I finished "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman - A slow read, but a good one. He talks about the intricacies and surprising observations about how me take decisions.
"Logicomix" - A brief "history" of logic, its not always historically accurate. Did I tell you its a graphic novel?
"Show Your work" - Aston Kleon - A short motivating read about sharing ones work, he makes some good arguments for sharing the process as well, not just the product.
Picked up "Coders at work" - read two chapters, a great read so far (I know its pretty popular one amoung HN)
"Leaving Orbit - Notes from the last days of American spaceflight" - pleasantly sentimental view of the wind down of the shuttle program.
"The Dark Forest" 2nd installment in Three Body Problem series. Quite clever.
"This Changes Everything" - triggered by a quote from the doc on the radio about trying not to think about climate change and whether it's possible to be bored by the end of the world. Lots of good info (including a visit to a climate deniers conference), bit long winded.
"The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics". If I read only 10% still worth it. Lots of things to dip into.
"The Astronomer and the Witch" Kepler fights to save his mother from persecution.
"Chance: The science and secrets of luck, randomness and probability" It's a collection of New Scientist essays based around probability. Well worth reading, and because it's just short essays it's easy to pick up for just a few minutes at a time.
Just started Seveneves (still in part one), and, as usual, I am blown away by Stephenson's world-building and character development. I freaking love his stuff.
I re-read Dune for the first time since I was a kid. Boy that did not hold up well. The world and lore building, which is what I guess I fondly remember, were still fantastic. The constant inner dialogues, not so much.
I had a weird year, reading no new 2015 books. Here's a handful I enjoyed the most:
"Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynmann" - probably needs no introduction here on HN, but some wonderful anecdotes by Richard Feynmann.
"Red Plenty" by Francis Spufforth. Enjoyable (and apparently thoroughly well researched) depiction of life in the Soviet Union during its rise and decline
"My Ten Years Imprisonment" by Silvio Pellico. An autobiographical account of an Italian revolutionary during the times of the Austro-Hungarian empire, he was imprisoned in a castle I live next to.
"Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer - luckily a couple of months before Everest was released (it was recommended in an HN discussion)
Yeah I think it's a book that you pick up when the time is right for you. Thus, I too think it is a great book, but at the same time, I wouldn't exactly "recommend" it to anyone. Same with Great Expectations.
Just curious why you found "Zero to One" to be a philosophy book? Despite its academic approach, it was surprisingly practical even if not many startups/entrepreneurs would find it accessible right away in their first venture.
I re-read all the Akady Renko books by Martin Cruz Smith, and the Harry Bosch by Michael Connolly. I enjoyed both very much, but I would say the Cruz Smith books edge it.
Some of the books I enjoyed the most and found most helpful:
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain - Helped me better understand myself and others, highly recommend
- The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey - Advice on mastering the mental part of doing anything, not just tennis
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo - actually maybe the most important book I've read in a while, helped me throw away a lot of stuff I didn't need
- Models by Mark Manson - very helpful and ethical advice on attracting women for people like me who never really quite figured it out
- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine- discussion of a philosophy of life that seems like it would work well for modern living
I can vouch for two of these. I read "The Inner Game of Tennis" last year, because it was recommended to me. It is the kind of book that I would never pick up on my own based on the title. Luckily, the book contents has almost nothing to do with the title :)
Marie Kondo's book on tidying up is also of delightfully broader utility than the title implies. I just recently finished it - it is a surprisingly insightful book and a real pleasure to read. Highly recommended!
The Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson - It was 3000+ pages all told, and I LOVED it. His writing has always enthralled me, and I was hooked from the start
Every Discworld Novel - Terry Pratchett - Not much can be said that hasn't already been said a million times over. If you haven't read them yet, start now
The Theory of Poker - David Sklansky - Helped out my poker game tremendously. I'm much more ev+ now
I can see that being an issue. I'm in the same habit with LOTR, ASOIAF and Harry Potter, reading each series once every two years or so, and it crushes my ability to read a lot of new books. I've avoided rereading Discworld so far because I know that it will never be as magical as the first read through.
But oh god, Baroque Cycle was unparalleled from a character-building perspective. I loved every second of it.
There are several books I read, still want to increase my reading amount:
1. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", nice bio about Feynman
2. "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future", inspiring biography and business book.
3. "Apollo" by Catherine Bly Cox. Awesome book about Apollo Programm. Goes even in some technical details.
4. "Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies". Very good and thorough book about bitcoins, the author implements most import concept in the book.
5. "F'D Companies: Spectacular Dot-com Flameouts". I seldom don't recommend a book, but this one is hard to tell. It is interesting read about a lot of failed dot-com era companies. But the layout and writing style looks like an automatic rip-off of some blog articles (I read on kindle). It's not totally bad, but be warned before buying. Try some free chapters.
6. "Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down", good layman general introduction into static. Nice overview why all the buildings/bridges etc around you don't fall apart.
7. "Never Eat Alone", Classics of networking. Actually basic stuff that people probably already know about networking. But still good to read, and author always shows examples on successful persons or himself.
8. "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory", reading this at the moment. Very nice and simple introduction to relativity theory and quantum mechanics. I finished around 100 pages and like it.
I read 8 books this year. My aim is around 2 books/month.
Good luck. I was just getting back into regularly reading a couple years ago. Tried for 1/month. Then it was 1-2. Now it's 3-4. Feels great - although I have to remind myself that it's okay if I don't reach some sort of quota each month.
About 30-60 minutes per day. Every couple of weeks I'll hit a point in one of the books where I'll just read the rest of it in a couple hours. Of course these numbers all depend on the books - this year did not include anything longer than 500 pages.
Also, don't get too hung up on the numbers. The past couple months were hectic and my pace has really slowed down, and that's totally fine.
I can vouch for the first two of these books:
1. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", fun bio, made me buy the Feynman lectures as well. Really glad I did.
2. "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future", Very inspiring indeed.
Fyi, F'D Companies looks like a bunch of blog posts b/c that's exactly where it came from, the notorious dot-com era blog fuckedcompany.com chronicalling the flameouts of the era. Sadly now defunct as a blog.
Here are the ones I'd be willing to recommend, in reverse chronological order of when I read them. I read 59 total. Listen to books on tape while working out has maybe doubled my reading rate.
Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy - Great book on how the Mongol Empire came to be, who Genghis was, and it put the whole thing in perspective for me in a useful way.
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch - What it says on the tin. Actually a good overview how some important technologies interrelate.
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction - How to be wrong less often. Based on the Good Judgement Project results.
The Three-Body Problem - Decent enough science fiction but extra interesting because it's science fiction from a different culture.
Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants - A history of things that go boom. Engaging writing and I learned things about chemistry.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - I'm nominating this for a Hugo. It tells you it's going to stab you in the gut but when it does you don't see it coming. Plus high quality scheming and speculation on economics, society, and empire.
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps - Excellent use of voice and an overall good book.
Bloom - Made my skin crawl in places and also was good at making you feel a radical change in perspective.
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed - An interesting perspective on certain aspects of government. A bit too negative for the topic, the factors outlined are also why commercial economies were able to develop more centralized economies than agrarian ones in the early modern era.
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy - Quite good book on bureaucracy though not as excellent as the previous book on the origins of states.
Last First Snow - It's always great to read books about the struggles between people with sympathetic motivations.
The Unwelcome Warlock - The latest in a series of fantasy books where people use magic in creative and sensible ways.
Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New Space Economy -Mostly about all the different sorts of asteroids.
Seveneves - Neal Stephenson's latest. If you like his books read it but maybe skip the last 1/3 after the timeskip.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Wow he did a lot of cool stuff.
Stories of Your Life and Others - Brilliant and poetic short stories.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life - Some interesting perspective on materialism.
Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life - Best science book I've read in a while! Shows why mitochondria matter, the fundamental limits of prochariotic life, and several important ways mitochondria influence again and evolution.
Blue Remembered Earth - Awesome near futureish book that does well at imagining a future that isn't just a linear extrapolation but is still believable.
A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark - Not enough pacifist badass grandmothers in urban fantasy.
Quantum Computing since Democritus - I understand QM much better now.
Philip K. Dicks's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?": Liked the movie (Blade Runner) better, but not bad.
Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms": While reading it I found it extremely boring, though there was this feel to it that still made it pleasant to read. I can't really describe it.
Plutarch's "Lives" from the main figures from the end of the Republic (Penguin Classics collection): By far the best books on Roman history I've ever read.
Livy's books on the Second Punic War (Penguin Classics collection): A bit extensive, very detailed. I liked Plutarch's better (even though he's a bit more imaginative according to modern historians), but nevertheless a great read.
Various books by Machado De Assis (Quincas Borba, Helena, among others): National author, I just love his books, even though they all share a common plot.
A book on Alexander the Great. Can't remember the author. It was a summary of his life and conquers, very short but entertaining reading.
This year I'm planning to read some more Ancient History narrated by the classics, some Shakespeare and maybe Nietzsche or Dante (heavy reading I guess). I'm just as fond of history as of fiction, as Livy puts it:
I shall find in antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absolved in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world...
Reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was such a disappointment to me because I loved the movie so much. I would like to revisit it - maybe I would understand the parts about the empathy boxes and the wife's mood thing better now.
I think it's important to recognise there is a minimal relationship between book and movie. If one keeps them mentally discrete it is much easier to enjoy both. Do Androids Dream... is a very spiritual book. The movie doesn't / can't capture that element and wisely creates a totally different experience from the same elements...
From the other side, having read the book first, the movie was weird and boring, which was disappointing especially given the hype around it.
I switched it off around halfway into it and never got back to giving it another try, so this is not really meant as a fair assessment of its quality, just sharing a very different experience from yours.
"The Long Earth" - Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - First in trilogy about parallel worlds; the combination of those two authors makes it both fanciful and grounded, which is a bit odd.
"Clockwork Rocket" - Greg Egan - First in the Orthagonal trilogy; An alien story where physics is different.
"Seveneves" - Neal Stephenson - Goes great with the recent hard sci-fi space movies.
EDIT:
"What-if" - Randall Munroe - Saw this on another list and need to make sure is shows up as often as possible. This is the thing to hand every kid as part of their back-to-school pack.
164 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 181 ms ] thread"Logicomix" - A brief "history" of logic, its not always historically accurate. Did I tell you its a graphic novel?
"Show Your work" - Aston Kleon - A short motivating read about sharing ones work, he makes some good arguments for sharing the process as well, not just the product.
Picked up "Coders at work" - read two chapters, a great read so far (I know its pretty popular one amoung HN)
- "Functional Programming in Scala" by Paul Chiusano and Rúnar Bjarnason
- "Big Data: Principles and best practices of scalable realtime data systems" by Nathan Marz and James Warren
What were you general thoughts on it?
No Hero - M. Owen; Zero to One - P. Thiel; The 7 Principles of Professional Services - S. Anastasi.
"The Four Steps to the Epiphany" - I got a very detailed view on customer development.
"Zero to One" - got some fresh ideas on how to think differently wrt business.
"Dhandha: How Gujaratis Do Business" - collection of stories , which highlight why/how Gujaratis are so successful in businesses.
"The Dark Forest" 2nd installment in Three Body Problem series. Quite clever.
"This Changes Everything" - triggered by a quote from the doc on the radio about trying not to think about climate change and whether it's possible to be bored by the end of the world. Lots of good info (including a visit to a climate deniers conference), bit long winded.
"The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics". If I read only 10% still worth it. Lots of things to dip into.
"The Astronomer and the Witch" Kepler fights to save his mother from persecution.
"A Place of Greater Safety" - Hilary Mantel [French Revolution - Danton, Robespierre, Desmoulins ...]
"One Summer: America 1927" - Bill Bryson
"Napoleon the Great" - Andrew Roberts
"Seveneves" - Neal Stephenson
Reading "The Box" at the moment which is pretty interesting.
http://www.amazon.com/Thread-Across-Ocean-Heroic-Transatlant...
It covers the beginnings of one of the most important historical legs that most of our amazing technology rests on.
"Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynmann" - probably needs no introduction here on HN, but some wonderful anecdotes by Richard Feynmann.
"Red Plenty" by Francis Spufforth. Enjoyable (and apparently thoroughly well researched) depiction of life in the Soviet Union during its rise and decline
"My Ten Years Imprisonment" by Silvio Pellico. An autobiographical account of an Italian revolutionary during the times of the Austro-Hungarian empire, he was imprisoned in a castle I live next to.
"Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer - luckily a couple of months before Everest was released (it was recommended in an HN discussion)
Books I actually read which were good: The Informationist by Taylor Stevens Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
"Madame Bovary" - Gustave Flaubert - Considered to be one of the masterpieces of literature, but it's so long that I can't really recommend it.
"The Sales Acceleration Formula" - Mark Roberge - I'd recommend this to any entrepreneur.
"Status Anxiety" - Alain de Botton - A pretty good pop scienc-y psychology book.
"Zero to One" - Peter Thiel - A philosophy book imo.
"Tokyo Vice" - Jake Adelstein - A look at the underbelly of Japanese society.
"Capitalism and the Jews" - Jerry Muller - A very good overview of the intersection of the Jewish faith and culture with their business success.
"The Richest Man in Babylon" - George S. Clayson - A personal finance parable. Recommended.
"The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" - Marie Kondo - A philosophy book. Worth a look even if you don't ascribe to its teachings.
Tell that to the teacher who made us read it at the age of 14. A masterpiece nonetheless.
"Expecting Better" - Emily Oster
"The 9/11 Commission Report" - National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
"Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS" - Joby Warrick
"Power Wars: Inside Obama's Post-9/11 Presidency" - Charlie Savage (not finished yet)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle
[Jack Shaftoe is probably my favourite fictional character]
The books I liked the most were:
- The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why
- On Intelligence
- The Martian
- The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
- Einstein: His Life and Universe
- Alan Turing: The Enigma
- Neuroscience for Dummies
- Thunder Run - (which is about the battle of Baghdad in 2003)
"Inside Job" - Connie Willis. 4/5
"Norwegian Wood (Tokio Blues)" - Haruki Murakami. 4/5
"Old Man's War" - John Scalzi. 5/5
"Persepolis" - Marjane Satrapi. 5/5
Non fiction:
"The 10,000 year explosion" about recent evolution. 3/5 ton of evidence for their thesis, but lacks predictions.
"What if" well known by HN. 5/5
"The nurture assumption" about education, 2/5. Maybe a 4/5 when it was published, but now their ideas are in the water supply.
"The man who mistook his wife for a hat", by Oliver Sacks 4/5. Several stories about neurological deficits.
"1984" - Orwell - 5/5 French law on surveillance made me want to read it again
"Fahrenheit 451" - Ray Bradbury - 4/5
"La zone du dehors" - Alain Damasio - 4/5
"The name of the wind" - Patrick Rothfuss - 4/5 A great fantasy story. It's a big book, there is a lot of details, but very well written.
"Stranger in a Strange Land" - Robert A. Heinlein - 3/5 Awesome concept, but very slow
"The Inverted World" - Christopher Priest - 4/5 Great short book
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain - Helped me better understand myself and others, highly recommend
- The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey - Advice on mastering the mental part of doing anything, not just tennis
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo - actually maybe the most important book I've read in a while, helped me throw away a lot of stuff I didn't need
- Models by Mark Manson - very helpful and ethical advice on attracting women for people like me who never really quite figured it out
- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine- discussion of a philosophy of life that seems like it would work well for modern living
Marie Kondo's book on tidying up is also of delightfully broader utility than the title implies. I just recently finished it - it is a surprisingly insightful book and a real pleasure to read. Highly recommended!
Every Discworld Novel - Terry Pratchett - Not much can be said that hasn't already been said a million times over. If you haven't read them yet, start now
The Theory of Poker - David Sklansky - Helped out my poker game tremendously. I'm much more ev+ now
And I'm stuck in a loop where I continue to read all the Discworld novels, over and over…
But oh god, Baroque Cycle was unparalleled from a character-building perspective. I loved every second of it.
1. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", nice bio about Feynman
2. "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future", inspiring biography and business book.
3. "Apollo" by Catherine Bly Cox. Awesome book about Apollo Programm. Goes even in some technical details.
4. "Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies". Very good and thorough book about bitcoins, the author implements most import concept in the book.
5. "F'D Companies: Spectacular Dot-com Flameouts". I seldom don't recommend a book, but this one is hard to tell. It is interesting read about a lot of failed dot-com era companies. But the layout and writing style looks like an automatic rip-off of some blog articles (I read on kindle). It's not totally bad, but be warned before buying. Try some free chapters.
6. "Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down", good layman general introduction into static. Nice overview why all the buildings/bridges etc around you don't fall apart.
7. "Never Eat Alone", Classics of networking. Actually basic stuff that people probably already know about networking. But still good to read, and author always shows examples on successful persons or himself.
8. "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory", reading this at the moment. Very nice and simple introduction to relativity theory and quantum mechanics. I finished around 100 pages and like it.
I read 8 books this year. My aim is around 2 books/month.
Reading can make difference.
Also, don't get too hung up on the numbers. The past couple months were hectic and my pace has really slowed down, and that's totally fine.
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/
"Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami (Strange good -- but I'm not sure if I liked it as much as liked "The Wild Sheep Chase")
"One hundred years of solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez (Very slow, had a hard time honestly)
"Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn (A fast, exciting read but found the ending unsatisfying. But would recommend)
"Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins (Fantastic prose, fantastical characters and situations. Will read more from him)
And for technical books, I read "The Art of Agile Development". Was alright.
Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy - Great book on how the Mongol Empire came to be, who Genghis was, and it put the whole thing in perspective for me in a useful way.
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch - What it says on the tin. Actually a good overview how some important technologies interrelate.
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction - How to be wrong less often. Based on the Good Judgement Project results.
The Three-Body Problem - Decent enough science fiction but extra interesting because it's science fiction from a different culture.
Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants - A history of things that go boom. Engaging writing and I learned things about chemistry.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - I'm nominating this for a Hugo. It tells you it's going to stab you in the gut but when it does you don't see it coming. Plus high quality scheming and speculation on economics, society, and empire.
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps - Excellent use of voice and an overall good book.
Bloom - Made my skin crawl in places and also was good at making you feel a radical change in perspective.
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed - An interesting perspective on certain aspects of government. A bit too negative for the topic, the factors outlined are also why commercial economies were able to develop more centralized economies than agrarian ones in the early modern era.
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy - Quite good book on bureaucracy though not as excellent as the previous book on the origins of states.
Last First Snow - It's always great to read books about the struggles between people with sympathetic motivations.
The Unwelcome Warlock - The latest in a series of fantasy books where people use magic in creative and sensible ways.
Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New Space Economy -Mostly about all the different sorts of asteroids.
Seveneves - Neal Stephenson's latest. If you like his books read it but maybe skip the last 1/3 after the timeskip.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Wow he did a lot of cool stuff.
Stories of Your Life and Others - Brilliant and poetic short stories.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life - Some interesting perspective on materialism.
Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life - Best science book I've read in a while! Shows why mitochondria matter, the fundamental limits of prochariotic life, and several important ways mitochondria influence again and evolution.
Blue Remembered Earth - Awesome near futureish book that does well at imagining a future that isn't just a linear extrapolation but is still believable.
A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark - Not enough pacifist badass grandmothers in urban fantasy.
Quantum Computing since Democritus - I understand QM much better now.
Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms": While reading it I found it extremely boring, though there was this feel to it that still made it pleasant to read. I can't really describe it.
Plutarch's "Lives" from the main figures from the end of the Republic (Penguin Classics collection): By far the best books on Roman history I've ever read.
Livy's books on the Second Punic War (Penguin Classics collection): A bit extensive, very detailed. I liked Plutarch's better (even though he's a bit more imaginative according to modern historians), but nevertheless a great read.
Various books by Machado De Assis (Quincas Borba, Helena, among others): National author, I just love his books, even though they all share a common plot.
A book on Alexander the Great. Can't remember the author. It was a summary of his life and conquers, very short but entertaining reading.
This year I'm planning to read some more Ancient History narrated by the classics, some Shakespeare and maybe Nietzsche or Dante (heavy reading I guess). I'm just as fond of history as of fiction, as Livy puts it:
I shall find in antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absolved in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world...
I switched it off around halfway into it and never got back to giving it another try, so this is not really meant as a fair assessment of its quality, just sharing a very different experience from yours.
"Clockwork Rocket" - Greg Egan - First in the Orthagonal trilogy; An alien story where physics is different.
"Seveneves" - Neal Stephenson - Goes great with the recent hard sci-fi space movies.
EDIT: "What-if" - Randall Munroe - Saw this on another list and need to make sure is shows up as often as possible. This is the thing to hand every kid as part of their back-to-school pack.