Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?
Why were they some of the best to you?
Another book that is relatively new that I loved was Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen. I worked in productionizing ML systems for 3 years and this book equips you with exactly what you need to do so. It does a great job of explaining the whole ML modeling pipeline and some of the commonly overlooked nuances that can cause your models to fail spectacularly in production. I will be referencing this book for years to come.
Overall I felt better equipped to make intelligent decisions about systems design after reading it.
It's one of the most readable books by Smil and has gems like this :
“Moreover, within a lifetime of people born just after the Second World War the rate had more than tripled, from about 10 to 34 GJ/capita between 1950 and 2020. Translating the last rate into more readily imaginable equivalents, it is as if an average Earthling has every year at their personal disposal about 800 kilograms (0.8 tons, or nearly six barrels) of crude oil, or about 1.5 tons of good bituminous coal. And when put in terms of physical labor, it is as if 60 adults would be working non-stop, day and night, for each average person; and for the inhabitants of affluent countries this equivalent of steadily laboring adults would be, depending on the specific country, mostly between 200 and 240. On average, humans now have unprecedented amounts of energy at their disposal.”
My review is at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4708765021
Another excellent book is Arbitrary Lines by Nolan Gray - which is a great book about zoning and why we should all be YIMBYs.
My review is at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4800787011
How Asia Works by Joe Studwell is a fascinating look at why Japan, South Korea and China have done so well.
My review is at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4806521204
Another book I really enjoyed was Firepower : How Weapons Shaped Warfare by Paul Lockhart
review at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4417950705
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
IFS for short.
Written for normal people, not psychologists/psychiatrists. It has a very valuable core philosophy/teaching about who we are underneath all the masks of our personality(s). It closely resembles something I experienced during an Ayahuasca retreat in 2018, about the soul / inner child/god entity.
For something a little more tangible that digs in closer to the mechanism/science, see Dr Tori Olds on youtube, she has 5 videos on the topic that is incredibly powerful in understanding your own behaviours. Will take less than 2 hours of your life but can change it permanently for the better!
An interesting thought passed onto my by my teacher - all body tensions are tensions of the mind. Hatha Ying’s reaches to the mind through the body. With practice you learn to release faster. With regular practice your baseline changes.
The habit of letting go, continuously, in the body, brings up the possibility to release aspects that are seen as mind based.
Also, the mind insists that body and mind are separate but in practice they are not.
- Ecclesiastes by Qoheleth: In my opinion, superior to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. "Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white; let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going." (Eccles 9:11)
- Amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman: We thought we had to worry about 1984 and big brother. We were wrong. We are living in Huxley's Brave New World where digital media has made us dumber, distracted and cut our connections with one other. Our smartphones substitute rosaries and entertainment becomes the dogma.
- Structure and Intepretation of Computer Programs by Hal Abelson and Gerlad J. Sussman: Need I say more? This books makes me fall in love all over again with programming every time I pick it up.
- Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle: What does it mean to live well? How can we be happy? Aristotle makes the striking claim that everyone knows how to be happy, but we have to create the habits that are in accord with reason and right judgement in order to get there. Also, happiness is not a state but rather the result of our active will and right ordering of desire. Required reading for any political leader.
- Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser: Javascript frameworks come and go, language standards change, Computer platforms rise and fall, but math and the underling concepts of computation stay the same. Knowing what computation is, what its properties are, etc. will not only make you a better programmer but a better thinker. Church-Turing Thesis essential reading for anyone serious about algorithm design and analysis.
Even post-Christianity, I still revisit it. Is everything actually meaningless?Even if so, it's still worth living life today.
Ironically -- likely on purpose -- that's the point. The series centres on an unreliable narrator, which is a part of the charm.
You forget moments because the narrator wasn't clear.
The narrator wasn't clear because the he didn't understand what he was seeing.
You have to re-read the series, perhaps several times, to figure out what's truly going on.
He's not just writing, he's constructing beautifully crafted puzzle-boxes that take a lot of time and thought to unpack.
Couldn't believe I spent so much time reading SF without having heard of this.
The societal descriptions were truly amazing though. Coming out of the despair and decline with some false hope that humanity’s physics was good enough to face off and then absolutely getting their ass handed to them in a conflict with what was essentially something less than a messenger probe. I’m absolutely convinced this is what we will do as a race in such a situation.
Long Sun is my current favorite of his, but you should be warned that it’s a very different kind of writing and pacing. The entire first book takes place over the course of only two or three days, and you’re given even less context about the world than in New Sun. The reward for puzzling it out is even bigger IMO, but I’m in the minority here. (And I’ve by no means caught everything.)
Ignition breaks down the fallacy that huge innovations come from large professional teams. It demonstrates that getting the right mix of risk tolerance in your team is a large part of innovation. Too little risk tolerance and you never create anything amazing; too much and you can blow it all up (either literally or go bankrupt).
https://www.bookslegit.com/books/ignition-by-john-clark/revi...
Early in the book, covering his early career when he was working as a journalist, one of his bosses gave him a lesson in investigative reporting in a nutshell: Just remember, turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page. The book contains various subsequent examples of him doing exactly that in various research endeavours, and also going to extreme lengths to put himself in a better mindset for writing whatever he is working on at the time, like moving to the area a subject grew up in to live there for a year to better research his early life.
There are examples of him sifting through many boxes of documents in an archive that would seem to be inconsequential, but then happening on a receipt or memo that is just an allusion to something that gives him the lead he needs to uncover some real information.
The Kalevala [2]. I am familiar with the Eddas, the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, but the Finnish national epos was beautiful and refreshingly different. While I'm sure the English translation pales next to the original, it was nevertheless quite lyrical.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59069071-ducks
[2] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/elias-lonnrot/the-kalevala...
Those two books illustrate the financialization of the US and global economy over time, and although dense, are well worth the effort. She has a new book out as of Oct, "Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever."
Peter Anderas, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America
A very fun historical read, covering everything from textile machinery smuggling from Britain to the American colonies, to rum and whiskey smuggling into Indian Country in the 19th century, to opium smuggling to China, to Prohibition and the modern Drug War, cotton smuggling by the South to Europe to finance the South's Civil War army, and the smuggling of people from slaves to immigrants. Very eye-opening, a lot of America's 'wealthy families' got their first pool of capital in this manner.
Also:
Junji Ito, Uzumaki and No Longer Human
William Gibson, The Peripheral and Agency
× The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow. An amazing rethinking of archeology, a denunciation of social orthogenesis and an invitation to dream of a better world
Other mentions are long fantasy series, including a complete re-read of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett and Tchaikovsky's Shadow of the Apt (not his best, but frighteningly relevant in 2022. A story about the Eastern "wasp empire" invading the west and all its strategies of propaganda, division and subjugation)
It was mentioned here several times, so I bowed to peer pressure and pirated it like a child of the 1990s Internet that I am.
It's definitely imaginative. I do love a good unique universe that is distinct from everything else. It's not a space opera in the traditional sense. It explores notions that likely no other author has, such as the Chinese Room thought experiment.
The spaceship captain is a vampire, and that's just a detail, but a part of the plot, but not at all how you would assume, which is what makes this book great.
I love Blindsight as well, and I think I like the other book in the series, Echopraxia (not available for free download though) even more. Both books contain lengthy bibliographies citing various scientific papers the author has drawn ideas from, and on my first readings of both books I ended up spending as much time chasing down interesting references and reading them as I did reading the original books.
I'd wager that anyone with an average knowledge of history and a basic understanding of how social systems work, independently discovers "the trick" rather quickly and thankfully with much less cringy imaginery.
The ideas are very interesting, strong second recommendation for Technological Society.
If you want to know about how the world truly works, pick up these two books, but be prepared to be shocked at what you learn about how deep the rabbit hole goes.
It is the third instalment in his epic fantasy decalogy, The Malazan Book of the Fallen.
To say that I've shed a couple of tears during the finale of the novel is an understatement.
The thing with the whole series for me is that the books don't feel consistently good throughout.
However, the endings are often heart breaking and the more I read, the more I am drawn into the history of the world and destinies of the characters.
Not to mention that there are at least 5 deeply moving quotes in each of the novels. Ones that make you stop reading, drop the book and run to your loved one to share the quote with them.
Currently finishing book 4, with book 5 already waiting for me on my bookshelf.
Can't wait for book 6 though, people say it's the best.
I especially recommend reading this combination. Both books fill up with optimism about humanity. First one by providing framework for infinite progress of humankind. (written by acknowledged quantum physics professor). Second one by by outlining how we can overcome difficulties on the way (written by talented Chinese science fiction writer).
<Spoilers follow>
Great read, but I can’t see how anyone would be optimistic about humankind after reading them: a group of humans who think we should be eradicated and invited aliens to do it, or at the least enslave us; collaborators when that eventually happens; and then as you mentioned, MAD, and then a series of bad, emotional decisions, all leading to near extinction.
I just can’t find any optimism in there. And it feels very realistic. I read the entire series during the pandemic, lockdowns, and the poor management of all of it, and the books resonated way too well.
To answer your question, I think it's worth reading them. I enjoyed them both. There are some smart ideas in there, the Dark Forrest Theory being probably the most famous, and one in particular that is overlooked: an interesting (fictional) explanation for dark matter. There are some good characters too. Also, they're better written (or maybe better translated?).
The story progresses faster into the future, with some characters remaining present throughout the books (cryonics FTW), and there are some ups and downs, so it's not all dark and gloomy and pessimistic. But overall, I maintain that the story is one of pessimism.
I read it to try to understand why Russia sees it self as a super power. It is an amazing book, it does not bring enlightenment but made me see the war propaganda in another light. There was a recent thread with Russsian literature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33032708 where the short stories by Gogol were recommended, I agree.
* Elder Race - Tchaikovsky's Hugo-nominated novella does this really neat thing where it tells the same story from two different perspectives, which happen to perfectly meld fantasy with hard scifi in a super clever conceit.
* Children of Time - A hard scifi-meets-entomology-study take on how shifting perspectives work and the no-stone-left-unturned world building he does just really works. Its sequel Children of Ruin was great too, and the final in the trilogy comes out next month.
I am also reading Fire and Blood, which is on the opposite spectrum, much terser but somehow still enjoyable as its blunt style makes imagining the scenarios that play out in the story much easier than the flowery prose of Terra Ignota.
* Washington: A life by Ron Chernow
* The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won by Victor Davis Hanson
The WW2 book is amazing. Compares the countries fighting in around 20 different areas (technology, leadership, geography, aircraft) and says who is better and why.
Also very good:
* FDR by Jean Edward Smith
* Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
* The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King
* The years of Lyndon Johnson 2 – Means of Ascent by Robert Caro
* Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan
* Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe
* How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom by Matt Ridley
* Yeager: An Autobiography by Chuck Yeager
* The years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert Caro
* The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
* Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
* An Economist walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk by Allison Schrager
* The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood by Julie Salamon
* Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam WaltonA beautifully written, immensely moving, very funny novel with a really nuanced but profoundly important message.
It’s essentially a call for empathy.
I thought of myself, a white male, as progressive and very aware already of the issues of gender and color in our societies’ power structures. This book made me very humble. It made me look at the place women, and women of colour in particular, have in today’s society in a completely different way.
Just give it a go guys, just the reading experience is worth it.
A book about a kayak journey around the Atlantic coast of the UK and Ireland that the author undertook in 2016. Published in 2018. The author (who is a historian) develops essays about the history of the coastal communities with a lot of references to earlier work and current writers. There is a Web site with additional material. [1] The book starts off with the mechanics of kayaking through coastal waters and slowly edges into quite deep historical reflections.
I'm working my way around the Atlantic edge of the UK slowly as currently disrupted travel allows.
1. The entire Sprawl Trilogy by Gibson, and the entire Bridge Trilogy, also by Gibson. The former I'd read before (multiple times) while the latter I had not read all the way through until now. Neuromancer I've read probably 7 or 8 times total in my life by now. I'm not as crazy about Gibson's later stuff, but the Sprawl and Bridge books are great.
2. The rest of the HHGTTG "trilogy" besides the first book. I'd read the first book a couple of years ago but never got around to reading the rest until this year. Note that when I say "the rest" I'm excluding that one book that was written by another author after Douglas Adams' passing. I may still read it one day, but I'm not in any hurry to do so.
In terms of non-fiction:
Real-World Reasoning: Toward Scalable, Uncertain Spatiotemporal, Contextual and Causal Inference by Ben Goertzel, Nil Geisweiller, and Lucio Coelho is the stand-out of the lot. How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker and How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? by John R Anderson are also worthy of a mention.
If this is _A Salmon of Doubt_, I can strongly recommend that book. It's a collection of the things they found on his computer (with permission to publish it). It's a great and varied set of DNA's writing. I really enjoyed reading it.
Freeze Frame Revolution by Peter Watts combines epic mind bending ideas with some hard sci-fi details.
Piranesi by Susanna Clark was very Iain (M) Banks style epic fantasy.
One of my favorite examples of a seemingly tiny, yet delightful experience was a tool delivered with each Nest thermostat. It was a beautifully crafted screwdriver with multiple magnetic heads (https://i.imgur.com/zgZRnS1.png). Why? To make it easier to install the thermostat without having to drag out the process to go look for a tool. But it doesn't just stop there. Even years down the line if someone were to open their tool drawer, they could have a delightful run-in with their Nest tool once again, which can help them with something else! Small details, but apparently it was an iconic memento for the company.
They are a pair of sci-fi novellas that explore the idea of finding purpose (and much more) through a series of adventures and conversations between a monk and a robot.
They are incredibly good thinky-feely books. I have ordered a copy of Psalm for at least a half dozen people in my life in the last month.
The concept of distortions is bang on.
Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory. SF yarn in which a startup created a drug that makes you know that God is real and loves you. The protagonist is one of its creators who had too much of it, and is now followed around by an archangel in a lab coat that only she can see. The drug was never released because of side-effects like this, but now it’s been spotted in the wild and she wants it eradicated. This one is tons of fun.
Both are classics and fairly well known.
The former is a dive into niihilism and how destructive some of the ideas might be. It has some really impactful imagery.
The latter is a portal to a living world dipped in magical realism that one can get lost in. It is beautifully written and has a neat cyclical nature to it.
His first book, “Sapiens” clarified a few cultural concepts which made the world a little easier to understand. This book is a firehose of more of that. Harari explains complex political, sociological, cultural problems through a practical lens. The book provides little advice, but a lot of tools for understanding. It’s left-leaning, but carnal and if you are sensitive about your views, do not read it. On the other hand, if you are curious, looking for perspectives and tools for understanding the world around us, and are not afraid to have your views challenges or upturned, give it a go.
That's right folks, I read getting things done by David Allen, and as per my usual modus operandi, I am at the far end of the adoption cycle near the laggards.
But I read the book five or maybe six times now, twice as a paperback, the rest via audiobook.
Why? Because I wanted to be sure that I survived the initial onboarding of making the good habits in the book and implementing the system last for the two years needed to make it stick.
Project Hail Mary, The Martian, and Artemis - science fiction books by Andy Weir. All very different and very technical. I like Project Hail Mary the most. One of the best sci-fi books I’ve ever read.
Turn the Ship Around, by David Marquet. It’s a story about turning followers into leaders from the perspective of a military submarine captain. I’ve read dozens of management and leadership book over the years, but this one really resonated with me.
* The MurderBot Series (Wells) - So good I read them all twice through
* The Interdependency Series (Scalzi) - Creative and fun, but I didn't like the wrap-up and ending.
* Project Hail Mary - Surprising fun! jazz hands
* Old Man's War series (Scalzi) - First three were great, last three were so-so
* Anne of Green Gables - My daughters loved this one. I just now got around to reading it and found it deeply touching AND amusing. I laughed aloud a lot!
* Lord of the Rings - I re-read it once a year.
Even in fits and spurts it adds up quickly!
I can finish a book this way in about 3-4 days. But my reading quota has lowered this year as I was reading wuxia (chinese) books where each is about 27k to 30k Kindle pages.
Fiction:
- Revolutionary road by Richard Yates
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson
- Silence by Shusaku Endo
Non fiction:
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Man’s search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl
I had also read Ring this year and I was surprised that I had enjoyed it as much as I did. I've never been huge into romance novels. It has definitely left me more open minded.
Pastoral was my favorite for its sheer, stunning beauty and the tragic, bucolic little town and the people that lived in it. I was taken most of all by how effortlessly Alexis can dive deep from the scents and sounds of a scene into the emotional reasoning and memories of a character. The story has a pleasing cadence and tempo. The mystery of the relationships of the townsfolk and the challenges to the main characters' faith feel so real and believable. It's a wonderful escape.
I have been chronically depressed since I was 6 years old. I have had suicidal tendencies as long as I can recall being sentient. I would estimate this book singlehandedly cured 90% of my mental “disorders”. If you have ever suffered from depression or any “mental disorder” you will thank me after reading it, trust me.
Thought it was timely, and wanted to know more about the soviet perspective, from a different angle. Easy to go through as it's a series of short oral accounts written down. Sometimes a person shares a single memory, sometimes a few. Hard to get through at points due to the subject, obviously.
G.S. Denning's 'Warlock Holmes' series always makes me laugh out loud with Holmes cast as a rather unstable magician being bailed out by the ever-logical Watson.
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi foresees dystopian cities and cutthroat water rights along the Colorado river.
* "Legends & Lattes" by Travis Baldree
* "Dreadgod" by Will Wight
* "Tongue Eater" by John Bierce
* "The Umbral Storm" by Alec Hutson
* "Soul Relic" by Samuel Hinton
* "The Weirkey Chronicles" by Sarah Lin
* "The Eldest Throne" by Bernie Anés Paz
* "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers (reread)
This one made me think, is there any sci-fi by female authors, which involves aliens, but doesn't depict or mention sex with them?
There's quite a lot of interesting African sci-fi around at the moment, usually feels quite different from the usual western fare.
Can highly recommend these to any man who is wanting to better understand issues of sexual assault against women, in terms of how normalised it is, the challenges women face in being believed by other men and the long term health effects that manifest themselves after such attacks and after hiding the truth.
Wanted to mention it here because I become more aware each passing week of the blindspots in the HN community regarding the struggles and perspectives of women.
If you want to get a bit out of the male dominated tech bubble and learn about some drastically different experiences from your own these are highly recommend.
Edit to differentiate the two books: The first is basically a memoir of the author in terms of her own experiences with assault and chronic illness, where the latter is a sort of collaged memoir from multiple people.
The latter is definitely the more powerful book and the breath of experience juxtaposed with the commonality of those experiences is very effective. If you're only going to read one I go for My Body Keeps Your Secrets. However there is enough that builds upon the first book, I Chose Elena, that I think it's definitely worth checking them out. The vulnerability shown by the author when she reflects on ICE in MBKYS is breath taking
> because I become more aware each passing week of the blindspots in the HN community regarding the struggles and perspectives of women
That's presumptuous and plain insulting. I've no evidence many guys here on HN are keeping women down in any way - that needs verifying (though it may be true). I've personally seen too few women in tech but that's because they don't enter it in comparable numbers. I don't know why.
> The first is basically a memoir of the author in terms of her own experiences with assault and chronic illness
aaand welcome to my childhood (though at least it was non-sexual assault, just the old-fashioned variety). And here's a thing: you don't want to know how it really feels and you won't be able to because you need that experience, and it's a thing nobody should ever feel. You can't get any idea of how deep the damage goes by reading or even talking about it.
Also, I don't want you to know because I don't want anyone to be dragged down by it.
I don't like this comment because it uses words like 'powerful' and 'breath taking' as if it's a positive experience to read about it. This is what people say when they don't have a clue. To experience it is filth, destruction and a lifetime of mental illness. That's the reality of it.
Edit: just my perspective. Perhaps I'm being unreasonable but I can't tell, sorry.
Not what the OP said, at all!
But I want to clarify some points.
Firstly, I made no suggestion that men in this community are "keeping women down." I simply said there are blindspots in our collective discourse owing to our demographics and hoped to recommend some books that could help in bridging gaps and engendering a more considered level of empathy.
> You can't get any idea of how deep the damage goes by reading or even talking about it.
No, of course someone without those experiences will never "really know." But learning about the experiences of others can certainly be helpful in growing an understanding of the extent of the issues at play.
> Also, I don't want you to know because I don't want anyone to be dragged down by it.
That's totally fine. You're experiences are yours and you can share or not share whatever you like. However the author of this book and the many women she interviewed for it do want to share their stories and this is also valid.
> I don't like this comment because it uses words like 'powerful' and 'breath taking' as if it's a positive experience to read about it.
You're adding something qualitative to my words that I never intended. These books had profound impacts on my outlook. I often had to stop reading because the contents were so painful, I had to stop to "catch my breath" so to speak. The impact the books had was a powerful one. That is not to say it was enjoyable or funny or light-hearted or anything like that. The threat of nuclear war is a "powerful deterrent" even though it is a profoundly horrible idea.
> This is what people say when they don't have a clue.
I don't want to get into playing top trumps of abuse but I can assure you that I absolutely speak from a place of experience and I have more "clue" about these issues than I would ever wish anyone to have. Again, I understand where you're coming from and that emotions run strong here, but I would ask you not to make assumptions about other people's trauma histories as it can be extremely hurtful and invalidating.
> To experience it is filth, destruction and a lifetime of mental illness. That's the reality of it.
This is what these books attempt to communicate through the thoughtful and raw disclosure of the experiences of many real women. They wanted their stories to be heard and I stand my the assertion that their circulation through groups such as the HN community has the potential to create a positive impact.
Again, I empathise with you and I hear what you're saying but I think some of your criticism is misplaced and that you could rethink your dismissal of my perspective as clueless. Thank you
"Immune" by Philipp Dettmer (founder of Kurzgesagt). Deep dives into aspects of the immune system, particularly of interest after the COVID-19 pandemic.
And I finally read Dune, probably the best book of this year, surprisingly good, I like the writing style.
I've completely lost any interest in reading fiction, because it's almost always a letdown. Good ideas with poor writing. Good writing with poor endings. The disappointments go on and on, and that's hours wasted. I've tried my friends' suggestions, best-of lists... the stories are consistently lame, except for the handful of masterpieces like Dune.
On the other hand, I'll gladly curl up with a nice comp sci or math book, and that'll be enriching, challenging, and time well spent.
There are plenty of classics that people still recommend; I find they're generally a better read than anything current, and they have utility in exposing you to the context/background/meaning for things people reference from them.
I've also found reading just before bed helps me tremendously. If I read until the words are a blur I usually have a very good night of sleep.
I read it just after reading his 2016 novel 'The Vital Question - Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life'.
Can recommend both, and I believe both were suggestions I picked up from HN originally.
Mistborn Trilogy, Stormlight Archives, and Warbreaker.
Pick 1 - Start with Warbreaker or Mistborn.
I'm new to fantasy fiction and his writing totally hooked me. I think of "hard" fantasy as a puzzle. The world has a unique physics and the plot of the story is based around characters figuring out how to operate inside of those physics... what are the bounds, how can it be manipulated, etc?
What I've loved about Sanderson is the plot turns are never Ex Machina. Every new development fits inside the rules of the world and deepens your understanding of what can be.
> What I've loved about Sanderson is the plot turns are never Ex Machina. Every new development fits inside the rules of the world and deepens your understanding of what can be.
YMMV. I quite like Sanderson's books and magic systems, but IMO, the typical situation where key rules of the world are unknown to the reader and the characters until the end, when they are revealed in order to facilitate the ending, runs pretty close to Deus Ex Machina (in some cases literally). See conclusion of Mistborn 1 and 3.
more spoilerful commentary: Mistborn 3 - main characters all die. We learn that the main character suspected to be the hero of prophecy was not in fact the hero of prophecy, and the side character left standing is the real hero. Ok so far. Then we learn that the side character is not just a hero, but in fact is able to become a literal god and remake the world however they want, and this new god resolves all the problems just by wishing that they were resolved.
How applying the principles of design thinking to our life can help us have a better life.
- Ellul's - Technological Society - picked up on HN recommendation and I will admit it is interesting and worthwhile.
- Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism - Hard to implement and certainly not a quick fix, but the author is onto something here.
Fiction:
I am re-reading Witcher the series. It is still one of the few books, where it is worth to learn the author's language to read the original ( even though translation is also very good ). I forgot how good it is.
Differently Morphous and Existentially Challenged by Yahtzee Croshow, a lot of magic comedy.
The Price of Time by Chancellor, about how the current financial everything bubble came to exist and how it's always the same story.
The World for Sale by Blas, about the history of commodities traders in the past century.
Chaos by O'Neill, 20 year investigation about Manson murders finds ties to government agencies.
I read about 10 other books but they were all terrible. It's becoming more and more a needle in a haystack.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48484.Blindsight
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490708-echopraxia
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59056157-the-price-of-ti...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52199304-the-world-for-s...
I first tried reading DDIA before it since it was newer and it had more hype. But DDIA is so dense that most of the things went over my head. Then I came across Ken Birman's book and I found it easier to follow. Although it had a hundred pages more than DDIA, it doesnt cover as much ground such as it didnt mention object storages. The niche topics were also better in DDIA, such as error correction schemes was only mentioned once in Birman's book. DDIA seems to be more complete. So I'll re-read DDIA again next year.
Harassment Architecture: saw it on Amazon and I could never understand the humor behind the reviews for the book. So I tried a few pages, and something about it was gripping. All I could say is that I've never read anything like it.
Third entry in the absolutely fantastic Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. Highly, highly recommended it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27213168-i-contain-multi...
At the same time, it's saddening to see that important issues he's mentioning 40-50 years ago still not solved, such as climate change and the threat of nuclear warfare.
* Starting the evolution by Namkhai Norbu - on spiritual development using an authentic tradition, not some new age stuff
* John Osterhout's Philosophy of Software Design - vastly overdue, I love this book. I already apply many points presented in this book but several fragments gave me an enlightening perspective on my daily tasks
On a more light hearted side
The Diary Of A Bookseller (Shaun Bythell) A Factotum in the Book Trade (Shaun Bythell) Children of Hurin (Tolkien)
Although the first third was a slog (a simplistic history of management), the rest was filled with great insights in every page. I read those very slowly, almost meditating, because it was so good.
They're sci-fi but fun reads.
Scott Patterson, The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It
“BLAH — The New Science of FOO. And how to really BAR your BAZ”
(Fill in your variations if BLAH FOO BAR BAZ)
And I instinctively do not want to read them :)
A realistic alien invasion hard scifi trilogy set during different periods of time in our future. "Read" in audiobook format, narrated by John Lee who is also great.
At first I found the concept of the series so outlandish that I really couldn’t imagine what to expect, but it turned out that the series is incredibly complex and has a lot of interesting twists and character development. Big recommendation from me.
The Blood Oranges, by John Hawkes - he's a postmodern writer, but this short novel is pretty straightforward. The narrator is the best-written hedonist Casanova I've ever read, and the novel explores both the perks and the fallout of this outlook on life. Maybe read alongside The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, which explores similar issues and is also extremely good.
- Reread *The Diamond Age* - Neal Stephenson book on nanotech
- Part way through *The Eighth Day of Creation* - A detailed history of biological accomplishments and discoveries in the 20th century; constructed from interviews with the heros
- *Radical Abundance* - Drexler book on nanotech
- *Neuromancer* - Inspirational scifi novel with a literary flare
- *Children of Ruin* - Children of Time sequel; for those who like 8-legged creatures!Tom Holt "Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City" and its two sequels. Sardonic fantasy similar to Ursula Vernon. Fun.
Max Gladstone "Last Exit". Magic/alternate-worlds/tentacled-horrors-ish America. Will definitely win the Hugo.
Chuck Tingle "Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus" (from which I learned that Chuck Tingle actually writes the stories, not just the title, and they're ... actually not terrible and pretty funny and very meta.
Katherine Addison "The Grief of Stones". Sequel to Goblin Emperor/Witness for the Dead. Murder mystery in an extremely engaging industrial-era fantasy world.
Alix E. Harrow "A Spindle Splintered" and sequels. Fairy tales encounter the multiverse.
C L Polk "Witchmark" and sequels. Fantastic series in a world where magic is outlawed - but the rich are aware of and use it, and imprison and exploit the poor who use it.
Tamsyn Muir "Nona the Ninth". Book 3 in Locked Tomb. More magic skeletons. A bit more of the backstory. Do I have any idea what's going on? Not so much. But I love it.
Naomi Novik "The Golden Enclaves". Scholomance book 3. Magic school, metaphor for boomers ruining the world and climate change, probably. Good conclusion.
qntm "There is no antimemetics division". A SCP novel. Not quite as good as his "Ra" but fun and mindbending.
Becky Chambers "The Galaxy and the Ground Within". A warm hug of a book. Travelers stranded at a space-rest-stop find they have something in common.
Charles Stross "The Bloodline Feud" and sequels. Alternate-universes-travel, Medici-style mercantilism feuds.
Madeline Miller "Circe". Gorgeously written, captivating reimagining of Circe's story. timeless.
For fiction, my sample size this year is sadly small but probably Becky Chambers's The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, the final(?) book in the Wayfarers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) series. A great end to the series, and given that it must have been plotted originally pre-2020 oddly contemporary.
Caveat: I am not well-versed on acoustics or music and that might be why I am enjoying it.
It has helped me navigate conflicts better and I have become more succesful through better collaborations and stronger relationships.
- Upgrade by Blake Crouch
- Biography of the Pixel by Alvy Ray Smith
Like Project Hail Mary, Upgrade is the kind of book I really wanted back when I was a michael crichton fan. His last book, Recursion was really my favorite. I love books that secretly teach you a thing or two and celebrate science and engineering.
Biography of the Pixel was a fascinating history of computer graphics and fundamental graphics concepts.
Really opened my persona in being gracious towards our partners platonic or otherwise.
- The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964
- The Minimalist Entrepreneur, by Sahil Lavingia
- Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight
He also wrote an excellent book about Chernobyl which I read last year.
I think it’s a bit of a “trick”. I had a friend who was really into it and I just spent a little time reading about it from the proponents and tried to work it out in my head and it didn’t compute for me and my friend couldn’t answer my questions satisfactorily. I think if you read some skeptics you’ll find that it’s not a terrible idea at best and generally a meh strategy if you are realistic about numbers and a lot of the rhetoric is in fact too good to be true.
Being a staff engineer comes with challenges that seniors don't have, mainly the definition and content of the role itself. Tanya dives into what and how those should be handled in an easy to read book.
Sadly, it didn't quite live up to the impact of first book. Whilst it's mainly the same, there are a couple of areas where the pacing is a bit uneven. He has an overlong chapter on creating a clock. And his later chapters on programming in higher languages, with examples in javascript, are not as compelling as the earlier stuff.
In the last third however, higher level concepts, languages etc. are introduced, and there's nothing new or even very interesting in that part for anyone with a year or more of regular coding experience.
Amazing book about the role female leaders played in the “Holy Land.”
She spends chapter after chapter talking about these fascinating women who built a country.
She also tries to talk about the women rulers in the nearby Islamic countries. But she can’t, because there aren’t any.
I strongly recommend!
Was very intriguing and fun
Excellent read, I wonder what other readers think about it
* So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport
* Deep Work by Cal Newport
* The Freelance Manifesto by Joey Korenman (even though I am far from being a motion designer, it still has a lot of good principles)
The best book I read this year, providing a glimpse on the crude reality of corruption on boxing, an immersion in the 40s, and a very human commentary on being defeated.
It provides a lot of strong evidence for an optimistic rather than cynical take on human nature.
It made me realize it's not companies I would like to be working at but people I would like to be working with.
Very funny yet insightful. One of those unpretentious books that is actually a lot less stupid than the cover suggests.
Changing Places and Small World by David Lodge. Quite old, quite funny, lots of boys (professors) behaving badly stuff.
History:
War of the Running Dogs by Noel Barber. A history of the communist insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s. At one time the British efforts were thought to provide a model for the US to follow in Vietnam; but the circumstances were so different that it is hard to imagine how anyone thought so.
Philosophy:
On Human Freedom and The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays by Schelling. Schelling was one of the German Idealist that I had never tried to read (well, there was one volume that I couldn't make headway in ten years ago).
The Science of Knowledge by Fichte, which had always defeated me in intermittent attempts to read it over forty-five years.
A Concept of Justice by John Rawls. Everyone talked about it, I hadn't read it. I do need to read it again.
Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot. An argument for a more or less Aristotelian understanding of ethics.
On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry. I find her writing on beauty more convincing than her attempt to tie it back to a development of a sense of justice.
Earth Abides by George Stewart 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
I’ve read many books with a similar extinction event story line, but none quite compares. And it seems Stewart himself didn’t write many more books (I only found one about settlers crossing into California, which I didn’t like as much).
Less intellectual than most of the books mentioned here, but more healthy.
[Edt]
I'm training for 3 weeks, on level 1 to 6, depending on the exercise, and I feel a lot fitter and happier.
I made my own training plan, traing just every second day.
I'm old, so progression ist not fast, but I have no interest in that. If I'm on level 10 in every exercise in 10 years, I will be very happy.
It’s about the search for alien life, but it blends science with philosophy which is a very unique way of approaching the issue. It’s also very well researched.
The Man who solved the market, by Gregory Zuckerman
It’s the story of Jim Simons and Renaissance, the hedge fund with the best returns in the industry. Very informative and it approaches the development of the firm from the viewpoint of different people.
This is how they tell me the world ends, by Nicole Perlroth
This is about Zero Days and the environment they get developed and the consequences for society. It’s very well researched, although as with every book that’s written by a non-tech person it has its flaws. But overall enjoyed it a lot.
In the garden of beasts, by Erik Larson
The story of the US ambassador to Germany while Hitler was in power. You get a first hand glimpse of the environment and the atmosphere of the era, as also the intricacies of the Nazi party.
The fifth principle by senge System primer by donnella meadows
Escape, by Marie Le Conte, which does an excellent job of articulating why the internet feels like it lost its soul as the world jumped on board. It’s a wonderful love letter to the internet of the early 2000s, mourning the loss of the crazy Wild West that was.
What If? 2 by Randall Monroe, of XKCD fame. The third of his books applying serious science to ridiculous scenarios. If you hang out here you’ll probably enjoy it.
Highly recommended.
If one book from the 21st century will be remembered in 500 years, I am convinced this will be it.
- So good they can’t ignore you — some interesting takeaways
- Atomic habits - only takeaway I remember is habit stacking
- I’m almost finished with Well of Ascension - I think the use of metal is a creative source of super powers
The one by Ashlee Vance?
Fiction: Dune and Asimov's The Last Question.
Hopefully your state is transitory and you will find balance again.
Keep in mind, all this stuff is fiction, sort of magic realism in the garb of documentary exposition, and scholarly dubious research.
But much more enjoyable than hollow earth or flat earth stuff!
My favorite bit of it is the presaging of the Dyson sphere in the “energy grid” that surrounds the earth, limiting life form travel.
Even better than their theory of the moon as a manufactured satellite.
Goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: make sure you don’t treat fiction as fact too much :) This stuff can be mentally corrosive.
But to be fair, mythical accounts of deities, and the impetus for such accounts, is a very difficult subject to approach.
E.g., in the end of the first rhapsody of Odyssey, the goddess Athena is described having "the splendour of the sun" and departing from her meeting with Telemachus by ascending in the sky like an eagle.
I'll accept (and do accept, I'm not mad, I tell ya) all the reasonable explanations - poetic liberty, theatrical engineering with cranes and ropes, and whatnot.
At the same time, it's very interesting (and useful) to try and recreate the mental model that allows for such a metaphor to emerge, to be thought up in the first place, and to identify the cultural and technological triggers that might have caused such a dea ex machina description.
But Graham Hancock-style "research" (read up, smoke up, come up) really doesn't cut it, and I'd rather accept that there's no reachable answer with the currently available archaeological and textual evidence, than try and force one.
So (to close the digression), I think your only avenue is to learn Sumerian and Akkadian and go to the tablets. Shouldn't be too hard, really - I'm not being sarcastic - go for it, they are well-researched languages, grammatical and lexicographical resources are available, and the absolutely best reason to start learning a language is to have a specific question in mind or a specific text that you want to read, it'll push you onward.
Not to mention that by coming into contact with the original texts is the only way to approach whatever of the original meanings is still accessible.