Ask HN: What was the latest book you read?

Mind Magic (by Marc Lemezma) - Im trying to improve my mentalism skills (and though that book is really basic it is a good refresher on ideas).

Last serious book was a 620 page tome entitled "Writing Security Tools and Exploits". A book with potentially the largest "great title" to "boring content" ratio ever :( (stuck at it though in principle :P)

This is a great source of stuff for:

function get_smarter():

   1. Am I smart enough yet?  (default answer:   of course not!)
   2. If yes, go make a grillion dollars, or go fishing, or something. (Note: this statement is unreachable).
   3. Otherwise:
         1. Do various important things, until I have some free time.
         2. Pick a book from my book list and read it.
         3. If I've read it already, check all the references at the end, and add the ones that look good to my book list.
         4. get_smarter()

"If your book list is empty, add Gödel, Escher, Bach to it before calling the function for the first time. And with that, I'm off to go finish the book!"

http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/godel-escher-blog

"A People's History of the United Sates" by Howard Zinn. A decent history book, not exactly uplifting.

Reading currently: "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" by Robert Caro. Absolutely loving it.

That, and my usual climbing books.

Last fiction - The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

Before that - The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (recommended to all fantasy fans)

Last technical - AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis

Last serious book : http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Cryptography-Practice-Hewlett-P...

Last fun book : http://www.amazon.com/Woken-Furies-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels/dp/...

I can't resist the body swapping stuff ever since reading Lord of Light as a kid

Musicophilia (too much psychiatry, not enuf music)

b4 that

Anathem (will read again after a few years)

b4 that

Halting State (cool)

The big switch

before that

Accelerando

Current: Zen and the Brain

Previous: Gödel, Escher, Bach (still working on that one, actually)

I am currently reading "beautiful code" by Greg Wilson, Andy Oram(and all the contributors)

King Warrior Magician Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette

http://www.amazon.com/King-Warrior-Magician-Lover-Rediscover...

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (excellent; recently saw Food, Inc. as well)

The Next 100 Years by George Friedman (amusing; was given to me as a gag gift)

Currently reading: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Cat's Cradle, by Vonnegut.

I read Multireal, which is the follow up to Infoquake. They deal with a startup producing software that runs inside people, executed by tiny nanobots. The books explore startup culture.

'Create Your Own Economy' by Tyler Cowen - a good read.

Current: The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Last: The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

The best recent: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamon.

Last: What is a Designer: Things, Places, Messages by Potter.

Current: Flow: The psychology of optimal experience by Csikszentmihalyi

The last book I finished was Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.

I am currently perusing numerous books for summer research.

Last: I am a Strange Loop

Current: Neuromancer

"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by David Eggers. Ironic title, thoughtful and enjoyable book. Suggested.

Current:

Ghandi and Churchill by Arthur Herman

Last:

The Odyssey by Homer

A bull in China by Jim Rogers

Last: The C Programming Language - Kernighan & Ritchie

Current: The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker

Last: Hacker's Handbook 3.0 by Dr. K (waste of time)

Current: Last Light by Andy McNab (awesome)

"The Screwtape Letters", by C.S. Lewis

In the middle of "Roughing It" by Mark Twain now.

Last: Create your own Economy, by Tyler Cowen

Current: Real World Haskell

Finished: _Germany 1866-1945_ by Gordon Craig. Various others in parallel.

last book: The Dark Tower II

currently: The T Programming Language

Halting State, by Charles Stross, great for computer geeks

Just finished: Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama

Last book: 1984 Current book: Master & Commander

Just got done reading 'the fountainhead' by ayn rand.

Last: Crossing the Chasm Current: Managing Humans

Previous: Anathem

Current: Programming in Scala

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, in one sitting.

The Road To Gandolfo by Robert Ludlum

The Revenge of Gaia - James Lovelock

Robert Greene- 48 Laws of Power

Freedom Evolves - Dan Dennett

'The Double' by José Saramago

Getting Real by 37 signals.

In the middle of GEB,

Just finished "Anthem" by Ayn Rand (it's like 100 pages so it only took a few hours)

Started "The American Political Tradition" by Richard Hofstadter, pretty engaging history of our major politicians and founding fathers...