Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?
I'm looking for inspiration for the Christmas holidays.
Mine were: – Helen DeWitt, The Last Samurai (2000) – William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis (1991) – John Ma, Polis (2024) – John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice (1982)
(Apologies if someone has posted something similar recently. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything.)
155 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 237 ms ] threadHighly recommend it. Don't waste your time with Franklin's autobiography.
you don't have to have read the other Hunger Games because it is set about 60 years before the others
Very entertaining sci-fi. I tore through it a a couple of days.
The 5th book is an "audiobook only" release until January 2025 (I think) called, "NOT TILL WE ARE LOST".
And the Bobiverse series has recently been optioned to Universal!
http://dennisetaylor.org/status-of-things/
But somehow this "let's go on an adventure and do some beaver shenanigans" felt strange, lol.
The story of his life was absolute fascinating for me, unfortunately the last part of the book attempts a connection with the development of Alpha Go / reinforcement learning that should have been avoided.
Fall Out - Tim Shipman, on of his astonishingly detailed quartet on Britain's exit from the EU;
Robert Blake's biography of Disraeli, magisterial yet readable;
Boris Johnson's memoir Unleashed, great fun if you like his tone;
Colonialism, a Moral Reckoning, Nigel Biggar, an antidote to the more ahistorical versions of the BLM narrative.
The Notebook - A history of thinking on paper, Roland Allen - a joyful romp through the notebook's history;
Elusive - How Peter Higgs solved the mystery of Mass, Frank Close - a nice account of the discovery of the Higgs Boson, with perhaps too much biography of Higgs, who after all as a lecturer at Edinburgh was not a thrill-seeker.
Carlo Rovelli's White Holes, implausible but beautifully written.
No thanks tbh. This isn’t identity politics. It’s just live and let live.
"This also highlights the huge difference between the "LGB" and the "T''. The gay rights movement just asked society to leave them alone and let them get married. No impositions on my life. The trans movement demands that I adopt their new dialect (or I'm a bigot) and allow males to play in girls sports (or I'm a bigot). Big impositions."
https://x.com/coldxman/status/1855303418975539394
Also similar to what the anti-civil rights movement were saying when contrasting it to the end of slavery.
Here, let me show it:
"This also highlights the huge difference between the "Abolitionist Movement" and "Civil Rights". The abolitionist movement just asked society to leave them alone. No impositions on my life. The "civil Rights" movement demands that I accept they can share spaces with me (or I'm a bigot) and allow blacks to have access to the same systems in society (or I'm a bigot)."
The only thing that has changed between these is that once these movements get set in stone, and legislation catches up - reactionary people such as Coleman stop attacking and othering it. This is why history is important. You get to see these patterns and realize its just the same shit happening all over again.
All you've done is slot some different words into his tweet and asserted that the meaning is similar. How, exactly?
Also, your original claim was that Hughes is "against trans people being able to exist in this world" which you haven't provided any proof of. That tweet I quoted shows his actual expressed views, which refutes this.
We've been through this ride before. We're going through this ride again. Bigots, like that author, will lose and history will not look kindly upon them.
However, for now, they get to act as an "enlightened rationalist", and sell books to people so people can justify their discomfort against trans folks.
These enlightened rationalists aren't new. Again, I'm saying that what history provides us is seeing the patterns of behavior and speech.
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Let me more specifically target that tweet you've sent. Trans people make up such a small number of people, and an even smaller percentage of those would be interested in professional sports. Spending this much time having a moral freakout over this, when there's practically no "unfairness" happening in any mainstream sports is telling.
This moral outrage has now led to invasive "tests" women have to go through before they participate in multiple sports at an international level. This outrage has caused a proliferation of false claims lodged against women who just, simply do well in sports and don't fall within the very subjectively defined "gender identity".
For example, what Imane Khelif went through is a damned outrage. Has this author taken responsibility of what their rhetoric might mean to so called "real women" that he's claiming to be so supportive of?
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Now as for the language. As society shifts, and attitudes towards culture changes, our language also changes. It wasn't that far ago where words like the n-word were very common place in American culture. Now, if you're using that you will be considered a bigot. If I'm to take this author at face value, that's somehow supposedly a bad thing?
This is similar to actively, and maliciously, misgendering someone. It's just not reached that level of understanding in society yet.
Language is a living and breathing thing. The meanings of words change over time. How acceptable a phrase is changes over time. Folks crying about this are, at best just scared of change, at worst trying to monetize other folks' fear of change. I believe this author falls into the latter here.
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It's not just his tweets, he's set his career around this issue (https://youtu.be/WDFXPlv-R_s). For someone who wants to be less _social justice_, he sure spends a lot of time talking about issues that ultimately are not relevant for 99% of the population, and is just part of the culture war himself.
This isn't about "how they get to live". For instance, if a male wants to dress in clothing designed for female wearers and adopt a name more commonly used by women and girls then the vast majority of people will live and let live, and happily co-exist. It's not a problem.
However it becomes a problem when encroaching on the rights of others. The female category in sports is a great example because exclusion of males is the entire rationale, as this provides women and girls with a competitive space that is fairer and safer than if it is mixed-sex. Allowing males into the category - which effectively destroys it - has a negative impact on female athletes. So of course there is going to be opposition to this.
"This moral outrage has now led to invasive 'tests' women have to go through before they participate in multiple sports at an international level. This outrage has caused a proliferation of false claims lodged against women who just, simply do well in sports and don't fall within the very subjectively defined 'gender identity'."
Screening for sex can be done with a cheek swab. This is vastly less invasive than the anti-doping tests athletes must take, which involves having blood taken and urinating in a cup while someone watches.
"For example, what Imane Khelif went through is a damned outrage. Has this author taken responsibility of what their rhetoric might mean to so called 'real women' that he's claiming to be so supportive of?"
There's a significant amount of evidence that indicates Imane Khelif is actually male, with the athletic advantage that brings.
"Language is a living and breathing thing. The meanings of words change over time."
Right, but going back to the above point, if we can't use words like "man", "boy" or "male" to describe the category of people who are definitionally excluded from the female category of sports without being shut down and complained at, then how can anyone make the case for women's sports to those who disagree? Or indeed any aspect of anything relating to women.
Perhaps that's the point - attempting to make it "bigoted" and "transphobic" to argue in favor of women's and girls' sex-based rights, rather than presenting any rational argument for taking them away.
Anyway I think this shows quite clearly that your analogy doesn't fit when one digs into the detail. None of the above is anything like the struggle for racial equality.
Would it be possible to provide links to some of this evidence in a respectful way?
- Karotype testing of Khelif (and the other disqualified boxer, Lin) showing XY chromosomes, reported by sports journalist Alan Abrahamson who's seen the lab reports and covering letter that was received by the IOC from the IBA: https://www.3wiresports.com/articles/2024/8/5/fa9lt6ypbwx5su...
- A member of Khelif's training team, Georges Cazorla, revealing in interview that Khelif has problems with chromosomes and hormones, and has been under testosterone suppression to bring levels into the female range: https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/2024-olympics-imane-khelif-was-...
- Extracts from a medical report leaked to French journalist Djaffer Ait Aoudia, which state that Khelif has a disorder of sex development, 5-alpha reductase deficiency, which exists only in males: https://lecorrespondant.net/imane-khelif-ni-ovaires-ni-uteru...
There are other oddities as well, like Khelif choosing not to pursue a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport after being deemed ineligible to compete in IBA events. And the head of the Spanish national team, Rafael Lozano, saying that when the Algerian team visited to train, they ended up matching Khelif with a male boxer to spar, as the upper body strength and punching power was too much for the female boxers.
Worth noting also that all this is consistent with Khelif competing at the Olympics in the women's boxing category, as they only ask for identity documentation and do not verify sex, unlike weight classes which are strictly controlled.
This is why I kept lamenting how important learning history, especially the history of bigotry is.
I'm sure he similarly complained when women asked to be called Ms, not just Miss or Mrs, too.
You're going to be called bigoted because that's simply where culture is heading. You either own up to that judgement others have of you, or you realize you live in a society and certain behaviors are _not okay_.
You have the freedom to be _subjectively_ a bigot.
I doubt you just chanced upon HN and made a new account, so why not just post with your regular account?
Nine lies about work by Marcus Buckingham
How to know a person by David Brooks
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Empireworld-British-Imperialism-Sha...
Paul Richard Halmos
Both great books.
Libra by Don Delilo
Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith
Troubled - Rob Henderson. About how Henderson was in state care and wound up at prestigious universities and his thoughts on the world.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176444107-troubled
Not the End of the World - Hannah Ritchie from 'Our World in Data' about the state of the planet.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145624737-not-the-end-of...
Dictatorland - Paul Kenyon - About the dictators who have impoverished Africa.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36260719-dictatorland
Magic Pill - Johann Hari - About Semaglutide and how people got fat.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201319612-magic-pill
On the Edge - Nate Silver - About how seeing the world in terms of risk and expected value can work.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204236707-on-the-edge
Orbital - Samantha Harvey - Booker Prize winner about people on the ISS and the world.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123136728-orbital
Build, Baby, Build - Bryan Caplan on why YIMBYism is a good idea. This is a graphic novel. It's really fun.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181564537-build-baby-bui...