from the New School

Really fun and engaging. One of my best acquisitions.

for non-technial books: william gibson is my favorite author. it's hard to pick one book as a favorite. both the sprawl {neuromancer, count zero, mona lisa overdrive} and bridge {virtual light, idoru, all tomorrow's parties} trilogies are fantastic. both in writing style, content, story exposition, character development...

(25-06-2019, 07:08 PM)wolf Wrote:

(23-06-2019, 05:16 PM)Deathbox Wrote: Automate the boring stuff with Python. Non computer related? Harry potter series for sure.

Hey! That's an awesome book!

Yeah it was my introduction to Python, I still glance at it time to time but instead of reading through the documentation I tend to just research the modules I'll be using in a given project to get it off the ground faster. I should put more time into learning Python!

+1 for Automate the Boring Stuff.

Technical: The C Programming Language. Doesn't get better than that.
Non-technical: The Count of Monte Cristo.

The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, just kidding.

But in all seriousness, If I had to choose a favorite book it would probably be The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.

On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers has to be one of my favourite novels.

I will also read anything by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross. The Laundry Files series by Stross is an excellent mix of horror, and sci-fi.