Ask HN: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021?

71 pointskoevet38 comments

What are your favorite nonfiction books of 2021 (Read in 2021)?

Bullshit jobs by David Graeber. It fundamentally makes you question how senseless human existence is due to our 9 to 5, bullshit-driven, Western corporate jobs (although work life in China and Japan is probably even worse, so the part of Western is just my perspective). It's a great book to not take work so seriously, and start making the best of being able to "work" from home. It's also very interesting to see how a usual work day has changed through out history and how work obsessed modern society has become in comparison to past societies.

I just started "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" [1] by Graeber and David Wengrow. I'm only through a few dozen pages, but it's definitely a compelling read in terms of how it's written. Graeber's last book, sadly.

1: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/31/arts/dawn-of-everything-g...

Thanks for the recommendation internet Stranger! I just finished the book based on your comment here last week. Great read.

"Burn: The Misunderstood Science of Metabolism" by Herman Pontzer

"Humankind" by Rutger Bregman

"The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow

"Work: A history of how we spend our time" by James Suzman

I sort of want to include "The Ministry of the Future" by Kim Stanley Robinson because it feels almost as much like political treatise as it does a work of fiction.

The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III

Revisiting a major historical figure, whose reputation may be completely un warranted. Was he a Tyrant or a Patriot King? Did he suffer from a genetic in-breed disease or was he Bi-polar?

Hadn't spent much time learning about this part of history as an adult. Was somewhat surprised to learn that aside from the Pre-Amble, The Declaration of Independence was just a bunch of baseless ad=hominem attacks on the king and that "Common Sense" was a rabble rousing populist piece that blamed monarchy on the jews...

To be sure, the Declaration of Independence has a litany of wrongs committed by the English king, but that is hardly what it is remembered for, and "blamed monarchy on the Jews" seems an unfair summary of Common Sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense

> "blamed monarchy on the Jews" seems an unfair summary of Common Sense.

"for the quiet and rural lives of the first Patriarchs have a snappy something in them, which vanishes when we come to the history of Jewish royalty" [1]

"Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry." [1]

Those are just the first I found, take a look yourself.

Common Sense was "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era."[2]. This is a nice way of saying he was a propagandist. The work is reminiscent of "Yellow Journalism" or modern day political conspiracy theories. Another theory of his, that really got the crowd going, was that the King was a secret catholic.

> the Declaration of Independence has a litany of wrongs committed by the English king, but that is hardly what it is remembered for

It is remembered for the PreAmble, which is why I thought it was worth mentioning. The historian makes the claim that most of the charges/grievances in the body of the document were knowingly false/without merit in order to 'pad the brief'.

[1] https://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/sense3.htm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense

Well, read on a little. The text quoted clearly blames monarchy on the Heathens. Paine then recounts the history of monarchy in the Old Testament, with an example of god Himself speaking against it as a form of idolatry, his point being not that the Jews are the source of monarchy but that scripture is plainly opposed to it. Concluding that section, Paine writes "And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government." As a good 18th-century Protestant, Paine was of course against "popery", yet the historian doesn't claim Paine blamed monarchy on the Catholics.

The book itself was well-reviewed, but the takeaways are a bit disturbing.

> The text quoted clearly blames monarchy on the Heathens. Paine then recounts the history of monarchy in the Old Testament

"Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to."

I've now linked several flagrantly anti-semitic passages of Common Sense. If those quotes didn't convince you, nothing will and I really don't really want to discuss further.

> Paine blamed monarchy on the Catholics

It's more that he claims the King of England is a secret catholic/papist.

According to the 1619 Project, one can easily conclude King George was an abolitionist. But I cannot find evidence of that anywhere.

the english were the first big abolitionists at that time (after Adam S.) and even considered bad influence in other colonies like in the caribbean. They knew they dont needed slavery to have slaves, so to speak..

At which time? Through the middle of the 18th Century they were active and aggressive slave traders.

In his private writings & views, especially before he was King, he was very anti-slavery. His ultimate record is a bit more mixed because he prioritized other issues and never exercised much political power to stop it.

Read somewhere that he was portrayed as a villain to move the fence-sitters. Otherwise he was a liberal figure for most of his time.

There is some irony, in that him not being a tyrant ham-strung efforts both to placate the colonies before the war (He couldn't act unilaterally and over rule parliament) and in fighting the colonies because scorched earth tactics were off the table.

And yeah privately he had pretty liberal views but he didn't always prioritize them politically.

Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship — By Laurence Heller and Aline Lapierre

The Courage to be Disliked — By Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi

Le monde sans fin, miracle énergétique et dérive climatique — An eye opening French comic book on energy and climate change, by Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain

Would you recommend Healing Developmental Trauma to non-therapists? I am interested in the topic of trauma and how to heal it but have zero training on the subject.

Absolutely. I'm not a therapist myself, and I learned a lot from reading it.

If you're interested in the subject, “The Wisdom of Trauma” documentary featuring Dr. Gabor Maté might interest you as well: https://drgabormate.com/the-wisdom-of-trauma/.

Svetlana Aleksijevitsj - Tsjernobylskaja molitva (Voices of Chernobyl).

Aleksijevitsj won the Nobel prize for literature in 2015. At the time of the Chernobyl disaster (1986) Aleksijevitsj lived in Minsk and interviewed over 500 witnesses of Chernobyl. Tsjernobylskaja molitva is a selection of these interviews. Best book I read in 2021. Not a light read.

Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire: Everything I know now about Autism and Asperger's that I wish I'd known then.

Dave is fantastic, I'm looking to grab his book after Christmas if I don't receive it. His YouTube channel "Dave's Garage" is amazing for anyone that isn't familiar, it's about programming.

"How to Avoid a Climate Disaster" by Bill Gates. It's a pragmatic nerd's comprehensive view of ways to tackle climate change, and you know the author is deeply involved in some of the initiatives.

I also found "Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind" by Judson Brewer eye opening (once you see through its self-help tone). The author claims (and backs it up by research he has conducted) that anxiety and worrying are addictive, and similar regimes for smoke cessation, weight loss, and drug rehab can be used to mitigate them.

David Stuckler & Sanjay Basu - The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills - Recessions, Budget Battles, and The Politics of Life and Death

In it they look at the results that austerity measures had on societies around the western world following the aftermath of the 2007/2008 financial crisis, as well as comparing those results with those had in nations where social systems where protected instead.

Effectively it was one big natural experiment, and I can not wait to see what they write up about the ongoing crisis in a few years time.

Will read, thanks.

Graeber's book Debt rewired my brain. (I was also greatly influenced by Kevin Phillips' Wealth and Democracy, back in the day.)

IMHO, the advocates of MMT (modern monetary theory) don't dare nearly enough.

My current worldview:

"Governmental spending is a loan that we repay thru taxes."

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13547241-unorthodox

If you haven't seen movie yet, check it out. But the book talks about what happened to her before she left her husband and place she grew up.

This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56015023-this-is-your-mi...

Excellent book about plants and they role in our life.

Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail by Rusty Young

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43081.Marching_Powder

Excellent book about inside life in one of the most dangerous prisons in the world and what people do to survive it.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoğlu, James A. Robinson

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12158480-why-nations-fai...

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50743767-between-two-kin...

A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence - Jeff Hawkins

"Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy" by Matt Stoller

The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World Paperback – Simon Winchester (2019 Paperback, purchased/read recently)

True Tales of American Life - it's a collection of mostly autobiographical true stories, submitted by everyday Americans as part of NPR's National Story Project and edited by Paul Auster.

Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, John E Sarno.

Recommend on HN by someone I don’t have back pain but have other issues and this might help i think.

"Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old" by Andrew Steele (2021)

For a very no frills account of the current state of anti-aging research.

I'm not going to get excited about ageing research until I see 40 year old Labrador.

The Constitution of Knowledge, by Jonathan Rauch

Biographies are technically non fiction I suppose?

I really enjoyed reading Kurt Godel’s biography:

Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel.

   Working backwards
   Visual MBA

Marilyn & Irvin Yalom: A Matter of Death and Life

Michael Polla: How to Change Your Mind

The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class

Flash Boys by Michael Lewis

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