Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
Yearly thread. It can be books published on 2021 or in previous years (but that you read this year.)
I read a lot of books, and this is one that caused a change in my life. The succinct summary is that psychedelics are misunderstood and there is more and more research showing their potential, especially in the treatment of trauma.
I had a difficult childhood. It’s something I still struggle with personal interactions because of this, even after years of therapy. After reading Michael Pollen’s book I thought this might be something that could move the needle on my day-to-day quality of life.
I found a shaman and did an 8 hour blindfolded mushroom trip. Similar to what’s outlined in the book. Previously I’ve never done anything more than weed occasionally.
It had a profound impact on me. The way I describe it is like jumping off a diving board into a deep dark pool, and the pool is you. Then spending hours there.
I don’t know if I’d do it again but I learnt a lot about myself. I won’t proselytize here either, because the research is still early. There’s also risk because you put a lot of trust in someone who’s there with you while you’re high. But I do recommend at least reading the book.
I feel like people need to start talking about bad trips in a more helpful and realistic way. The info I got about put me off to tripping for years. I avoided them until my late 20s, wish i did them sooner.
I think bad trips are mostly just people who mix psychedelics with other drugs (weed is common) and freak out or aren't used to introspection (so is this really bad then?) or use irresponsibly. Like if you take 15 shots of vodka you're going to have a bad time, why is lsd any different? Or if you drink with assholes that ruin your night out why would you trip with them?
Respectfully: this is dangerous speculation. You can have a bad trip even if you do everything right, and it’s an important risk that we should highlight rather than minimize.
I believe that many psychedelic experiences are net positive, but some can be very negative for a very long time.
But if you can be clear about the risks and how to avoid them I think you'll come out fine. I don't think if psychedelics were playing some game of russian roulette like you suggest they would actually be useful in therapy.
I've had to calm people down off of bad trips. Unlike what you say, it's something that totally happens with single drugs and non hallucinogenics. Hell you can have a bad trip on alcohol.
It's all about the state of mind, and having an altered state of mind can make it much easier to start spiraling. This can happen even if you haven't taken drugs too, let's say from stress or lack of sleep. Again it's just about your mind being in a state it's uncomfortable with.
Specifically I've had friends on weed who've had anxiety attacks and deep paranoia till I calmed them down. They were completely non functional in the same way someone having a sober anxiety/panic attack would be.
I've had to help people on just E at parties who've started hyper ventilating and started having stressed delusional visions.
That's not even getting into being there for someone who's on psychedelics, where I've had friends who've suffered fairly longer lasting bouts of out of body syndrome, even after the drugs wore off because of how it affected their perception of self.
Drugs aren't the cause of a bad trip. They just increase the chances of one, and for many psychedelics, you therefore want to make sure you're in a calm, happy place. If someone is trying it for the first time, do it around people who will look out for you, and preferably those who can responsibly look after you if things do go sour.
Psychedelics amplify your current emotions. If you feel love for the world you'll feel that 10x or 100x. If you have a panic attack, then it's the same amplification. You are correct that mixing and overdoing it are great ways to cause panic and bring on a bad trip - but bad trips really can happen if your set and setting is off. This is why people talk so much about being careful with set and setting - it is the most effective way to not play Russian roulette as you say. This is why in therapy there is always a guide - it is always in a calm place, and a therapist isn't going to recommend it for you if they see you're in the wrong mindset. But even then its not as if set and setting can somehow be measured to ensure the trip is good.
As negative as the experience was, in some ways I am glad I had it, because it gave me a much deeper understanding of where my mind could go - both positive and negative.
so true. Even weed does this to an extent. if you're comfortable within yourself you'll have the time of your life but if you're not in the right head-space, or have fear of the drug (or fear a bad trip) you'll likely have a bad trip. Even so I think it's possible to steer yourself out of it with some practice of mental exercises (while sober)
With psychedelics it helps to have experience with lower dosage or even a weaker drug (weed) where you learn how to escape "a paranoia" and steer yourself to "happier thoughts".
When I was young I've seen one of my exes, who was a cop in Singapore, have a horror trip on weed in Thailand. She really wanted to smoke but never tried anything other than alcohol and her environment was also exactly what one would expect from a cop in SG. It was a nightmare for both of us. She even wanted to try it a second time a few days later and experienced a weaker paranoia as the first time (still not a happy time). It led me to the hypothesis that she'd need many such sessions over a longer time where she could re-integrate these experiences and also that she didn't get addicted into her worldview. The amount of brainwashing she went through from her society about what drugs do and how weed will make you switch to heroin and rob banks etc ... if she was ever going to feel great on weed it wouldn't be just a few times trying. (we never smoked after the second time because why on Earth would she when it only made her feel terrible).
My brother was in an even more extreme situation doing shrooms in Sumatra with his then gf. She never wanted to take anything (other than booze) but then decided to do shrooms with him after getting very drunk (I think he also talked her into it and she might have just said yes so she could have a bad trip in order to tell him "I told you so" ... at least that's the person she was). As predicted she had the ultimate horror trip, with visuals similar in to what got peddled by anti-drug propaganda in the 70ies. A zombie or elephant face stares back from the mirror, ants and spiders all over the ceiling ready to drop on them, walls closing in, etc ... By brother panicked and suggested the only thing he knew: "smoke yourself down from a bad trip", and proceeded to "roll one" for them. She hated the idea of adding another drug on top of the first drug, because she never took anything until then (and clearly this meant that by the time she was sober she would be a junky craving crack. The idea of another drug "as cure for a bad trip for the first drug" was an outrage for her.
She eventually did agree to smoke because the visuals were so horrific. From his account of the story it did make her better. But she would never admit it when they brought it up even years later. What she remembered was both drugs had caused her major distress. She used these experience to harden her believe further that drugs are always bad 100% of the time, and there can not be any medical value for anyone. (oddly she was so psychotic and manipulative, and never learned how to communicate without resorting to drama. In hindsight it's sad because drugs could have shown her that real self so she could address these issues).
What both stories taught me is never talk anyone into taking drugs or be too quick with "offering guidance" based on my own experience. Secondly be there for them to say no, when they're drunk and ask to go "score some weed" because they're on vacation and drunk enough to try (they can still do so the next day and then turn it into a proper event/memory).
Setting and preparation is key to get something out of it. if the people you surround yourself with aren't sensitive to your feelings you're better off doing it alone or not at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teachings_of_Don_Juan <-- I really enjoyed this (because it puts so much emphasis on preparation and respect (in yourself _and_ the drug).
So is it still appropriate to consider this a “bad” trip? It’s a serious question; psychedelics are experiencing a resurgence in clinical interest precisely because of their persistent effects, quite apart from the acute trip experience itself. One might assume that a trip saturated in negative affect might leave a person worse off than before, but it is clearly more complex than that. Perhaps it is akin to the difference between post-traumatic stress vs. growth, and proper management of set/setting/aftercare can promote the latter over the former.
I am unsure about persistent long term negative outcomes from psychedelics - you bough I know several people that tried them once, had a rough experience and never touched them again.
> you are losing your mind, and you will never be yourself again.
I feel like is a pretty common thing to come up, especially with lsd which lasts forever. If people were more prepared for what will come up (I actually tell people about that scenario if tripping for the first time comes up). Thats what i mean, is it better to say "oh the trip can go bad for any unpredictable reason" or we talk about in more clear terms then "bad trip" about what can actually be uncomfortable while on the drugs.
I think saying "you might feel like your losing your mind, but your not, youll feel better at the end" is less horrifying then "bad trips"
I see your point about preparation and it’s valid however hearing someone else talk about what it’s like really can’t prepare you. I knew bad trips were possible and had read extensively about set and setting. But in the moment there was no reason or logic. I forgot everything I knew about managing the experience. It was completely overwhelming and in that situation there is very little you can do.
In many ways it’s like the psychedelic experience overall. You can read about and be as prepared as possible but the experience is so otherworldly there is no way to fully understand that it’s like unless you go through the experience.
Many therapists and scientists have documented their personal experience guiding hundreds, sometimes thousands of trips with strong psychedelic doses (e.g. 20mg+ synthetic psilocybin, 200mcg+ lsd). They've written entire chapters on bad trips in the context of specifically psychedelics, what are their cause, how to avoid them, and how to handle them when they occur. Research papers, books, articles, etc. It's all in there. Sometimes, even reading just a single chapter from a single book is enough (James Fadiman's The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide is quite accessible. https://tripsafe.org/ also offers good advice)
Acquiring that knowledge requires to actually sit down and read the stuff. Sadly, what we have around us is people usually just spewing anecdotes and opinions.
If you're considering taking the journey, do yourself a favor and research the topic a bit before. You might be surprised at the amount of misinformation that's out there (and in these very threads).
As to shamen part, I do recommend reading the book. There’s a lot on “set and setting” which goes into this.
Just for interest sake, my medical aid has paid around $2000 dollars worth of mental healthcare bills in total over three years (it's a lot for my country, but a fraction for Americans). I'd say the value/progress received from the mental health route has been utterly slow where a handful of mushrooms has had the best effects of my life. Going the shaman/Aya route is like pouring paint stripper on your soul, where you can then have a peek at your inner workings - its is not for the faint of heart. I do not regret doing it but I also advocate caution. You cannot unsee/unfeel the things you experience, some of it is positive and some might be negative.
So yeah, all round worth it to do it via a shaman. Especially if you have tried normal mental health care and you aren't making progress. I feel all adults should do it as a rite of passage of sorts, especially anyone in positions of power.
I never really knew it was that hard to find/source said items. They aren't marketed publicly, but if you're in the right community they're available, usually for free.
Psychedelics have a powerful community online from numerous forums, to websites such as Erowid and Psychonauts, which have their own discords. You can also find like minded people on meetup, or facebook groups.
Or, what all the cool kids do - music festivals and camping.
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Is the shaman really that necessary? AS for doing it again, more and more psychdelics and chemicals with neuro effects are being legalized such as Ketamine IV treatment.
There's also a whole semi famous association with it, MAPS.org, which has been increasing in membership, and governance creation and paid studies that show that psychedelics time and time again have a positive role in society.
Then again, maybe Shaman isn't so different from a Doctor or N.P.
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Just curious information, ever since Barnes & Noble highlisted this book when published, it really took off and this small world now seems to be mainstream.
I don't like drugs personally, but my closest social group has always been heavy drug users during my teens and early twenties (dealing with them is probably why I don't like drugs myself). I've always known where to go get stuff even though I don't partake in that lifestyle myself.
Now when I describe that time in my life to my wife and more straight laced friends, they're surprised because they assume finding drugs or a "shaman" is difficult, or part of some seedy underbelly of society with crimelords etc... But really it's no different than knowing someone who is into any other niche.
Also the idea of a shaman eludes me. Most "shamans" I've met are hucksters. They basically serve the purpose of guiding you in a trip, being a hype person and (assuming an experienced one) knowing how to deal with any issues that arise.
A "shaman" can just as easily be replaced by a good friend at home. Most people just do it for the experience IMHO, but there's nothing special about one.
Taking 1 gram of cubensis and taking 5 grams will not have the same effect.
Traditionally, strong psychedelic doses tend to be administered for therapeutic/spiritual journeys. It's preferable that it would be in the presence of someone who's truly knowledgeable about that process (shaman, guide, therapist, etc). It's true in practically any culture, whether in Africa, in the Americas, or elsewhere. And there are reasons why it is so, which is all explained in those books and papers.
It’s hard to describe the effects. It’s unlike taking a medicine. I’ve heard analogies such as pouring concrete into your foundation, or shuffling your mental deck of cards. Neither of those quite describe it.
One concrete effect was that I stopped wearing a smart watch. After the journey I just realized I didn’t want it. I stopped having a need to see notifications immediately.
More abstractly: “revisiting” the worst of my childhood as an adult was moving and full of pent-up grief. I blame myself a lot less for who I ended up becoming as person.
I recommend only doing mushrooms once or twice a year at most for larger dosages and once or twice a month at most if doing 2g or less. If you do it more regularly you may have diminishing returns. Cannabis I'd do at most once a month if at all. San Pedro can also be extremely good at low dosages. Alcohol is a no go.
Please be careful with dosages, set & setting, what you ate the previous weeks, how rested you are etc. Try to source good/clean mushrooms/cannabis. Always know exactly what you put into your body. Respect those plants and their power. When feeling the effects kick in, say hello to the "spirit" and welcome him/her for visiting you, like an old friend.
I typically do NOT boil them. I cut them up into disks and remove the skin and white stuff, then only keep the green slimy parts. Then I dehydrate them (make sure they are super dry - wait a week if you have to). Then I put them through a coffee grinder and sieve to make a fine powder that is lime green and smells very pungent. Then you have a choice before you: consume all of it or "microdose" - I'd recommend starting with 2 table spoons, maybe 4 if the effects are not coming on within 2 hours. Going the low dose way works extremely well for me - no vomiting/purging, my body accepts it fully. At this dosage things become extremely slowed down, as an example, 4 spoons strips time away for me and I feel like an immortal monk, ultra zen mode. Its cool to have small musical instruments around if you have any (flutes, bells, humming bowls, kalimba, ocarina, jews harp etc) and play with them even you don't know how to play them.
It is important to fast the day before so you take it on a clean body. Also try to be in nature, between plants - the smallest details and colours of plants, insects & flowers can put you down a very nice rabbit hole of feeling wholesome and thankful for being shown the beauty of nature... etc. I'd recommend taking it 05:00 in the morning if you have summer time. Have some fresh fruit available to eat around 14:00 - it is the best thing on earth, you will be able to taste the "essence" of each fruit and its super juicy and chewy. You will understand that all fruits/seeds want to be eaten, to propagate and spread and that realization might make you cry with how humbling the plants struggle is to survive.
I personally haven't had a full San Pedro dose yet since I'm too afraid to be honest. But a low dose of the dried stuff is amazing. No bad come down either. I'd also recommend growing them yourself and taking care of them (advice from the shaman) instead of buying them from a stranger - take care of them and they will take care of you. I currently have 6 of them and 4 new pups just appeared.
Word of caution: I've seen a person who has abused this plant to escape reality. He had a plantation in his backyard and when I met him, his brain was completely fried while being sober. Very slow to respond, droopy face etc. If you go down this path, please do respect the plants and their power over our brains and also be aware of the very thin line between reality/normality and insanity/psychosis.
Anyways, I hope you have a good journey and find all of the goodness hiding away in your heart. Its all there, more than you can imagine.
Peyote grows extremely slow and only in small corners of the world, I'd recommend skipping them as they need to be protected.
San Pedro grows about 40cm a year where I live. They can take plenty of water (growing thin and long) or they can get by with a cup a month (growing shorter and thicker). I'd recommend starving them once in a while to stress them out - this makes them produce mescaline. They also produce wonderful huge white flowers (only for a short time each year). If you do end up growing them, never sell them. Always give cuttings away as gifts to others.
Read up a bit about mescaline, it is not like the other psychedelics. With mushrooms, dmt, lsd + lsa (seed from Argyreia nervosa - plenty gardens have them) - these are all similar compounds with similar effects. Mescaline's effects are a bit different, so worth it to explore even if you think you've seen it all.
Fun fact: Mescaline is mentioned in The Matrix (the first one) when Neo encounters the girl with the white rabbit tattoo...make of it what you will.
The number of “straight-laced”, “9 to 5” people that have mentioned this book to me when they find out what I do is so high I pretty much expect it at this point. I personally was bored reading the book but only because I am so familiar with the space and I don’t find his writing terribly interesting but I truly believe his book did more to legitimize psychedelics than anything that came before it. People used to think I was some fringe weirdo before that book, now I’ve had strangers tell me I’m “their hero.” That’s not a joke. I’ve had two different people, on two different occasions say that to me, and both of them mentioned his book.
12 years ago I started meditation, and after 10 years of seemingly nothing happening I began to get it. It's been 2 years and the depression/anxiety are just like shadows that are still there but do not affect me.
I am very curious about psychedelics, but afraid to ruin all the work I put in ... But what if it helps me even more! :)
Not sure what to do, but thanks again for posting your experience. It helps. Peace and Love to you brother.
PS: I meditate 2 to 3 hours a day. It took me 5 years just to get a regular habit, then 5 more to get to an hour. After that things seem to go quickly.
Best wishes you to you too, and for a positive 2022.
It identified so many of the "edges" of society and how I think about and interact with the world, on a daily basis.
Without a doubt one of the best books I've ever read. Maybe even the best.
The only other book that came close this year was Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir.
Very nice to read science fiction that is about people rather than things.
For fellow fans of le Guin, Sturgeon and Smith looking for more authors, I would recommend Lois McMaster Bujold. Space opera adventures on the surface, but with subtle depths and insights into human nature. Or for something more recent, Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series; we have solved world hunger, achieved gender equality and invented flying cars, but what are the implications for world politics and human interactions?
Tony said that first and last sentences in her books were very important to her. To this day I remember that the book begins “There was a wall.” And at the end: “His hands were empty, as they had always been.”
Her writing style exemplifies St. Exupery's quote about perfection being "...when there is nothing left to take away."
I'd have loved to have met her.
It came very close to me. The society of the book was very similar to the society in which I grew up, Soviet Union in 90s.
Some of the lines from the book:
".. the social consience completely dominates the individual conscience, instead of striking a balance with it. We don't cooperate - we obey. We fear being outcast, being called lazy, dysfunctional, egoizing. We fear our neighbor's opinion more than we respect our own freedom of choice."
"No matter what their society's like, some of them must be decent. People vary here, don't they? Are we all perfect Odonians? But in a sick organism, even a healthy cell is doomed."
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=MoIOAwAAQBAJ
I've never been sure how to sum up these books. They're thoroughly strange fantasy books, oddly written and frequently chewy reads. They have an interest in politics and metaphysics; but they also have magical railguns, the sorcerous application of FOOF [1], and a five-ton battle-sheep named Eustace.
The first book is fairly straightforward: A quiet backwater of the Commonweal is under threat, and its only defense is an understrength territorial battalion, a handful of experimental artillery pieces, and three of the mightiest sorcerers of the age.
Then the second book (A Succession of Bad Days) isn't at all about the military, and is more like the weirdest going-to-sorcery-school book I've ever read. It also has an extended, detailed section on using sorcery in canal construction. If you ever wanted a book about the best ways to use magic in the service of civil engineering, this series is your jam.
These books really aren't for everyone, but I kind of love them, and they aren't widely known, so I'll always take an opportunity to shill them.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
Saunders' writing is for people who think that Gibson spends too much time explaining things.[2]
You do have to read between the lines a lot, and also stop a lot to figure out how bits of the world work, but the world-building is among the best I've seen. A fully worked out, humane society with its own customs, institutions, methods of government, and history in a world with multiple climatic zones and ecosystems.
Unlike most fantasy it's not fantasy aristocracy--there's no binary-thinking "of the blood/not of the blood" or lords and slaves stuff. Magical ability is Gaussian distributed; the mighty sorcerers come from the extreme right tail of the distribution, but everyone has a place and is allowed to grow and contribute as they desire and are able.
Democratic/collectivist welfare state fantasy, perhaps.
1. Saunders's blog: https://dubiousprospects.blogspot.com/
2. Must re-read The Peripheral.
Will note the writing style is almost weirder and more niche than the rigidly strange content though if that’s possible. It’s not difficult to get past and without a doubt enhances the general vibe & chewiness of it all, but man the sentence structures are just downright convoluted at times. Totally fitting.
I find myself trying to figure out what the author was thinking while writing something out, as only half of the words seem to make it to the paper.
Absolutely worth it if you can stomach it though, especially the second book with the wizard students and extensive civil engineering!
The book is even freely available on the author’s site! I wish I’d found this years ago.
I mean, if you're using your CS degree for Haskell, I'd recommend something like O + S instead!
I like that the author takes time to actually explain the concepts with words before getting into the mathy stuff, whereas it seems like a lot of books on topics like this will lead with "The <whatever whatever> is defined as <math equation with 17 symbols in it>. Thus, we can <do complex next-level thing> and <I will never explain what any of those symbols mean>"
I’d suggest reading both books. One for the scaffolding and the other for color.
John Sexton's summary mirrors my own opinion:
> The book is fundamentally unserious and undeserving of the wide acclaim and attention it has been receiving. But it is worth considering the book’s blind spots and flaws — the better to understand the weaknesses of the genre and the intellectual temptations of our age. [0]
[0] https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/a-reductionist-h...
Intellectual temptations is our contemporary desire for condensed information from a single source.
That being said, I read through the counterpoint article and found it pretty hollow. In fact it seems to strengthen my belief that Sapiens is a valuable book. I kept expecting the author to point out where Harari’s assertions were wrong, but each section more or less boiled down to Harari is either not funny or not clever. The author even contradicts his article’s own thesis partway through:
“Nonetheless, his version of human history involves moral judgments that suggest he is not so thoroughly reductionist, or as cynical about the human condition, as he appears to be at first glance.“
+1 for Harari
This particular story with large mammals is a good example. The assumed causality does not hold closer scrutiny. Climate was also changing into something that works better for humans, and into worse for large mammals. There were many things at play. Humans may had or may not have had a role. However, it is very unlikely that humans had a defining role.
Good read nevertheless! Changed my mind how I view humans as mammals, and made me dig deeper into the topic.
I don't claim to be an expert, but Harari is an excellent story teller. That narrative fits really well with his story.
I received this book as a gift earlier this year and I thought it might be one of the most incredible books I've ever encountered.
What I liked about it is how it paints everything in very broad strokes so that you get to see humanity's place in the big picture.
It did have the side effect of leaving me very cynical afterwards, though. I'd think to myself "We're all apes"; All those accomplishments I'm so proud of are rather silly, and had things turned out slightly differently we'd still be hanging around under trees and scared of predators.
It also had the side effect of getting me to go play Far Cry Primal afterwards, just to get a little taste of what our ancestors might've experienced.
This year I read Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity' by David Graeber and David Wengrow [0]. And found it much more nuanced, interesting and believable. Harari's narrative is just too slick.
A delightful, completed serial that tells an alternate story of the world since 1968, when Apollo 8 crashed into the crystal fabric of the sky and fundamentally broke the machinery of the universe. Now science no longer works, the old ways have power and sometimes people go to bed on Monday to wake up on Wednesday.
I loved the way the fiction intertwined with reality.
Relevant quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8050527-please-asked-the-gi...
“Please?” asked the girl.
“I AM BUSY. I AM TRYING TO FIX CONTINENTAL DRIFT.”
“I…didn’t know it was broken.”
Uriel’s face became more animated, his speech faster.
“IT HAS BEEN BROKEN FOR FIVE WEEKS AND FIVE DAYS. I THINK IT BROKE WHEN I RELOADED NEW ZEALAND FROM A BACKUP COPY, BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHY. MY SYNCHRONIZATION WAS IMPECCABLE AND THE CHANGE PROPAGATED SIMULTANEOUSLY ACROSS ALL SEPHIROT. I THINK SOMEBODY BOILED A GOAT IN ITS MOTHER’S MILK. IT IS ALWAYS THAT. I KEEP TELLING PEOPLE NOT TO DO IT, BUT NOBODY LISTENS.”
Exodus 15:3 says “The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is His Name.” But this verse is ambiguous: “man of war” can mean either a type of Portuguese jellyfish or a type of British warship. Which one is the LORD? I suggest that He is the latter. A jellyfish is a primitive and ignorant animal, unworthy to be compared to the glories of God. But a warship is mighty and inspires awe, and divine comparisons are entirely suitable; indeed, God may be the only thing worthy of being compared to it. For it is written, “The LORD alone is worthy of warship.”
- The Hail Mary Project by Andy Weir (of the Martian). Nice page turner and he's back to form with his third novel.
- Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson. Enjoyable and fun; though arguably not his finest work. I might pick up his earlier work for re-reading over Christmas. Anathem probably, which I would recommend to anyone.
- Leviathan Falls (part 9 and the last one of the Expanse series). James S.A. Corey (the writer duo). The whole series was quite enjoyable and this is a fitting end to it.
[1]: https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1471168495312420877
Years later, I started playing the audio book on a roadtrip. At some point, I couldn't "put it down", so to speak--especially as the plot twist is gradually revealed. The sequels are extraordinary, and perhaps among the best sci-fi ever written.
Thanks for pointing out the new book by Neal Stephenson, I didn't know he'd released that and will probably check it out.
I also read the hail Mary project which I thought was an enjoyable light read, but nothing too special.
(WARNING: minor spoilers follow)
In a story about someone travelling to another galaxy and investigating other life forms, the thing that I struggled with the most was that the entire planet unilaterally put their faith in one person and there wasn't a giant amount of infighting and countries at each other's throats.
I also read Ministry for the Future which was pretty heavy on politics. It didn't grab me the way Project Hail Mary did, though.
Fast forward a few years, and Barack Obama and Bill Gates are posting that his latest book was one of their favourites of the year.
A few years later and I read Seveneves. Absolutely fall in love, and read Anathem right after. Loved it too.
To this day I still don’t understand why the first book felt so boring and the others didn’t. To make it worse, when you go looking for a synopsis of Cryptonomicon, everyone is so vague!
That said, maybe I was expecting something very different. I enjoyed Snowcrash and I enjoyed various sections of Cryptonomicon’s prose, it was just sooooo boring in the end.
- several William Gibson novels between 1995-2008 - Most of the ender's game series and home coming from 80's to 2008. - Between 2008 and 2018 I read only 1 novel, which was Ready Player One. - From 2019 to today I've ready 40+ novels: The Expanse, Red Rising, Bobiverse, Planetside, Magic 2.0, Singularity Trap, Vicarious, NPC, Childeren of Time, Project Hail Mary, Fuzzy Nation, Space Between Worlds, The Salvage Crew.
I feel like I've exhausted sci-fi and have been checking out fantasy novels like Riyria. I've been having a hard time finding something new to sink my teeth into. Piranesi was weird but good.
It’s just so small in scope compared to the following books that I forget that its entire appeal is just how unknown the unknowns are and how much potential it sets up for the rest of the story.
For me the blurring of religion/biology/code boundaries was brilliantly interesting (even if factually unconvincing). If you skip these infodumps, consider going back later.
-> for those who like that meta-liguistic angle, Laundry Files series by Charles Stross may be fun. It has some similar "Enochian" language used for programming zombies / magic / etc. (the tone is quite different though, more of a horror comedy, and varies between books as he's parodying different material.)
-> on the "collapse of government" angle, Diamond Age by Stephenson is almost a direct continuation. plus very cool nano-tech. (2nd half has few scenes using humans bodies in a gross way.)
-> if you like a large Quest crossing both physical and intellectual world, well, almost any Stephenson book :)
I'll be honest, the first read of the Baroque Cycle took me some time and I came close to putting it down. I've since re-read it about six or seven times. Most of his books get better when you re-read them.
I'm looking forward to re-reading Termination Shock probably some time next year.
The book is a somewhat systematic tour of the smells of the world. Most of which are generated, one way or another, by organisms. It makes you realize that (because of this simple fact) the world is an even more special place than you already thought: most of the smells in this world probably exist nowhere else in the universe.
The book makes you see (smell) the similarities between things as disparate as a pine trees and lemons, melons and fish, ants and ginger, and it explains why they exist. You come out of the experience with a rich new vocabulary and a plethora of fascinating facts.
The book is a bit technical (lots of high school level organic chemistry) but it is a joy to read, because McGee is a very good writer who manages to be precise and lyrical at the same time. A book to savor slowly.
Insanely nice book and it was easy to read!
The one take-away I'm still thinking about is how the Tor Onion Router system works, and if the primary purpose behind Tor was to allow spies in various locations around the planet to communicate with known headquarter locations without leaving any traces. That's what Levine implies, anyway, and Snowden sort of confirms that, as I read things.
Overall, some people believe putting advanced technology in the hands of individuals is a solution to authoritarian control, some people believe political reforms are the solution to authoritarian control. Interesting debate certainly.
A lot of writers try to set their own rules, but according to the best, you need limitations to be creative. Just like you would play sports with rules. That rulebook is Poetics.
It's the kind of book that's so information dense that you have to read it slowly. Summaries are often as long as the book itself.
There's some aging in there. Notably the concept of hamartia has changed from "mistake" to "sin" over a few hundred years. Good stories were all tragedy back then, where a noble person makes a mistake. And the audience is fearful because if this superior person can make mistakes, what about me?
Since Christianity, the philosophy has been that everyone makes mistakes, but repenting for it saves you from tragedy. And more popular now is a reversal. Some tries to slay a monster, but the monster is too perfect. But eventually the monster suffers from hamartia (missing the mark, making human sins) and the hero exploits that to win.
Besides drama, the book also covers actual poetry and music, both of which have their own limitations, but that part was all Greek to me.
Specifically, David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin, who directly tells everyone to read Poetics. But also anyone who engages in poetry and lyrics; the whole idea of poetry is adding limits and seeing what you can do with it.
Think of it like chords in music, or moves on a game. If you play tennis and anyone can just kick or throw the ball, that's not very fun.
It's actually opposite to adversity, the constraint is supposed to _help_ the creative process.
This seems like the classic fixed vs growth mindset situation. There are those who think that we are born with all our capability and then there are those who think that we can gain new capabilities through experience.
If you're truly set on believing that everyone is static, then fine. However if you have some curiosity, then a pretty good gentle introduction to growth mindset can be seen in this short 10 minute summary of an RSA talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl9TVbAal5s
So did it just take 1,600 years for that critical advance to express itself, or something? I judge Greek technology (and all technology is the result of scientific failures) to be greater than Medieval technology. Maybe you mean a "Protestant forgiveness?"
Honorable mention to Children of Time and its sequel. Gripping sci-fi story about transforming, interactions between humans and computers, and other beings. Imaginative world about cultures very different from own own, and how they might evolve under different evolutionary conditions.
Also, honorable mention to Project Hail Mary.
Such a marvelous trilogy.
A couple of the issues I had: - The story is a bit contradictory in that "Psychohistory can't predict the live of 1 person" and then the story repetitively relies on a single person to pull people through Seldon Crises.
- The entire story is a stereo typical "battle of wits" and you can instantly predict who will win/lose by their emotionality (if they are emotional, they will lose, if they are calm, they will win).
It’s like Asimov’s entire timeline, a series of visionaries steering the world in the direction they want. Except there’s an additional challenge, in that they have to act without derailing Seldon’s goals. I think the books do a great job of showing that conflict.
Edit: agreed about the battle of wits aspect, but that’s also just Asimov being himself.
I read this book for the second time this year, the two hundredth anniversary of its publication. It was a bestseller in the nineteenth century and led to many spinoffs, but nobody seems to read it anymore. A scan of an 1869 reprint is at [1]. The Wikipedia article is at [2].
I don’t know if this is a good book—the characters and plotting are thin, and the obsolete slang and topical humor make it difficult to read—but there seems to be a premodern masterpiece of postmodernism lurking in its self-referentiality and its dense, rambling prose. Even the footnotes have footnotes [3].
[1] https://archive.org/details/tomjerrylifeinlo00egan/page/n9/m...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_London_(novel)
[3] https://archive.org/details/tomjerrylifeinlo00egan/page/64/m...
Speaking of unread books, this year I compiled a list of fifty nineteenth century novels that nobody seems to read anymore [1]. I’ve read a couple of them myself, and they were reasonably entertaining. Maybe others on the list are as well.
[1] https://blog.archive.org/2021/07/14/forgotten-novels-of-the-...
NB: Dylan Moran
It's chock full of ideas that any technologist would find fascinating. A post-singularity society in which those who "got there first" ascended to technological godhood, and the rest mostly fight for comparative scraps. Those scraps are phenomenally interesting though, and the many ways the book assumes and implies generations of growth in technology make for some truly out-there settings and cultures. If you liked the part of Anathem where you had no idea what was going on at first, but slowly learned the ways of the world as you read on... you'd love this book.
I’ve been stuck in sci-fi for 3 years straight and thought I was finally going to read something else before 2022.
Bah humbug!
Completely tears apart recent trendy anthro books like Sapiens for ignoring both old and very new research and tries to set a new framework for understanding humanity’s potential
It made me reflect on our current state of affairs.
Covid was and still is a test of the value systems of the so called "Western" or "first world" societies.
We have failed this test through and through.
On a local level, many people didn't care about their communities enough to mask and vaxx and in turn the communities had no way to pressure them. Many, many people have mental health problems -- and I only mean the pandemic induced ones -- and are suffering alone because we do not help each other. Parents were forced to navigate this modern life with kids suddenly at home trying to distance learn. And, again, there was no help.
On a global level, these richer countries didn't supply the poorer countries with vaccines and help to distribute them. More than 80% of the population of Africa is not vaccinated. As humanity, we didn't help each other.
Complete failure.
> As humanity, we didn't help each other.
This was one of the aspects that has stuck with me. Where an indigenous leader visiting Europe comments on affairs of the French society. He says how can you (French) completely ignore the destitute sleeping on your city streets and call yourself a civilized society?
If I introspect, it’s clear that, at least in the cities, helping other humans has completely vanished. It’s literally every human for themselves. Community support has completely vanished.
1. The Suburban Experiment in America [0]
2. The decrease of church membership throughout America [1]
I can speak to my second point a bit more in depth. Churches historically were centers of communities and social places. And as time moves on we as a society are (rightly so) becoming very suspicious of religion and churches in our lives (I grew up _very_ religious but I no longer am).
In my eyes, modern 21st century Christianity is very very different than it was even before the 1960s. It seems the cultural ideologies have shifted from service oriented to worship oriented. In my evangelical church the focus was on putting Jesus (the symbol) higher than literally everything else in your life in order to achieve "eternal salvation" in heaven. The main focus was just believing that Jesus came back to life after being crucified was the only way to get to heaven. There was less focus on service, empathy, and equality. People are leaving in droves because of this. I can go on about more changes that I've noticed, but I'll spare details.
We need to build new in-person social centers that are not built on mythologies and symbolism but instead more focused on society itself like the churches of old were.
[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/curbside-chat-1/2015/12/14/ameri...
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-s...
https://srslywrong.com/podcast/242-the-dawn-of-the-dawn-of-e...
I recommend “Against the Grain” and also “Pre Industrial Societies.” They give a really good perspective on human life and the structures we create. One of my favourite quotes is: the hallmarks of a state: appropriation, inequality and hierarchy.
Grains are the only agricultural product that can grow an early state, because it can be easily taxed, it’s fungible so you can pay with it, and people can’t run off with their field and canals to somewhere else.
It’s kind of a wonderful point that without the taxman there would be no civilisation.
https://books.j11g.com/search.php?log=3
Three books from 2021 stick out:
- If This Is a Man by Primo Levi. I would urge everyone to read this. This history should be known to everyone.
- Defying Hitler (the story of a German 1914 - 1933) by Sebastian Haffner. Masterfully written autobiography that explains the rise of nazi Germany more than any other history book I ever read.
And one more for the HN crowd:
- The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz. Often tipped, but it really is an insightful book, and a fun read.
I am also reading JFK by Logeval, which describes the same events as seen (or unseen) from the outside of Germany. Being able to watch events unfold from those two perspectives is just fascinating.
Long story short: read every day.
I notice my average is pretty steady, around 30 pages/day. So if I manage that, I’m good. But the thing is — with a good book — reading 30 pages is a breeze. And I often end up reading more. I also notice if I can’t read at least 30 pages in one sitting I probably don’t like the book very much.
Since release 5 months ago I have read a total of zero, but I am getting back into it. The real world is distracting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time (4,215 pages apparently)
Those who have a computer science background will almost definitely love the book. It connects many dots that are previously seemingly unrelated. My jaw dropped for literally every few pages of most chapters.
"A Mind at Play" is a good book on Shannon's life and "The Bit Player" is a good partner movie to watch :)
"A Mathematical Theory of Communication" and "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits" paved the way for much of modern computing.
"The Lies of Locke Lamora"
I found this book because I just finished playing Dishonored 2 and I wanted to read a book with a dystopian steampunk alternative-Victorian vibe.
The events take place in a gritty, corrupt city of waterways and canals controlled by different factions. The factions represent either the legitimate nobility or the extensive underground criminal empire. A charismatic leader of a small young group of thieves and pickpockets comes up with an epic, layered con that will break sacred agreements and make him enemies with everyone - and pulls it off.
Atm I read „against the day“ from pynchon. Also very excellent and compared to gravitys rainbow sooo easy to read. That could be a good start to the pynchon universe for beginners.
Whish you all a good time at the end of the yeat
I listened to it while swimming laps. The readers have great, rhythmic pacing.
They work fine-- only ones I've ever had, so I have nothing to compare them to. I can confirm they've survived over 200 hours of lap swim, though.
I'll never forget him, my copy of The Brothers Karamazov is one of my most prized possessions.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Scout-Mindset-People-Things-Clearly-e...
[1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-scout-...
What an odd critique: Lincoln did this great thing, but he didn't invent it, so who cares?
Beyond that being an odd critique, I've read that book twice and although Goodwin highly praises Lincoln's leadership style, I don't recall her assuring us that that was an "innovation" at all. Of course, like most book critics, this writer spent more time on snark than citations.
I read The Road, and it was so sufficiently “effective” in its descriptions and it’s setting that I’m happy never reading another McCarthy book again. Glad I did once.
I will watch the movies though!
I went out and bought The Road but for some reason or another haven't yet started it (have watched the film though).
- The Story of My Experiments with Truth, the autobiography of Mohandas K. Gandhi (English Version)
- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
- Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
- The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
- Ego is the Enemy, Stillness Is the Key, and The Obstacle Is the Way; all 3 books by Ryan Holiday
- Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher[2]
After reading "the Phoenix project" a couple of years ago a good deal of it was predictable but that doesn't prevent it from being very interesting.
(To be completely honest I listened to it instead of reading it myself, but I still think it counts.)
Another interesting audiobook is "The Minuteman" maybe only available through Audible. It is a story of part of the fight against nazism in America.
Only annoying thing about it is the author at a couple of places tries to equate that fight with todays antifa, which leaves a rather sour taste there and then but is forgotten a minute or to later because the book is otherwise really interesting and I enjoy stories of nazis getting punched and otherwise punished and people getting away with it.
I mostly bought the book because I had heard good things about TPP, but I was turned off after trying to read the sequel. Would you please elaborate on what you found valuable about it? I’d like to read it (I read a lot) if it’s actually useful, but I haven’t heard much about how or what was valuable about it. Just that people seem to enjoy it. I’d love to hear more about why, if you’re so inclined!
In the same vein, not books but documentaries, I learned a lot from three Andy Warhol documentaries on YouTube: "The Life of Andy Warhol", "Andy Warhol - The Complete Picture", and "BBC Modern Masters 1of4 - ANDY WARHOL"
From those I learned about the art business, how much Warhol loved money (he left an estate or around 400 million dollars) and how much of this applies to today's world of art related NFT speculation.
* Chronicles of My Life by Donald Keene. If you ever read much Japanese literature in translation (at least before a particular era) you'll recognize the name, and Keene's life was fascinating. Breezy, fun read.
* The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I was skeptical, and had unfavorable views of this book based on impressions I'd formed by reading reviews, but once I read it and gave it a try... she was totally right about nearly everything she wrote and it literally was "life-changing." I got rid of a ton of detritus and ultimately going through the process of purging my things gave me the boldness to accept a job offer on the other side of the country and take off. The process also drastically changed my shopping habits -- I simply buy much less than I used to, not out of a conscious desire to be "minimalist," but out of recognition that I don't necessarily really want things all that much (though thinking about how much trouble it was to throw things away doesn't hurt).
* California: A History by Kevin Starr. About all you could ask for from a one-volume history... nice little primer to my new home state.
Certainly not anywhere near as bad as the Three Body Problem, as far as HN recommended books go, but I think I’m still going to have to start avoiding books recommended here.
To answer the original question (and remain within sci-fi), then new Andy Weir book Project Hail Mary was pretty good. Not quite on the level of The Martian, but good enough to recommend to others.
It's an insightful book into geopolitics, looking at the present through analysis of the past and the geography that influences it. In much the same way, it discusses the future and what might come next. If you're already engrossed in geopolitics literature you might not learn much, but if not - and you're interested - I recommend it. It gives a level of analysis that news reports don't go anywhere near, and it's given me a much wider perspective of the world and more nuanced view of current events. Its also well written.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48890486-breath
I have previously taken courses in the Wim Hof Method and marvelled at the dramatic increase in energy that it gave me, not to mention an increased ability to be warm when I want to be and to tolerate the cold, something which being a relatively stationary software developer has negatively affected over the years.
This book touches on Wim Hof but covers the approaches and results of many other practitioners as well as traditional methods, blending together science writing and reporting of results with engaging storytelling, making it a fun, light and quick read.
As someone who likes to experiment with this kind of thing I went ahead and tried things like lightly taping my mouth shut while sleeping and was amazed to feel the difference when I didn't do it. Meanwhile I've experimented with only breathing through my nose when exercising (including exhaling) and have observed that my heart rate has stayed lower and my thinking clearer when under pressure in a jiu-jitsu class.
In the same week that I started reading the book I had a grading, and the instructors repeated again and again the reminder to breathe in through the nose, advice echoed in the book. To them it is common sense that if you start panting (breathing hard in and out using your mouth) that you won't be able to perform well in that kind of high-pressure scenario.
If you are looking for a light read over the holidays and are interested in health/wellness then I can thoroughly recommend this book.
Since you are also interested in the same subjects as me, do you have any other specific suggestions for what i am looking for?
If you go to the end of the book, just before the Notes section there is a short chapter which lays out the basics of most of the breathing techniques. I've found that to be enough to experiment a little and while brief it's enough as a starting point.
Sadly I don't have any recommendations for breathing techniques outside of those espoused by Wim Hof, which are based in part on Tummo.
Given that this book (Breath) has been published and the recent increase in popularity the topic is seeing I am hopeful that we will see some follow-on works (if they don't exist already) that will break these techniques down in more detail. As it stands it feels necessary to piece together elements from different books to get a more complete picture regarding how these techniques work and what is possible. I would certainly be interested to see a collation of results seen in athletes.
And yet, I did. Whenever I had a free moment, a household issue I didn't want to solve, etc, I grabbed after this book to simply get lost.
I'm not sure if one can consider it a literary masterpiece, but it sure was impossible to put down. In one of the back-cover blurbs, a critic said something like that: this series makes it clear that a person's life is actually by no means a story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Struggle_(Knausg%C3%A5rd_no...
In a way, it's like the Perl programming language, lol: often times impossible to read, and often times impossible to not read. Easy to get immersed in all that mess.
But I'm not entirely satisfied with that answer.
(Though, wow, man, grabbing in Perl -- this sure has to be the best ever metaphor used to describe the style of Knausgård's book.)
I'm looking forward to reading some of his fiction–I'm interested to see what it's like to read the work of someone I already feel like I know so much about. Received The Morning Star as a gift this holiday season. I'm honestly a bit afraid it won't live up to what I've already read by him.
The original reason I picked up his autobiography was simply that I saw a book review about it and it filled a spot in a larger goal I have: to read a book by an author from every country. I hadn't read Norway yet, and I also was on an autobiography kick.
It covers a big team, and jumps from chapter to chapter on how the Java virtual machine was written, to how the SD card code was written, to how notifications were implemented. Thus it does not have the compelling narrative drive of something like Masters of Doom, which is another good book which follows a much smaller group from id software. But Androids is a very informative book on how something like Android is put together.
Also, some books of this type are for the lay person and are breezy and talk about personalities and not much about technical matters. A lay person could probably read this, but it does dive into technical decisions, which I appreciated. For example, I knew Android has a process called zygote which handles the initialization of each Android application, but this book explains why such a process exists, which illuminates things for me beyond me simply knowing that it does exist.
Also interesting is how the teams from Danger, Palmsource, and WebTV came in with various ideas of how a device should be built, which all culminated in Android.
If you are interested in great prose or a narrative drive, read another book. If you are interested in how the folks from Danger (and Palmsource, and WebTV) had great success at their second swing at bat, in creating a technology that has become ubiquitous worldwide in the past decade with three billion active Android devices - it is an interesting read.
The flying car is both literal and metaphorical. If you’ve ever wondered why technology has stagnated, this is the book for you. If you doubt technology has stagnated, this book will challenge that view. If you’ve ever wondered why literal flying cars have taken so long to appear, this book is for you.
https://www.amazon.com/Where-Flying-Car-Storrs-Hall/dp/19539...
Looks like he covers why nuclear energy is so expensive today.
I’ve wondered why we have 100 nuclear power plants but can’t build any more.
It has a completely different feel than Tolkien's writing, and sort of stuffs something resembling Cold War politics into Middle Earth. It's obsurd, but somehow makes perfect sense.
I originally saw it recommended on hn, so thank you whoever you were!
Recommended!
- The Case against Education by Bryan Caplan, discussing the merits of signalling theory (the point of education is to signal your intelligence and conscientiousness) as opposed to human capital theory (education genuinely makes you a better worker with more skills). Didn't find it totally convincing but it was a fun and interesting read.
- The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality by Kathryn Harden, a wonderful book on how hereditary IQ is, and why that is a good case for redistribution, given that IQ is so predictive of wealth/income
- The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson, a biography of Jennifer Doudna, the woman who founded CRISPR and won the Nobel prize. Great read, thrilling.
- My Struggle book 1, by Karl Ove Knausgård. Haven't finished this yet, just started it a few days ago - about 300 pages in. Great, great novel, one of the best I've read in a while.
Structurally, Hyperion is a play on Canterbury Tales, but it weaves in hefty amounts of sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy, history and theology. Lots of WTF moments, and a great balance of humor and truly dark shit.
From my level of background knowledge, it was really well-written. He talks about how to think about emissions, and breaks down global emissions into its biggest categories (eg. transportation, electricity generation, etc). As well as promising methods for decreasing emissions in each of these classes. I think the style would really suit a HN audience.
Fiction: "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. I've read other Steinbeck before this one, but this stands out as a clear masterpiece. I especially enjoyed the way he blended the experiences of specific individuals with the experiences of a general population - the narration style was very enjoyable.
The short answer is that the first book was inspired by an idea he had while talking to a professor about the rise and fall of civilizations.
The others were inspired by pressure by publishers to repeat success, and so he tried to improve and continue the story. This lead him to try and carry the story with characters, which was ironically not why people liked the first book.
The Mule was alright though, even if a little forced.
But of course, part of the enjoyment should come from the book itself. I'd say that the book does get better as new threats to the Foundation appear, but the premise largely stays the same throughout the trilogy: will the Seldon Plan succeed?
(NOTE) The reading sequence for me went something like: 1. Caves of Steel 2. Naked Sun 3. I, Robot 4. Robots of Dawn 5. Foundation Trilogy
EDIT: remove redundant last paragraph
Bit of feels near the end.
Written by an AI researcher, the book explores HP as if he was a very rational and intelligent agent, rather than someone who immediately accepts all aspects of magic.
It’s not just interesting, but includes real theories of rationality that made me consider how I immediately accept many things myself.
https://www.readthesequences.com/ or the paperbacks are on Amazon.
EY is an AI researcher the same way Elon Musk is an aeronautical engineer.
The amazing video game "Kentucky Route Zero" is impossible to describe, but it touches on this genre in video game form and poverty in America with many references to this novel with characters named "Marquez" and so on. What an experience.
This is a book about the Colombian Caribbean, but also the whole country and the region. At the end it is a book about life. I have always noticed that Anglo readers get too caught up on minor details (the number of Aurelianos, who did this or that) but that is missing the point, this is about the flow of life, the absurdity of human struggles, the magic and terror of being alive, love, senseless violence, hope, all of that expressed in a brilliant prose.
I could continue but this short youtube review has pretty animations and touches some other points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2zhLYz4pYo
Highly seconded.
It took a long time to get through (very dense, academic) but was a sprawling look at a powerful indigenous culture that I knew nothing about.
Plus, it was enlightening and a bit foreboding to learn how an empire could be at the very height of its power and then, through circumstance, climate, demographics, and imperial expansion be exhausted and destroyed in essentially a decade.
My library has that one not, your suggestion.
Ah, found the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27593462
If you read any of that and think it feels really familiar, I can't suggest Delivered From Distraction enough.
- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee - A very well written narrative of medicine's fight against cancer (though the author also goes into detail into other aspects of pre-modern medicine) that really executes on explaining how modern day cancer treatment came to be and what are the probable next steps towards a cure.
Lulu Miller, a host of the Invisibilia podcast, turns what at first is a simple story about an obsessive taxonomist, David Starr Jordan, into a deeply personal and poignant exploration of the chaos that rules are lives. This part-historical non-fiction, part memoir brilliantly sets itself up for a grand reveal at the end that will stick with you long after you finish. By far my favorite of the 62 books that I read and one of the best books that I have ever read.
It's already a well regarded title, so perhaps you've read it already, but Never Split the Difference was a pretty good book on negotiation, focused on navigating the emotional barriers to a mutual agreement. I'd put off reading it because the title sounded trite: "focus on win-win situations!" but really the book is about defusing conflict, and persuading people to agree to things already in their best interest, not brainstorming outside-the-box solutions to things.
I was searching for the meaning of happiness, what makes me happy and how to maintain it.
Before reading the book, my mind was wired that programming is my passion (as I've been doing it for 20+ years now). While reading and reflecting, I discovered that DIY is my passion! I love create things and programming was the tool that allowed me to enjoy that satisfaction.
This is the only book I know that discusses that there are several styles of writing and that exhibits one particular style that the authors call "classic style".
They also discuss differences from other styles ("practical style" as taught by Joseph Williams – my other favorite book about writing, that I like even more).
The book is split into three parts: an essay part that talks about the style, "The Museum" with examples of the style from other publications, and "The Studio" with practical tips and exercises.
Dune, to prepare for the movie, I love this book but I could see some of the flaws now that I'm older. The book's recognition that politics is an art and cam be studied, mastered and manipulated brought some of recent history into sharp relief.
Great intro to particle physics even for an ordinary, non-science person. Blew my head by the very basics of reality is literally a simple formula. Like a codebase.
“Gallantly, ceaselessly, quietly, man must fight for inner liberty” to remain independent of the enslavement of the material world. “Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constant problem—how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent.”
It's a bit depressing that academia works the way it does, but in a twisted way it gives me hope that I could make a significant contribution somewhere by just tinkering or following what feels interesting. Even if there are tens of thousands of people working in an area like AI, most of them are just making incremental improvements to what already exists, so there could be an opening for independent people to do something interesting still.
The good parts are the descriptions of their research and discussion of the findings as far as it directly interacts with their research. Fortunately you don't have to read the whole book to get to the good parts. There is a 40 minute presentation/talk on YouTube that covers the good parts. [1] This talk is what originally got me to read the book.
The bad parts are where the authors take their AI algorithm quirks and jump to insane conclusions, going as far as to claim that setting goals for your own life is a bad idea. The fundamental misstep that the authors take is that they conflate goals with measurement of goals. They keep giving examples of naive ways one could measure progress towards goals - basically the functions they write for their AI program. These functions suck. Instead of just admiting that the functions they wrote suck, the authors conclude that one shouldn't have goals at all, because they couldn't come up with a good way to measure progress.
--
In any case, I've read "Mantel Pieces" which is a collection of Hillary Mantel's reviews for the London Review of Books, and it's an insane display of powerful language. Mantel has a brutal clarity coupled with restrained playfulness that just blows me away.
Take this picture of what it must feel like to be a small child:
> “For some time now you have been able to take your eyes off your own feet without the general danger of falling over; that’s the stage of walking you are up to.”
or
> “I’m sticking by my joke. I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s the only joke I’ve got.”
or on Robbespierre:
> “For most people, the era of selfless risk-taking is a phase. It irritates their elders while it lasts; though sometimes, in political movements, those elders find a way to exploit it. But then, if young persons survive their ideals, something happens which surprises them: they learn a trade, they develop ambitions, they fall in love, they get a stake in life. Or simply time passes, and middle age beckons, with its shoddy compromises. But for the Incorruptible, idealism was not a phase. He kept his vision carefully in his head through his twenties and carried it carefully to Versailles, where he arrived a few days before his 31st birthday.”
For the russian classics the translation trend for decades has been a little more terse and less ornate sentence-by-sentence. Which I think flows naturally and makes it feel more modern to contemporary english speakers. This often surprises people! But the russian classics can be a more fun, modern-feeling read than the english ones.
It's one of the advantages of translated works. They can be continually retranslated into the target language as its vernacular and cadence changes. Same-language works are stuck forever with the dialect of the time, and "paraphrases" into modern vernacular are met with much more skepticism than new translations are.
Creativity Inc: Fun read about the conception of Pixar Studios and why having a different process amd focus than other studios have led them to create so many award winning films. Ties in to some other books on adapting the process in order to generate better/more creative outcomes that have influenced me.
Immune: With everything going on this year it felt appropriate. Explains to a layperson how your immune system functions and who the main players are. I had to take quite a bit of notes and read up/look at quite a few pictures/train using flashcards in order to make this info stick. I'd highly recommend anyone considering this book to get the physical book rather than the audiobook.
How to avoid a climate disaster: Bill Gates explains the key metrics a layperson should keep in mind when climate policy is discussed. I recommend creating a cheat sheet to remember it better. While it felt informative I dont really like the fact that Bill Gates is the author rather than some climate scientist. I tried to reduce my bias by reading some more climate change related books written by subject experts after this one.
Tekserve was the nexus of the NYC personal computing community spanning the desktop-publishing and Internet revolutions; when I started an ISP a couple of blocks away my partner and many of our employees were ex-Teks, two of whom are mentioned by name in this book. Good times.
Even if you don’t agree with the author’s conclusions, it’s very well researched and a fun read.
Never split the difference by Chris Voss - it’s a classic on negotiation. I’ve learned a lot of practical tips and tricks from it.
A few notable runner ups: - The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick Mckeown (as fitness enthusiast this was a giant gap in my knowledge
- Principles by Ray Dalio (this is incredible and I need to go through it again)
- Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green (best book on investing I've read in quite a while)
Piranesi - Susanna Clark
This feels like a lightweight version of House of Leaves, which is probably a double complement. It's got gorgeous prose, and a completely ethereal, mysterious feel the whole way. Themes of memory, life and death, reality, mental illness, etc.
Notes From the Burning Age - Claire North
Solarpunk thriller set upon a backdrop of Overstory-like prose that praises and exalts natural beauty. Its a neat concept, though slow and very tense. Some content warnings.
Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno Garcia
A modern approach to gothic horror, where gaslighting is part of the horror, but the character knows that some of the gaslighting isn't gaslighting, it's mysterious things happening. Really tense also.
The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich
This year's Pulizer, historical fiction based on the Turtle Mountain Native American tribe's attempt to maintain their status as an independent nation in the 1950s, magical realism and a story of community and persistence.
Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse
Medium fantasy set in a really neat mixed Native Central/North American setting. The characters are fantastic, and this book was tense enough that I had to put it down because I was worried about two of the characters I really liked.
Middlegame - Seanan McGuire
This was really fantastic sort of situational horror. It very clearly horror, but mostly not gore-y. There's bits of implied stuff, but its mostly just like the horror of controlling the lives of a pair of magical soulmates in cruel ways, and also their journey of discovery of what they are and what they can do (which is also horrifying!). I also felt that this book had perhaps the best use of pre-chapter quotes that I've ever seen in a novel, and it invents a whole fake early 20th century childrens book as part of the worldbuilding. That book, "Over the Woodward Wall" has also been published, although I haven't read it.
I also read tons of Octavia Butler and N.K. Jemisin, and I can't recommend them enough (especially reading Butler and then Jemisin, as their writings are thematically similar, but approach similar topics from different directions). As well as tons of stuff by Anne Leckie, Becky Chambers, and Martha Wells, which are all great if you want space operas.
I was so stressed out to a point of collapsing, needing transfusions, and then being physically disabled for a month this year. Startup trouble, new baby complications, first child sleep regression, etc. all happening within weeks.
This book, with its practical, actionable suggestions, saved my sanity.
Attack Surface - Cory Doctorow
Non-Fiction:
Engineering General Intelligence Vol 2 - Ben Goertzel
Honorable Mention - Fiction
Daemon - Daniel Suarez
Freedom - Daniel Suarez
Billy Summers - Stephen King
Elsewhere - Dean Koontz
Honorable Mention - Non-Fiction:
We See It All - Jon Fasman
Integrating Rules and Connectionism for Robust Commonsense Reasoning - Ron Sun
Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks - James A. Anderson
The Soar Cognitive Architecture - John Laird
https://www.nyrb.com/products/when-we-cease-to-understand-th...
I have to admit - this is a mention of a topic I would not have expected to see on this site in a million years, but yes, this musical is fantastically entertaining, even with a complete ignorance of American history.
Nonfiction: To Pixar And Beyond. The former CFO of Pixar, Lawrence Levy, tells the story of Pixar's IPO and the making of Toy Story. Very interesting reading for anyone interesting in Steve Jobs, Pixar, or the business of movies and tech.
[0] https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=braidi...
It's SF. But written in a conversation with Enlightenment era philosophy and plenty of bits of mythology. Lots of exploration of what could be and what should be, and the interplay of politics and war and ambition and murder.
(A note though, if the style and language of the first chapter put you off, then ... You're not going to like the rest of it)
I went into the last book with two questions:
* Who is on Who's side?
* Who _is_ Mycroft Canner?
So far I never understood what conservatism is, but Scruton changed it entirely, especially it felt fulfilling after reading Burke's Reflections on Recent France Revolution.
I have started to implement the Zettelkasten system in my own life. Hope that will use that system to publish more work on my website.
I published my thoughts, learning and notes on this book -> https://rasulkireev.com/how-to-take-smart-notes/
Rhythm of War, book 4 in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. Love most stuff by this author.
And in response to Amazon making a Wheel of Time tv show, rereading that. Pleasant experience, very nice to get immersed in this huge universe.
It's like a master class in historical political relations all in a single (large) book.
(You can tell The Blade Itself is a first novel — but the following novels are A+.)
I had given up on fiction for a few years, but tried it out after coming across a thread on Reddit. The audiobooks in the series are incredibly good — in fact, I've recently just been reading anything that the narrator (Steven Pacey) has done in the past.
The Blacktongue Thief is also good.
Although the writing techniques the author presents sound obvious in hindsight, having them all-in one place as an comprehensive framework you can follow helped me a lot for the writing and research in my work
Fiction: The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries
A curated and annotated collection of locked-room mystery stories. All the stories are accompagnied by a small introduction into the author and the main character written by the curator. His enthousiasm shows in these small introductions, making the stories themselves even better.
Essentially a book on how the best in the world structured their learning to master their skill, and how you can incorporate to what you want to master.
I know this probably paints a bad picture of my reading habits because of the present public perception of those (previously publicly praiseworthy) authors, so I feel the urge to get in front of that and (1) insist I have eclectic tastes and this year had a small sample size, (2) insist those books (well, many parts of those books) really ARE excellent, and (3) provide one more suggestion even though this is already a wordy comment: why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby. Someone shared a link to the web version on HN earlier this year, maybe it was even in a deep, 1-upvoted comment, I don't recall - but that was what occupied the whole next part of my day, and I quite liked it (having already known Ruby from some ancient rusty Rails experience).
Yes, its fiction and its even science fiction to some extent but what a ride! It's probably not for everyone but it has a cult following.
2. "Seed of knowledge, stone of plenty". Mostly about the electromagnetic properties of ancient monuments and how electromagnetic fields can impact seed fertility. I can not believe how this is such an invisible book.
3. "Humankind. A hopeful history". I thoroughly enjoyed this fact based retelling of human history.
It's also free in ebook form. https://www.navalmanack.com
I am mostly done with Antifragile, and it's pulling me between political and philosophical sides. Don't know which side I'll land on, or how long I'll stay there.
As a side note, I've found "Deep Learning: A Visual Approach" to be very instructive.
I have only read a few chapters but I highly recommend ‘The Beginning of Infinity’ by David Deutsch, it’s just so interesting!
Secret History by Donna Tart also recommended.
It goes a bit slow and with too much details about hypotheses that are eventually rejected but really interesting insights into language. Relevant to computer languages too probably.
I'm prone to bursting into laughter with that book, and my kids quickly found it very funny as well. They could almost immediately divine the next contradiction in the narrative.
The first one is Dune : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44767458-dune. It needs no introduction to HN, I think. Best Sci-fi book I have read so far.
The second one is American Kingpin : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31920777-american-kingpi... . It is about Silk Road (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)), the online darkweb market place. It's very well written.
Found it in my late parents’ library while clearing it out.
Haven’t quite finished it yet but my therapist is eager for me to follow through and discuss it.
Essentially it’s about realizing (I guess it’s less controversial today than it was when the book was published, although I did meet people that led me to believe they didn’t quite agree) that men - and women, there’s a sequel book dedicated fo women too - don’t plateau and stay the same once they exit post-adolescence.
There are legitimate passages later in life, that don’t necessarily mean crises or failures to resign to one’s fate, that need to be lived through rather than dismissed.
1. Berger, Luckmannn1966 ISBN 978-0-385-05898-8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-38...
The ideas Isaac Asimov put forward in I, Robot (written in the 1940/50s!) juxtaposed with a factual description of the current use of AI and the unusual side effects was really cool.
0: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44286534-you-look-like-a...
Amazing book about what it means to be crazy. How to live an authentic life. Written in a funny and easy to read way. And it has the most important quality of any book IL really like. It's short and to the point haha
IF that were a memoir, he would have put juicy things in there from his own life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7K-kaelQEs
It has been the only celebrity death to get me as well. I was on the tail end of one of my regular Norm video binges when it happened, and like most, I had no idea he was even sick. He was such a complex man, it's hard to look away.
Unsure if I'm being 'whooshed', but coincidentally that's one of his most famous jokes as well - https://youtu.be/SVswkvCK6_0
Complex he was. Always full of deep thoughts and just kinda shooting from the hip, in that he seemed able to listen to reason and explore new ideas when challenged.
Back on the death topic, he had a lot of really deep thoughts on that as well, if you hadn't seen - https://youtu.be/WWpRCN46mi8
I think his death being a surprise is exactly what he wanted. RIP Norm.
A few of my favorites this year:
- Immune: A book about how our Immune system works..amazing to learn about it
- Calling Bullshit: A book about how to lie with data. (has quite some overlap with thinking fast, thinking slow)
- Quiet: Figured out due to this book that introvert/extrovert is no black/white scale and that I indeed have introvert tendencies in me
---
Shameless self plug: Most of the books I read are covered in my (german) book podcast: https://www.swpodcast.de/
Okay, I know it's young adult, but it really effected me. I don't know that I've ever read a more honest discussion of death. I don't read much fiction though. Maybe I should read more.
- the blacktongue thief ; if you love rothfuss, then you’ll love this.
- between two fires ; same author. Really great book about the Black Death but also demons.
- hench ; a normie uses Zersetzung against the alter egos of superheroes. It’s great
- five decembers ; great read, and a clever take on the traditional noir genre
- against the grain
- pre industrial societies
- the other face of battle
Its an older book i read kind of randomly but really liked. It is a novel about a telepath who is slowly losing his ability, delving deeply into the character.
Some excerpts:
- "Making photographs has to be, then, a personal matter; when it is not, the results are not persuasive. Only the artist's presence in the work can convince us that its affirmation resulted from and has been tested by human experience."
- The best criticism comes from "the deepest commitment to sharing the picture with others. Anything less than that means defeat, calling attention not to the picture but to the critic."
- "When we are young, we want art that is filled with the bitter facts, because we believe that evil can be overcome if we face it; when we grow older and begin to doubt this optimistic belief, we want art that does not simply reinforce the pain of our disillusionment. In pictures like those by Hine the requirements of young and old are both met; the photographs urge reform, but seem to suggest that the need for it is not the most important thing to be said of life."
- "Contrary to popular expectations, many of the best nature pictures – often the truest and finally most reassuring – do contain people and their works."
fiction: Slaughterhouse-Five. I love repetition, and Vonnegut uses to great effect. I read most of it in an evening.
download free pdf here
There is also the English version
https://www.watnyanaves.net/th/book_detail/211
The divided into 4 well structured sections that co-related to people life
Section One: People and Society Section Two: People and Life Section Three: People and People Section Four: People and the Way
The origins of reasonable doubt: theological roots of the criminal trial by Whitman
My complete list of what I read this year is here: http://shrirang.karandikar.org/reading-in-2021/
The best book is the one you haven't read yet (yes, there's still a few days left in 2021). Meaning: read more. Reading more is most likely going to have a very positive impact on your life. Play less videogames, read one more book. Watch less TV series on Netflix, read one more book. Etc.
By the way, I'm writing this as advice for you, but it's really advice for me (I don't play videogames, but I watch some Netflix).
The best book I read this year was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I think I got the recommendation from last year's HN list and picked it up completely blind and enjoyed it immensely. Zafon's prose is a pleasure to read and while the story starts out simple it just keeps building and building in a really satisfying way.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549063/all-of-the-m...
It’s an incredibly fascinating book that runs through all the history, science and politics coming out of the most recent ice age. Highly recommend!
https://www.veryshortintroductions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/...
Thanks for recommending "438 days" - I'm adding it to my list. And yes, I really enjoyed "Unbroken".
The latter is one of the few books I read thrice over the years. Combines for me beauty, survival, appreciation for life and our humanness, philosophy and knowledge about our world.
Its main thesis is that the main driver of megapolitical change are shifts in the risk/reward payoffs of violence. Was written in '97 but still talks about cryptocurrency and things like that. Interesting book.
Gives a good base to understand how we are tricked into consuming much more food that we need
Non-fiction: "This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends" by Nicole Perlroth If you want to be shaken to your core by the past, present, and future of cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare, this is the book that will drop your jaw more than once.
On the fiction side, I'm enjoying the "Merlin: The Lost Years" series by T.A. Barron.
The big question in the book he's trying to answer is why do some people give up while others Excell in life.
It is a long history of all the effects of monetary policy. And how Bitcoin could change the world in this regard.
Being You - A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth (2021). A clear and readable account of approaches to dissolving the hard problem of consciousness.
Open Society and its Enemies by Karl Popper (1945). Plato, totalitarianism, and why democracy is good.
These are available as audiobooks.
I found this book via Hacker News, and I'm glad I did. So many things to do in 2022 :).
I've been through a lot in the past 40 years. It makes you see life through a different perspective. If you like reading about the deeper meaning of life, this may be something for you. This book is worth its weight in gold.
I went in expecting a somewhat fluffy business book, but it is nothing of the sort. Every page is full of interesting anecdotes, analogies, and insights around not just corporate life, but life in general.
It was way more thorough and academic than I expected, very highly recommend it.
Having grown up in an authoritarian, Asian, tiger-parenting style, this book opened my eyes on a more gentler, warmer way to handle kids. I hope I can practice the methods in the book.
Thanks for recommending No Drama Discipline, that sounds like a good read!
Anecdotal, but my younger brother turned out different from the tiger parenting. He was also more "Americanized" than me. "Defying and undermining of authority" sounds like him.
- Never Out of Season by Robb Dunn
- The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
- Alchemy by Rory Sutherland
- Test-Driven Development in Swift by Gio Lodi
It's a great business book in the form of an ok novel, and everyone who cares about management or has consistent stress at work should read it.
A close runner up might be Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis (1989).
Loved this book the first time I read it. Couldn’t finish it a second time. I think some of the darker parts were too much during an already difficult year.
Giving it as a gift to my nephew though.
Signed: BSD
https://www.amazon.com/Stronghold-Mans-Quest-Worlds-Salmon/d...
non-fiction: an elegant puzzle: systems of engineering management -- i'm debating whether to change into management and this one really helped me understand a bit more what goes into engineering management.
Is a bit old, but was super interesting.
It's decent albeit old-fashioned. I think it would be better to use this accompanied by LLPSI.
I read him for the first time immediately before the pandemic with A Balcony In the Forest, which is also great.
A book from 1973 but still actual and incredibly true.
I can best describe it as a cross between ‘Arrival’, ‘The Three-Body Problem’, and ‘The Goal’
This year i didn't read as much as i wanted but between the two books i really liked* i choose to post the above.
* The other one is Digital minimalism by Cal newport.
A good book regardless of what you think of Sowell’s politics.
An amazing introduction to the theory of constraints and the value in doing things in small, incremental improvements
"A universe from nothing" was also amazing!
#1 Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America (1943) by John Roy Carlson
Long out of print but relatively easy to find, this book is an incredible history of a populist split off of something called "the old right" (pre-JBS/Hayek/Russell Kirk) and hauntingly describes the modern populist right in a way that you check the copyright date and wonder if he's a time traveler.
I stopped about every page and went over to Wikipedia, Proquest, archive.org or LOC to find out more about the fascinating things the author was talking about. It took me months to work through and I probably read 10 or so books along with it (mostly books by the 1930s equivalent of qanon).
Seeing the through lines to the modern era is really stunning.
If someone is interested in the history of non-highbrow populist right, it's highly recommended.
#2 Weinberg's "The psychology of computer programming" (1971) Also mostly out of print but easy to find. This guy is also a time traveler in his insights
I've long been a fan of David Mitchell, and his writing in this book and also Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse is utterly hysterical.
On a lighter note: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman.
Also really enjoyed Klara and the Sun.
La Peau de Chagrin (The Wild Ass's Skin) - Balzac. Beautifully written novel about desire and health, with verbose descriptions that I personally loved. Some nice quotes here [0]
Ubik by Philip K. Dick - Pretty mindbending and interesting twist on the whole "(distorted) perception of reality (what even is reality?)" theme. (9/10) [scifi]
Bad blood by John Carreyrou.
I haven't read that Keefe book but I really enjoyed The Snakehead.
Turned me into an optimist.
A soil scientist's take on climate change which ties together some pretty compelling points.
But Helena Rosenblatt's "The Lost History of Liberalism" makes a really strong argument that this anglo-centric definition of liberalism is counter-historical, and liberalism as a named, coherent political ideology developed in France after the French Revolution.
Personally, I think she takes the argument a bit too far. She credits Constant and de Staël for formalizing liberalism in the aftermath of the Revolution, essentially trying to save the good parts from the wreckage. But, like, Thomas Jefferson helped write the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which laid out the key principles Constant was trying to salvage, and he was most certainly influenced by Locke.
Still, I think this book is well worth reading as a corrective to the Anglo-centric, individual rights-based history of liberalism I've been exposed to in the past. There's a lot more to the story.
This is perhaps just getting hung up on one part of what seems to be a more substantive corrective than that, though.
Great book on a different method of managing goals and time, both in and out of a company setting.
Number theory step by step.
Anyone tried The Real Anthony Fauci? Looks it's a bestseller of this year everywhere.
Beyond the Aquila Rift, short stories, also by him.
The world building is incredible.
The Expanse Series.
Impro! By Keith Johnstone
This book changed my thinking on so many different topics - the US healthcare economy, the rise of Trumpism, and the erosion of the industrial Mid-West. This book really opened by eyes to those communities that have never recovered from the Great Recession and explains so much of what we have seen politically since 2016, including the current left-right Covid split. Highly recommend for anyone who wants to get even more angry at the current state of our healthcare system.
Nonfiction: Don't think of an elephant
By far the best sci-fi book I have read in a long time
History of probability theory
scifi
It was written a long time ago, and I read an abridged version as a kid. I got a copy to give away as a present, but got the unabridged version, which is not suitable for children. I decided to read it myself, and I am halfway through it.
It is going to be the best book I've read this year, because it is pure escapism in many ways, and this year has been strangely sucky despite the arrival of vaccines and a supposed return to normalcy.
Honorable mentions: - Night in the Solomons, Louis Lamour
- Bad Blood, John Carreyrou
Blindsight - Peter Watts
[0] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/colossus-97801995781...
Eye opening.
The worlds foremost designer in Formula One, Adrian Newey OBE is arguably one of Britains greatest engineers and this is his fascinating, powerful memoir. How to Build a Car explores the story of Adrians unrivalled 35-year career in Formula One through the prism of the cars he has designed, the drivers he has worked alongside and the races in which hes been involved. A true engineering genius, even in adolescence Adrians thoughts naturally emerged in shape and form - he began sketching his own car designs at the age of 12 and took a welding course in his school summer holidays. From his early career in IndyCar racing and on to his unparalleled success in Formula One, we learn in comprehensive, engaging and highly entertaining detail how a car actually works. Adrian has designed for the likes of Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, always with a shark-like purity of purpose: to make the car go faster. And while his career has been marked by unbelievable triumphs, there have also been deep tragedies; most notably Ayrton Sennas death during his time at Williams in 1994. Beautifully illustrated with never-before-seen drawings, How to Build a Car encapsulates, through Adrians remarkable life story, precisely what makes Formula One so thrilling - its potential for the total synchronicity of man and machine, the perfect combination of style, efficiency and speed.
Nonfiction: Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (and the Next) - self-explanatory title (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54654726-mutual-aid)
Crying in H-Mart: memoir by Michelle Zauner (leader of the band Japanese Breakfast) about her mother and how food wove through their relationship (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54814676-crying-in-h-mar...)
Both are irreverent, fun sci fi adventures.
a hunter-gatherer’s guide to the 21st century: How the hyper-novel environment that we build for ourselves is not serving our physical and mental health. Very interesting to see how the downside to our technological progress. With the technology always accelerating, the side effects too are greater and greater.
On another hand by creating and valorizing "gig economy" it has become an excellent tool in furthering the rollback of everything organized labor have achieved in a hundred year plus.
Your point...?
I find it very fitting that is apparently has led him to the kind of one-sided success you are describing. And, if I remember correctly, his ousting from Uber started with him preaching the libertarian gospel to one of his company’s underpaid drivers.
It seems to me that is precisely what the other commentator was trying to say with “growing out of it“. Ayn Rands books are really good and revolutionary and one should read them, perhaps even multiple times. But one probably shouldn’t take them as the final answer to the questions of life.
I live in a very socialist place (Québec) it’s everywhere and while it’s good for some things I think we are closer to a collapse than most people think.
we have close to 50% tax rate on income + 14% tax on consumption (that was supposed to be temporary 30years ago ) + municipal tax (those make more sense) + lots of other fees for employment
It’s very hard to start something productive without being tied with red tape. In a lot of cases those rules don’t make sense anymore but are just there forever.
People generally have a disdain for private enterprise, like it something dirty to make money, but that is what still feed and employ everyone.
If there is not a force to push in the other direction, it’s always more taxation, more laws, bigger government, less efficiency.
If we don’t do anything to push back at some point it become too top heavy and it collapse.
So this book provide some refreshing perspective and a way of thinking that is lost on most people today. That doesn’t mean that it contain all the solutions.