Ask HN: What's one book you've recently read and enjoyed? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's one book you've recently read and enjoyed?

8 pointszachlatta17 comments

My New Year's resolution is to read one book every week this year. I'm currently wrapping up The Man In The High Castle and just finished Ponzi's Scheme (I loved it, thanks icehawk219 for the recommendation).

I'm looking to fill up my reading queue. What's one book you've recently read and enjoyed?

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Last month I read The Tsar of Love and Techno[1] by Anthony Marra. The writing, story, and characters are all fascinating. If you want to take a break from sci-fi, give it a read.

1. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23995336-the-tsar-of-love...

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh

Oh boy, you fucked up now. Here are the books I read this past year that I felt were "Good", starting from the most recent :

To Kill A Mocking Bird (Insanely good)

True Grit (Insanely good)

The Little Friend (Good)

Priceless (Very good, about art theft)

The Secret History (Insanely good)

Ready Player One (Good, nerdy)

Shadow Divers (Very good, history nerd book)

Diary of Anne Frank (Very good)

Unbroken (Very good, way better than the movie)

With The Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa (Very good)

Seveneves (good, but I'm a Stephenson fanboy)

The Martian (Very good, but just watch the movie).

I read a bunch of other stuff, but that's what I found really "good" this past year.

Been a big Stephenson fan since Cryptonomicon. Enjoyed the Baroque Trilogy, Anathem & Reamde, but non of them are as good as Cryptonomicon. It's a bit like be an Umberto Eco fan - nothing since Name of the Rose has been quite as good. Or Wes Anderson for that matter; there's been good stuff, but nothing's touched the heights of Royal Tenenbaums.

Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise [1] is excellent.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Noise-Many-Predictions-Fail--bu...

Rising Strong by Brene Brown

It teaches you how to get back up after failure, how to be in the arena, doing the work and not backing down when the critics tries to shame you.

Her research on shame in her earlier books and especially on the subject of "doing the best you can" in this book has helped me a lot.

Elon Musk's biography by Ashlee Vance and "How to win at the sport of Business", by Mark Cuban. I really enjoyed both of them.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari Very interesting though later chapters become less of history and more of philosophy.

Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet) by Orson Scott Card

Currently reading Carl Sagan's Contact. Loved the 1997 film with Jodie Foster as Ellie Arroway. The book is a real treat.

I just finished Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey Definitely feel confident in saying I enjoyed rather than loved the book.

The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

Godforsaken Sea - Lundy

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Flash Boys - Michael Lewis

Say This Not That: Carl Alasko

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