Ask HN: What good books have you read in 2016?

"Deep Work" by Cal Newport. He emphasizes the need for deep intellectual work to prosper in the knowledge economy and suggests ways to practice getting to that level of work.

It is part rumination and part self help. I highly recommend it.

I'm finally starting to read "Don Quixote". A good way to celebrate the 400 anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes (and Shakespeare). Disclaimer: I'm Spanish, so it's about time :)

Available in English for free through Project Gutenberg

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/996

And for Spanish readers like me, here it is in several electronic formats:

http://manybooks.net/titles/cervantesetext992donq10.html

Avogadro Corp: The Singularity is Closer than it Appears by William Hertling, as well as the other three books in the series.

https://www.amazon.com/Avogadro-Corp-Singularity-Closer-Appe...

I'm still reading it but: Small Wars, Far Away Places. [0]

It's about how after WW2 lots of the empires started crumbling and how that affected the smaller countries of the world. It is very well researched, and incredibly interesting.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Small-Wars-Far-Away-Places/dp/02307523...

The more I read, the more I realize that fiction has a way of teaching the same lessons as nonfiction, only in a better, humane way that is not like someone lecturing at you from a podium, but more like a friend sitting down for a heart-to-heart conversation with you.

In this vein, I've started catching up on all the classics I haven't read yet, and there are a lot of them. At first, I was hesitant to dive into classics, because I thought they were hard to read and highbrow. This has mostly not been the case (with the exception of Wuthering Heights, which I found impossible to get through).

To wit, the best books I've read this year include:

A Tale of Two Cities - Impossible to get through the first several chapters, but after that, you're off to the races between France and England in the 18th century. Dickens used historical books as reference, but recreated the mood entirely from imagination. A better primer than anything in the news about Anglo-French relations, learning trust, and sacrifice.

No Country for Old Men - Want to understand the current fear of the Mexican border that has so bolstered Trump's popularity, as well as the ramifications of having a country full of veterans who don't have any medical support or care? Read this book.

Farenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Handmaid's Tale - Much better and scarier than any news clipping today about the possible future path for government interference in thought and action. Takes things to their logical conclusions.

And one non-fiction book that I did enjoy, Bringing Up Bebe, which is about the contrasts between child-rearing in France and America, but on a much larger scale, about the different things that seem culturally obvious to us, but are completely different to other cultures. This book made me really re-examine American food culture in a way Michael Pollan's diatribes have not.

Still mostly reading childrens books.

This is not my hat: https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Not-Hat-Jon-Klassen/dp/1406353...

Black dog: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Dog-Levi-Pinfold/dp/184877052...

FArTHER: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FArTHER-Grahame-Baker-Smith/dp/1848... (Sadly this book uses a stupid font. Other than that it's lovely.)

Pirate Diary: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pirate-Diary-Journal-Jake-Carpenter...

I get these from the CILIP Kate Greenaway award. Once you know the name of the writer, or illustrator, or even publisher, you can usually find more good books. http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/greenaway.php

CILIP is a UK librarian organisation. The US equivalent award is probably something like the Caldecott Medal: http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmeda...

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel - Mohsin Hamid. This is my book of choice for the year: I read it cover-to-cover in a single day. Refreshingly written in second-person perspective, totally engaging.

Finally read the Zones of Thought series by Vernor Vinge. Love his slight twist on physics that allows for for both post-singularity tech and low-tech to exist in the same universe.

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (second book in the Remembrance of Earth's Past translated from Mandarin) had a bit of a slow start, but really built up to a good finale.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Ashlee Vance. Good read and made me really appreciate what Elon has done through financially to get Tesla and SpaceX up.

Picketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century".

If you have an interest in inequality of wealth and income, particularly how it has evolved over the last hundred years or so in some developed countries, it is certainly worth a read.

Currently reading: "The Information - A History, A Theory, a Flood"

I like it so far.

"This changes everything" by Naomi Klein. It's a very well-written, liberal book on climate policy failures written by an investigative journalist.

I think it was written in 2014, so it doesn't cover the latest trends in fracking or solar. I didn't know anything about the climate industry coming from a silicon valley background, so this was an ingestible yet detailed primer.

Currently reading "Utopia for Realists" https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Realists-Universal-Borders-Wor...

An interesting big picture look at the world. It questions what we understand and do about work and life.

I really enjoyed Brian Krebs' Spam Nation and I think it would appeal to the HN crowd. http://www.amazon.com/Spam-Nation-Organized-Cybercrimefrom-E...

"Listen, Liberal!" by Thomas Frank. A must-read if you care about politics in America

Reading The Meaning of Science by Tim Lewens right now. It's an introductory "Philosophy of Science" book, and I'm enjoying it so far. Up to where I'm at now, the author has covered Karl Popper and his falsification oriented framework, and Thomas Kuhn and the "scientific revolution / paradigm shift" model.

A couple of other ones from this year that stand out to me:

Disrupted by Dan "Fake Steve Jobs" Lyons

It's Not The Big That Eat The Small, It's The Fast That Eat The Slow by Jason Jennings

In terms of fiction, this years haul includes:

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

The Last Mile by David Baldacci

Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores. Highly recommended if you're interested in how people interact with computers (and how computers interact with people, and how both interact with the world in general). http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Computers-Cognition-Foun...

I know it is not "productivity" but I had a real good time reading was "Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games" [1]

It talks about the creation of rogue games (rogue, nethack, adom) and its authors and co-authors.

Well written made me play nethack again. So your productivity will decrease :)

[1] - http://amzn.to/1spSott

I will add a couple books I've read so far in 2016, both of which are not from 2016:

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. This book was an unexpectedly amazing overview of the history, current status and possible future of human beings.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I put this off because I'm not very interested in medicine. It was a mistake, this is one of the most well written non fiction books I've ever read.

Gettysburg The Final Fury by Bruce Catton.

https://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Final-Vintage-Civil-Librar...

I'm not much of a reader. I like short, concise, non-fiction, and this was perfect! Highly recommended.

If anyone can recommend similar books for me, please do.

Its an old book. But has a lot of interesting aspects.

Business @ The Speed Of Thought By Bill Gates and Collins Hemingway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_@_the_Speed_of_Though...

Reread Blood Meridian. The newness of good books twenty years later is one of the benefits of getting older.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/...

Great book about the way humans think.

Letters from a Stoic Getting Real Cambodia Noir Vagabonding

All great reads!

Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, one of the leading minds analysing and developing AI as it relates to human civilisation.

Linchpin by Seth Godin. cool take on why we need to all be artists instead of cogs in a machine.

I started the Wheel of Time series and am currently through book 3 and I am loving it.