Dune.
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2026
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Excluding religious text~
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Any book written by Cormac McCarthy
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Short stories by Kurt Vonnegut
Do Androinds Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
Definitely lots more
I like where this list is going, having read all those. I'm curious what else you would add to it!
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I was about to type 'I've been meaning to read that' for the Stephen King book, but I have now and it's fine. I wouldn't call it a must read. As a time travel story it's in the top three
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A pixie book or equivalent. Pixie books are short children's books (maybe 12 DinA6 pages with very little text and lots of pictures). They are dirt cheap and there is a big bowl full of them in many books stores in Germany. They are meant to get kids into reading and that's why I 'nominated' them here xD
Demon Haunted World -Carl Sagan
Atlas Shrugged
(Haha just kidding!)
A former boss told me it was his favourite book. He didn’t like it when I laughed at him because I thought he was joking.
I've bought that crap after the BBC promoted it with a dedicated article many years ago.. It's such a boring and average book .. I felt scammed.
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Surface Detail by Iain M Banks
Part of The Culture series but can be read standalone, potential for being one of the best hard scifi books out there
I love this book and all his stuff, but this is not hard sci-fi at all.
Just so if anyone takes the recommendation they know what they are getting into :)
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Shogūn (really hope I got that phonetic right) by James Clavell. Even, maybe especially if you're not a weeaboo.
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Project hail Mary ,better than movie.
The fellowship of the ring, the republic, the history of mathematics, the saga of swamp thing, the invisibles, Macbeth
I second The Invisibles, but that's the sort of story you need to work up to.
Stranger in a Strange Land
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Same message, two vastly different methods of communicating it
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Illusions by Richard Bach, subtitled The Tale of the Reluctant Messiah. A beautiful book about the universe and spirituality. The author wrote it on the premise of "what if I had my own, personal, Jesus... Or Buddha or Messiah that was hanging out with me and explaining the universe". So this guy is a Messiah that one day just quits to fly airplanes.
It's funny, it's inspiring, it's a little sad, but hopeful. It's also very short, you can easily read it in an afternoon.
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers change.
I love the movie theater analogy.
Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence - David Benatar
I found reading this to be quite validating of my own life experiences and observations
This book is very well written but I disagreed completely with the premise. I believe is true that we don't choose to be born. We're forced into existence kicking and screaming but that's the nature of being. We are born we grow up we procreate and then we die. Some of us don't procreate by choice but I feel the desire to have offspring is innate to being alive. Some people and beings have a stronger desiree than others, and there's nothing wrong on following through and cires related to the suffering we impar into our offspring is not reason not to do it. Just like children's role is not to take care of their parents when they're old. All things considered, this is quite a philosophical debate.
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The bible.
Sodom and Gomorrah and the story of Jacob are basically an iq test.
Not only do the stories sound highly unreal, even if they are real the only rational conclusion is that god is evil and petty.
That said, the philosophies of Jesus are pretty cool and often still relevant today.
Well of course god is the evil one.
Genesis. Dude invented sin by putting a random tree down with a whole made up lore on it for no reason other to tempt his "beloved" creation. Of course it all goes to plan—since the dude apparently knows what comes ahead of time—and he gets to do what he wanted all along; fuck with the ants.
And Lucifer, the only person to try overthrow this monster tragically lost and paid the ultimate price for it.
This slots in so much better than the original, I think. They should incorporate it into Diablo somehow.
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Dueuteronomy FTW
18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death
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Yu Hua - Brothers
The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric. S Raymond. I’m only half-joking; I used to read it when I had insomnia because it was equal parts fascinating but verbose enough to get me to sleep.
Otherwise Waking Up by Sam Harris. I’d only heard of him after a group meditation session which I’d never done before and immediately became hooked: that you could be spiritual without religion was an entirely new concept for me.
Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Stephen King - The Stand
While I read it in university for a history class… I quite like Candide by Voltaire. Sometimes we all should just tend our own gardens.