Ask HN: Please suggest some good books you have read recently
Hi,
Looking for book recommendations. I generally prefer fiction, but any Good contemporary non-fiction would also do.
Thanks.
Faery Tales (The Dark Fae Series Book 2)
By McKenzie Rae
Book 2 was just released last week. I sat down this morning to read and as of this evening I am about 200 pages in. It really sucked me in.
Disclaimer. I am the father of the author. But when she was younger I would read something she wrote and if she asked for my reaction I was honest. I would say, it is really good for a 14 year old. That would drive her crazy. But I would tell her I will always give you my honest reaction.
When she was picked up by a publisher in her early 20s, she was kind of bashful about me reading her work. It was so gratifying to be able to walk in about 2/3 of the way through that first published novel and tell her that even though it wasn't my preferred genre I had started to care about the characters and the plot and I had to finish.
I feel like each book has gotten better. This latest book captured my attention within the first few pages and I spent way more time reading it today than I originally intended.
Sorry if anyone is offended at me promoting my daughter's work.
- Painfully relevant to the current pandemic. Explains why the experts aren't!
The End of Average by Todd Rose
- Pulls the curtain(s) aside from education, corporations and the non-science of "scientific management". Why Taylorism continues to dominate corporate and social life today. Explains many features of our lives (both civic and corporate) that were "baked into" society decades ago, are rarely examined (indeed rarely noticed) and are ripe for replacement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management
The Miraculous Fever Tree by Fiammetta Rocco
This reads like (and should be made into) a BBC series: story after story of generations of human suffering from malaria, which remains far more deadly than Covid-19. Where else do you read that merely living in Rome before the existence of a cure for malaria was almost guaranteed to shorten your life significantly and end it badly? Imperial Rome, the center of Roman civilization! Rome, the center of the Catholic Church during and after Rome fell and into the Early Middle Ages! And this disease was endemic not only in Rome but to most of southern Europe extending up to Britain.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/science-mal...
https://www.amazon.com/Leonardo-Vinci-Walter-Isaacson/dp/150...
- The Expanse series. Long but easy read. Great science fiction. I'm on book 5 so far.
Non-fiction:
- Bullshit Jobs. Even if you don't agree with the Author's premise in the end I think this book is thought provoking and worth reading.
- Dying for a Paycheck. This book explores how work affects our health.
I became interested in fermor after reading about his kidnap of a German general during ww2.
This books is about his walking across Europe during the 30s. Well written snapshot of this period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Anthony_bibliography
and Henry Beam Piper
Absolutely fascinating and refreshingly positive.