I’m sure not everyone came here to hear tech book recommendations, but I will add another vote for Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppman. It’s one of the best tech reference books I’ve ever read. It manages to explain SO much while requiring so little prior knowledge from readers.
Another book that is relatively new that I loved was Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen. I worked in productionizing ML systems for 3 years and this book equips you with exactly what you need to do so. It does a great job of explaining the whole ML modeling pipeline and some of the commonly overlooked nuances that can cause your models to fail spectacularly in production. I will be referencing this book for years to come.
I'd suggest searching HN for other reviews of the book since it comes up pretty frequently in these threads, but personally I liked that it covered a lot of ground quickly and fairly deeply, and the content remained engaging for me throughout. Some specific things I liked about the book were its coverage of SQL isolation levels and how they work, different ways to coordinate separate systems when you want atomicity (like 2pc and queue-based synchronization), failure modes to keep in mind when dealing with distributed systems (like unbounded network delay and split-brain situations), and references to a whole bunch of production-ready software that solve distributed computing challenges in various ways depending on the trade-offs you're looking for.
Overall I felt better equipped to make intelligent decisions about systems design after reading it.
How the World Really Works by Vaclac Smil is one of the best book I've read this year. It gives such a great perspective on how much energy and material we use.
It's one of the most readable books by Smil and has gems like this :
“Moreover, within a lifetime of people born just after the Second World War the rate had more than tripled, from about 10 to 34 GJ/capita between 1950 and 2020. Translating the last rate into more readily imaginable equivalents, it is as if an average Earthling has every year at their personal disposal about 800 kilograms (0.8 tons, or nearly six barrels) of crude oil, or about 1.5 tons of good bituminous coal. And when put in terms of physical labor, it is as if 60 adults would be working non-stop, day and night, for each average person; and for the inhabitants of affluent countries this equivalent of steadily laboring adults would be, depending on the specific country, mostly between 200 and 240. On average, humans now have unprecedented amounts of energy at their disposal.”
The book Infrastructure, by Brian Hayes, seems similar to your description of Vaclav Smil's book. It's a big book filled with photos and explanations of various infrastructure (mines, factories, railroads, the electrical grid, waterworks and so on) that we keep seeing but don't quite understand what we see. It shows how much it really takes to keep the modern world functioning.
Last year I read Strong Towns by Chuck Marohn and that’s put me in solid YIMBY territory, as well as completely changed my perspective on our car-centric urban planning in the US.
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
IFS for short.
Written for normal people, not psychologists/psychiatrists. It has a very valuable core philosophy/teaching about who we are underneath all the masks of our personality(s). It closely resembles something I experienced during an Ayahuasca retreat in 2018, about the soul / inner child/god entity.
For something a little more tangible that digs in closer to the mechanism/science, see Dr Tori Olds on youtube, she has 5 videos on the topic that is incredibly powerful in understanding your own behaviours. Will take less than 2 hours of your life but can change it permanently for the better!
on a similar topic, people might like The Body Keeps The Score, by Bessel van der Kolk. although it's written at a high level for both practitioners and well-educated normies which might fit HN.
+1 for The Body Keeps The Score. This book had a big impact on me and led me to focus on the physical components of past trauma. I started doing yoga daily and after a few months suddenly started having a huge release of emotions during the session. It only lasted for maybe 6-7 consecutive sessions, but left me with less daily anxiety and my panic attacks essentially disappeared. I highly recommend this book.
No I wouldn’t say so. I got stronger but as I started running daily my flexibility has reduced again (lots of hamstring and hip flexor tightness!). I would say it was a permanent shift in that I haven’t had a panic attack since.
My experience also with Yoga - it’s a daily practice.
An interesting thought passed onto my by my teacher - all body tensions are tensions of the mind. Hatha Ying’s reaches to the mind through the body. With practice you learn to release faster. With regular practice your baseline changes.
The habit of letting go, continuously, in the body, brings up the possibility to release aspects that are seen as mind based.
Also, the mind insists that body and mind are separate but in practice they are not.
- Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico by Hugh Thomas , because he brings history to life and the story of the Spanish and the Mexica is stranger than fiction, more subtle and terrible than you might think, and has many lessons on human behavior applicable to today.
- Ecclesiastes by Qoheleth: In my opinion, superior to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. "Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white; let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going." (Eccles 9:11)
- Amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman: We thought we had to worry about 1984 and big brother. We were wrong. We are living in Huxley's Brave New World where digital media has made us dumber, distracted and cut our connections with one other. Our smartphones substitute rosaries and entertainment becomes the dogma.
- Structure and Intepretation of Computer Programs by Hal Abelson and Gerlad J. Sussman: Need I say more? This books makes me fall in love all over again with programming every time I pick it up.
- Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle: What does it mean to live well? How can we be happy? Aristotle makes the striking claim that everyone knows how to be happy, but we have to create the habits that are in accord with reason and right judgement in order to get there. Also, happiness is not a state but rather the result of our active will and right ordering of desire. Required reading for any political leader.
- Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser: Javascript frameworks come and go, language standards change, Computer platforms rise and fall, but math and the underling concepts of computation stay the same. Knowing what computation is, what its properties are, etc. will not only make you a better programmer but a better thinker. Church-Turing Thesis essential reading for anyone serious about algorithm design and analysis.
TOC by Sipser is incorrect at some points, especially in Push Down Automata. I will instead recommend the `Automata Theory Language & Computation` by Ullman et al.
Don't do this. While Sipser has a couple of hipccups he is a MUCH better teacher and writer. Ullman et al are brilliant and all but their writing is both boring and incomprehensible. I am not even talking about the most useless recommendation of them all - the Dragon book.
A New History of Modern Computing gave me a huge perspective on computers that I felt I lacked vs others who are older.
Crafting Interpreters (Nystrom) makes compilers/interpreters not spooky and fun.
Operating Systems: 3 Easy pieces and the xv6 OS manual are also great introductory books that got me interested in OS dev.
Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series. As someone who read a lot of sci-fi, I'm surprised I've discovered it only now. It's considered the Dostoevsky of scifi, very different from golden age hard scifi. Already started books of the Long Sun.
Disappointment of the year - The three body problem. Feels like buying on amazon a product with thousand of rave reviews only to realize its all fake Chinese reviews.
I can second the New Sun series. The bizarre thing about this series is that it is a hole in my memory. I can remember reading it, I can remember liking it, and I can remember little snippets, but I can't remember most of the specifics. I've read the series twice, but even the second reading hasn't resolved this failure to recollect.
Ironically -- likely on purpose -- that's the point. The series centres on an unreliable narrator, which is a part of the charm.
You forget moments because the narrator wasn't clear.
The narrator wasn't clear because the he didn't understand what he was seeing.
You have to re-read the series, perhaps several times, to figure out what's truly going on.
BotNS has a final volume that has been out of print for decades: Urth of the New Sun. I was lucky enough to stumble across a copy in a bookstore 20 years ago while on vacation; you can now find plenty of online listings for it. It wraps some things up and further obfuscates some others; in short, it’s Gene Wolfe. It’s less memorable than the main BotNS, but for those who have read that a few times it’s worth picking up.
Long Sun is my current favorite of his, but you should be warned that it’s a very different kind of writing and pacing. The entire first book takes place over the course of only two or three days, and you’re given even less context about the world than in New Sun. The reward for puzzling it out is even bigger IMO, but I’m in the minority here. (And I’ve by no means caught everything.)
I think Gene Wolfe is the one of the greatest authors of all time across any genre. I highly highly recommend the Fifth Head of Cerberus which is 3 short interconnected novellas and Peace, which isn't traditional Sci-Fi but is absolutely worth a read.
He's not just writing, he's constructing beautifully crafted puzzle-boxes that take a lot of time and thought to unpack.
I disagree on Three Body Problem. Especially the second book which I thought was even better than the first. The third was pretty meh and I didn't entirely like the resolution. But the first book is really great imo.
I somewhat agree... The story and sci fi elements are brilliant, some of those where ground breaking extremities for me - those I really enjoyed. The characters are mostly shallow shells to narrative the happenings without any development and often lacking reason and common sense which I really hated.
Yeah I agree. The only person who made total sense was Luo Ji and even he went like completely ballistic by the third book. The female character sucked so hard, I doubted if the author had ever written a female character before. It was Asimov levels of bad.
The societal descriptions were truly amazing though. Coming out of the despair and decline with some false hope that humanity’s physics was good enough to face off and then absolutely getting their ass handed to them in a conflict with what was essentially something less than a messenger probe. I’m absolutely convinced this is what we will do as a race in such a situation.
I enjoyed the Three Body Problem series despite its flaws. I found it refreshing how unlike typical science fiction it is. It's much more idea and plot-oriented than character-oriented. Second book was my favorite. First spends a bit too much time on Chinese history, and the third goes too far off the rails.
Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants
Ignition breaks down the fallacy that huge innovations come from large professional teams. It demonstrates that getting the right mix of risk tolerance in your team is a large part of innovation. Too little risk tolerance and you never create anything amazing; too much and you can blow it all up (either literally or go bankrupt).
Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing by Robert. A. Caro. He is known for his biographies of Robert Moses (The Power Broker) and of Lyndon Johnson, and for his extensive research of these subjects.
Early in the book, covering his early career when he was working as a journalist, one of his bosses gave him a lesson in investigative reporting in a nutshell: Just remember, turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page. The book contains various subsequent examples of him doing exactly that in various research endeavours, and also going to extreme lengths to put himself in a better mindset for writing whatever he is working on at the time, like moving to the area a subject grew up in to live there for a year to better research his early life.
There are examples of him sifting through many boxes of documents in an archive that would seem to be inconsequential, but then happening on a receipt or memo that is just an allusion to something that gives him the lead he needs to uncover some real information.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton [1]. A haunting and disturbing account powerfully told and rendered. Beaton is well known for Hark! A Vagrant, but this is her best work to date.
The Kalevala [2]. I am familiar with the Eddas, the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, but the Finnish national epos was beautiful and refreshingly different. While I'm sure the English translation pales next to the original, it was nevertheless quite lyrical.
There were a few different PD translations to pick from when I did that edition of Kalevala, including a prose version. I don’t speak Finnish, but I picked the one that retained the Kalevala-meter and seemed to read the most lyrically. Glad to hear that you enjoyed it!
Nomi Prins, All the Presidents Bankers, and also Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World.
Those two books illustrate the financialization of the US and global economy over time, and although dense, are well worth the effort. She has a new book out as of Oct, "Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever."
Peter Anderas, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America
A very fun historical read, covering everything from textile machinery smuggling from Britain to the American colonies, to rum and whiskey smuggling into Indian Country in the 19th century, to opium smuggling to China, to Prohibition and the modern Drug War, cotton smuggling by the South to Europe to finance the South's Civil War army, and the smuggling of people from slaves to immigrants. Very eye-opening, a lot of America's 'wealthy families' got their first pool of capital in this manner.
× The Cyberiad (English translation) by Stanisław Lem. It's the most hilarious science fiction I've read. It hits a special note with me, I actually immediately started reading it again from the start as soon as I finished it.
× The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow. An amazing rethinking of archeology, a denunciation of social orthogenesis and an invitation to dream of a better world
Other mentions are long fantasy series, including a complete re-read of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett and Tchaikovsky's Shadow of the Apt (not his best, but frighteningly relevant in 2022. A story about the Eastern "wasp empire" invading the west and all its strategies of propaganda, division and subjugation)
The Cyberiad is brilliant. If you haven’t read it already I thoroughly recommend Monday Starts on Saturday by the Strugatsky Brothers. It has a kind of similar vibe, hilarious, fantastical yet still sci-fi.
I also read the Dawn of Everything and wanted to recommend it here. The first chapter drew me in immediately: reading the native American critiques of the culture of European settlers was eye-opening. By the end of the book I felt they had beat their message to death a little bit, but the message was a very interesting one.
I’m also reading Apt, agree that it’s not his best, but he’s one of those guys whose least efforts are still better than nearly everything else on the shelf. And an absolute machine, he writes at a near Steven King pace.
It was mentioned here several times, so I bowed to peer pressure and pirated it like a child of the 1990s Internet that I am.
It's definitely imaginative. I do love a good unique universe that is distinct from everything else. It's not a space opera in the traditional sense. It explores notions that likely no other author has, such as the Chinese Room thought experiment.
The spaceship captain is a vampire, and that's just a detail, but a part of the plot, but not at all how you would assume, which is what makes this book great.
I couldn't tell whether you were joking about pirating it, but for others who might be interested, the author has made it available for free download from his website [1].
I love Blindsight as well, and I think I like the other book in the series, Echopraxia (not available for free download though) even more. Both books contain lengthy bibliographies citing various scientific papers the author has drawn ideas from, and on my first readings of both books I ended up spending as much time chasing down interesting references and reading them as I did reading the original books.
Anthony Trollope - The Warden. Trollope presents us, realistically and convincingly, a decisive figure of modernity: the sincere idealist who, in the pursuit of illusory abstractions, (un)consciously destroys people, undermines communities with tradition and worsens the situation even for those whom he tries to help.
The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. You will not see the world the same way. You can then read Industrial Society by Ted Kaczynski and understand his desperation.
I’ve read ISAIF; it is chock-full of good insights. He also wrote The System’s Neatest Trick, which, once seen, cannot be unseen. Will check out Ellul; thank you for the recommendation.
I've read the Trick and found it very derivate. Most interesting, but he's not discovering a new element either.
I'd wager that anyone with an average knowledge of history and a basic understanding of how social systems work, independently discovers "the trick" rather quickly and thankfully with much less cringy imaginery.
One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union between Intelligence and Organized Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein book 1 and 2 are pribably the best books of the year and Whitney Webb deserves a Pulitzer for the sheer volume of research she has done on the networks predating Epstein and those like him and their evolution into what they are today.
If you want to know about how the world truly works, pick up these two books, but be prepared to be shocked at what you learn about how deep the rabbit hole goes.
It is the third instalment in his epic fantasy decalogy, The Malazan Book of the Fallen.
To say that I've shed a couple of tears during the finale of the novel is an understatement.
The thing with the whole series for me is that the books don't feel consistently good throughout.
However, the endings are often heart breaking and the more I read, the more I am drawn into the history of the world and destinies of the characters.
Not to mention that there are at least 5 deeply moving quotes in each of the novels. Ones that make you stop reading, drop the book and run to your loved one to share the quote with them.
Currently finishing book 4, with book 5 already waiting for me on my bookshelf.
Can't wait for book 6 though, people say it's the best.
Malazan is truly special in the amount of feels they deliver. It's a huge investment though, and while the overarching story kinda fizzles IMO each book has enough going on to keep you entertained.
I was so happy to see this mentioned. I'm on book 8 which is shaping up to be my favorite so far. I wanted a new epic series after Hyperion, so this has been the year of Malazan!
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch and
The Three-Body Problem Trilogy by Liu Cixin.
I especially recommend reading this combination. Both books fill up with optimism about humanity. First one by providing framework for infinite progress of humankind. (written by acknowledged quantum physics professor). Second one by by outlining how we can overcome difficulties on the way (written by talented Chinese science fiction writer).
Interestingly enough, Liu Cixin's books got me thinking in more pessimistic ways, and maybe even more realistic - how we are still just a bunch of brutal animals, MAD being the only thing that's keeping us from destroying each other. His "Wandering Earth" is also a very good read.
I read the trilogy, which is actually named “Remembrance of Earth’s Past”, with “The Three-Body Problem” being the first, and IMO the weakest of the books.
<Spoilers follow>
Great read, but I can’t see how anyone would be optimistic about humankind after reading them: a group of humans who think we should be eradicated and invited aliens to do it, or at the least enslave us; collaborators when that eventually happens; and then as you mentioned, MAD, and then a series of bad, emotional decisions, all leading to near extinction.
I just can’t find any optimism in there. And it feels very realistic. I read the entire series during the pandemic, lockdowns, and the poor management of all of it, and the books resonated way too well.
I read the first book during the pandemic and Barely finished it. It seemed confusing until I realized the plot, but even that plot seemed incoherent. I couldn’t find any reason to pick up the second book. Your comments about the negative/pessimistic finale make it sound unworthy of continuing. Is there any reason to continue reading? Would you advise against it?
My opinion is that the 2nd book is the best of the trilogy, followed closely by the 3rd. The 1st, I could have done without, except that there's some information that will help make sense of things in the 2nd. Maybe a good summary can replace the 1st book entirely for some readers.
To answer your question, I think it's worth reading them. I enjoyed them both. There are some smart ideas in there, the Dark Forrest Theory being probably the most famous, and one in particular that is overlooked: an interesting (fictional) explanation for dark matter. There are some good characters too. Also, they're better written (or maybe better translated?).
The story progresses faster into the future, with some characters remaining present throughout the books (cryonics FTW), and there are some ups and downs, so it's not all dark and gloomy and pessimistic. But overall, I maintain that the story is one of pessimism.
These were so enjoyable I read them all straight through twice. I'm now reading through the Japanese translation of them as well. (Which, unfortunately, isn't as funny as the original.)
I went on a kick of reading "competency porn" (think Project Hail Mary/The Martian but not necessarily solving engineering problems). On top of PHM, I read Sixteen Ways to Defend A Walled City (great dark satire despite the shit ending) and The Goblin Emperor (more on the social engineering side of things, so better characterization than something like The Martian)
Probably some of my favorites this year have been the Greek mythology audiobooks written and narrated by Stephen Fry. I could listen to Stephen read the phone book, but he also does an incredible job giving you a narrative primer of all the Greek myths and makes both historical and contemporary observations of how these myths influenced and were influenced.
I read it to try to understand why Russia sees it self as a super power. It is an amazing book, it does not bring enlightenment but made me see the war propaganda in another light. There was a recent thread with Russsian literature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33032708 where the short stories by Gogol were recommended, I agree.
Mostly science fiction, and most Adrian Tchaikovsky science fiction at that:
* Elder Race - Tchaikovsky's Hugo-nominated novella does this really neat thing where it tells the same story from two different perspectives, which happen to perfectly meld fantasy with hard scifi in a super clever conceit.
* Children of Time - A hard scifi-meets-entomology-study take on how shifting perspectives work and the no-stone-left-unturned world building he does just really works. Its sequel Children of Ruin was great too, and the final in the trilogy comes out next month.
+1 for Children of Time. Read it last year and enjoyed it a lot. Learned a lot about spiders too. I didn't know though that there was a third book coming out. Thanks for the tip.
Tchaikovsky has a lot of good stuff out there already, and shows no signs of slowing. If you liked Elder Race, you’ll probably also like the novella The Expert System’s Brother and its sequel, The Expert System’s Champion.
"Shadows of the Apts" series is one of my favorite. The story is so nicely constructed that you sometimes forgot the world building, even though it impacts on the characters' personalities. I've also the Expert System books, and it was somewhat disturbing in their explorations. Most of his books I've read seems to be premised on how easily man experiments can go wrong.
I finished the quadrilogy Terra Ignota, also known by its first book title, Too Like the Lightning. It is one of the most unique set of books I've read, taking place in the 2400s but referencing events 300 years in our past, so it is as if our current time is right in the middle of both ends. It is quite long and flowing in its writing, something that not everyone may like. It has a very high amount of allusion to other Western works, particularly ancient Greek works, so if you're not familiar with those, read them before reading these books.
I am also reading Fire and Blood, which is on the opposite spectrum, much terser but somehow still enjoyable as its blunt style makes imagining the scenarios that play out in the story much easier than the flowery prose of Terra Ignota.
* Washington: A life by Ron Chernow
* The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won by Victor Davis Hanson
The Washington book is a very detailed by clear overview of his life. Easy to follow (even for complex situations) and very week written.
The WW2 book is amazing. Compares the countries fighting in around 20 different areas (technology, leadership, geography, aircraft) and says who is better and why.
Also very good:
* FDR by Jean Edward Smith
* Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
* The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King
* The years of Lyndon Johnson 2 – Means of Ascent by Robert Caro
* Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan
* Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe
* How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom by Matt Ridley
* Yeager: An Autobiography by Chuck Yeager
* The years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert Caro
* The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
* Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
* An Economist walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk by Allison Schrager
* The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood by Julie Salamon
* Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton
Ron Chernow is perhaps too reverential of Washington. Gore Vidal for example had a much more critical view of Washington. Some claim that the War of Independence streched out for many many years only because of Washington's incompetence.
A beautifully written, immensely moving, very funny novel with a really nuanced but profoundly important message.
It’s essentially a call for empathy.
I thought of myself, a white male, as progressive and very aware already of the issues of gender and color in our societies’ power structures. This book made me very humble. It made me look at the place women, and women of colour in particular, have in today’s society in a completely different way.
Just give it a go guys, just the reading experience is worth it.
A book about a kayak journey around the Atlantic coast of the UK and Ireland that the author undertook in 2016. Published in 2018. The author (who is a historian) develops essays about the history of the coastal communities with a lot of references to earlier work and current writers. There is a Web site with additional material. [1] The book starts off with the mechanics of kayaking through coastal waters and slowly edges into quite deep historical reflections.
I'm working my way around the Atlantic edge of the UK slowly as currently disrupted travel allows.
Of the books I've read this year, the fiction ones that stand out to me would be:
1. The entire Sprawl Trilogy by Gibson, and the entire Bridge Trilogy, also by Gibson. The former I'd read before (multiple times) while the latter I had not read all the way through until now. Neuromancer I've read probably 7 or 8 times total in my life by now. I'm not as crazy about Gibson's later stuff, but the Sprawl and Bridge books are great.
2. The rest of the HHGTTG "trilogy" besides the first book. I'd read the first book a couple of years ago but never got around to reading the rest until this year. Note that when I say "the rest" I'm excluding that one book that was written by another author after Douglas Adams' passing. I may still read it one day, but I'm not in any hurry to do so.
In terms of non-fiction:
Real-World Reasoning: Toward Scalable, Uncertain Spatiotemporal, Contextual and Causal Inference by Ben Goertzel, Nil Geisweiller, and Lucio Coelho is the stand-out of the lot. How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker and How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? by John R Anderson are also worthy of a mention.
> I'm excluding that one book that was written by another author after Douglas Adams' passing.
If this is _A Salmon of Doubt_, I can strongly recommend that book. It's a collection of the things they found on his computer (with permission to publish it). It's a great and varied set of DNA's writing. I really enjoyed reading it.
Probably not a classic for the ages, but I enjoyed the new Max Brooks novel, Devolution. It does for Bigfoot what World War Z (the book, not the film) did for zombies by injecting a bit of versimilitude and detail stolen from reality.
Freeze Frame Revolution by Peter Watts combines epic mind bending ideas with some hard sci-fi details.
Piranesi by Susanna Clark was very Iain (M) Banks style epic fantasy.
I really enjoyed reading Build by Tony Fadell. It's about building startups, but the stories embedded throughout the book really makes it. He speaks about pouring his heart into little details highlighting his experience designing the iPod, iPhone, and Nest. Lot of inspirational motivation balanced with practical examples and reality checks.
One of my favorite examples of a seemingly tiny, yet delightful experience was a tool delivered with each Nest thermostat. It was a beautifully crafted screwdriver with multiple magnetic heads (https://i.imgur.com/zgZRnS1.png). Why? To make it easier to install the thermostat without having to drag out the process to go look for a tool. But it doesn't just stop there. Even years down the line if someone were to open their tool drawer, they could have a delightful run-in with their Nest tool once again, which can help them with something else! Small details, but apparently it was an iconic memento for the company.
For self-installing the thermostat. Previously, pretty much all thermostats had to be installed by a technician, they made it so you could replace your old one yourself.
'Psalm for the Wild Built' and 'Prayer for the Crown-Shy', both by Becky Chambers.
They are a pair of sci-fi novellas that explore the idea of finding purpose (and much more) through a series of adventures and conversations between a monk and a robot.
They are incredibly good thinky-feely books. I have ordered a copy of Psalm for at least a half dozen people in my life in the last month.
Feeling Great The New Mood Therapy. Fantastic book for therapy. It has helped me significantly. Even though the situations, and dialogues described by the author might come as edgy sometimes but they are helpful nonetheless. I haven’t finished reading the book but I am looking forward to what else the book provides.
Leech, by Hiron Ennes. Gothic SF/horror story, set in a cold northern town built around a crumbling chateau. A doctor from the Institute is sent to find out how the previous doctor died, because the Institute has always known immediately when one of their own dies, until now. Memorable characters inhabit an unsettling world.
Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory. SF yarn in which a startup created a drug that makes you know that God is real and loves you. The protagonist is one of its creators who had too much of it, and is now followed around by an archangel in a lab coat that only she can see. The drug was never released because of side-effects like this, but now it’s been spotted in the wild and she wants it eradicated. This one is tons of fun.
The two books that really stayed with me the most this year are Father and Sons by Turgenev and 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
Both are classics and fairly well known.
The former is a dive into niihilism and how destructive some of the ideas might be. It has some really impactful imagery.
The latter is a portal to a living world dipped in magical realism that one can get lost in. It is beautifully written and has a neat cyclical nature to it.
“21 Lessons for the 21st Century”, by Yuval Harari. I am blown away.
His first book, “Sapiens” clarified a few cultural concepts which made the world a little easier to understand. This book is a firehose of more of that.
Harari explains complex political, sociological, cultural problems through a practical lens. The book provides little advice, but a lot of tools for understanding. It’s left-leaning, but carnal and if you are sensitive about your views, do not read it. On the other hand, if you are curious, looking for perspectives and tools for understanding the world around us, and are not afraid to have your views challenges or upturned, give it a go.
2022 was the year I learned how to articulate what a random email or piece of paper means to me, whether there is work to be done about it, what the work looks like when it has been completed, and what my next physical step to do it is.
That's right folks, I read getting things done by David Allen, and as per my usual modus operandi, I am at the far end of the adoption cycle near the laggards.
But I read the book five or maybe six times now, twice as a paperback, the rest via audiobook.
Why? Because I wanted to be sure that I survived the initial onboarding of making the good habits in the book and implementing the system last for the two years needed to make it stick.
Burn Rate - written by Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos. It’s part startup story part mental health story. It’s very well written and goes into deep detail about his struggle with bi-polar disorder.
Project Hail Mary, The Martian, and Artemis - science fiction books by Andy Weir. All very different and very technical. I like Project Hail Mary the most. One of the best sci-fi books I’ve ever read.
Turn the Ship Around, by David Marquet. It’s a story about turning followers into leaders from the perspective of a military submarine captain. I’ve read dozens of management and leadership book over the years, but this one really resonated with me.
I've read over fifty books this year (I read a lot). The ones I've enjoyed the most are:
* The MurderBot Series (Wells)
- So good I read them all twice through
* The Interdependency Series (Scalzi)
- Creative and fun, but I didn't like the wrap-up and ending.
* Project Hail Mary
- Surprising fun! jazz hands
* Old Man's War series (Scalzi)
- First three were great, last three were so-so
* Anne of Green Gables
- My daughters loved this one. I just now got around to reading it
and found it deeply touching AND amusing. I laughed aloud a lot!
Awesome list, thank you for sharing! Curious, though - how do you structure your weeks so that you can consume 50 books a year? That would take me a while!
For me, it's with a Kindle. I bring mine everywhere as it's so small (Kindle Basic) I can put in the back pocket of my pants. Whenever I have to wait for something, or I'm taking a break, I just open it and the book is where I left it. 5, 10, or 50 pages, they all add up. Most books are around 600-1000 pages on it.
I can finish a book this way in about 3-4 days. But my reading quota has lowered this year as I was reading wuxia (chinese) books where each is about 27k to 30k Kindle pages.
I read in fits and spurts. I read a bit after work, sometimes at lunch, and definitely before bed each night. Weekend, if I'm not otherwise busy, I'll read for a couple hours as well.
I'd say Pastoral by Andre Alexis. This was the last book in the Quincunx cycle that I read -- five novels that share characters and settings but are not sequels; each story uses a different theme and style. This one is a pastoral of course. Others include Fifteen Dogs, an apologue; Ring, a romance; etc.
I had also read Ring this year and I was surprised that I had enjoyed it as much as I did. I've never been huge into romance novels. It has definitely left me more open minded.
Pastoral was my favorite for its sheer, stunning beauty and the tragic, bucolic little town and the people that lived in it. I was taken most of all by how effortlessly Alexis can dive deep from the scents and sounds of a scene into the emotional reasoning and memories of a character. The story has a pleasing cadence and tempo. The mystery of the relationships of the townsfolk and the challenges to the main characters' faith feel so real and believable. It's a wonderful escape.
“Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche” by Ethan Watters.
I have been chronically depressed since I was 6 years old. I have had suicidal tendencies as long as I can recall being sentient. I would estimate this book singlehandedly cured 90% of my mental “disorders”. If you have ever suffered from depression or any “mental disorder” you will thank me after reading it, trust me.
The Unwomanly Face of War: A Oral Histoy of Women in World War II. By Svetlana Alexievich.
Thought it was timely, and wanted to know more about the soviet perspective, from a different angle. Easy to go through as it's a series of short oral accounts written down. Sometimes a person shares a single memory, sometimes a few. Hard to get through at points due to the subject, obviously.
Railsea by China Miéville - it is a marvel of imagination and world building.
G.S. Denning's 'Warlock Holmes' series always makes me laugh out loud with Holmes cast as a rather unstable magician being bailed out by the ever-logical Watson.
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi foresees dystopian cities and cutthroat water rights along the Colorado river.
Hmm, I read fantasy a lot more than sci-fi. I did a quick check for books I read recently and all sci-fi ones are by male authors (excluding Becky Chambers). The most recent is "Daros" by Dave Dobson which fits your other criteria.
I once studied the map of Charon and asked myself who is Octavia Butler? Guess what Xenogenesis was about. Next I recalled Cherryh's Foreigner series and then searched my mind palace for the works of Le Guin and found The Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World Is Forest.
Xenogenesis, now being published under the title Lilith’s Brood, is about colonization, coercion, identity. Missing all of that because sex—and more importantly the changing nature of the humans’ desires—plays a large role in the work is missing the forest for the trees.
I read the main Earthsea Cycle books by Ursula Le Guin. Really enjoyed them, her prose is so evocative yet terse, especially in comparison to what would now be considered young adult fiction.
Ursula Le Guin has a gift for punchy prose. I've also read The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness by her and her ability to come up with truly novel, unique storyline and views of the world is incredible.
Earthsea is great. Ursula also wrote a lot of amazing science fiction: left hand of darkness, the dispossessed, the lathe of heaven, the word for world is forest etc. All are worth reading.
Dune books 1-4
I tried reading book 5 (heretics of dune) but lost interest after around 100 pages due to the sheer number of different characters that I couldn’t keep track of!
I stopped halfway through book 4. Was content with the first sub-trilogy and found it lost a lot of the appeal as I got deep in. They started to feel like totally different books the further in I got.
I Choose Elena and My Body Keeps Your Secrets by Lucia Osbourne Crowley.
Can highly recommend these to any man who is wanting to better understand issues of sexual assault against women, in terms of how normalised it is, the challenges women face in being believed by other men and the long term health effects that manifest themselves after such attacks and after hiding the truth.
Wanted to mention it here because I become more aware each passing week of the blindspots in the HN community regarding the struggles and perspectives of women.
If you want to get a bit out of the male dominated tech bubble and learn about some drastically different experiences from your own these are highly recommend.
Edit to differentiate the two books: The first is basically a memoir of the author in terms of her own experiences with assault and chronic illness, where the latter is a sort of collaged memoir from multiple people.
The latter is definitely the more powerful book and the breath of experience juxtaposed with the commonality of those experiences is very effective. If you're only going to read one I go for My Body Keeps Your Secrets. However there is enough that builds upon the first book, I Chose Elena, that I think it's definitely worth checking them out. The vulnerability shown by the author when she reflects on ICE in MBKYS is breath taking
There's enough understanding that things need to be changed, now the doing is needed.
> because I become more aware each passing week of the blindspots in the HN community regarding the struggles and perspectives of women
That's presumptuous and plain insulting. I've no evidence many guys here on HN are keeping women down in any way - that needs verifying (though it may be true). I've personally seen too few women in tech but that's because they don't enter it in comparable numbers. I don't know why.
> The first is basically a memoir of the author in terms of her own experiences with assault and chronic illness
aaand welcome to my childhood (though at least it was non-sexual assault, just the old-fashioned variety). And here's a thing: you don't want to know how it really feels and you won't be able to because you need that experience, and it's a thing nobody should ever feel. You can't get any idea of how deep the damage goes by reading or even talking about it.
Also, I don't want you to know because I don't want anyone to be dragged down by it.
I don't like this comment because it uses words like 'powerful' and 'breath taking' as if it's a positive experience to read about it. This is what people say when they don't have a clue. To experience it is filth, destruction and a lifetime of mental illness. That's the reality of it.
Edit: just my perspective. Perhaps I'm being unreasonable but I can't tell, sorry.
>That's presumptuous and plain insulting. I've no evidence many guys here on HN are keeping women down in any way - that needs verifying (though it may be true). I've personally seen too few women in tech but that's because they don't enter it in comparable numbers. I don't know why.
I understand you feel strongly about this and are speaking from a place of intense emotion. That is valid.
But I want to clarify some points.
Firstly, I made no suggestion that men in this community are "keeping women down." I simply said there are blindspots in our collective discourse owing to our demographics and hoped to recommend some books that could help in bridging gaps and engendering a more considered level of empathy.
> You can't get any idea of how deep the damage goes by reading or even talking about it.
No, of course someone without those experiences will never "really know." But learning about the experiences of others can certainly be helpful in growing an understanding of the extent of the issues at play.
> Also, I don't want you to know because I don't want anyone to be dragged down by it.
That's totally fine. You're experiences are yours and you can share or not share whatever you like. However the author of this book and the many women she interviewed for it do want to share their stories and this is also valid.
> I don't like this comment because it uses words like 'powerful' and 'breath taking' as if it's a positive experience to read about it.
You're adding something qualitative to my words that I never intended. These books had profound impacts on my outlook. I often had to stop reading because the contents were so painful, I had to stop to "catch my breath" so to speak. The impact the books had was a powerful one. That is not to say it was enjoyable or funny or light-hearted or anything like that. The threat of nuclear war is a "powerful deterrent" even though it is a profoundly horrible idea.
> This is what people say when they don't have a clue.
I don't want to get into playing top trumps of abuse but I can assure you that I absolutely speak from a place of experience and I have more "clue" about these issues than I would ever wish anyone to have. Again, I understand where you're coming from and that emotions run strong here, but I would ask you not to make assumptions about other people's trauma histories as it can be extremely hurtful and invalidating.
> To experience it is filth, destruction and a lifetime of mental illness. That's the reality of it.
This is what these books attempt to communicate through the thoughtful and raw disclosure of the experiences of many real women. They wanted their stories to be heard and I stand my the assertion that their circulation through groups such as the HN community has the potential to create a positive impact.
Again, I empathise with you and I hear what you're saying but I think some of your criticism is misplaced and that you could rethink your dismissal of my perspective as clueless. Thank you
I have never known physical or mental abuse, until I realized that some aspects of my upbringing were clearly strange. Reading about "real" abuse, made me feel exactly what you said: not wanting to get dragged down by it. It was a good thing actually, in a sad way I guess.
It’s okay if you don’t want to read about any form of assault. It sounds like what you experienced was traumatizing and it makes sense that you’d not only want to avoid it, but also why you’d be wary of anyone saying they can understand your lived experience through a book.
"How Bad are Bananas" by Mike Berners-lee (Tims brother). A great and easy read with the aim of putting the carbon footprint of things into perspective.
"Immune" by Philipp Dettmer (founder of Kurzgesagt). Deep dives into aspects of the immune system, particularly of interest after the COVID-19 pandemic.
I loved it when I read it. Apologies if you're already familiar with this, but you should have a look at Giovanni Piranesi's Carceri series of prints which seems to have inspired the book's name (and main idea).
I brought back my habit of reading this year. New rule, no internet and youtube right before sleep, read instead. I fall asleep sooner and much better.
And I finally read Dune, probably the best book of this year, surprisingly good, I like the writing style.
Almost at the end of the 4th in the series. While I'm in complete agreement that none of them (so far) can hold a candle to the first - the 2nd was the worst for me. The series does seem to be getting stranger and stranger too.
I’m trying hard to establish this habit as well. I got an e reader so I can read in the dark (lights bother my SO when she’s falling asleep). I confirm that reading technical books before bed puts me straight to sleep. And most e readers can sync with a smart phone so you can continue reading instead of browsing HN during a lunch break :)
I've completely lost any interest in reading fiction, because it's almost always a letdown. Good ideas with poor writing. Good writing with poor endings. The disappointments go on and on, and that's hours wasted. I've tried my friends' suggestions, best-of lists... the stories are consistently lame, except for the handful of masterpieces like Dune.
On the other hand, I'll gladly curl up with a nice comp sci or math book, and that'll be enriching, challenging, and time well spent.
I get what you’re saying. But I still read because it’s such a habit and part of my identity or something lol. There were some years I was hitting 50-75 books (and not small ones! GoT and godel Escher Bach etc) but now I’m down to a more sustainable pace of around 20 a year, and I’m pretty liberal about quitting books. If I’m getting a sense that it’s a 3/5 book then I just quit and move on. But even then I feel like I’m having an unquenched thirst for an absolute banger like Dune and Enders game. I’ve been thinking about doing a full year of just rereading books I loved like that from decades ago.
Maybe too much technical analysis of the book? When I read fiction, I use the words of the author of as a means to evoke visually the scene in my imagination. Sometimes, I think I patch the story as I go on, as I rely solely on what I visualize to recall past events. Writing doesn't matter as much, and even characterizations do not. I only enjoy the ideas and the sequences of events. Every so often, I read similar novels just to see how much the author can differ from the previous.
My feeling on that is that unless you're a prolific reader, the annual best-of lists are a waste of time. If you want to read the best when you do, and that isn't much, then most years there isn't a single book published that you should ever read.
There are plenty of classics that people still recommend; I find they're generally a better read than anything current, and they have utility in exposing you to the context/background/meaning for things people reference from them.
I go through phases where I won't read. Right now I'm in a phase of reading but I no longer feel like I have to read X amount of books. If it takes me 2 weeks or 2 months to finish a book so be it. This has helped me a lot in sticking with reading.
I've also found reading just before bed helps me tremendously. If I read until the words are a blur I usually have a very good night of sleep.
Fiction - I started reading the Cosmere universe by Brandon Sanderson.
Mistborn Trilogy, Stormlight Archives, and Warbreaker.
Pick 1 - Start with Warbreaker or Mistborn.
I'm new to fantasy fiction and his writing totally hooked me. I think of "hard" fantasy as a puzzle. The world has a unique physics and the plot of the story is based around characters figuring out how to operate inside of those physics... what are the bounds, how can it be manipulated, etc?
What I've loved about Sanderson is the plot turns are never Ex Machina. Every new development fits inside the rules of the world and deepens your understanding of what can be.
> What I've loved about Sanderson is the plot turns are never Ex Machina. Every new development fits inside the rules of the world and deepens your understanding of what can be.
YMMV. I quite like Sanderson's books and magic systems, but IMO, the typical situation where key rules of the world are unknown to the reader and the characters until the end, when they are revealed in order to facilitate the ending, runs pretty close to Deus Ex Machina (in some cases literally). See conclusion of Mistborn 1 and 3.
more spoilerful commentary:
Mistborn 3 - main characters all die. We learn that the main character suspected to be the hero of prophecy was not in fact the hero of prophecy, and the side character left standing is the real hero. Ok so far. Then we learn that the side character is not just a hero, but in fact is able to become a literal god and remake the world however they want, and this new god resolves all the problems just by wishing that they were resolved.
Hmm. This year wasn't that great for me book-wise, but there were some decent contenders:
- Ellul's - Technological Society - picked up on HN recommendation and I will admit it is interesting and worthwhile.
- Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism - Hard to implement and certainly not a quick fix, but the author is onto something here.
Fiction:
I am re-reading Witcher the series. It is still one of the few books, where it is worth to learn the author's language to read the original ( even though translation is also very good ). I forgot how good it is.
Guide to Reliable Distributed Systems by Kenneth P. Birman: gave me the same effect that the people who read DDIA/Designing Data Intensive Applications claimed it gave them.
I first tried reading DDIA before it since it was newer and it had more hype. But DDIA is so dense that most of the things went over my head. Then I came across Ken Birman's book and I found it easier to follow. Although it had a hundred pages more than DDIA, it doesnt cover as much ground such as it didnt mention object storages. The niche topics were also better in DDIA, such as error correction schemes was only mentioned once in Birman's book. DDIA seems to be more complete. So I'll re-read DDIA again next year.
Harassment Architecture: saw it on Amazon and I could never understand the humor behind the reviews for the book. So I tried a few pages, and something about it was gripping. All I could say is that I've never read anything like it.
I Contain Multitudes. By Ed Yong. Everyone should know more about bacteria. Especially considering we are carrying trillions of them in our body and further gazillions surround us. And yes, we are related, more than you'd think.
Cosmos and The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. Sagan has many great books, but these two I read in 2022. I love the way he writes, and there's something so optimistic about it.
At the same time, it's saddening to see that important issues he's mentioning 40-50 years ago still not solved, such as climate change and the threat of nuclear warfare.
* Starting the evolution by Namkhai Norbu - on spiritual development using an authentic tradition, not some new age stuff
* John Osterhout's Philosophy of Software Design - vastly overdue, I love this book. I already apply many points presented in this book but several fragments gave me an enlightening perspective on my daily tasks
It's really a nice book and it left me feeling very optimistic about the future. The audio book has superb quality as well if you prefer that. Regarding rereading, maybe the chapter about the multiverse is dense and require rereading, the rest was OK.
Amazing book. It's an extension of his earlier 'The Fabric of Reality'. There he makes the astonishing unambiguous claim (chapter 2) that 'Single particle interference experiments show us that the multiverse exists and that it contains many counterparts of each particle in the tangible universe'. No ifs or buts! I've been looking for an informed critique/discussion of this without success though it's easy to find plenty of general objections raised to the multiverse concept (Everett's 'many worlds') / interpretation of quantum physics. I guess I haven't looked hard enough.
Don't know if it counts as a book, but I read through The Art of the Propagator, and it's a very enlightening text on a programming paradigm that may be a good fit to certain problems that the two popular paradigms (OO and FP) may not be ideally suited to.
Although the first third was a slog (a simplistic history of management), the rest was filled with great insights in every page. I read those very slowly, almost meditating, because it was so good.
Not a scifi guy, but really enjoyed Project Hail Mary. It felt almost like a puzzle, tickling the part of the brain that does problem-solving *amaze amaze*. Not the epitome of writing, but it got the job done, and first time I think I've felt something for a rock. *jazz hands*
A realistic alien invasion hard scifi trilogy set during different periods of time in our future. "Read" in audiobook format, narrated by John Lee who is also great.
This year I discovered the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman, currently five books. I read them with my son and we also had the audiobooks, which are really the best audiobooks I’ve encountered because of the voice acting.
At first I found the concept of the series so outlandish that I really couldn’t imagine what to expect, but it turned out that the series is incredibly complex and has a lot of interesting twists and character development. Big recommendation from me.
Madonna in a Fur Coat, by Sahabattin Ali - a short Turkish novel published in 1943, sad and charming, reminds me of Somerset Maugham.
The Blood Oranges, by John Hawkes - he's a postmodern writer, but this short novel is pretty straightforward. The narrator is the best-written hedonist Casanova I've ever read, and the novel explores both the perks and the fallout of this outlook on life. Maybe read alongside The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, which explores similar issues and is also extremely good.
- Reread *The Diamond Age* - Neal Stephenson book on nanotech
- Part way through *The Eighth Day of Creation* - A detailed history of biological accomplishments and discoveries in the 20th century; constructed from interviews with the heros
- *Radical Abundance* - Drexler book on nanotech
- *Neuromancer* - Inspirational scifi novel with a literary flare
- *Children of Ruin* - Children of Time sequel; for those who like 8-legged creatures!
Tom Holt "Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City" and its two sequels. Sardonic fantasy similar to Ursula Vernon. Fun.
Max Gladstone "Last Exit". Magic/alternate-worlds/tentacled-horrors-ish America. Will definitely win the Hugo.
Chuck Tingle "Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus" (from which I learned that Chuck Tingle actually writes the stories, not just the title, and they're ... actually not terrible and pretty funny and very meta.
Katherine Addison "The Grief of Stones". Sequel to Goblin Emperor/Witness for the Dead. Murder mystery in an extremely engaging industrial-era fantasy world.
Alix E. Harrow "A Spindle Splintered" and sequels. Fairy tales encounter the multiverse.
C L Polk "Witchmark" and sequels. Fantastic series in a world where magic is outlawed - but the rich are aware of and use it, and imprison and exploit the poor who use it.
Tamsyn Muir "Nona the Ninth". Book 3 in Locked Tomb. More magic skeletons. A bit more of the backstory. Do I have any idea what's going on? Not so much. But I love it.
Naomi Novik "The Golden Enclaves". Scholomance book 3. Magic school, metaphor for boomers ruining the world and climate change, probably. Good conclusion.
qntm "There is no antimemetics division". A SCP novel. Not quite as good as his "Ra" but fun and mindbending.
Becky Chambers "The Galaxy and the Ground Within". A warm hug of a book. Travelers stranded at a space-rest-stop find they have something in common.
Charles Stross "The Bloodline Feud" and sequels. Alternate-universes-travel, Medici-style mercantilism feuds.
Madeline Miller "Circe". Gorgeously written, captivating reimagining of Circe's story. timeless.
For non-fiction, Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything (which I'm still working through the references of as well, many of which are also good).
For fiction, my sample size this year is sadly small but probably Becky Chambers's The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, the final(?) book in the Wayfarers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) series. A great end to the series, and given that it must have been plotted originally pre-2020 oddly contemporary.
Can’t believe I’m the first/only one to post these:
- Upgrade by Blake Crouch
- Biography of the Pixel by Alvy Ray Smith
Like Project Hail Mary, Upgrade is the kind of book I really wanted back when I was a michael crichton fan. His last book, Recursion was really my favorite. I love books that secretly teach you a thing or two and celebrate science and engineering.
Biography of the Pixel was a fascinating history of computer graphics and fundamental graphics concepts.
“Becoming Your Own Banker” by Nelson Nash was the most practically applicable book I read. The concept was totally foreign to me. I’m still thinking it through many months later, but am about to take my first concrete action / test run of the idea of “infinite banking” as a result of reading it.
I think it’s a bit of a “trick”. I had a friend who was really into it and I just spent a little time reading about it from the proponents and tried to work it out in my head and it didn’t compute for me and my friend couldn’t answer my questions satisfactorily. I think if you read some skeptics you’ll find that it’s not a terrible idea at best and generally a meh strategy if you are realistic about numbers and a lot of the rhetoric is in fact too good to be true.
Being a staff engineer comes with challenges that seniors don't have, mainly the definition and content of the role itself. Tanya dives into what and how those should be handled in an easy to read book.
1. Like every year "The daily stoic"
2. "The twilight zone" by Werner Herzog
3. "Thinking fast and slow"
4. "Hang the red lantern"
5. Currently reading "Menschliches allzu menschliches" by Nietzsche
I feel like Thinkign fast and slow is one of those books on everyone's shelf that people like to show but nobody reads it due to its difficulty and readability. How did you like it?
Actually, I read both the first and second editions this year. Was looking forward to the second edition, and preordered.
Sadly, it didn't quite live up to the impact of first book. Whilst it's mainly the same, there are a couple of areas where the pacing is a bit uneven. He has an overlong chapter on creating a clock. And his later chapters on programming in higher languages, with examples in javascript, are not as compelling as the earlier stuff.
That was my observation as well (didn't read the 1st ed.). The middle third of the book is very dense and a lot of concepts will have to be kept in mind as the CPU is built up from plain transistors. It was all new to me, so challenging.
In the last third however, higher level concepts, languages etc. are introduced, and there's nothing new or even very interesting in that part for anyone with a year or more of regular coding experience.
The Cold Start Problem is informative and a great read. Not only is it great about its subject matter, but it is a rarely non-self-aggrandising business book. It's about solving a particular problem, not the usual "Look what I did!" business book.
Lot of great suggestions already on here, but the top of my list so far for 2022 is Chaos by James Gleick, Antifragile by Nassim Taleb, and Algorithms to Live By.
Haven't read many books this year, but I'm currently reading Paddle to the Amazon. The story of a man from Winnipeg who takes his family on the longest canoe trip ever from Canada to the Amazon.
The best book I read this year, providing a glimpse on the crude reality of corruption on boxing, an immersion in the 40s, and a very human commentary on being defeated.
+1 for Humankind. It restores faith in our natural collective goodness. Our self-reflection has been and is being manipulated and distorted for us to perceive ourselves as inherently dangerous and even evil. This book brings evidence to the contrary and is very helpful.
Changing Places and Small World by David Lodge. Quite old, quite funny, lots of boys (professors) behaving badly stuff.
History:
War of the Running Dogs by Noel Barber. A history of the communist insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s. At one time the British efforts were thought to provide a model for the US to follow in Vietnam; but the circumstances were so different that it is hard to imagine how anyone thought so.
Philosophy:
On Human Freedom and The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays by Schelling. Schelling was one of the German Idealist that I had never tried to read (well, there was one volume that I couldn't make headway in ten years ago).
The Science of Knowledge by Fichte, which had always defeated me in intermittent attempts to read it over forty-five years.
A Concept of Justice by John Rawls. Everyone talked about it, I hadn't read it. I do need to read it again.
Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot. An argument for a more or less Aristotelian understanding of ethics.
On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry. I find her writing on beauty more convincing than her attempt to tie it back to a development of a sense of justice.
Oh wow. Didn’t expect to see this here. Earth Abides is one of my favorites, too. Must have read it over five times. I even visited Berkley and the Indian Rock Park close to where the author lived, which is a central location in the book.
Found any other books like it, or that, even though they are different, you liked in a similar way?
I’ve read many books with a similar extinction event story line, but none quite compares. And it seems Stewart himself didn’t write many more books (I only found one about settlers crossing into California, which I didn’t like as much).
I'm no enthusiast for nothing (don't tell my wife! :-).
I find the authors approach very convincing, and his self-praising very annoying.
The 10 levels of each exercise allows a comfortable entry for everybody.
Calisthenics in addition is very cheap.
I'm training for 3 weeks, on level 1 to 6, depending on the exercise, and I feel a lot fitter and happier.
I made my own training plan, traing just every second day.
I'm old, so progression ist not fast, but I have no interest in that. If I'm on level 10 in every exercise in 10 years, I will be very happy.
Manhattan For Rent, 1785-1850, by Prof Elizabeth Blackmar. Academic study of the rise of private property as an asset in the pre and post colonial era in Manhattan. Not that well written but extremely insightful. Private real property as an income producing asset has a LONG history of course- is the reason there is written history, really, to a first approximation- but Manhattan real property in this time saw a wholesale shift from abundance to deliberately managed scarcity, with all kinds of ramifications echoing even today, including why is there even a Donald Trump, what is driving back to work in COVID, why are housing prices what they are, and so on and so forth. Book is definitely not for everyone, and requires relatively intimate knowledge of Manhattan geography, but the financialization of real property is the F=ma of the human world. Book is a slog but super valuable.
It’s about the search for alien life, but it blends science with philosophy which is a very unique way of approaching the issue. It’s also very well researched.
The Man who solved the market, by Gregory Zuckerman
It’s the story of Jim Simons and Renaissance, the hedge fund with the best returns in the industry. Very informative and it approaches the development of the firm from the viewpoint of different people.
This is how they tell me the world ends, by Nicole Perlroth
This is about Zero Days and the environment they get developed and the consequences for society. It’s very well researched, although as with every book that’s written by a non-tech person it has its flaws. But overall enjoyed it a lot.
In the garden of beasts, by Erik Larson
The story of the US ambassador to Germany while Hitler was in power. You get a first hand glimpse of the environment and the atmosphere of the era, as also the intricacies of the Nazi party.
Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business by Anja Shortland, which is a fascinating exploration of kidnap insurance, and argues that it’s been a force in keeping down instances of kidnap for ransom by effectively regulating the market for kidnappings.
Escape, by Marie Le Conte, which does an excellent job of articulating why the internet feels like it lost its soul as the world jumped on board. It’s a wonderful love letter to the internet of the early 2000s, mourning the loss of the crazy Wild West that was.
What If? 2 by Randall Monroe, of XKCD fame. The third of his books applying serious science to ridiculous scenarios. If you hang out here you’ll probably enjoy it.
I have read almost all of Zecharia Sitchin works on Anunnaki, the ancient astronauts, this year. Still have couple of books to go. I read the 12th planet when in elementary school a long time ago and always wanted to read more on this. So I finally did and am very glad. Best things is that he is merely interpreting in his own way all the found sumerian, akkadian, babylonian... literature and jewish writings and bible. So no one can say he is wrong because there is no authority on interpretation of those writings and translations. You can choose to go along with his ideas or not. He does not force-feed you anything, which I like. And in the end, his version of our history makes the most sense to me from anything to this day, however weird it might be at first. Scientists also confirmed the mathematically expected existence of the famous Nibiru so with time, more and more proof is confirming his views, along with new discoveries of writings and artefacts. One negative sides of his writing, after the first 12th planet s that it becomes too abstracts - descriptions of land, locations, structures... with lacking images in the books the reader becomes a bit lost and disconnected. But when he is talking about stories and events that took place in the past, that's when you're hooked in. Also the first book has about 80% of everything, the rest of the books is a lot of repetition for new readers and not much new information. Still worth reading but one will get most out of the 12th planet and I'd say the Anunnaki chronicles which is kind of a summary of his work and i think the last book released by his estate put together fro all his previous released and unreleased works.
i have noticed a lot of bs attached to anunnaki when i wanted to research more on this. a bunch of ufo, lizard-people... crap. i am interested in facts, not fiction.
I agree, it's a legitimately interesting subject in the history of religions (and history overall), but there's little to go by that's not, eh, scholarship-free.
But to be fair, mythical accounts of deities, and the impetus for such accounts, is a very difficult subject to approach.
E.g., in the end of the first rhapsody of Odyssey, the goddess Athena is described having "the splendour of the sun" and departing from her meeting with Telemachus by ascending in the sky like an eagle.
I'll accept (and do accept, I'm not mad, I tell ya) all the reasonable explanations - poetic liberty, theatrical engineering with cranes and ropes, and whatnot.
At the same time, it's very interesting (and useful) to try and recreate the mental model that allows for such a metaphor to emerge, to be thought up in the first place, and to identify the cultural and technological triggers that might have caused such a dea ex machina description.
But Graham Hancock-style "research" (read up, smoke up, come up) really doesn't cut it, and I'd rather accept that there's no reachable answer with the currently available archaeological and textual evidence, than try and force one.
So (to close the digression), I think your only avenue is to learn Sumerian and Akkadian and go to the tablets. Shouldn't be too hard, really - I'm not being sarcastic - go for it, they are well-researched languages, grammatical and lexicographical resources are available, and the absolutely best reason to start learning a language is to have a specific question in mind or a specific text that you want to read, it'll push you onward.
Not to mention that by coming into contact with the original texts is the only way to approach whatever of the original meanings is still accessible.
Another book that is relatively new that I loved was Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen. I worked in productionizing ML systems for 3 years and this book equips you with exactly what you need to do so. It does a great job of explaining the whole ML modeling pipeline and some of the commonly overlooked nuances that can cause your models to fail spectacularly in production. I will be referencing this book for years to come.