I’m not a big reader these days but back in the 90’s I was. The ones that really stuck with me and have been reread once or twice.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith

Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny. Brilliant, prescient, and genuinely a great work of literature all at once. The story of Rild, the telling of the metaphor about fire, so much else, it’s been all these years and I’m still quoting it.

Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart. When my will to go on falters, this is one of the books I turn to for comfort. It’s beautifully written, it’s hilarious, and it just makes me feel better.

Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, Spider Robinson. I genuinely have handed this book to a troubled young person and had them find a better understanding of the human condition between its covers. I didn’t expect that, I thought I was sharing a cool book with them that was something I’d found influenced how I am, but it happened. It’s kind of a big deal. It’s also actually a lot of fun to read, it’s just a collection of short science fiction stories set in a bar, right? …right?

Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers, Lawrence Watt-Evans; Watt-Evans is largely a moderately obscure (as far as I can tell) fantasy author. I love the rest of his work because it’s much more human than a lot of fantasy, with people who are bumbling and desperately trying to handle bizarre problems they’re ill-equipped for and sometimes making their problems worse than they dreamed and also there are wizards. (I also like some of his worldbuilding choices, but let’s get on with this). This one short story (that won a Hugo and stuff), though, lives rent-free in my head forever; it’s got a simple point, which is that the world we’re actually in has a lot of cool stuff, go enjoy it, but it makes it in a very fun way and, well, okay, enough, I love it.

Calvin and Hobbes. All of it. Bill Watterson is a visionary genius.

I can go on, I haven’t mentioned Douglas Adams or Sandman or Transmetropolitan or fnord or ten thousand other things, but I have other things to do and should content myself with finite length.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It’s the first in a trilogy of six books. I haven’t read the last book but I would recommend reading 1 to 5.

The radio series and audiobooks are all worth a listen as well. There is a version narrated by Douglas Adams himself and another narrated by Stephen Fry and Martin Freeman. Both are great.

One of my favourite quotes from the Hitchhikers:

“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.” “Why, what did she tell you?” “I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”

I also love this quote from the fourth instalment of the series So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish:

The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying “And another thing…” twenty minutes after admitting he’s lost the argument.

The whole series is worth a read. You’re bound to laugh over and over reading them.

In no particular order,

• Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
• Albert Camus, The Stranger
• J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
• David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
• Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

I can’t pick a single title for Camus or Vonnegut, but those two respective titles are near the top.

A chain of voices - Andre Brink

Cosmos - Carl Sagan

The name of the rose - Umberto Eco (so much better than the movie)

A prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

I used to read a lot when I was younger. Now I’m down to max two books per year. I miss it.

Contact by Carl Sagan

Definately project hail mary by Any Weir

The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager is my absolute favorite.

honorable mentions: Slumberland by Pauly Beatty A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami The Thought Gang by Tibor Fischer The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien The Cider House Rules by John Irving

Recently:

• The Three Body Problem series by Cixin Liu is devestatingly good. It’s a vast, prescient science fiction series that’ll make you feel existential dread toward physics. It’s great.

• The Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky is another fantastic science fiction series. The most compelling first person view into truly alien minds I’ve read.

• Everything Terry Pratchett ever wrote is worth reading.

Lord of the Rings just about saved my life in high school. Possession by A.S. Byatt. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, though I’ve yet to read the sequels. Atonement by Ian McEwan. Just about anything by Geoff Ryman, Ali Smith, José Saramago, or Sheri Holman.

deleted by creator

Right now only these come to my mind:

• The Three Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin - I am on part two and can’t stop reading, it is already joining my favourite books, whole-heartedly recommended. They are sci-fi books. :)
• “Rumo” and “The 13 1⁄2 Lives of Captain Bluebear” by Walter Moers (read in German but available in English), wonderful fantasy books, extremely creative and well written.

On mobile, too tired to write but… So many… But I honestly think Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is as close to the perfect book as I can imagine (for me!). Also, Kafka for me is like the Final Boss, once you go through him, everything else pales in comparison

I loved the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Read it as a kid and every time I go back to reread my beat up copies it is a joy.

a few of importance to me:

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Guards! Guards!

Piranesi

The Scar