Glad to see another manga fan.

One Piece, Monster and of course HxH have all impacted me.

For books, most people have already mentioned Dune, HHGTTG and The Culture series, so I'll have to add Flowers for Algernon.

hmm, I haven't seen this episode, but it feels like it was a spoof on the novella 'Flowers for Algernon', a somewhat heart-wrenching story young children tend to be subjected to.

From those I remembered to log on goodreads...

1) Art of Unix programming - amazing book, lots of "ah-ha" moments. Enlightening is the word I suppose.

2) Mythical man month - very uneven. Some chapters are insightful, some are hopelessly outdated. It's short though so it's not too hard to finish.

3) Flowers for Algernon - meh

4) Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh - fun pop sci, enjoyed it

5) Whatever and Elementary Particles by Houellebecq - really liked them (especially Whatever), but I'm not sure I would recommend them since they're so... dark

The short story is the place the genre developed and where many of the jewels are found. You should survey the landscape and see what you like. Canticle for Leibowitz and Flowers for Algernon are two of the most haunting novellas ever penned. Who Goes There is a classic of horror. Johnny Mnemonic introduces cyberpunk, and Snow Crash ended it.

Greg Egan, Robert Forwards are on the hard edge with universe driven plots. Robert Hamilton does space opera like nothing else.

Military SF is its own world, with Hammers Slammers maybe the best. Be warned: the author doesn't do gore but the horrors of modern, impersonal mechanized combat is conveyed as much as words can be.

The Terra Ignota series is fantastic.

Flowers By Irene (https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/183/841/0c5...)

Geez, does nobody read Flowers for Algernon anymore?

Haven't you read Flowers for Algernon?