Thanks for the trip, Arthur C Clarke

And I don't mean the head trip from the end of 2001.
I read the book many years ago after seeing the movie and leaving the theater both mystified and intrigued. I found and read the novel, the first one I ever read by Sir Arthur.
My favorite part was the trip to Saturn (Jupiter in the film) and the part that I always remembered was after HAL went homicidal and was disconnected, Bowman had to spend months alone on the ship. That showed what space travel between planets is -- not like space opera where ship zip between planets during commercial breaks.
2001 was the first book or story I ever read that dealt with realistic space travel, and it's in the back of my mind every time I write a story. Not the all powerful aliens, not the supercomputer with a Frankenstein complex, not the pre-history prologue. Just a realistic depiction of what life in space would be like in the next millennium.