Asklemmy

Hell yeah. I just read Guards, Guards! by Pratchett and I'm working through LotR again. Dune is amazing, but I haven't continued past the original so maybe I'll read those next.

If you're into history, I've been listening to The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, it focuses on each major historical event from the perspective of the regular individual person rather than focusing on the people who happened to be in power during them, and it's pretty good so far. I also read Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky, and that was life changing. Those are two pretty political ones, though.

In terms of fiction Id recommend Cormac McCarthy -- either The Road or Blood Meridian -- The Road is a post apocalyptic story about a father traversing through the ashen environment with his son, while Blood Meridian is a brutal Western set in the 1800s. With both of these, it's not as much about plot as it is about the poetry of the writing.

I haven't read a scifi book in a minute, but I haven't seen a lot of people recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's three separate-but-connected short post-apocalyptic stories that follow the gradual resurgence of humans after a nuclear event. It's really subtle in that it doesn't slam you with like a whole universe and systems like Dune, but it's expertly written and hits some pretty thought provoking topics. Def underrated.