Hacker News Books

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

These are both absolutely brilliant and moving; you can't go wrong with either of them.

Shantaram is a great novel that is very easy to read regardless of the book length (it's very long). If you are even remotely interested in India and/or travelling it is a must.

A cookbook is the book I have given the most. Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller is an absolutely great book for somebody that is getting into cooking.

Of the top of my head some books I gave my brother included Salt, Siddhartha, and Shantaram. There were others that didn't start with an S as well.

Shantaram is a terrific read.

This is most likely off most HN readers' radar screens...

Shantaram: A Novel - this was a most unlikely recommendation from a most unlikely person

http://www.amazon.com/Shantaram-Novel-Gregory-David-Roberts/...

Just finished Shantaram (best book I've ever read)

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (bit of a beast, but well worth it).

Here is a list of books that I made a while ago by looking at the top recommended books from various places.

http://niyazpk.tadalist.com/lists/1629487/public

The list contains fiction as well as non-fiction. My pick: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts - One of the best books I read last year (fiction).

1. Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts): So good that mom stayed up until 3AM to finish it.

2. Mistborn trilogy (brandon sanderson): Gripping storytelling and by far one of the best fantasy books i've ever read.

3. Millennium trilogy (steig larsson): Hard to slot this book. On its face it is a thriller but the book is merely the medium through which the author lashes out against crimes toward women and corruption.In 2008, he was the second-best selling author in the world

4. American Shaolin (Matthew Polly): An exciting read but still do not know what is fact and what is fiction. .

All the fiction books that have left a lasting impact on me have been long...

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822858-a-little-life)

It is emotionally intense, beautifully written, and is a hypnotic read. Larger than life characters centered around one enigmatic protagonist, Jude. It's about pain, friendship, love, and the brutality of memory and experience.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33600.Shantaram)

An Australian gangster escaping his home country and falling in love with India (Mumbai). Lots of philosophy. A moral tale. Plenty of drama. And a love story with deep, dark characters.

Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2122.The_Fountainhead)

A novel on idealism for the irrational, real world we live in. Centered around an ideal man, Roark, who struggles to survive despite being a brilliant architect; he doesn't give up on his principles and never conforms. Not a typical novel, disliked by many.

Mostly read fiction. Some of my top books I read this year are:

- Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (as well as his other detective novels)

- Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Zafon

- The Martian

- Dark Forest (and the Three Body Problem)

- Shantaram

- Age of Myth by Michael Sullivan

- Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits

Flat Earth News - Nick Davies: An interesting discussion about falsehood and PR in newspapers and the media generally.

Hackers & Painters - Paul Graham: Read it this year and enjoyed it a lot.

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts: Awe inspiring "true" story about a convict who escaped to India. Really made me want to take a trip to India. Perhaps not the highest quality prose but a gripping story never-the-less.

A Simple Act of Violence - R J Ellory: I'm reading this right now and it's the first book in a while that has really grabbed me. Well written crime/thriller type book.

This is something I’ve been interested in for ages. I recently went to India and the first thing I Googled was “best books set in India” (answers: Shantaram, A Fine Balance, Midnight’s Children, God of Small Things). So definitely something I would use.

Some comments from me:

1. Needs to be much bigger. You currently have four books recommended for London, both fiction and non-fiction. But there are hundreds and hundreds of books set in London, which leads me on to ...

2. Needs to be curated. When I was searching for the best books set in India, I was looking for the most popular, critically-acclaimed, ‘important’ books, not just any old book set in India. Some sense of priority would be useful.

3. Needs to include more than just cities. Could you also include regions and countries, too? If you’re travelling in the Deep South, for example, you’ll want to be recommended things like Faulkner, Steinbeck, etc. even though these books aren’t always set in specific cities. (I think Faulkner set lots of his books in a fictional county somewhere in the Deep South).

4. UX. I don’t need photos of cities on the buttons. If this is a site that might be used by people on holiday = people with really slow internet, you might want to think about getting rid of needless graphics, or offering a low-bandwidth version. Again, to return to the India example, the Internet here (and lots of other places I’ve been) is woeful. Some services (e.g. Reddit, WhatsApp) do really well in those circumstances, others (e.g. Twitter) not so much.

Great idea, however. Looking forward to see how it grows!

Shantaram by Gregory Roberts.

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow.

That's Me in the Middle by Donald Jack.

Read Shantaram if you haven't.
http://www.amazon.com/Shantaram-Novel-Gregory-David-Roberts/...

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts