The Big Sleep
Philip Marlowe, a private eye who operates in Los Angeles's seamy underside during the 1930s, takes on his first case, which involves a paralyzed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder
Stats for nerds
6recommend
12mentions
11people
2011–2026years
58% recommend42% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Got any recommendations?
I don't really have any complaints about this list, but I would include:
The Castle - Franz Kafka
American Tabloid - James Ellroy
The Inheritors - William Golding
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
- Hmmm. It'd be a neat litmus test for you to read The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon. Those are books from a very different time/aesthetic compared to Neuromancer but, in their own way, also defined their genre by being so tryhard they became sublime. It'd be interesting to see if you have a similar reaction to either of them--have you read those?
- I highly recommend the BBC radio versions of Chandler's Marlowe books, starring Ed Bishop as Marlowe. The collection contains 6 x 1.5hr plays, including The Big Sleep.
https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Raymond_Cha...
The plays are rarely rebroadcast on the BBC:
- Even after reading the article, I still believe, in general, more sleep is better for you. I'll continue to strive for 8 hours a night. I would still assume the majority of Americans aren't getting enough sleep.
Maybe this does help the feelings of "If I don't get enough sleep I am going to die young" that some may come away with after reading the book. Overall, I'd still recommend the book.
Also, who is "Big Sleep" that is mentioned at the end of the article? Mattress companies?
- Much fewer than I would like to have! My "to read" list is infinitely longer. Some highlights:
Factfulness by Hans Rosling - amazing book, as recommended by Bill Gates, and I see why. Very timely and important given the current social climate. A must read for literally everyone.
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler - I've always been meaning to read some of the classic hardboiled detective novels, and what better place to start than with _the_ classic. Loved it. Very easy read. Looking forward to reading more of these.
Spanish Verb Tenses / Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions by Dorothy Richmond - I've been trying to learn Spanish and these are some of the best workbooks I've found.
Wool by Hugh Howey - A friend kept recommending this and it was so hard to put down once I started. It always kept me wanting more. It was a great journey, but at the very end things were becoming a little obvious, which is probably why I haven't gotten around to reading the other books in the series. But that definitely shouldn't keep anyone from reading it - it was a really great, fun read.
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann - 12 amazing essays, each great in their own way. I didn't want to finish this only because I didn't want to no longer have a story to look forward to! I picked this up after reading his The Lost City of Z, which was also a great read if you like modern adventure stories.
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking - I love to reread this every so often. Maybe it's nostalgia?
How Linux Works by Brian Ward - I know Linux well enough, but certain things I never really understood and never bothered to look into. This book helped clarify some of the ways Linux works under-the-hood, and why, among other things. And it wasn't super dense - very approachable. Highly recommended to anyone who uses Linux but doesn't really think of themselves as a "Power User" or even "Intermediate".
Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall - We know so little about sleep, and the research is constantly changing. Randall does a great job of distilling things for the layperson, though. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - I was surprised how much I enjoyed this! What an amazing read. I typically don't enjoy this sort of book where everything seems to have some deeper meaning and it's very "out there" (for lack of a better description). But I couldn't be happier that this was recommended to me. I loved every page.
And I'll thrown in a dud:
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck by Mark Manson - I don't understand why people like this book so much, and I was a little annoyed at myself for reading it all the way through when I should have figured out a few pages in that I was wasting my time. A typical fluffy self-help book with no real substance, I thought. "Do Cool Sht" is another book in a similar vein that I had the foresight to bail on. I guess throwing a curse word in the title is the thing to do these days?
- I can't narrow it down to one (it's like trying to pick a favorite binary message format), but the best I can do:
A Single Man - Christopher Isherwood. A beautifully somber story of a gay man dealing with loss in the 60's. When I read it as a kid, it helped deal with the sense of alienation I was feeling during my adolescence. Also the movie a few years back (while ending fairly different from the book), was awesome.
The Big Sleep - Chandler. Literary people all seem to prefer Hammett to Chandler, but for my money there's never been better prose written before or since. "Dead men are heavier than broken hearts" and "I never saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them." are two of my favorite sentences of all time.
Before Night Falls - Reinaldo Arenas. It's technically an autobiography, but I read it as a novel. More alienation (this time in 1970's Cuba), but written amazingly well (even the English translation).
Dear Mr. Henshaw - Beverly Cleary. I'm not embarrassed to list a kids book as one of my favorite novels (considering how many people on here I'm sure loved Harry Potter). It's a story about a kid who's dad left him, and it's written as a series of one-sided letters to an author (the titular Mr. Henshaw). I re-read it about twice a year (it's a short book).
