Reddit, what are some must read books?

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything It's a book about how we know everything we came to know and how we ended up here. It provides a clear Big Picture so to speak. My number one non-fiction book of all time. Written in a slightly humorous tone it's far from dry. If you're the sort of person who's interested in anything and everything, this is the book for you.
   — Jellorage


2. I always recommend "From the Earth to the Moon", by Jules Verne. It's a 1865 book about a group of men who travel to space in a ship fired from a giant cannon, and the amazing part is the number of things it gets *right* about space travel and flight. I'll spoil just one little aspect as an example: Right after launch, the men comment how silent it was, despite the massive explosion under them. They actually thought they were all dead, until one of them mentioned "Maybe... we were travelling faster than the sound of the blast!". This is a book written 20 years before the invention of the automobile, and the man is writing about supersonic flight.
   — MMMLG


3. Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. A wonderful book, and very thought provoking.
   — Bojuric






4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And then the other four books in that trilogy.
   — Pyromaniac2077


5. Slaughterhouse V is an amazing read
   — J1205J


6. The hobbit and lotr! Definitely.
   — cade_6






7. I must say I don't read much. But I love 1984. What a horrific dystopia.
   — sfwaccountfw


8. The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. It's basically epic fantasy on steroids with a small dash of peyote. If you like stories about kings and war, monsters and heroes, magic and politics, slaves and redemption, gods and generals, then this series is for you.
   — James__K__Polk


9. "the demon-haunted world," by sagan.
   — whiskeybridge






10. Fahrenheit 451.
    — hosstradamus


11. Too many to name, but if your into fantasy, try Dune by Frank Herbert. If your not into fantasy but like history, give Flyboys by James Bradley. Haunting book about the war between the US and Japan, as well as the horrors some prisoners of war had to endure.
    — salesman313


12. *Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business*
    — LawnShipper






13. * The Wheel of Time (epic fantasy) * Black Blood/Bone song (cops/robbers/fantasy) * The Coldfire Trilogy (fantasy) * The Darksword Trilogy (fantasy) * Bright Empires Novels (multiverse) * The Lightbringer series (fantasy) * American Gods (Urban fantasy) * Neverwhere (Urban? Fairytail fantasy?) * Anansi Boys (Fairytail urban fantasy?) * The Malazan Book of The Fallen (epic fantasy) * The Codex Alera (epic fantasy) * Dresden Files (urban fantasy) * Iron Druid Chronicles (urban fantasy) * Flatland (sci-fi urban?) * Rose of The Prophet (fantasy) * City at the End of time (Uh.... sci fi?) * Hitchhikers Guide (obviously) * Elantris (fantasy) * Whitechapel Gods (Steampunk and gods?) * sapphique/incarceron (Fantasy? Sci Fi?) * The Warded Man (Fantasy)
    — Trigger93


14. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a really great one. Very sad book, but it's engaging and I think it's pretty realistic as well.
    — TheDirtyMailman


15. East of Eden by John Steinbeck Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
    — that_guys_posse






16. I highly recommend Into the Wild. I don't usually like nonfiction books but this one was interesting.
    — Straight_Ace


17. Catch-22
    — Inanimate-Sensation