Ask HN: Which are the most interesting books you have read in 2022?

[curious16]

The meaning of "interesting" may vary reader to reader. Some may find books with practical utility interesting, while others may find thought provoking books interesting. Someone else may have a totally different view of interesting books.

Which books you read or re-read in 2022 were interesting to you? And why were they interesting actually?

[TheUndead96]

This book is a bit divisive, but I will mention it anyway. I have been reading "Infinite Jest" by David Wallace this year. While being fiction from the late 90s, I think it predicts some developments in the modern attention economy freakishly well. I am only half way through, so I am hesitant to recommend it, but I have truly read nothing like it.

[throwaway23236]

How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil - It is an interesting book because the author does not paint a rosy picture of what needs to get done to solve our energy and food problems in the coming decades. I really enjoyed it.

The Afghanistan Papers - A book similar to the Pentagon Papers and goes over the 20+ year War on Terror in Afghanistan and how much it failed.

I read a lot, but these were the some of the last couple of books I've read in 2022 that I found interesting.

[regera]

I second Vaclav's book. Good for techno-optimists!

[nbaksalyar]

The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop [0].

One of the best books on the history of interactive computing, human-computer interaction, and networking, which are all connected in surprising and fascinating ways.

It's eye-opening how many things we take for granted were invented back in the 60s and 70s – and how many visionary ideas from that time still hold their value in this day and age.

[0] https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine

[hiidrew]

Exhalation by Ted Chiang.

About halfway through this, kind of like a novel form of black mirror (although less dystopian imo). Full of interesting short stories, always thought provoking and entertaining.

[kstealth25]

I just finished "Carrie Soto Is Back" by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It's about a professional tennis player who comes out of retirement to defend her record number of wins from a younger up and coming player. I loved that the protagonist was an unapologetically competitive woman who despite her tennis records still struggles to find meaning and love in her life - like the rest of us.

[q-base]

Had to check my own website to remember which ones I really liked and was actually from my reading this year. But here goes:

How to build a car - Adrian Newey: I think even people with only engineering interest and not specifically cars, would find it interesting. What a joy it must be to work in a field where you have to be super creative and each week can measure your progress against other extremely clever teams and people.

Going the wrong way - Chris Donaldson: A bloke driving around the World on his Moto Guzzi LeMans. Probably only interesting if you are into bikes, but very weel written and enjoyable. I have read a lot of "around the World on motorcycle"-books and this is up there with the best.

Sandworm - Andy Greenberg: Probably the best fit for HN of the books I mentioned. Extremely interesting look at the hack that left Maersk paralized for several days. I read it shortly after Russia started invading Ukraine and it really educated me a lot about the situation leading up to the actual invasion.

[thenerdhead]

One of my favorites this year is "On Bullshit" by Frankfurt.

After reading it, I realized that the world is less about lies and deception, but more about "bullshit".

Lies are easy to spot, bullshit however is impossible because it's rooted in deception and destruction. Similar to when you bullshit yourself, you are being self-deceptive and self destructive.

[panoply]

I recently read “Scar Tissue” by Anthony K who is the lead singer of Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I was given it as gift several years ago and just never got around to reading it. Well, let me just say that I did myself an injustice. It is a fascinating and captivating book. I didn’t expect it would interest me but it now exists in my top 10.

[q-base]

Yeah what a tumultuous life! Really good insight into the lengths some people go to sabotage their own life in order to feed their addictions.

[tiny_bean]

Meeting the Shadow - by Connie Zweig. Started recently and still reading, but I have to say that it is the most interesting read of the year. It's the collection of essays exploring the Jungian principle of the shadow (the dark side of human nature).

[boredmgr]

Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham & Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung. Hacker & Painters : This book have many thought provoking ideas. compels you to think what you can do being in whatever position you are and how you can add value to the society through hacking. Complete Guide to Fasting is all about learning about our eating habits. As advanced societies what we have forgotten and how it has lead to so many lifestyle related issues and what simple and small things should be done to get us back on track.

[I_complete_me]

I read the following "interesting" books this year and what I learnt is that "life is big". Meaning that my mind has been expanded in some intriguing way by reading each of these books. I have also read some thrillers and other rubbish but I observe that you did not request those so I omitted them. You're welcome.

Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland

The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

The Endurance by Carloine Alexander

How To Live by Sarah Bakewell (Life of Montaigne)

Now Way Down by Graham Bowley

The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall

How to be a Liberal by Ian Dunt

Short Stories by Brian Friel

[shikshake]

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

It’s a memoir by the co-star of a disney channel show about her relationship with her abusive mother. I thought it was a very sad, funny, and hopeful read. I loved how introspective the author is.

[credit_guy]

Firepower - by Paul Lockhart. A history of military advances, of guns, big and small, mainly in the West, mainly after 1300. Very impressive overall, but for me the most eye-opening was the arms-race preceding WW1. Nothing in the Cold War arms race came close to that.

The Rules of the Game - by Andrew Gordon. This is a 50 year history of the battle of Jutland. Meaning, one of the most thorough accounts of the battle of Jutland, plus a very detailed history of the 50 years preceding it, and the military/cultural background that led to the events at Jutland unfolding the way they did. A little innocent spoiler: after reading this book, you'll come to appreciate (like me) that one of the most consequential events in the world history (at least of the last two centuries) was the collision of HMS Victoria with HMS Camperdown two decades before the start of WW1. What a tragedy. There's a good chance that if that collision did not happen, then WW1 would not have happened, because Great Britain would have still been un-challengeble on the seas.

Freedom's Forge - by Arthur Herman. How America mobilized itself on the economic front. Unleashing the US industrial production juggernaut seems like preordained in hindsight, but it was anything but that. This book is a page turner. Once you start it, you know that you'll finish it.

[q-base]

The Rules of the Game sounds like something I have to add to my wishlist. Thanks a lot for mentioning it.

[lawgimenez]

Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein. It’s an old book but I have no idea of Japan’s underworld until I read this book. I’m not sure of how true everything in there was but it was pretty interesting.

[bwb]

I love this book, a tv shoe about him is coming out soon!

[skydhash]

"Don't teach coding until you read this book" by Lindsey D. Handley.

I've learned so many concepts since I started programming that I'm always forgetting how alien it seems for other people. This book introduces some nice explanations why we do have programming languages, the mechanism of learning and why we do program. My take from the book is to not teach a language, but how to transform your thoughts to something that the computer can accept.

[rramadass]

>to not teach a language, but how to transform your thoughts to something that the computer can accept.

Exactly! Programming is nothing more than a precise codification of one's thoughts on how to tell a Computer to do something. I believe it should be taught with a mixture of Structured English, Mathematics (Basic Set Theory/Logic/Predicate Calculus) and Graphical Visualization. The student should be helped to make up his own pseudo-code and diagrams to express his thoughts in a manner most natural/appealing to him/her. This is what is known as problem-solving.

Once the above has been grasped, using a specific programming language then becomes a simple act of becoming familiar with the artifacts of the language. The Concepts/Idea generation phase have been nicely demarcated and mastered from the Constraints of Actual Mechanisms used to express them. Going the other way (i.e. from specific language to general abstracted pseudo-code and thence to another language expression) is much more difficult since we get mentally set in a specific way of solving the problem.

[SanjeevSharma]

- Thinking Fast and Slow (been around for a while - I am just getting to it) - The 3 Body Problem, Dark Forest, and Death’s End - a SciFi Trilogy by Cixin Liu. A masterpiece. Read them back to back - Think Again, by Adam Grant

[specproc]

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe. It's the story of the Sackler family, but reads like a thriller and deals with policy failure, addiction, family, greed, capitalism and corruption.

I've been recommending it to everyone who'll listen since three chapters in.

[grecy]

I just finished this and found it utterly fascinating on many different levels.

[noud]

Essays from Michel de Montaigne.

I enjoy reading the opinions of de Montaigne. He writes in a pleasant, easy, and funny way. Moreover, it gives you an interesting view on how people in the 16th century thought.

[schwartzworld]

Embassytown by China Mieville. Great world-building and thought provoking. Humanity has created an embassy on a planet of giant mantis-like aliens who have a unique perspective on language. Their language is tied to their thoughts in a way where they cannot think anything that cannot be directly expressed in Language, and are unable to lie. There is no barrier between thought and word. To the point where they will orchestrate events deliberately to add to their own vocabulary of thought. Crazy.

[kioleanu]

A similar book is „The Sparrow“ by Mary Doria Russell - humanity catches a radio signal of signing from another planet 4 light years anway and, since it’s so close, they send a delegation. The main character is a Jesuit linguist priest and he learns the languages spoken there

[ultrasounder]

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Work becomes enjoyable when the experience that arises out of work itself is likeable