Comment by lghh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lghh | Hacker News Reader

Leisure Stuff:

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga Of Oklahoma City, It's Chaotic Founding... by Sam Anderson

Midnight In Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (tried it this year and stopped, want to give it another go)

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just finished Exhalation and I think it's great)

An Ursula K. Le Guin novel, have not picked one out yet

A book related to basketball (possibly Dream Team, but IDK yet)

Less Leisure Stuff:

Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John Pfaff

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

The End Of Policing by Alex S Vitale

Either Manufacturing Consent or Understanding Power by Chomsky

The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold

Work:

Code Complete 2 by Steve McConnell

The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws by Dafydd Stuttard, Marcus Pinto

Finish Writing An Interpreter In Go by Thorsten Ball

If I can get through all of these, I will be very pleased. Throw in a book or two at recommendation from friends and I think I'm full for the year.

Dune is great. Really great, especially the first part. While many books get a lot of praise/hype, Dune is one of the few that lives up to expectations.

For Ursula, I would strongly suggest Left Hand of Darkness. Try to read it without looking into it too much.

Or go dip into her novellas. There's a collected edition out now ('The Found and the Lost'). I think my favorite stuff of hers is in there. Or, if you just want fun, 'Changing Planes' is a delightful romp inspired by the misery of sitting in airports.

Since they are shorter, I may add that and sprinkle them. Good suggestion!

That was my most likely pick.

Seconded. As an SF fan since childhood, it’s one of the few that has really taught me something of the human condition.

Some good ones on in your leisure list that I have really enjoyed recently!

I also took two attempts for The Three Body Problem. Gotta say, I don’t understand the hype. Maybe something was lost in translation but it seems like another poorly written SF novel carried by a few interesting ideas. Not in the same league as Dune, Ursula Le Guin or some of Ted Chiang’s shorts.

Agreed. I was told it's slow going and worth the payout, but I generally have low tolerance for books like that. Several friends who know what I like think it'll be worth my time though so I'm trying again.

If you haven’t read it already, I highly suggest Sam Smith’s “The Jordan Rules”. It’s really fascinating to see the tension that’s present behind-the-scenes even on a team that is super successful on the court.

That was one of the others I was considering for that spot!

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