I'd like to know which books HN read in 2016. Which of these would you recommend? Which of these surprised you, because they are not the usual suspects.
Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country, which led me to the non-fiction book Sundown Towns by James W. Loewen. I'm reading the latter right now and blowing my mind.
My understanding of the American history of racism was basically that it was generally getting better over time. Slavery, Civil War, Jim Crow, and then the civil rights era. What this leaves out was that things got rapidly better after the civil war for a few decades, and then got substantially worse. And that it didn't get worse in the south; all over America white people drove out non-whites from their towns. They created "sundown towns", places where African-Americans weren't allowed after dark.
This is an era that goes unmentioned in most official local histories, and I never heard about it growing up white. That was the case even though it was happening all around the area I grew up. E.g., not far from where my family lived was a major vacation area built by and for well-off African-Americans because they were kept out of the white ones:
I'm going to have to read that one. I recently had the same realization myself. As you learn about African-American history, racism looks less like a vanishing relic of the past, and more like a looming spectre over America that keeps re-appearing and wreaking havoc in every generation.
The thing that really made the difference for me was visiting the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. I actually was there for a wedding but ended up touring the exhibit anyway.
Ta-Nehisi Coates has a bibliography and suggested reading order for books that informed his incredible Case for Reparations (worth reading even if you come to disagree with his conclusions).
"It Can't Happen Here", a novel by Sinclair Lewis.
It was written in 1935 during the rise of totalitarian regimes in Italy and Germany, but before WW2. The prevailing wisdom at the time was that the American democracy was immune to the disease of dictatorship.
The novel speculates how a populist figure could manipulate people through fear, racism, corporatism, local militias and bald-faced lies.
He wins the popular vote and turns the US into a totalitarian dystopia.
It's fascinating to get a glimpse into people's understanding of the world before WW2 broke out. I pictured a series of catastrophes that were surprises to most people. But it's clear from this book that the horrors were anticipated in advance.
The War of Art - Steven Pressfield (unsure how I felt about this one, but it's short so worth a read)
Deep Work - Cal Newport (recommended)
Stumbling on Happiness - Daniel Gilbert (recommended)
Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals - Heidi Grant-Halvorson (lots of great stuff in here, highly recommended)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley (I really like biographies and Malcolm X was a pretty interesting person. recommended)
Making It in Real Estate: Starting Out as a Developer - John McNellis (meh)
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (I'm not big on sci-fi, so this book surprised me with how good it was. recommended)
Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl (I'm not sure how much I got out of it, but worth it just for learning about Frankl's unique experiences and perspectives. recommended)
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (meh)
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - David Kushner (One of those books that makes you want to lock yourself in a room and program for hours. Carmack's dedication and intellect is especially awe-inspiring. recommended)
I also read Ready Player One this year and thought it was excellent. Since then I've been searching for more books that pull me in like that one did. Way of Kings is pretty good so far.
I realize this is probably not what you meant when asking for book suggestions on HN, but since you didn't specify: If you're into 2D action / sci-fi / dystopian fiction (or to be honest, if you're into fantasy/sci-fi at all) check out the Red Rising trilogy by Pierce Brown.
I went in expecting nothing and almost abandoned half way through the first book as it seemed like a Hunger Games / Divergent rip off (and I didn't even like either of those particularly), but holy crap after about half way into the first book I was hooked. I powered through all three in a week and a half. The books are pure fun. Didn't make me think too much, and had plenty of action, politics, twists, broken friendships, violence, sex, rape, torture, etc. Not exactly YA I would say, but then again the material isn't exactly complicated either.
All in all, if you need a break from serious reads and enjoy sci-fi / fantasy, check this out. The books were absolutely written to be made into a movie trilogy at some point and I can't wait for it.
I ripped through Red Rising and Golden Sun last month based on a buddy's recommendation. Morning Star is my early Christmas gift. It's an absolute page-turner of a series.
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction, by Matthew B. Crawford. This is Crawford's second book, and I recommend his first, Shop Class as Soulcraft, even more highly. This is modern philosophy, intense and grounded in the history and conventions of philosophy, but not unreadable if you're patient. Crawford started working at a Washington think tank, and bailed for a more honest life as a vintage motorcycle mechanic. He walked away from wealth and "success" in favor of ethics and peace. His focus is on the intellectual and moral value of working at a craft, using your hands and your mind in concert to create and maintain things of lasting value. When you work with the physical world, you must shape yourself to the physical world, as much as you bend the physical world to your will. In this book, he talks less about the value of work, and more about the structure of society. It has some fairly extensive critique of the Enlightenment philosophy that molded American government and ethics, and pretty brutal takedowns of many of our institutions today, which he considers wrongheaded and actively interfering with a good life. He'll make you think, for sure.
The second book is Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems, by Sidney Dekker. The subject is how we analyze failures in very complex systems (such as airplane crashes, bridge collapses, etc). Such systems are built extremely carefully and at great cost, with extensive engineering for safety and reliability, and regulatory oversight. Yet sometimes, they fail anyway. Analyzing such failures can take years and is never (honestly) reduceable to some single-sentence cause. Yet that's what we try to do. Dekker argues that the reductionist approach of the scientific method, our entire way of doing rigorous thinking, is inadequate for complex systems, because there are too many interactions. Scientific method depends on reducing variables, and sometimes, variables can't be reduced. Again, this is fascinating stuff that will really change how you think.
> 1. The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge - Poundstone, William
Wonderful, I have never once in my life encountered another person who has read this book. I first read it as a student in the '90s and, like "Godel, Escher, Bach" and "QED", it made such an impact on me.
Strangely, just yesterday I found myself recommending it to someone who is currently reading the new John Conway biography and had questions about the Game of Life.
"The English and Their History" by Robert Tombs. This isn't simply another "here's what happened" history book. Rather, it focuses not simply on what happened and why it happened, but more so on the stories the English tell themselves about their own history and how that formed and continues to form their complex ethnic, national, and historical identity. For example, the Henry V that impressed itself on the English imagination was not so much the real, historical Henry V, but rather the hero of Shakespeare's "Henriad": Henry IV, Parts I and II, and Henry V. (Cf. the St. Crispin's Day speech: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," etc.) Dr. Tombs is the Professor of French at Cambridge. Ironically, after devoting a lifetime to studying the civilization on the opposite side of the Channel, he has written a masterpiece on the history of his own people.
If you're looking for a book on the British Empire, this isn't it. Of course, the Empire is an essential topic in the book; however, Tombs focus remains centered on Britain, and, more specifically, England itself. For example, when discussing the Seven Years War, Tombs emphasizes how events abroad affected domestic politics without going into great detail about the international events themselves.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in English history.
- Introductory Statistics with R by Dalgaard, Peter. A solid introduction to stats, don't be scared by R bit in the title - it contains plenty of maths/theory so that knowledge is widely applicable. Brilliant introductory for everyone who wants to do something stats related. It's amazing how much can be done with no fancy deep learning algorithms, just plain simple stats.
- Statistics Done Wrong by Alex Reinhart. Plenty of gotchas with real world examples from academia. Well written and easy to read.
- The Circle by Dave Eggers. This one was scary. About imaginary corporation (a blend of Facebook and Google and Amazon) and probably not too distant future. If you liked Black Mirrors, you will love this.
- Brave New World by Huxley, Aldous. Classic novel with interesting thoughts about engineered society, where every human is assigned class, purpose in the society and feature at birth.
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Bilton, Nick. Read this book in a weekend, really well written and well researched about the inception of Twitter.
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Tetlock, Philip E. A study on people with above average ability to forecast feature events (mostly geo-political). Talks about measuring predictions and improving them.
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Brilliant book about overlooking rare events which have dramatic consequences because 'it's unlikely to happen'.
I enjoyed it and would recommend it, but at the same time, I felt a little disappointed in it. I think I expected a bit, more, somehow, given the premise. I dunno, it's hard to explain, but I just felt like there was more that could have been done with the setting and the premise.
I wasn't a huge fan of The Circle. It did a decent job of presenting the creep of surveillance powers that come along with ever more useful social media features. But it didn't have a coherent argument against them. It was sort of left to the reader to see (or maybe just feel) how dangerous The Circle was getting, because most of the characters themselves didn't. Even the ones who did couldn't explain why.
Maybe I just went into the book expecting an examination of the types of tradeoffs we make when interacting with social media, and instead got a thriller. The Circle works pretty well as a thriller to be honest, its just that there is still room for a more serious novel on its subject matter.
Regarding the first one (Introductory Statistics) what would you say the pre-requisites are? I'm not much of a mathematician, in fact I might even need to brush up on high school math by now, but I've thought about statistics for a while now. Is it approachable or would I have to study up to college level?
I read almost all of Brandon Sanderson's novels. I'd heard of him before, but I was hesitant to jump into his huge universe. I'm really happy I did, though. In roughly 2 months I binged on all the Cosmere novels and Steelheart.
He's creating a truly magnificent universe with the Cosmere. As I understand it, he expects it to reach 32+ books total. It's all centered around Stormlight Archive, which is an ongoing 10 novel series.
The killer detail that helped win me over as a big fan was the fact that he communicates with his fans. He's a fast writer, but he still gives updates. After a few years of following GRRM, having an author that so openly speaks with his fans is a breath of fresh air. I think everyone is usually aware that estimates are never truly accurate, but at least it gives you an idea of what the author expects to accomplish. If he says he's hoping to get the next Stormlight Archive book by the end of next year, I know that doesn't mean it's definitely going to happen. But that's fine, at least he's being open and communicating with his followers.
Honestly, I think Stormlight Archive has blow away pretty much everything else I've read.
This year I discovered a genre called LitRPG [0] and picked up all the major books in the genre. It's very light reading, for when you just wanna go off on a brief adventure. I enjoy videogames but I tend to find myself too tired or busy to want to go into the grind myself, so this made for an entertaining proxy.
I'm hoping to finish up the Wax and Wayne trilogy before the end of the year. Sanderson's books might not be quite the best fantasy, but he is consistently good and his writing output is insane. I am eagerly awaiting Stormlight 3.
'started Jan 2016 jobless, I still am. hence the long reading list!' A year of pure reading, one of the great, rare, unheralded joys of life... Enjoy it while you can!
I read 54 books (might be 56, there's still time!) in 2016. Here's the ones I recommend:
Fiction:
- Owner's Share by Nathan Lowell
I forget who recommended I read the Solar Clipper series several years ago, but I have been following them for a long time and look forward to it. It's part of a series, so start with the first one (Quarter Share) and continue from there.
- Star Wars: Tarkin by James Luceno
Non fiction:
- Programming Beyond Practices by Gregory Brown.
- Thirteen: The Apollo Flight That Failed by Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
(Some of the +below are O'Reilly DRM-free ebooks. Big fan.)
Python:
+Effective Computation in Physics. Probably the most practical full-environment treatment of Python I've seen. Write, test, package, distribute. Third party libs.
Effective Python, Brett Slatkin. Sort of an "N ways to improve your Python." Part of a series edited by Scott Meyers.
Getting my C mojo back:
I left C/C++ 15 years ago. C++ will likely stay left, but I miss C.
+Reading 21st Century C, Ben Klemens. The first half is the development environment, which is great, since there's some new stuff since I left, and lots of stuff I've forgotten or never knew.
Rereading Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets by Van der Linden. The guy's a riot. It's dated but still relevant. The inside baseball stuff on problems seen while working in Sun's compiler group is fascinating.
Rereading C Interfaces and Implementations, Hanson. Hoping this will serve as my C version of Large Scale C++ Design by Lakos. Honestly though, the literate programming style of presentation is off-putting. Are we still talking about that?
I read a few dozens each year. These are the top in my 2016 list.
* Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. If you can read only one book on startup this year, read this book.
* Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.
* Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works.
* Alibaba's World: How a Remarkable Chinese Company is Changing the Face of Global Business.
* Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle.
* Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble. You will like or hate this book a lot, but it's surely an interesting read and perspective.
* Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Good book that gives you a framework to become more optimistic.
* Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
* The Three-Body Problem Trilogy. Great, great sci-fi.
* Understanding ECMAScript 6. Best ES6 reference book.
* Node.js Design Patterns. Best Node book for intermediate/advanced developers.
* CSS Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems. Great, great book on advanced CSS tips & tricks.
* Mastering Selenium WebDriver. This is probably the only good book on Selenium among so many bad books on this topic.
* Grokking Algorithms: An illustrated guide for programmers and other curious people. This is a good book but might be too basic for many people. Recommended for those who wants to quickly refresh their algorithms knowledge.
- "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" by Susanna Clarke.
I usually can't read a book after seeing the movie or show, but the BBC version was so good and I read reviews that they left out quite a bit. The book definitely had a lot more detail, and was even more entertaining.
- "Flash for Freedom" by George McDonald Fraser.
A part of series of historical fiction starring Harry Flashman, a cowardly degenerate who always ends up admired and revered by all around as a hero. This one is set amongst the 49ers, the Battle of Little Big Horn, and more.
- "Neverwhere" By Neil Gaiman.
Fantasy novel about a regular guy in London sucked into a magical "London below". I thought it was clever writing, and the audiobook read by the author was surprisingly good.
- "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen.
Post-apocalyptic novel about the effects of an EMP attack on the USA.
- "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank.
Another post-apocalyptics novel, about conventional nuclear attack on many sites in the USA.
- "Cibola Burn" by James S. A. Corey.
Part of the Expanse Series that has been made into a show on SyFy. These books aren't page turners for me, but overall they are entertaining enough.
I want to plug the series "V Plague" by Dirk Patton if you're into post apocalypse stuff. Linguistically it might not be brilliant but I've not been stuck in a series of books like that since Harry Potter as a kid. They take about 4-5 hours to finish per book.
I had asked a question[0] regarding books a few months ago which ended up in the following list[1].
From those so far I have read the following:
- Elon Musk: Inventing the Future - Ashlee Vance
Totally worth to get insight into the Elon. Kinda changes the superhero/good guy image everyone has but you end up with more respect for him whatsoever.
- Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman
Awesome book presenting modern psychology. You'll get insight into how humans work.
- Rework - Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
Nice, albeit small book regarding how the creators of rails manage their company. So very nice insight.
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers - Ben Horowitz
I started reading this but it was too business centric for me so I stopped, however if you're a business owner it might be worth it.
- Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel - Rolf Potts
This is a nice/into book if you're interested into digital nomading, long term travel in general.
- The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This in my opinion is a superb book if you are interested in statistics/philosophy. He presents the chaotic structure of our world and why extreme events are more common than we think.Definitely suggested.
- The art of Learning - Josh Waitzkin
This is a book that presents the Author's (Chess and Tai Chi Chuan World champion) way of learning. Has some pretty useful insight.
Necessarily an incomplete list, because I haven't kept close track. 2016 was busy and much of what I read was programming language related, which I will exclude here.
In no particular order...
Cixin Liu -- The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest. Good read, as you'll see on everyone else's list.
Neal Stephenson -- Seveneves. Really good but arguably his weakest in some time; I wish the first three-quarters of the book were shorter and the final quarter a book in and of itself.
Cal Newport -- So Good They Can't Ignore You. I found this longer than necessary but an excellent kick in the pants.
Marcus Aurelius -- Meditations. Feels like a good "life reference" rather than a straight-through read.
Roald Dahl -- Boy, Going Solo. These were fun when I first went through them years ago, and they still _are_ fun, but the lens through which I view live has become one increasingly allergic to entitlement, and boy, if you want entitlement, look to the Brits at the end of the imperialist era.
Ed Catmull -- Creativity, Inc. Read this for work. Enjoyable but ehh.
Peter Tompkins -- The Secret Life of Plants (unfinished). I tried but couldn't get past the rampant bad science.
Steve Martin -- Born Standing Up. This was a fun profile of a comic that I appreciate; if you're already a fan it's worthwhile, otherwise skip it.
Derek Sivers -- Anything You Want. You can blow through this in a day and you should.
Worth highlighting, my most influential read this year:
Tara Brach -- Radical Acceptance. I loved this. No: I _needed_ this. Rather than the many philosophy-influenced books you'll find in this thread that are really business books with new buzzwords, this is just about loving yourself and building on that to live life fully. This will not (at least directly) help you build a startup. This will (directly) help you build important relationships.
I reread 1984 this year and it gave me trouble sleeping for a few weeks afterward. The writing is so perfectly concise that your mind adds visceral details that fill everything in for you. It makes the environment (political, physical, economic, etc.) and everything Winston goes through so much more real.
You may be interested in Homage To Catalonia, a non-fiction book about some of the real life experiences Orwell went through that inspired him to write 1984. It's available online to boot:
It sometimes reads like "A People's History of the United States", but the chapter about Andrew Jackson's election would seem like they were forcing the analogies to the 2016 election if not for the fact that it was published beforehand.
[+] [-] wpietri|9 years ago|reply
My understanding of the American history of racism was basically that it was generally getting better over time. Slavery, Civil War, Jim Crow, and then the civil rights era. What this leaves out was that things got rapidly better after the civil war for a few decades, and then got substantially worse. And that it didn't get worse in the south; all over America white people drove out non-whites from their towns. They created "sundown towns", places where African-Americans weren't allowed after dark.
This is an era that goes unmentioned in most official local histories, and I never heard about it growing up white. That was the case even though it was happening all around the area I grew up. E.g., not far from where my family lived was a major vacation area built by and for well-off African-Americans because they were kept out of the white ones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlewild,_Michigan
I had literally never heard of the place, let alone known its history, even though I know the name of almost every town an village nearby.
[+] [-] tboyd47|9 years ago|reply
The thing that really made the difference for me was visiting the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. I actually was there for a wedding but ended up touring the exhibit anyway.
[+] [-] sn9|9 years ago|reply
You'll find a ton about the Jim Crow and the racism built into federal housing policy: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/home-is-...
[+] [-] panarky|9 years ago|reply
It was written in 1935 during the rise of totalitarian regimes in Italy and Germany, but before WW2. The prevailing wisdom at the time was that the American democracy was immune to the disease of dictatorship.
The novel speculates how a populist figure could manipulate people through fear, racism, corporatism, local militias and bald-faced lies.
He wins the popular vote and turns the US into a totalitarian dystopia.
It's fascinating to get a glimpse into people's understanding of the world before WW2 broke out. I pictured a series of catastrophes that were surprises to most people. But it's clear from this book that the horrors were anticipated in advance.
[+] [-] anonymousDan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alawrence|9 years ago|reply
Deep Work - Cal Newport (recommended)
Stumbling on Happiness - Daniel Gilbert (recommended)
Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals - Heidi Grant-Halvorson (lots of great stuff in here, highly recommended)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley (I really like biographies and Malcolm X was a pretty interesting person. recommended)
Making It in Real Estate: Starting Out as a Developer - John McNellis (meh)
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (I'm not big on sci-fi, so this book surprised me with how good it was. recommended)
Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl (I'm not sure how much I got out of it, but worth it just for learning about Frankl's unique experiences and perspectives. recommended)
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (meh)
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - David Kushner (One of those books that makes you want to lock yourself in a room and program for hours. Carmack's dedication and intellect is especially awe-inspiring. recommended)
[+] [-] henrik_w|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FajitaNachos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skizm|9 years ago|reply
I went in expecting nothing and almost abandoned half way through the first book as it seemed like a Hunger Games / Divergent rip off (and I didn't even like either of those particularly), but holy crap after about half way into the first book I was hooked. I powered through all three in a week and a half. The books are pure fun. Didn't make me think too much, and had plenty of action, politics, twists, broken friendships, violence, sex, rape, torture, etc. Not exactly YA I would say, but then again the material isn't exactly complicated either.
All in all, if you need a break from serious reads and enjoy sci-fi / fantasy, check this out. The books were absolutely written to be made into a movie trilogy at some point and I can't wait for it.
[+] [-] bennyg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Andrewbass|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bearBeetsBattle|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JamesLeonis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therealdrag0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beat|9 years ago|reply
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction, by Matthew B. Crawford. This is Crawford's second book, and I recommend his first, Shop Class as Soulcraft, even more highly. This is modern philosophy, intense and grounded in the history and conventions of philosophy, but not unreadable if you're patient. Crawford started working at a Washington think tank, and bailed for a more honest life as a vintage motorcycle mechanic. He walked away from wealth and "success" in favor of ethics and peace. His focus is on the intellectual and moral value of working at a craft, using your hands and your mind in concert to create and maintain things of lasting value. When you work with the physical world, you must shape yourself to the physical world, as much as you bend the physical world to your will. In this book, he talks less about the value of work, and more about the structure of society. It has some fairly extensive critique of the Enlightenment philosophy that molded American government and ethics, and pretty brutal takedowns of many of our institutions today, which he considers wrongheaded and actively interfering with a good life. He'll make you think, for sure.
The second book is Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems, by Sidney Dekker. The subject is how we analyze failures in very complex systems (such as airplane crashes, bridge collapses, etc). Such systems are built extremely carefully and at great cost, with extensive engineering for safety and reliability, and regulatory oversight. Yet sometimes, they fail anyway. Analyzing such failures can take years and is never (honestly) reduceable to some single-sentence cause. Yet that's what we try to do. Dekker argues that the reductionist approach of the scientific method, our entire way of doing rigorous thinking, is inadequate for complex systems, because there are too many interactions. Scientific method depends on reducing variables, and sometimes, variables can't be reduced. Again, this is fascinating stuff that will really change how you think.
[+] [-] kirubakaran|9 years ago|reply
Books Read in 2016:
1. The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge - Poundstone, William
2. My Brain is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos - Schechter, Bruce
3. One Summer: America, 1927 - Bryson, Bill
4. The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1) - Liu, Cixin
5. The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit - Godin, Seth
6. At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Bryson, Bill
7. Kings of Kings (Hardcore History, #56-58) - Carlin, Dan
8. Blueprint for Armageddon (Hardcore History #50-55) - Carlin, Dan
9. Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal - Klaff, Oren
10. William Shakespeare: The World as Stage - Bryson, Bill
11. So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love - Newport, Cal
12. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles - Pressfield, Steven
13. In a Sunburned Country - Bryson, Bill
14. Cannery Row - Steinbeck, John
15. Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers - Weinberg, Gabriel
16. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World - Newport, Cal
17. Starship Troopers - Heinlein, Robert A.
18. No Touch Monkey!: And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late - Halliday, Ayun
[+] [-] cgh|9 years ago|reply
Wonderful, I have never once in my life encountered another person who has read this book. I first read it as a student in the '90s and, like "Godel, Escher, Bach" and "QED", it made such an impact on me.
Strangely, just yesterday I found myself recommending it to someone who is currently reading the new John Conway biography and had questions about the Game of Life.
[+] [-] jfmercer|9 years ago|reply
If you're looking for a book on the British Empire, this isn't it. Of course, the Empire is an essential topic in the book; however, Tombs focus remains centered on Britain, and, more specifically, England itself. For example, when discussing the Seven Years War, Tombs emphasizes how events abroad affected domestic politics without going into great detail about the international events themselves.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in English history.
[+] [-] gedrap|9 years ago|reply
- Statistics Done Wrong by Alex Reinhart. Plenty of gotchas with real world examples from academia. Well written and easy to read.
- The Circle by Dave Eggers. This one was scary. About imaginary corporation (a blend of Facebook and Google and Amazon) and probably not too distant future. If you liked Black Mirrors, you will love this.
- Brave New World by Huxley, Aldous. Classic novel with interesting thoughts about engineered society, where every human is assigned class, purpose in the society and feature at birth.
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Bilton, Nick. Read this book in a weekend, really well written and well researched about the inception of Twitter.
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Tetlock, Philip E. A study on people with above average ability to forecast feature events (mostly geo-political). Talks about measuring predictions and improving them.
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Brilliant book about overlooking rare events which have dramatic consequences because 'it's unlikely to happen'.
[+] [-] mindcrime|9 years ago|reply
I enjoyed it and would recommend it, but at the same time, I felt a little disappointed in it. I think I expected a bit, more, somehow, given the premise. I dunno, it's hard to explain, but I just felt like there was more that could have been done with the setting and the premise.
Still, worth a read for sure.
[+] [-] kjdal2001|9 years ago|reply
Maybe I just went into the book expecting an examination of the types of tradeoffs we make when interacting with social media, and instead got a thriller. The Circle works pretty well as a thriller to be honest, its just that there is still room for a more serious novel on its subject matter.
[+] [-] mullsork|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|9 years ago|reply
He's creating a truly magnificent universe with the Cosmere. As I understand it, he expects it to reach 32+ books total. It's all centered around Stormlight Archive, which is an ongoing 10 novel series.
The killer detail that helped win me over as a big fan was the fact that he communicates with his fans. He's a fast writer, but he still gives updates. After a few years of following GRRM, having an author that so openly speaks with his fans is a breath of fresh air. I think everyone is usually aware that estimates are never truly accurate, but at least it gives you an idea of what the author expects to accomplish. If he says he's hoping to get the next Stormlight Archive book by the end of next year, I know that doesn't mean it's definitely going to happen. But that's fine, at least he's being open and communicating with his followers.
Honestly, I think Stormlight Archive has blow away pretty much everything else I've read.
This year I discovered a genre called LitRPG [0] and picked up all the major books in the genre. It's very light reading, for when you just wanna go off on a brief adventure. I enjoy videogames but I tend to find myself too tired or busy to want to go into the grind myself, so this made for an entertaining proxy.
[0] http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/28/11801040/have-you-heard-ab...
[+] [-] waldfee|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kihashi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theflork|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] espitia|9 years ago|reply
3. Tribes by Seth Godin
4. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
5. The Industries of the Future by Alex Ross
6. Bigger, Leaner, Stronger by Michael Matthews
7. The Science of Getting Rich: Financial Success Through Creative Thought by WALLACE D. WATTLES (The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reads)
8. Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins
9. Principles by Ray Dalio
10. Como Ganar Amigas e Influir Sobre las Personas by Dale Carnegie
11. Without Their Permission by Alexis Ohanian
12. Tribe by Sebastian Junger
13. Sapiens A Brief History of Humanity by Yuval Noah Harari
14. This is Water by David Foster Wallace
15. How Not to Be Wrong. The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg
16. Walt Disney By Neal Gabler
17. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley
18. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger
19. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
20. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine
Out of all these, I would recommend only a few:
- Sapiens
- The Rational Optimist
- Walt Disney By Neal Gabler
- How Not to Be Wrong. The Power of Mathematical Thinking.
- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
[+] [-] louprado|9 years ago|reply
I read this book twice in 2016 and hope to read it again in 2017.
[+] [-] arc_of_descent|9 years ago|reply
* The Short Drop (The Gibson Vaughn Series) - Matthew FitzSimmons
* The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
* Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution - Neil deGrasse Tyson
* Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future - Ashlee Vance
* Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries - Neil deGrasse Tyson
* The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind - Michio Kaku
* An Innocent Client (Joe Dillard Series Book 1) - Scott Pratt
* WIRED - Douglas E. Richards
* Phantoms - Dean Koontz
* Breakthrough - Michael C. Grumley
* Knots And Crosses (Inspector Rebus) - Ian Rankin
* Founders at Work - Jessica Livingston
* The Tumor: A Non-Legal Thriller - John Grisham
* Kick the Drink... Easily! - Jason Vale
* Hide And Seek (Inspector Rebus) - Ian Rankin
* Tooth And Nail - Ian Rankin
* Nexus (The Nexus Trilogy Book 1) - Ramez Naam
* Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari
* Biocentrism - Bob Berman
[+] [-] thisisforyou|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrime|9 years ago|reply
Good call. Even though he's famous and all, I still sometimes feel like Koontz is very under-rated and doesn't get enough respect.
[+] [-] jrgifford|9 years ago|reply
Fiction:
- Owner's Share by Nathan Lowell
I forget who recommended I read the Solar Clipper series several years ago, but I have been following them for a long time and look forward to it. It's part of a series, so start with the first one (Quarter Share) and continue from there.
- Star Wars: Tarkin by James Luceno
Non fiction:
- Programming Beyond Practices by Gregory Brown.
- Thirteen: The Apollo Flight That Failed by Henry S.F. Cooper Jr.
For the rest of the books I read this year: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/3965760
[+] [-] a3n|9 years ago|reply
Python:
+Effective Computation in Physics. Probably the most practical full-environment treatment of Python I've seen. Write, test, package, distribute. Third party libs.
Effective Python, Brett Slatkin. Sort of an "N ways to improve your Python." Part of a series edited by Scott Meyers.
Getting my C mojo back:
I left C/C++ 15 years ago. C++ will likely stay left, but I miss C.
+Reading 21st Century C, Ben Klemens. The first half is the development environment, which is great, since there's some new stuff since I left, and lots of stuff I've forgotten or never knew.
Rereading Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets by Van der Linden. The guy's a riot. It's dated but still relevant. The inside baseball stuff on problems seen while working in Sun's compiler group is fascinating.
Rereading C Interfaces and Implementations, Hanson. Hoping this will serve as my C version of Large Scale C++ Design by Lakos. Honestly though, the literate programming style of presentation is off-putting. Are we still talking about that?
[+] [-] yblu|9 years ago|reply
* Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. If you can read only one book on startup this year, read this book.
* Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.
* Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works.
* Alibaba's World: How a Remarkable Chinese Company is Changing the Face of Global Business.
* Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle.
* Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble. You will like or hate this book a lot, but it's surely an interesting read and perspective.
* Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Good book that gives you a framework to become more optimistic.
* Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
* The Three-Body Problem Trilogy. Great, great sci-fi.
* Understanding ECMAScript 6. Best ES6 reference book.
* Node.js Design Patterns. Best Node book for intermediate/advanced developers.
* CSS Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems. Great, great book on advanced CSS tips & tricks.
* Mastering Selenium WebDriver. This is probably the only good book on Selenium among so many bad books on this topic.
* Grokking Algorithms: An illustrated guide for programmers and other curious people. This is a good book but might be too basic for many people. Recommended for those who wants to quickly refresh their algorithms knowledge.
[+] [-] prashnts|9 years ago|reply
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat ~ Oliver Sacks, 1985. This book contains tales of some of the Sacks's patients. A very interesting read. [1]
- The Mind's Eye ~ Oliver Sacks, 2010. [2]
- Spy Catcher (Autobiography of a MI5 agent) ~ Peter Wright, 1987. [3]
- Applied Cryptography ~ Bruce Schneier, 1994. Approachable and succinate language of this book makes it easier to understand. [4]
[1] http://www.amazon.in/Man-Who-Mistook-his-Wife/dp/0330523627
[2] http://www.amazon.in/Minds-Eye-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0330508903/
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Catcher-Autobiography-Intelligenc...
[4] http://www.amazon.in/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorith...
[+] [-] sateesh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tartuffe78|9 years ago|reply
I usually can't read a book after seeing the movie or show, but the BBC version was so good and I read reviews that they left out quite a bit. The book definitely had a lot more detail, and was even more entertaining.
- "Flash for Freedom" by George McDonald Fraser.
A part of series of historical fiction starring Harry Flashman, a cowardly degenerate who always ends up admired and revered by all around as a hero. This one is set amongst the 49ers, the Battle of Little Big Horn, and more.
- "Neverwhere" By Neil Gaiman.
Fantasy novel about a regular guy in London sucked into a magical "London below". I thought it was clever writing, and the audiobook read by the author was surprisingly good.
- "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen.
Post-apocalyptic novel about the effects of an EMP attack on the USA.
- "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank.
Another post-apocalyptics novel, about conventional nuclear attack on many sites in the USA.
- "Cibola Burn" by James S. A. Corey.
Part of the Expanse Series that has been made into a show on SyFy. These books aren't page turners for me, but overall they are entertaining enough.
[+] [-] sanderjd|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mullsork|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsaprailis|9 years ago|reply
- Elon Musk: Inventing the Future - Ashlee Vance Totally worth to get insight into the Elon. Kinda changes the superhero/good guy image everyone has but you end up with more respect for him whatsoever.
- Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman Awesome book presenting modern psychology. You'll get insight into how humans work.
- Rework - Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson Nice, albeit small book regarding how the creators of rails manage their company. So very nice insight.
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers - Ben Horowitz I started reading this but it was too business centric for me so I stopped, however if you're a business owner it might be worth it.
- Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel - Rolf Potts This is a nice/into book if you're interested into digital nomading, long term travel in general.
- The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb This in my opinion is a superb book if you are interested in statistics/philosophy. He presents the chaotic structure of our world and why extreme events are more common than we think.Definitely suggested.
- The art of Learning - Josh Waitzkin This is a book that presents the Author's (Chess and Tai Chi Chuan World champion) way of learning. Has some pretty useful insight.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12415621 [1]: https://github.com/kostistsaprailis/non-tech-books-for-devel...
[+] [-] skmurphy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baboun|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Arubis|9 years ago|reply
In no particular order...
Cixin Liu -- The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest. Good read, as you'll see on everyone else's list.
Neal Stephenson -- Seveneves. Really good but arguably his weakest in some time; I wish the first three-quarters of the book were shorter and the final quarter a book in and of itself.
Cal Newport -- So Good They Can't Ignore You. I found this longer than necessary but an excellent kick in the pants.
Marcus Aurelius -- Meditations. Feels like a good "life reference" rather than a straight-through read.
Roald Dahl -- Boy, Going Solo. These were fun when I first went through them years ago, and they still _are_ fun, but the lens through which I view live has become one increasingly allergic to entitlement, and boy, if you want entitlement, look to the Brits at the end of the imperialist era.
Ed Catmull -- Creativity, Inc. Read this for work. Enjoyable but ehh.
Peter Tompkins -- The Secret Life of Plants (unfinished). I tried but couldn't get past the rampant bad science.
Steve Martin -- Born Standing Up. This was a fun profile of a comic that I appreciate; if you're already a fan it's worthwhile, otherwise skip it.
Derek Sivers -- Anything You Want. You can blow through this in a day and you should.
Worth highlighting, my most influential read this year:
Tara Brach -- Radical Acceptance. I loved this. No: I _needed_ this. Rather than the many philosophy-influenced books you'll find in this thread that are really business books with new buzzwords, this is just about loving yourself and building on that to live life fully. This will not (at least directly) help you build a startup. This will (directly) help you build important relationships.
[+] [-] roninb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unimpressive|9 years ago|reply
http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_catalonia
[+] [-] mayneack|9 years ago|reply
Non Fiction: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
https://smile.amazon.com/White-Trash-400-Year-History-Americ...
It sometimes reads like "A People's History of the United States", but the chapter about Andrew Jackson's election would seem like they were forcing the analogies to the 2016 election if not for the fact that it was published beforehand.
Fiction: American Gods https://smile.amazon.com/American-Gods-Tenth-Anniversary-Nov...
I think lots of people will like this book, but certainly those who are into road trips across America.