Can you imagine people reading something you've enjoyed now, say 200 years later. The thought is so fascinating to me. Which recent book do you think will stand the test of time :)

Note: just added 20 years as reference point, let me know if there's something written slightly earlier that you think would be a good fit

Edit: Thank you lovely people of Reddit for the upvotes , awards , and healthy discussion. Brb as I happily add so many of the excellent suggestions below to my to-be-read shelf!

I think that in my case it depends on the quality of the rest of the story. If I'm reading a book and hating every minute of it when I get to the bad ending it would just become one more thing to complain about later on, like a cherry on top of a pile of garbage.

It's a lot worse when the book is actually good, but the conclusion isn't. It doesn't necessarily ruin the experience but it becomes a lot harder for me to recommend the novel, and if I do, I will always mention that the ending isn't that great.

Regardless of that, I'm still willing to read something even after hearing the ending is disappointing if the book manages to interest me enough.

Fictional reading in particular is extremely beneficial to all aspects of your life. Humans have been wired with the ability to speak, as we've been doing it for at least 100,000 years in some shape or form. Reading however, has only been around for 5,000 years or so. A baby has to be taught how to read, but will learn to speak if you put them around other people who speak.

Why YSK: Reading quite literally creates new individual neural pathways in the brain. Brain scans show that reading results in a brain activity quite similar to having the actual experience yourself. The brain is a muscle, the more you force yourself to take other people's perspective, the more you sympathize, the more empathetic society we will have.

Edit: Thank you so much for the awards! Please send me your book recs, I want to break my personal book record this year and fill up my book journal! :)

We let them off easy after Nixon.

Reagan.

Bush Sr.

Bush Jr.

And you bet your ass they'll try to gaslight you into nearly forgetting/downplaying the Trump era. "Yeah I voted for him, but I didn't SUPPORT support him" "Well, he was better than Hilary" "I only did it for the innocent children in the womb" "We need to heal this nation... Let my past transgressions go" etc etc.

The sad thing is, they'll probably be successful in doing so.

We, as a nation, need to hold their cold, jumpy feet to the fire they themselves lit.

Edit: *persecution, obviously. Thanks, autocorrect, for always being autoincorrect.

Also, obviously, "not all Christians". Mainly evangelicals. However, the large... LARGE overlap between Trumpers/Conservatives/Republicans and Christians is undeniable.

Didn't expect this to hit all. Thanks for the awards!

Edit 2: Please read the edits. Correction and the self-evident caveat above.

Here is our SHOW ONLY discussion thread for Episode 508, Hard Vacuum! This is the thread for discussing the show only. In this thread, no book discussion is allowed, even behind spoiler tags.

Season 5 Discussion Info: For links to the thread with book spoilers discussed freely, plus the other episodes' discussion threads, see the main Season 5 post and our top menu bar.

Watch Parties and Live Chat: Our first live watch party starts as soon as the episode becomes available, with text chat on Discord, and is followed by a second one at 01:00 UTC with Zoom video discussion. We have another Discord watch party on Saturday at 21:00UTC. For the current watch party link and the full schedule, visit this document.

1. When Harry and Ron predict the Triwizard tasks and Moody(Barty Crouch Jrs) betrayal by accident. ● "On Monday I'll be in danger of Burns." (First Task) ● "And on Tuesday... I'll lose a treasured possession." (Second Task) ● "Wednesday I'll Come off worse in a fight"(this one doesn't exactly predict the task itself but Harry definitely comes off worse in the fight with Voldemort) ● "And on Thursday I'll be stabbed in the back by someone I thought was a friend."

2. When Firenze saves Harry in the forrest in HPSS from Voldemort. Bane is very angry at Firenze for "interfering" but essentially when he becomes a professor he acknowledges that star gazing can be correct, but it is very imprecise. They only know the general occurrence not the time of the occurrence... so when Bane was yelling at Firenze for interfering he must have thought that was the day Harry was meant to be killed by Voldemort in the forrest... however Harry is EVENTUALLY killed in the forbidden forrest so the centurs were right all along. They just had the wrong time.

3. The horcruxes throughout the series. Especially since the first one is revealed in HPCOS... and then of course the Lockett in HPOOTP and the Diadem in HPHBP.

4. Hagrid mentioning Sirius Black in the first chapter of the HPSS.

5. How the Vanishing Cabinet that leads to Draco getting death eaters in Hogwarts several times (When Harry hides in it in Borgin and Burkes in HPCOS, and then later on Peeves smashing the other above Filtchs office. It's mentioned again in HPOOTP when Fred and George stuff Montague in it. And then of course Draco moves it into the room of requirement to repair it.)

6. Aberforth Dumbledore is mentioned only once by name in The GOF. And then When Harry and the DA go to the Hogshead for their first meeting in HPOOTP and of course Dumbledore finds out, and Umbridge but then in HPHBP Dumbledore annoys Voldemort with details he shouldn't know because he is "friendly with the local barman" and of course he helps Harry several times and if finally revealed to be Dumbldores brother.

What are some of yours? There are so many!

Edit: I never dreamed this would get as many comments as it has! I LOVE THIS. I honestly wish I could reply to every one of these that you have chosen but there are so many 😂 I love that we all share this love for The Boy who Lived.

I started the year on a fantasy-romance high with 'The Shadows Between Us' and after looking for suggestions from r/suggestmeabook I followed it up with Uprooted. Turns out the romance is basically a side plot and I've been dragging myself to read through it so I can get to the romance part (if there even is). This doesn't mean the book's boring or the story's bad - it's actually pretty good and I'll probably enjoy it more if I wasn't in the mood for something more romance-centered.

Ever read a book which made you feel like this?

EDIT: Read a lot of comments giving advice and I'd just like to say thanks for making me lose guilt over not finishing a book (and y'all did that in just an hour!). I see some people have had to figure this out on their own. I'm lucky to have been assured immediately on my first time experiencing this!

UPDATE: I DNF-ED IT WOOO AND ALL MY GUILT AND HESITATIONS ARE GONE THANKS TO Y'ALL WOOHOO All of us who struggle with the same problem would like to thank y'all so much!

EDIT: Jwu and this blew up! Thanks for the awards! I'll try to read through all the comments sometime and hopefully this post and the comments helped a lot of people!

I've just realised that I won't be able to read most of the new books - because I'm not ready to read about people wearing maska, people isolating etc. Not yet, at least. Maybe one day in the future. But I hate this reality and I don't cope with it well. I just hate the thought of reading about it, it's just too fresh.

Of course I have a lot to read. Books published before 2021 or new books set in the past, fantasy/SF etc., that's more than enough. But I would love to just be able to pick up a new thriller or mainstream novel without plunging into the same shit I have to live in.

Edit: wow, I didn't expect so many replies and votes! Thanks everybody, whether you agree with me or not!

Why YSK: it’s all free content! And a lot of cool stuff you might not even consider, like the “Wayback machine” and audiobooks/old time radio.

www.archive.org

Edit: adding list of all the cool stuff people have posted (Thanks for posting, sorry if I don’t credit you):

1. Not just DOS games, Sega, PlayStation, GameCube, Atari, etc.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, Sim City, Doom, Wolfenstein....SimCat and Alley Cat

2. Every Grateful Dead show ever.

3. Professional Strip Poker DOS game.

4. Wayback Machine: All old websites. Pretty crazy stuff.

5. Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr sex tapes.

Hi everyone! We are the speculative fiction publishing/production company Wraithmarked Creative, and we're here all day taking your questions! Feel free to comment below with a general query, or ping any of the participants specifically using the supplied Reddit usernames!

This is an AMA, so ask anything you want! We're happy to talk about everything from writing and publishing to the inevitable heat death of the universe. (Yeah. That's a thing.)

Thank you r/Fantasy mods for the invitation to kick off this awesome AMA series!

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ABOUT US:

Wraithmarked Creative, LLC was formed in 2020 by Bryce O'Connor (u/BryceOConnor) around the idea of giving voice to talented fantasy writers who just needed a leg up and an audience to speak to. Building off of The Shattered Reigns and The Wings of War series first, Wraithmarked has since expanded into an ever-growing team of dozens of authors, editors, and production specialists.

Currently Wraithmarked specializes in bringing gifted writers together to share the load of writing, editing, developing, and marketing a project, resulting in multiple co-authored series successes like The Shattered Reigns, Warformed: Stormweaver, and our most recent release: Savage Dominion.

OUR RECENT RELEASES:

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Here is our SHOW ONLY discussion thread for Episode 509, Winnipesaukee! This is the thread for discussing the show only. In this thread, no book discussion is allowed, even behind spoiler tags.

Season 5 Discussion Info: For links to the thread with book spoilers discussed freely, plus the other episodes' discussion threads, see the main Season 5 post and our top menu bar.

Watch Parties and Live Chat: Our first live watch party starts as soon as the episode becomes available, with text chat on Discord, and is followed by a second one at 01:30 UTC with Zoom video discussion. We have another Discord watch party on Saturday at 21:00UTC. For the current watch party link and the full schedule, visit this document.

Info: This episode deals with the concept of suicide, and depicts emotional abuse with accuracy and intensity that can be disturbing.

Here is our discussion thread for Episode 507, Oyedeng! This is the thread for discussing the show only. In this thread, no book discussion is allowed, even behind spoiler tags.

Season 5 Discussion Info: For links to the thread with book spoilers discussed freely, plus the other episodes' discussion threads, see the main Season 5 post and our top menu bar.

Watch Parties and Live Chat: Our first live watch party starts as soon as the episode becomes available, with text chat on Discord, and is followed by a second one at 01:00 UTC with Zoom video discussion. We have another Discord watch party on Saturday at 21:00UTC. For the current watch party link and the full schedule, visit this document.