Most Interesting Book You've ever Read?

[MEbenhoe]

Sorry if it's been done.

Most interesting (that book you couldn't put down until you were finished) Fiction and Non-Fiction book you've ever read?

For me:

Fiction - Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Non-Fiction - The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

[kerssens]

The last book I read was good. It was 8 years ago. "Makes me Wanna Holler" by Nathan McCall.

[cbfair]

Illuminatus! Trilogy (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0440539811/qid=1119235660/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2283279-7988856?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. I read it like 8 times in the two years after graduating college. Haven't read it recently but its a brilliant novel. There must be 150 charecters with about 12 interweaving plotlines including lots of sex, drugs, international intrigue, revisionist history, conspiracy theory, smugglers in golden submarines (well, only one really) and talking dolphins.

The whole trilogy is published in one volume about 1400 pages long and the first time I read it all the way through I cleared it in about 4 days; the first book is very fast paced and jumps all over the place so you have to promise yourself that you'll read at least 100 pages in the first sitting and not worry about comprehending anything - cause you won't.

[shadow29]

http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/pics/soundfury.gif

[Macdaddy Warsaw]

I'm not a big reader, but I always thought City Come A-Walkin' was a pretty interesting techno-thriller or whatever the genre is...

[Larimani]

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0394722566.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.gif

[KDawgCometh]

THe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, its a great read

[Bradyams]

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk...very strange and interesting.

[KDawgCometh]

[ QUOTE ]
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk...very strange and interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]


the same could be said about his other books too

[blatz]

As somebody who usually reads fiction, I picked up Global Brain by Howard Bloom, on a recommendation of someone here on OOT.

Practically every page, I put the book down to think about what I had just read.

[PoBoy321]

[ QUOTE ]
THe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, its a great read

[/ QUOTE ]

I absolutely loved that book, but I just picked up Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. They have a website, it's interesting, go check it out.

[istewart]

[ QUOTE ]
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just started this. It is a bit of "datamining," per se (as is Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, which I recommend), but it is still a very fun read. Interesting stuff.

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]


[/ QUOTE ] http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/pics/soundfury.gif

Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha.

[thatpfunk]

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0747549923.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg




Not THE most interesting, but intriguing.

[milliondollaz]

Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman

If you arn't that interested in the amazing world around you, at least read his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman". The guy is a genius in many ways, and they are both VERY interesting...

[Spladle Master]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry if it's been done.

Most interesting (that book you couldn't put down until you were finished) Fiction and Non-Fiction book you've ever read?

For me:

Fiction - Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Non-Fiction - The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty much anything by Daniel Quinn. I'll let others elaborate.

[Cumulonimbus]

Ishmael. Reading about why humans are dominant over animals is great. It made me ponder everything for about a month.

[iequalzach]

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is something special.

[Malachii]

Wow, sounds cool. I'm going to have to buy that. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Jules22]

Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut. need to reread that one again. i also really really enjoyed the great gatsby

[RunDownHouse]

Sperm Wars, by Dr. Robin Baker. Explains why women act like whores and why a few men are doing most of the procreating.

Here's to reproductive success!

[WillMagic]

Fiction: Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Nonfiction: The Smartest Guys in the Room by some Fortune reporters (it's about the fall of Enron.)

Will

[spamuell]

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/057120175X.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Well probably not the most interesting but it was extremely interesting and it came to mind.

[morgant]

two books i read as a kid, showed the me the power of a good book.

mrs frisby and the rats of nimh
redwall

[Duke]

http://www.booksamillion.com/bam/covers/0/46/502/656/0465026567.jpg

~D

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Amazon.com
Twenty years after it topped the bestseller charts, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is still something of a marvel. Besides being a profound and entertaining meditation on human thought and creativity, this book looks at the surprising points of contact between the music of Bach, the artwork of Escher, and the mathematics of Gödel. It also looks at the prospects for computers and artificial intelligence (AI) for mimicking human thought. For the general reader and the computer techie alike, this book still sets a standard for thinking about the future of computers and their relation to the way we think.

[/ QUOTE ]

May have to get this one.

-Zeno

[edtost]

Fiction: the crying of lot 49 - thomas pynchon
Nonfiction: when genious failed - roger lowenstein (the story of long-term capital management)

[gvibes]

[ QUOTE ]
http://www.booksamillion.com/bam/covers/0/46/502/656/0465026567.jpg

~D

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think I've ever gotten more than halfway through that book, but it is incredible all the same.

[raisins]

Good book. Watzlawick's other books are also good reads. Just about all of them deal with paradoxes in communication resulting from the creation of categories. _Change_ is another interesting book by him in this general area.

[Zurvan]

Fiction: The Wheel of Time series, all 10 ( so far), by Robert Jordan. I've read them so many times, I've replaced each book at least once.

Non-Fiction: Down to This. Can't remember the authors name. About a guy that spends a year living in Tent City in Toronto, just before they all got evicted. Fabulous.

[contentless]

[ QUOTE ]
May have to get this one.

-Zeno

[/ QUOTE ]

Especially since your SN is 'Zeno'...

[-Skeme-]

[ QUOTE ]
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk...very strange and interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Um, isn't that the short story where he gets his guts sucked out of his [censored] by a pool filter? Or am I thinking of another Chuck Palahniuk gem?

[durron597]

Fiction - Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Non-Fiction - Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstader

[M2d]

Fiction - Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (thought I was the only one)
Non-Fiction- Book of the Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi

found a cool online text of Musashi's book, if anyone's interested enough to read it but cheap enough not to buy it
Go Rin No Sho (http://www.samurai.com/5rings/)

[JPinAZ]

[ QUOTE ]
Illuminatus! Trilogy (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0440539811/qid=1119235660/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2283279-7988856?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Fnord! and Fnord!.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[shadow29]

[ QUOTE ]
Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's so funny? Couldn't stumble through the first section, eh?

[fnord_too]

These are great threads except I end up spending a lot of money at Amazon for books I have no shelf space for.

I can't say what the most interesting is, but here are some good ones:

"The Nature and Power of Mathematics" by Donald M. Davis link (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691025622/qid=1119285275/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-7746059-0703206?v=glance&s=books) - This book requires nothing post algebra. Instead of broadly covering math, it goes in depth into three topics: non Euclidean Geometry, Fractals, and Number Theory as it applies to public key encryption. Great stuff, easy to read.

"Conned Again Watson" By Collin Bruce link (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738205893/qid=1119285481/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-7746059-0703206) - This goes into a lot of neat critical thinking stuff in the guise of Sherlock Holmes stories. Good for people who have math phobia, but still insightful enough that most people will pick something up from it.

Two I have great hope for that I just got are "Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" and "Choices, Values, and Frames". These are collections of articles edited by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (the former also has Paul Slovic as an editor). link (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521284147/qid=1119285678/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-7746059-0703206?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) and link (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521627494/qid=1119285678/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/002-7746059-0703206?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) - These are about how people make decisions, and how they screw them up. It is the work that started behavioural finance. Kahneman won a Nobel prize for the work (I believe Tversky was already dead by then, and they don't give Nobel prizes posthumously past the year of your death.) I have read some of their articles already, and they are very good. They are the sort of thing you think "I would never be stupid enough to do that" then you read some of the examples and go "DOH!"