Notable Books of 2014 | Hacker News Reader

Notable Books of 2014

nytimes.com

122 pointsdollaaron16 comments

I was happy that "The Martian" won sci-fi book of the year on goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18007564-the-martian

It is well worth a read and I think HNers and fellow geeks will find it interesting

I got my copy today! Ordered it after reading a related comment on a previous HN discussion. I have high expectations with this one especially after reading the reviews on Goodreads.

If you like that kind of sci-fi I'd recommend Hōsuke Nojiri's books (the two Rocket Girls and Usurper of the Sun).

The audiobook was fantastic. Great reader.

Honestly, I was quite disappointed with it. I thought the ending was really lacking and didn't fulfill the expectations the rest of the book set up.

For those of you who may have trouble viewing this, I hacked together a little Selenium script to scrape this for you[1].

[1] https://gist.github.com/anonymous/84449fe7860e292e904f

The list:

Category: FICTION & POETRY

1. 'All Our Names' by Dinaw Mengestu

2. 'All The Birds, Singing' by Evie Wyld

3. 'All The Light We Cannot See' by Anthony Doerr

4. 'American Innovations' by Rivka Galchen

5. 'The Assassination Of Margaret Thatcher: Stories' by Hilary Mantel

6. 'The Ballad Of A Small Player' by Lawrence Osborne

7. 'Bark: Stories' by Lorrie Moore

8. 'The Blazing World' by Siri Hustvedt

9. 'The Bone Clocks' by David Mitchell

10. 'The Book Of Strange New Things' by Michel Faber

11. 'The Book Of Unknown Americans' by Cristina Henríquez

12. 'Boy, Snow, Bird' by Helen Oyeyemi

13. 'A Brief History Of Seven Killings' by Marlon James

14. 'Can’t And Won’t' by Lydia Davis

15. 'The Cold Song' by Linn Ullmann. Translated by Barbara J. Haveland

16. 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage' by Haruki Murakami. Translated by Philip Gabriel

17. 'Dept. Of Speculation' by Jenny Offill

18. 'The Dog' by Joseph O’Neill

19. 'Euphoria' by Lily King

20. 'Everything I Never Told You' by Celeste Ng

21. 'F' by Daniel Kehlmann. Translated by Carol Brown Janeway

22. 'Faithful And Virtuous Night' by Louise Glück

23. 'Family Life' by Akhil Sharma

24. 'Fourth Of July Creek' by Smith Henderson

25. 'A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing' by Eimear McBride

26. 'I Pity The Poor Immigrant' by Zachary Lazar

27. 'The Laughing Monsters' by Denis Johnson

28. 'Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel' by tten and illustrated by Anya Ulinich

29. 'Let Me Be Frank With You: A Frank Bascombe Book' by Richard Ford

30. 'Lila' by Marilynne Robinson

31. 'Lovers At The Chameleon Club, Paris 1932' by Francine Prose

32. 'The Magician’s Land' by Lev Grossman

33. 'The Moor’s Account' by Laila Lalami

34. 'Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals' by Patricia Lockwood

35. 'My Struggle. Book 3: Boyhood' by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Translated by Don Bartlett.

36. 'The Narrow Road To The Deep North' by Richard Flanagan

37. 'Nora Webster' by Colm Toibin

38. 'Panic In A Suitcase' by Yelena Akhtiorskaya

39. 'The Paying Guests' by Sarah Waters

40. 'The Poetry Of Derek Walcott 1948-2013' by ected by Glyn Maxwell

41. 'Redeployment' by Phil Klay

42. 'Remember Me Like This' by Bret Anthony Johnston

43. 'A Replacement Life' by Boris Fishman

44. 'Song Of The Shank' by Jeffery Renard Allen

45. '10:04' by Ben Lerner

46. 'Thirty Girls' by Susan Minot

47. 'Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay: Book 3, The Neapolitan Novels: “middle Time.' by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein

48. 'The Wallcreeper' by Nell Zink

49. 'We Are Not Ourselves' by Matthew Thomas

50. 'When Mystical Creatures Attack' by Kathleen Founds

Category: NONFICTION

1. 'American Mirror: The Life And Art Of Norman Rockwell' by Deborah Solomon

2. 'Being Mortal: Medicine And What Matters In The End' by Atul Gawande

3. 'Building A Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How To Teach It To Everyone)' by Elizabeth Green

4. 'Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant' by tten and illustrated by Roz Chast

5. 'China’s Second Continent: How A Million Migrants Are Building A New Empire In africa' by Howard W. French

6. 'Cubed: A Secret History Of The Workplace' by Nikil Saval

7. 'Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories Of 33 Men Buried In A Chilean Mine, And The Miracle That Set Them Free' by Héctor Tobar

8. 'Demon Camp: A Soldier’s Exorcism' by Jennifer Percy

9. 'Duty: Memoirs Of A Secretary At War' by Robert M. Gates

10. 'Dying Every Day: Seneca At The Court Of Nero' by James Romm

11. 'Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life Of A Mass Murderer' by Bettina Stangneth. Translated by Ruth Martin

12. 'Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story Of An Unlikely Hero And The Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives In World War Ii' by Vicki Constantine Croke

13. 'Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis As Commander In Chief' by James M. McPherson

14. 'The Empathy Exams: Essays' by Leslie Jamison

15. 'Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local — And Helped Save An American Town' by Beth Macy

16. 'The Fame Lunches: On Wounded Icons, Money, Sex, The Brontës, And The Importance Of Handbags' by Daphne Merkin

17. 'Fire Shut Up In My Bones: A Memoir' by Charles M. Blow

18. 'Forcing The Spring: Inside The Fight For Marriage Equality' by Jo Becker

19. 'Gandhi Before India' by Ramachandra Guha

20. 'Geek Sublime: The Beauty Of Code, The Code Of Beauty' by Vikram Chandra

21. 'Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, And Death In The Spanish Civil War' by Amanda Vaill

22. 'The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us' by Diane Ackerman

23. 'The Invisible Bridge: The Fall Of Nixon And The Rise Of Reagan' by Rick Perlstein

24. 'The Invisible Front: Love And Loss In An Era Of Endless War' by Yochi Dreazen

25. 'The Invisible History Of The Human Race: How Dna And History Shape Our Identities And Our Futures' by Christine Kenneally.

26. 'Just Mercy: A Story Of Justice And Redemption' by Bryan Stevenson

27. 'Limonov' by Emmanuel Carrère. Translated by John Lambert

28. 'Little Failure: A Memoir' by Gary Shteyngart

29. 'The Madwoman In The Volvo: My Year Of Raging Hormones' by Sandra Tsing Loh

30. 'Napoleon: A Life' by Andrew Roberts

31. 'No Good Men Among The Living: America, The Taliban, And The War Through Afghan Eyes' by Anand Gopal

32. 'Not I: Memoirs Of A German Childhood' by Joachim Fest. Translated by Martin Chalmers

33. 'On Immunity: An Inoculation' by Eula Biss

34. 'On The Run: Fugitive Life In An American City' by Alice Goffman

35. '100 Essays I Don’t Have Time To Write: On Umbrellas And Sword Fights, Parades And Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, And Theater' by Sarah Ruhl

36. 'The Parthenon Enigma' by Joan Breton Connelly

37. 'Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, And Endless War' by James Risen

38. 'Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life' by Hermione Lee

39. 'Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights' by Katha Pollitt

40. 'The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark For The Ivy League' by Jeff Hobbs

41. 'The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History' by Elizabeth Kolbert

42. 'A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby And The Great Betrayal' by Ben Macintyre

43. 'Stuff Matters: Exploring The Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-made World' by Mark Miodownik

44. 'The Teacher Wars: A History Of America’s Most Embattled Profession' by Dana Goldstein

45. 'Thirteen Days In September: Carter, Begin, And Sadat At Camp David' by Lawrence Wright

46. 'This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate' by Naomi Klein

47. 'Thrown' by Kerry Howley

48. 'The Trip To Echo Spring: On Writers And Drinking' by Olivia Laing

49. 'The True American: Murder And Mercy In Texas' by Anand Giridharadas

50. 'World Order' by Henry Kissinger

thanks for this! You mentioned Selenium, automated tester?

No problem. I feel it's good to automate stupid little things like this, and to share those stupid little scripts with the world.

And yes, I'm an automated tester. :)

Is Selenium better than other scrapers?

I can't speak on too many scrapers, but Selenium offers a whole lot over just Web scraping. It's a wonderful tool to automate functonal tests, perform monotonous tasks, and other handy things.

If you do any sort of Web development, I would recommend writing tests using it. It's quite easy to pick up, and is available in different languages, and for different browsers.

They forgot this one: http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/when-google-met-wikileaks/

Nassim Taleb said this about the NYT list: "There is close to ZERO probability that a "Notable book" in the NYT will be discussed in 5-20 years. Look at 1990-2009 lists."

OK, but what's the value in that statement–what does "discussed" mean for him? Looking at the 2009 list, there are plenty of books still circulating in discourse. Asterious Polyp and the Dan Chaon, Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Lethem novels are still quite talked about. Without context, I'm going to assume that is this just an acerbic, arms-crossed way to snub a popularly considered list.

That may be true, BUT I'd wager that the probability of a book not chosen by the NYT is even closer to zero.

It's not that the NYT is bad, it's that predicting fads vs. classics at the time of release is a hard problem.

My personal favourite: 'Information doesn't want to be free' by Cory Doctorow

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20763766-information-doe...

They should let you filter by genre.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com