Ask HN: What is the best thing you read in 2024? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the best thing you read in 2024?

134 pointshubraumhugo131 comments

Is there a book, paper, report or article etc. that really stood out?

I just started reading Madness Made Me by Mary O’Hagen, and I’ll finish it before the end of tomorrow. It’s a good read. It offers good insight into someone’s journey through madness and dealing with the mental health system.

My personal favourite part of the book: “After a few sessions Dr L’Estrange tells me I need anti-depressants. ‘You’re very slowed down and physically depressed,’ he says. He doesn’t know I am recovering from a night of smoking Buddha sticks laced with horse tranquilliser”.

I just loved that particular part of the book because it just really highlights the absurdity that so many mental health professionals, and general doctors, think they have the authority to assign these really rather powerfully debilitating labels based on all their years of learning and knowledge, yet have so little insight into the lives of their own patients when they assign these labels, as if to say they know you and your life better than you do.

And I study psychology, but there are still aspects of the discipline, particularly when it comes to diagnosing and treating mental health problems that I think are inherently flawed and problematic. Reading of other people’s experiences offers more insight than the DSM-5. That’s for sure!

I finally read Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged) Fully worth the hype.

Also read a lot of Arabian fantasy (?). Fantasy with djinn etc. Favourites were Master of Djinn and the City of Brass series.

I put The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in that category, a pleasure to read from front to back. The association with work made it take me decades to get to some of the books assigned for class in high school, like these. A few were so good that I tried to read Anna Karenina again. Maybe in a few decades more I'll like that one too.

I read Hunchback of Notre Dame around 20 years ago. The ending is until today the only book ever to make me cry. Don't remember much else, probably a good time to pick it up again.

It's crazy how good it is. I cannot recommend it enough.

We need to trust "Classics" more. I read the Tale of two cities and was genuinely profoundly moved by it.

I would highly recommend pairing that with _The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo_ by Tom Reiss --- it's a fascinating look at that period of history.

For fun, if you like fantasy, Steven Brust's _The Baron of Magister Valley_ is delightful, one of his "Paarfi Romances" it is TCoMC w/ the names changed and serial numbers filed off in a fantasy world (which is actually a science-fictional one as noted on Penny Arcade).

Ukridge by PG Wodehouse. I hadn't really ventured out the Blandings/Jeeves/Psmith collections that much. Ukridge may be the funniest book I've ever read. He's also featured in another book 'Love Among the Chickens' - absolutely hilarious.

If you like these, you should try the Uncle Fred books. Of course almost everything by Wodehouse is a sublime masterpiece.

I am so glad to read this comment. Wodehouse is sublime in all what he wrote - if you end up reading Jeeves series, I would recommend Right Ho, Jeeves and Code of Woosters

I'm still reading it, but the book Material World by Ed Conway has been very informative and enjoyable to read. It's a book that I've been looking for for a long time. It explores how different common natural resources are intertwined with one another and their role in our every day lives. It also contains a lot of details about the processes and economics related to their extraction and how they are turned into usable forms.

In this vein I would also recommend: "Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization" (2014) by Vackav Smil. In this work, Smil explores how these materials have shaped industrial civilization and examines trends in material use, efficiency, and potential future challenges.

Vaclav Smil discusses the main materials used in building the modern world, such as oil, steel, cement, plastics, and ammonia

I have yet to read Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization however I paired his "How the world really works" with Material World. That was an excellent read in itself.

Material World is an excellent book. I like the choice of the six metals/minerals/materials he picked to illustrate our dependence on the physical world. It is surprising how the valuation of these materials is commoditized.

Crafting Intepreters, by Robert Nystrom.

I didn't realise how simple it can be to design a simple programming language. I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

https://craftinginterpreters.com/

Thank you for the reference! glad the web version is available!

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-entropy-a-measure-of-...

I recently read this and was blown away by the way entropy was re-introduced to me.

I finally read the Attack on Titan manga this year. It was incredible and not at all what I was expecting from the trailers.

Lots of unexpected twists to the story, a steady pace of reveals of interesting mysteries, and it seems the entire story was planned out from the start, with things set up at the very beginning that receive a payoff much later.

I also read and really appreciated the Witch Hat Atelier manga. It's kind of like a Harry Potter-style story but with a hard magic system like Brandon Sanderson (once you know it you can look at a picture of the spell and be able to guess what it's supposed to do... also there's a lot of modularity in the system so it feels a bit like programming with functions at times, building up more complex and creative spells from the synthesis of smaller ones).

A lot of the story in the manga seems to be setting up these interesting moral quandaries about how and how much should you help less fortunate people when you have the power/ability/knowledge to do so, but there are restrictions to what you should do and good reasons for those restrictions, and how can you work around those restrictions and still feel good about yourself and feel like you've done enough (even when you know you could be doing more)?

Also should those restrictions be in place in the first place, or are those restrictions ultimately doing more harm than good, and did those who put those restrictions in place do it with good or ill intentions?

It's still ongoing, and probably only about halfway through so far, but it was a really interesting read that I'll definitely go back to just so I can ponder its messages again and again. It also doesn't have an anime yet but it has to be getting one sometime soon, it's too good and the art in the manga is too pretty not to get one.

I'm also about halfway through 20th Century Boys manga and that's a really clever mystery about some sinister things happening in modern day juxtaposed with the protagonist's childhood, and what in his childhood might somehow be related to what's going on in the modern day.

I went in totally blind (just having heard it's really good) and have really enjoyed discovering the secrets of the mysteries (and there's still plenty more to be revealed). It's got a different character art style than most manga as well, and it's pretty refreshing (characters have defined lips, it's weird at first but refreshingly different).

Attack on Titan is great. I don't think I've heard of Witch Hat Atelier but it sounds interesting. Thanks for the recommendation!

I've read 20th Century Boys, but the author seems to have been better at crafting the mystery than providing answers for them.

I really liked "The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder". It's very well researched and pieced together from conflicting accounts.

After I was finished I decided to look up the author and found out he wrote "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "The Lost City of Z", both of which I really enjoyed! If you like books like Endurance, Unbroken, or A Land So Strange, you'll dig this one.

It's between Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time and Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary.

I put the Children of Time into my Libby list. Thanks!

Project Hail Mary is very good. All of Weir’s stuff is good.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann.

When worlds were conquered through brute force and wooden ships, it is crazy to imagine how pivotal vitamin C was.

I looked at this book several times last year, but I couldn't get past how hard Barnes and Noble were pushing it!

Sometimes a best-seller is selling for a good reason. sometimes.

Fun books:

o the follet valley mysteries by Ian Moore. (Fun crime procedural, with the protagonist being a rather ineffectual unemployed film studies lecturer in france , and a cast of domineering supporting actors)

o Uruly by David Mitchell (A "rollock" through early english monarchy, pointing out the luck, or lack of it, of all the kings and queens)

Unruly would make my list too, thoroughly enjoyable.

It's by the better-known-as-an-actor David Mitchell. There's another David Mitchell, whose main profession is author, he must be annoyed that the actor is writing books now..

https://nextjs.org/docs (ㆆ _ ㆆ)

I work on these docs – thank you!

I was unexpectedly blown away by a post-apocalyptic book called Wool by Hugh Howey, the first one of the Silo trilogy. Hard to say what did it exactly, just the overall combination of plot, storytelling and pacing. I read (or rather listen to) a lot of fiction and sci-fi specifically, and can't recall the last time I was this much into a book. About to start the second one, and also looking forward to the TV series based on it.

After you finish the Silo series, if you're wishing for more, there are some short stories in the same universe in an anthology Hugh Howey edited:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apocalypse_Triptych

I generally prefer long-form fiction, but very much enjoyed most of the stories in the Triptych books, and they led me to other, similar authors whose work I also enjoy.

Awesome, thank you for the suggestion!

Huh. Maybe I should try it again. I read a lot (https://3e.org/books/) and I found Wool to be so execrably awful I couldn't get last the first 100 pages. Like literally some of the worst writing I'd ever seen.

"Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty" by Daron Acemoglu

Do nations fail primarily for economic reasons?

When the level of exploitation by those on top becomes too extreme, that's what does it?

Does that adequately explain other factors like disease, religion, natural disaster, incompetence, corruption, conquest and civil war?

yes, author does explain multiple factors, which impacts a nation's success. Such as institutions, culture, politics, historical events, vicious or virtuous cycles. Etc. It's good book overall.

> When the level of exploitation by those on top becomes too extreme, that's what does it?

Yes, Author calls them "Extractive Institutions"

„Understanding Deep Learning” by Simon Prince

Among all ML books, it’s a really good overview of many concepts connected one to another and spelled out in easy to grasp way

Also „Designing Machine Learning Systems” by Chip Huyen looks really promising and very hands-on (lessons learned by very committed practitioner). It gives actionable tips and provides real life insights. I haven’t finished reading it yet though

Someone here in HN wrote that he/she read all of Jack Reacher’ 20 books, I’m doing the same and now I just read 2 of its books in a week.

It’s a light read, something to get your mind of coding.

Similarly, I've read all of the dozen+ Gray Man books, and they are also great light reading if you like international operative type genre.

If you really get into them here’s a few series that are along similar lines

- Prey series by John Sandford

- Bosch series by Michael Connelly (He’s the “Lincoln Lawyer’s half-brother). Also a series on Amazon Prime

- Orphan X series by Mark Greany

I’ve followed all of these (as well as Jack Reacher and Gray man) series for years and have read all of them. Great brain candy.

Wow thanks! Unfortunately I stopped at Reacher’s third book, there’s something about Jack’s sleeping with all the women so far that is making me uncomfortable.

"Death of a Racehorse"

By W.C. Heinz

The New York Sun

July 29, 1949

Very short, very good. Sorry to ruin your Christmas, wait until tomorrow to read it.

http://www.thestacksreader.com/death-of-a-racehorse/

Thank you for this devastating read! What a punch to the gut!

Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42268570

Ask HN: Best non-fiction book you read in 2024?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42218828

Feynman Lectures on Physics books. It might just be the right timing for me as I've only recently really started to grasp calculus and linear algebra, but a lot of things are clicking into place as I read.

one day im gonna read them. iv read "excuse me, Mr Feynman" aproximately 5 times and its one of my favourite books ever.

An interesting watch on Richard Feynman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276170

Turns out he never wrote any books in his life, so merry Christmas everyone, you’ve all read all books written by Feynman. The video puts a pretty convincing argument that most of the stories about him are made up dinner-table entertainment and didn’t happen.

Angela Collier, who made that video, if full of it.

Nope.

Yuo. Collier claims Robert Leighton wrote The Feynman Lectures on Physics, but all he did was edit Feynman's lectures in Volume I, as she (or you) could ascertain by listening to the lecture recordings and reading along with the text, both of which are available online (free) at The Feynman Lectures Website, https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu. Collier completely fails to mention Matthew Sands who edited Volumes II and III. So Collier is full of it. And not only with regard to FLP. She claims, for example, that Feynman's stories in Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Other People Think are lies which is itself a lie (for which she offers no proof - because there is none) and that Ralph Leighton, who edited those books, by admiring Feynman as a physicist, was intentionally insulting his father Robert Leighton, which is complete bullsh*t, as I can tell you for a fact because I know them personally. Collier, in fact, defames Feynman and Leighton, not only in this video, but in others, and that is to attract views from ignoramuses, through hate-mongering. Let me mention also that Collier is just some poorly paid junior postdoc who makes money from her YouTube videos. And let me also mention that Feynman is greatly admired, as a physcist, a teacher, and as a human being, by millions of people, including many great physicists, physics teachers, and physics students. Finally, in closing I will mention that Feynman's books, including his autographical books (edited by Ralph Leighton) and The Feynman Lectures on Physics (edited by Robert Leighton and Matthew Sands) are best sellers, have been for a long time, and will continue to be, despite hate-mongering YouTubers like Collier, and the idiots who parrot them.

I agree, Collier's videos are usually light on facts and nuance and seem to stroke the rage of her viewers. There are many who knew Feynman as a person, attended his lectures, etc. who are still alive today and could have been consulted if she were serious about her journalism.

If you watch the video she explicitly says that the Feynman lectures were written by Feynman, the actual lectures, but were edited into book form by the other guy. She says exactly that, so she is not lying about that.

Your other claims that she is lying are backed up with as little factual information as her assertions, but having read about the man i would seriously consider that a great many of his stories are seriously exaggerated for effect. Again, she states that stories about the challenger hearings and his wife and various other occurrences for which we have evidence are completely factual. But it is rather obvious, dick being a rather hammy storyteller, that many fun details in his stories could have been tweaked to make them fun, and are kinda strange when you imagine what the other side of the conversation must've been like.

I don't blame you if you did not watch the video because it was long, but i will blame you for lying in this chat. I understand, i worshiped Feynman for a very long time but we have to understand that the man is not the legend.

I want to earn enough money to never (have to) work again, so I can lay in the garden and read all his lectures

"A life of ease is a difficult pursuit."

-- William Cowper

You might like Infinite Powers (Steven Strogatz) and Faraday, Maxwell, and The Electromagnetic Field (Nancy Forbes)

The Gervais Principle by Venkatesh Rao

I did Not understand my work Environment anymore but this blogpost perfectly explained it

"Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi" by Mark Boyle. It widened my perspective on the systemic violence of our society. Few books really change my perspective, but this one did.

My favourite (fiction) book this year was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. An amazingly intricate storyline with a perfect ending.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Highly recommend the series as well! Very fun to read

These are really fun, I’m on the fourth book now.

The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson. Started in January, just finished the latest which conveniently released earlier this month. Liked it so much I got a tattoo from it on my arm, lol.

Very well written magic systems that are internally consistent with very powerful themes of mental health.

Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens

I did very much enjoy this. Its a fun book, and an even funner-er-er audiobook

Death's End, the third book in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past series.

The book has so many great concepts and touches upon many of the fundamental questions of life itself. I fully recommend it if you’re into space sci fi.

I personally enjoyed the dark forest the most of the series - I just really loved the wallfacer concept, I think.

Frank Ramsey by Cheryl Misak. Kid only lived till 26 and changed the disciplines of Philosophy, Mathematics, and Economics. Ludwig Wittgenstein was reported to have said Ramsey was his only contemporary.

Here's an interesting BBC radio program [0] from 1978 on Ramsey. I came across this years ago and felt inspired to go into research. Of course, this program is a bit out of date and doesn't touch on his pragmatist turn much at all!

[0] https://sms.csx.cam.ac.uk/media/20145

Two weeks ago I found John Maynard Keynes's 1951 volume Essays in Biography at Calico Books in Ventura (bookhounds like myself enjoy provenance details like that). He knew Ramsay personally, and one of the essays in the book is dedicated to him. I especially enjoyed the following passage by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson that Keynes quotes. Dickinson wrote this about Ramsay and also about C P Sanger, an older man who died about the same time:

It does not become a Cambridge man to claim too much for his university, nor am I much tempted to do so. But there is, I think, a certain type, rare, like all good things, which seems associated in some peculiar way with my alma mater. I am thinking of men like Leslie Stephen (the original of Meredith's Vernon Whitford), like Henry Sidgwick, like Maitland, like one who died but the other day with all his promise unfulfilled. It is a type unworldly without being saintly, unambitious without being inactive, warmhearted without being sentimental. Through good report and ill such men work on, following the light of truth as they see it; able to be sceptical without being paralyzed; content to know what is knowable and to reserve judgment on what is not. The world could never be driven by such men, for the springs of action lie deep in ignorance and madness. But it is they who are the beacon in the tempest, and they are more, not less, needed now than ever before. May their succession never fail!

Wisdom’s Workshop (2016) by James Axtell is a history of the American research university from Medieval times to the present. It's worth reading for anyone in academia or grad school in the US.

Each year, I put together lists of the books and articles that I found most interesting. Here's my book list for 2024: https://bcmullins.github.io/interesting-books-2024/

I'm still cranking out my list of articles.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series on Audible. I can’t normally get audiobooks to hold my attention but the company that does these is so good and so funny that I can’t stop listening.

i reread roadside picnic, and started reading it in russian and it is arguably my favourite book ever.

Highly recommend Doomed City, probably the most complex novel the Strugackis ever wrote.

Oddly I really like the "for Babies" books:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33939767-quantum-physics...

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

(Though I kind of wish I'd read it during, not after, lock-down.)

Delightful book, like some of Italo Calvino's works.

"The latest findings from the World Wide Fund for the Nature’s Living Planet Report come with a stark warning that we may be closing in on a point of no return for nature. Over the last 50 years, wildlife populations have experienced a staggering 73% decline."

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2024/october/wildlife-po...

"Livestock make up 62% of the world’s mammal biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just 4%."

https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass

... We're deep into an apocalypse, and I really hope we start acting like it.

Dune. I started it a while ago but I want to read past the 2nd movie now, so I'm forcing myself to finish the first book.

I spent the past year reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I’m on the last push of the final(seventh) book

It was my first dip into any King books and I’m equal parsers impressed and exhausted with his writing style.

I always assumed he was a horror writer, but after chugging through the series this year I’m excited to dig into his other works(after a short break for sure)

It’s difficult to describe but I found so many parallels between this story and my life that it was eerie to read at times. On top of that, the descriptors he uses in his writing are fascinating. At times the story, especially early on, was confusing and even now, have more questions than answers.

I’d like to take a few years and then come back to the saga and give it another shot.

Until then, if anyone has recommendations on the next books (non-horror please) to dig into, please send them my way!

Ahh, Stephen King...

Did you know that he was abusing drugs to keep up with his writing? And not with soft ones either - more like cocaine etc.

I felt like that explained his writing style pretty well Once I kept that in mind while reading his works.

He'd probably have been even better if he hadn't used these drugs, but also wouldn't have published even half as many books.

ahhh cocaine, the old performance enhancing drug for the thinking professions. "word candy" they call it in literary circles

Nabokov's Pale Fire.

It pops into my mind every now and then, amazing read from start to end.

- Naval's Almanac

- Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish

I have started reading "Book of Life" by J.KrishnaMurti

I really enjoyed...

- "Good Omens" - A silly, fun read. I smiled from start to finish. A good companion book to "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff". If you wished The Hitchhiker's Guide wasn't so non-sequitur, you might like this.

- "Gay Berlin" - A fascinating look into the history of homosexuality in the city where the term and the concept took root. It was strongly recommended by a friend and justifiably so.

- "There is no antimemetics division" - How do you fight a threat that erases its own existence from people's minds?

- "What the mouse knows" and many other of Simon Sarris' essays. https://map.simonsarris.com/p/what-the-mouse-knows

- "The Jungle" - A story of abject poverty, of people who just can't seem to get out of it because of the crushing pressures of capitalism. Think Grapes of Wrath, but grittier.

Good Omens is hilarious, one of the few books I've read several times :-)

“Measurement” by Paul Lockhart, of “A Mathematician’s Lament” fame.

This was recommended by the delightful and talented Tibees YouTuber.

A few pages in and I was absolutely hooked and ready to start proving geometric conjectures…

A truly amazing communicator and educator.

the brother's karamazov by dostoyevsky

I started The Brothers Karamazov four times through the years, but would quit each time after 50 pages or so. I finally realized that I was repulsed by the story because the father reminded me of the worst aspects of myself. Once I accepted that I was able to read on and finish the book, and now I look upon it as one of my favorite novels.

I would have given up on it early on, but when I was going to Berkeley in the late 1970s, I attended First Presbyterian Church, where Earl Palmer was pastor. He extolled The Brothers Karamazov, Sheldon Vanauken's book A Severe Mercy, and Star Wars from the pulpit. His favorite part of TBK was the Grand Inquisitor chapter; I had to slog through that, but overall found the book quite rewarding, not least of all because it is a window into the Russian soul, which I think remains to this day a different beast than our own.

> I finally realized that I was repulsed by the story because the father reminded me of the worst aspects of myself.

dostoyevsky is brilliant at this

I flew through both The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment (both powerful, excellent books) but I'm having difficulties reading Demons.

The 3-body problem trilogy (Rememberance of the Earth's past). My first sci-fi novels ever - the Netflix show sold me and these novels compelled me on a whole new hard sci-fi rabbit hole.

Presumed Innocent (preceeded by the Apple TV show of same name). Murder mystery. Loved it.

Tie-in novels from videogame franchise:

- Deus Ex: Black Light

- Devil May Cry: before the nightmare

I've also started Marvel Comics in anticipation of Fantastic Four and the whole Secret Wars storyline it will build up.

Couldn't finish a single non-fiction this year, but enjoyable so far:

- Zero to One

- When I say no, I feel guilty

- Designing data-intensive applications

Man, I love the Fantastic 4 and by extension the whole secret wars arc. Glad to see another fan eager for how it’s handled on the screen.

For me, it's a tie between the Murderbot Diaries, and the print editions of Dungeon Crawler Carl.

It's been a long time since I just read for pleasure, and I totally forgot what I was missing.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl books are great!

I discovered them by accident, and they're one of my favorite series this far.

Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made by Vaclav Smil

Just a wonderful book.

Frankenstein. I think the warning the story serves to communicate is all the more glaring in light of llms and openai's restructuring.

In terms of books, I read way less than usual this year for $REASONS. But of the books I did read, one stood out:

A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains by Max Solomon Bennett. If you're interested in intelligence and related topics, it's definitely worth a read.

Shadow of the torturer by Gene Wolf

And

Several play throughs of Caves of Qud.

Been on a weird sci fi kick this year.

Shadow of the Torturer is wonderful.

It was a tough read, but I really liked it.

I’m going through the rest of the book of the new sun now.

Im sure it’ll be rewarding to read it again after finishing the series.

Fiction: Sword of Kaigen M.L. Wang

Non-Fiction: The Will to Changs Bell Hooks

I read: Computer Systems: A programmer's perspective. Been a good read, but some chapters contain very dense knowledge. Might have to read again.

Great Book. I presume you are reading the 3rd edition (all 64-bit). I suggest also getting a used copy of the 1st edition (all 32-bit) to compare and contrast. This is the only book that i have all three editions of :-)

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I live in the part of the world where books are considered luxury, so we have to pay hefty amounts for original books, which I can't afford and its super hard to find used copies as well for the same reason.

I will try to find over the internet and give it a read.

https://rxjourney.com.ng/trapped-in-the-matrix

"Up From Never," a true life story by Joseph N. Sorrentino. He had a rough childhood with many scrapes with the law and failed 4 times to graduate from high school. He eventually saw where his life was headed if he did not change, and decided to get a better education. He went to Harvard Law School where he gave the valedictory address for his graduating class.

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

An alternate future where the Europeans are completely wiped out by the plague, and how society could have changed.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

This cleverly written sci-fi novel might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a thought-provoking exploration of a life that repeats.

Right/Wrong by Juan Enriquez

Very interesting outlook on the ethics of the near future. Gave me a great (new) perspective on many issues.

https://www.amazon.com/Right-Wrong-Technology-Transforms-Eth...

Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age by Tom Holland

Well written, well researched and captivating. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62712920-pax

Doppelganger by one of the smartest people alive today, Naomi Klein. I don't know how I'd even begin to summarize it, but it cooled a lot of the existential dread I'd been feeling lately about the direction of Western society. might do the same for you if you're in a similar boat.

I have to the Aggressor book series by FX Holden. It's set in the near future with AI, drones, and much more. It is a Tom Clancy-like book about WW3 breaking out over Tawain. Sometimes, I would come out of reading it and be unsure if I was reading the news or a book.

You Gotta Want It by Jake Paul.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Heart warming, heart breaking, sad, funny. And a great story.

The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets by Thomas R. Cech — This is a standout for me. Spotlight on RNA with interesting historical context of the field.

Educated by Tara Westover. A really wild story I couldn't put down after the first 3 pages. A must-read, esp. For HN readers.

I did Recursion, Upgrade and Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and they were all really fun easy reads. Highly recommended.

I liked Recursion and Dark Matter a lot, but the last two pages of Upgrade really left it on a poor note for me.

Character Limit by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac

For me, some of the best books I read this year, are:

- Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, I have seen many narratives on the fault at the core of current values and goals of human civilization, but never saw a laid out alternative. Whatever it might be, I like the book for attempting at presenting one.

- Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, I like this book for extremely original thoughts. This books was so thin (~200 pages), yet it was grand. I also wrote a review [0].

- The Happiness Trap by Russ Hariss, was very helpful to me in sorting through some things. Very practical book.

- Anathem by Neal Stephenson, one of the most original book, and probably the best one by Stephenson. Very original ideas, mind expanding.

- Permutation City by Greg Egan, this book raised the standard for possibly all SciFi book that I will read in the future. Extremely original and grand ideas.

- The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, another book that lays out alternatives to what is now considered mainstream.

- Sotyi Rupkatha by Parimal Bhattacharya (Bengali), a book without any ideological or emotional baggage explaining the plight and pain of a tribal community for Aluminium mining. The way colonialism lives in mining was eye-opening. Aluminium mining, separating, etc. are done in lesser fortunate countries where huge amounts of water is wasted and the environment polluted. The West still imports that refined raw material in cheap and produces final products with lesser environmental impact and peofits by selling the finished products to the same countries in large profits. It was refreshing to see that this book did not have a Communist undertone.

- Krishna Basudev by Bani Basu (Bengali), life of God Krishna in form of a novel in crisp prose, written maintaining authenticity of core books like Bhagavat Purana and Harivansha.

- I am currently listening to "The Hobbit" audiobook narrated by Andy Serkis. This is peak audiobook for me.

[0]: https://ritogh.substack.com/p/not-merely-a-story-of-a-man-fa...

Mostly non fiction

The Vortex by carney and miklian Flying Blind by Peter Robison The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut

The Power of the Powerless by Havel

In The Distance by Hernan Diaz.

The Civil War narrative Shelby Foote. It’s excellent.

Economix by Michael Goodwin.

Does nobody on this forum read technical books anymore? I read building git by James Coglan, and it was pretty good.

"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com