Replay - Ken Grimwood

Introduced me to one of my favorite concepts in Science Fiction, time loops. Might be considered boring by todays standards but I like the focus on the human elements. Revisit it every few years. 

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (series) - Douglas Addams

Deep philosophical questions is hidden in comedy everywhere in this series. it is possibly the funniest book I have ever read with passages that made me laugh out load several times per book. Few books sparked as much thought in me than this.

Harry Potter (series) - J. K. Rowling

This series was what got me into reading a lot of books. It represent my childhood as well as leaving the same, when the last book ended it felt like it was the last time I ever would feel like a boy. World building is sub par compared to other fantasy novels, but it wins me on the characters. 

Crime and Punishment - Fjodor Dostojevskij

I have a sort of loop where I read one newer release then one of my already read favorites and then some of the classics. Most classics are boring to me sadly, and so is the case of Crime and punishment as well. But the display of understanding the human psyche that Dostojevskij writes is for me unmatched. i find myself thinking about this book from time to time when watching the real world. 

Stephen King books.

I am not a big fan of horror in books, movies or games. But his writing was so good in his other books, even I could like them.

When I was a kid, The Farsala Trilogy by Hilari Bell was real nice.

You might guess where half of my name came from.

Good King Harry by Denise Giardina

I love history. And this historical fiction book was great fun.

Brian Boru

Also a fun historical book.

David Eddings book Series (Belgariad, Malloreon, etc.)

Great fantasy book series for those craving more.

Warhammer 40k Horus Heresy.

Great Sci fi books.

Tom Clancy Books

Military Bond like books for the occasional turn your brain off book.

Didn't realize I read so much in the past, I should get back into it someday.

Yeah these were a big part of my childhood too, I discovered them in primary school and read them as they came out, with the characters growing up with me.

I used to have the audiobooks on CD, narrated by Stephen Fry, and I'd play them in my room when I went to bed, soothed me off to sleep after many a stressful day.

Thanks for making me feel old lol.

I read Marten Toonder in my childhood. He's kinda like the Dutch Terry Pratchet, reflecting on (old) Dutch society with his satire. Great writer who invented many new words that are now part of the Dutch language. A wordsmith if anything, which also makes it very hard to translate his work :/

I remember doing a book report on him in grade 7 (5e klas in the Netherlands) or rather one day of the week was reading day, 3 kids were picked to read 20 minutes or so of what they were reading at home to share with the class and tell why they like it. Live audio books ;) Basically what this thread is about, but in primary school.

Reading before sleep was a daily thing, usually for hours, I went to the library twice a week. Then fell asleep listening to a hear play at midnight on my alarm clock radio. Always fascinating with the sound effects. Last century pod casts lol. My sleeping patterns were ruined from early age, as well as my eyes reading by the glow of a night light (world globe)

Memories lol. 

Mine had the same wear pattern around the equator! So many books read next to that thing.

Oops, sorry haha, I feel pretty old myself these days; I was born in early 1989 so about to turn 37 and noticing more and more of a generation gap with my 20-something colleagues, not to mention the teenagers I teach.

Sometimes I actually wish I was born a bit earlier so I got to better experience the 80s-90s.

My favorite authors are Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams and Terry Prachett.

I have most of their books, even beside Hitchhiker's Guide, Foundation and Discworld.

Any and all Conan books and short stories from Robert E. Howard (and his other characters like Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn etc) and beyond (Robert Jordan wrote some good ones)
Nicholas Eames (Kings of the Wyld series)
Christopher Buehlman (Between Two Fires)
Clive Barker (All)
RA Salvatore (Besides Drizzt, the Demon War books are great)
Agustina Bazterrica (Tender is the Flesh) Amazing book.
Many other good ones.

Children of time. I knew already when I read it that all lifeforms big and small have a conscious experience but it allowed me to see that the qualia of other animals may be just the same as ours, the experiences and internal view of the world of even insects probably have as much impact as us. We have self reflection, longer memories, 100 trillion neurons but the upfront experience and qualia probably isn't all that different. Things like pain, hunger, chemically induced feelings... perhaps even as far a ambience, atmosphere but definetly just general feelings and urges that arise, wants and needs. It has made me extremely aware of suffering of even the smallest pests, I'll always put the Spider out and even try my best to get the flies out before taking harsher measures with them. I suppose it has affected it me in the way that I can not hurt a fly without feeling badly about it, people will think me silly but even the simplest organisms must have a very vivid qualia and I can't get that thought out of my head. Where people won't think me as silly, I can't stand any and all animal experimentation now in any way at all and way, way more strongly than before reading the book.

Ha, I used to wish I was born a bit earlier to experience the 60s :) I'm from early 74.

I was fascinated with 8-track, my dad always played The Beatles and I was still too young when Star Wars, Star Trek the motion picture and Alien came out, 2001 was 6 years before my time. To experience that first time in the cinema would have been awesome. The 60s sounded like a much better time to live in. 

Living through the 80s actually wasn't all that great. At the time it felt like the age of divorcing parents, drug problems lurking everywhere, AIDS, imminent WW3, and all the health hazards, second hand smoke everywhere, leaded gasoline fumes, acid rain, ozone gap, asbestos, Chernobyl. I remember police driving around with megaphone cars  to tell everyone to remain indoors with the windows closed when Chernobyl happened. Bullying was also still 'normal' at school, I was a target, my best friend as well who ended up in a mental institution when he couldn't take it anymore. (Game nerds were an easy target...) And of course racism, sexism and homophobia were still the norm. Common bullying was calling us fags and other homophobic slurs, all accepted as normal at school.

But it is great to have lived before the rise of the internet and to have experienced video and PC gaming from the start. That made up for all the negatives of the 80s :) Amiga 500 copy parties and PC expos were magical. And of course the freedom we enjoyed as kids outside, before helicopter parenting became a thing.

Not so great to find out all the casual racism I was exposed to while growing up, a lot of racist children's books, comics, TV shows, movies :/ Plus all the whitewashing of history in school, but that's no different today :/ (Well much less history in school now...)

Nostalgia tends to block out all the negatives, but maybe those negatives enhanced the positives?

Yeah that's a good point, the world has improved in a lot of ways since then. Even when I grew up in the 90s and 2000s bullying and "you're so gay" was the norm. 

I guess this being a gaming forum I was thinking about it too much from the perspective of the games/movies/technology of the time.