Ask HN: What is your comfort book?
The book you read over and over for whatever reason. Mine is "Money: A Suicide Note" by Martin Amis, a book I listened to and re-read several times.
Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. ... So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything,...I'm going to play with physics whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
BTW, if you like Pratchett, do you know the Discworld MUD? (http://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/)
I finally read this "kid stuff" years later, in my mid-twenties, and I liked it very much!
I think I've read it 4 times the last 7 years, which may not be that often, but it definitely has a special place in my heart.
Well actually, I couldn't decide between "I-Robot" and "The rest of the robots", but luckily there's a compendium with them both in.
I'm the same with movies and tv shows. Music, for some reason, is different though. I play the same albums and artists over-and-over.
I have a fairly extensive and varied poetical library that I regularly go back to for all kinds of reasons. TS Eliot is probably my favourite, you can read him every week for a year without fully understanding him, but every time you understand him just a little bit better and every time you glory anew in his superb control of imagery and language.
Because Shakespeare was always presented as something you should read because it's good for you, not because you enjoy it when I was in high school, I don't think I'll ever be able to enjoy it.
Shakespeare's sonnets are a bit more accessible than his plays insofar as each one is a small, manageable, bite-sized chunk. Nonetheless, they do require fairly slow, relaxed attention in an edition with good notes to get the most out of them. (When I was reading them, I would read a couple very slowly over breakfast every day. I miss being able to do that!)
If this appeals to you, then dip into Shakespeare's sonnets, and let yourself feel the rhythm as you read. It's so bloody good.
Ironically I found that I really like A Midsummer Night's Dream by watching a movie version with my son who was performing in it at school.
The more I learnt to appreciate poetry, the more I found that Romantics weren't the only good poets, so I expanded to the Realists, the Metaphysical poets, the fin-de-siecle, etc. And, yes, Shakespeare too ;-) (He takes practice to read and you can't read a lot of him in one sitting, but he really deserves his reputation as an amazing author and poet.)
Dune by Frank Herbert (only the first book, dislike the rest of the series)
Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
The Crysalids by John Wyndham
I've probably read these three books at least twice a decade since the 80s when I was a teenager.
The Complete Robot from Isaac Asimov would be a close forth.
The Tripod Trilogy by John Christopher would be fifth on the list. Hadn't read since a teenager, but about ten years ago tracked down copies of them (and the prequel) and it was delightful to reread.
Other one is Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison, those are very funny and don't attempt to take themselves too seriously, and have the same principle - you can jump into the story at any moment and just enjoy rapid pace of events splashed with humorous commentary. Plus the protagonist is a very much self made man in a world where it doesn't come easily, so there's that bit of hope for you.
Thirdly - Discworld. I guess it does not need comment, does it?
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon
Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (English: A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies ) by Bartolomé de las Casas
Often in spring I read Dylan Thomas 's Under Milk Wood.
"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."
Then it was the 2 memoirs by Patrick Leigh Fermor: "A Time of Gifts" and "Between the Woods and the Water".
Lately it's the Aubrey-Maturin by Patrick O'Brian series which I have re-read multiple times.
About the beginning of something very similar to java.
Hope you enjoy it.
---
Satan Takes Job's Property and Children
13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 14 and there came a messenger to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants[c] with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
---
I'm not sure how that made me feel, but I bet this is more effective if you pick specific passages you like.
I read the Bible every day, a habit that is very important to me. But I don't just "pick specific passages I like", I take a book and read it through sequentially, then move on to the next. I find much of it intensely practical and applicable to my life; it challenges, comforts and teaches me. Of course, some parts are of a more historical interest, yet others (like the one you quote) can be really tough to make sense of. But I believe that the Bible is one of the main ways in which God communicates with people, so I want to read and think about all of it.
But if someone could only read a small part of the Bible, no doubt I’d send them to the Gospels.
[edit: "revolution" -> "rebellion"]
These are the books I turn to when I am depressed or stressed or just fed up with life in general :-)
Not the best book I've ever read. Not even my favorite book I've read. But it's the one I've read the most, and the one I always go back to. It reminds me of my childhood home, my time growing up there, as well as helps diminish my wanderlust when I'm feeling restless.
It also helped me through times of depression and encouraged a love of reading.
Also If you enjoyed Catch I recommend Vernon God Little
It's free to read on Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1184/1184-h/1184-h.htm#linkC...
I think I would say Consider Phlebas. Flamboyant space opera.
Threads and A Colder War both belong to this category for me.
A fictional drug trip with Jim Morrison
2. Budding Prospects By T.C. Boyle
A group of friends leave San Francisco in 1983 to start their own marijuana enterprise out in the country
3. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas By Hunter S. Thompson
"when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"
I found the book after I saw the film, and it was a revelation that even the action sequences are better in the book.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile
It is an interesting observation.
For poetry, Mary Oliver.
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
False Memory by Dean Koontz
Neuromancer by William Gibson
was recommended by my mom at a young age (1st grade?), read it a bunch of times in grade school (went to same school K-8 so had access to the same library).
I should probably reread that whole series as an adult