
Ask HN: Read any good books lately? - smarri
Niall Ferguson&#x27;s the Ascent of Money and Cormac McCarthy&#x27;s Blood Meridian. The former is extremely informative, the later is a work of art.
======
ageitgey
The Count of Monti Cristo is a really fun book. It was published as a serial
and was kind of like the Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones of 1850s Paris that
everyone was talking about at the time. It's fun to read for both the revenge
story itself and for the implicit look into the history of the French
Revolution and what the life of a (dramatized) high roller was like back then.

~~~
adamraye
Oh yes, the unabridged version is huge - and quite daunting at first - but
once you let the thing just flow over you, it's a real great slow burner of a
revenge story. Very highly recommended if you like a long read.

~~~
5555624
Read it as a serial. The last time I read it, a couple of years ago, I read a
chapter each night. The hardest part was not reading a second or third chapter
each night.

Another approach would be to read it as published. That's something like 18
parts in as many months.

------
paradoxos
I can really recommend The Kingkiller Chronicle. It is an outstanding piece of
fantasy. The way of magic is developed / presented in a way you really can
feel how it could be possible. A great piece of art by Patrick Rothfuss. The
last book (of three) is currently in the making. I am really looking forward
to read the first two books again once the last part is published. I want to
know more about The Doors of Stone - now! :-)

~~~
dilippkumar
Just finished the second book of this series. I agree with the parent comment
- strongly recommend.

I also finished book 10 of the Malazan series.

Imagine Dan Carlin (Hardcore History podcast) and Quentin Tarantino took both
the red pill and the blue pill that Morpheus offered Neo and ground both the
pills together, snorted it, shook hands and agreed to create something better
than Game of Thrones. I imagine they would have come up with something almost
as good as the Malazan series.

You’ll have to power through the first book (Gardens of the Moon). It is
notoriously difficult - I recommend following up each chapter with commentary
on Tor’s Gardens of the Moon reread. I will also guarantee that the way book 1
ends will not make sense. But keep reading - the payoff is waiting as early as
the end of book 2. And again at the end of book 3. And again all through books
4 and 5. And it’ll stay that good till the end.

~~~
mattmanser
I found the Malazan books quite frustrating, every book he introduced a new
character and storyline and left so many previous ones unfinished. Too many
balls. And the end was just a bit silly for me.

I thought they were pretty good, but I'm enjoying GoT more.

------
peter_chickens
I recently finished The Three-Body Problem, and I think it is the best book I
have read in years.

It held my attention all the way through and I am now starting the sequel.

~~~
docwpipe
It is one the best sci-fi books out there. You will love the way it ends. It
brings us to realise what we know and what we presently dont understand in the
field of physics.

~~~
Breza
I made it through all three books and really enjoyed them (especially book 2).
But I have to admit that I don't know how to feel about the ending. Definitely
not the ending I anticipated.

------
marshallbananas
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, a book about the infamous blood testing startup
Theranos. I couldn't put it down. Read the whole thing in a day and a half.

It's basically a gripping thriller set in Silicon Valley. The story focuses on
what went on within the company since its inception. It's completely mind
boggling how and why it all happened.

~~~
JimmyAustin
I'll recommend this as well. Another great book in the "company exploding in a
case of massive fraud" genre is Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley
Hope, which goes into the 1MDB scandal.

------
jor-el
Super thinking: The big book of mental models, it has been discussed on HN
before
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20211572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20211572).

Haven't completed it yet, so far I am finding it good.

------
nestorherre
Zen mind, beginner's mind. It's the first book that I've read about Buddhism
and found it quite insightful, will keep on reading more books on the topic.

It introduced me to Zen meditation, which I started practicing a few days ago
and find useful.

------
kedean
I'm working my way through Steven Pinkers "How The Mind Works", it's a really
interesting perspective on the brain and how it theoretically might produce
human intelligence and consciousness. I didn't expect to be exercising my CS
background while reading it, but it's very heavy on CS techniques and jargon
despite being a psychology book (the author spends a solid chunk of the first
chapter walking the reading through creating what turns out to basically be
Prolog).

On the fiction side, I'm on my third Discworld book and loving them (Men At
Arms).

------
kalado
Non-Fiction:

\- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman | book on human rationality and
irrationality

\- An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

Fiction:

\- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality | Petunia married a professor,
and Harry grew up reading science and science fiction.
[http://www.hpmor.com/](http://www.hpmor.com/)

\- Off to Be the Wizard (Magic 2.0 Book 1) by Scott Meyer | Reality is defined
in a text file, making the protagonist a wizard when he discovers it while
hacking a company.

\- The Magicians (series) by Lev Grossman

~~~
paradoxos
Regarding Kahneman, keep in mind that in the following years there has been a
lot of doubt - including by Kahneman himself - about the scientific validity
of the evidence.

See also:

[https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-
of-a-...](https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-
wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/#comment-1454)

[https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-
und...](https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-underpowered-
studies-nobel-prize-winner-admits-mistakes/)

~~~
kalado
Very interesting! I found the chapters on priming hard to believe anyway.
Still a lot of good stuff in that book.

It's one of those lessons that you feel you know but get a much better
understanding of when reading about it in-depth.

Same as "How to win friends and influence people"

------
arikr
Alchemy by Rory Sutherland.

"Why is Red Bull so popular, though everyone—everyone!—hates the taste? Humans
are, in a word, irrational, basing decisions as much on subtle external
signals (that little blue can) as on objective qualities (flavor, price,
quality). The surrounding world, meanwhile, is irreducibly complex and random.
This means future success can’t be projected on any accounting spreadsheet. To
strike gold, you must master the dark art and curious science of conjuring
irresistible ideas: alchemy."

~~~
donw
I may be utterly alone here, but I actually like the taste. Reminds me of the
white Smarties at Halloween as a kid.

~~~
clay_the_ripper
I love the taste of red bull. Although I agree that their marketing is genius
and probably has more to do with their success than anything.

------
srijanshetty
"JCIP - Java Concurreny in Practice", finally was able to complete this
monster and now I see the world differently. I had a aha moment, just like Neo
in the Matrix.

"The Sandman: Kindly Ones" and "The Sandman: Wake", masterpieces from the
master writer Neil Gaimann.

Reading "Never Split the Difference" which is about the art of negotiation and
has been an enlightening read as of now. It argues negotiation isn't rational
but is an affective exercise and I couldn't agree more.

~~~
jerome-jh
Was the haha moment like what can be felt reading "The problem with threads"
[https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-...](https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-1.pdf)
?

~~~
srijanshetty
I'll confess that I haven't read "The problem with threads", my aha moment was
the existence of 'happens-before' relationships and the Java Memory Model
which for a good part of my life, I didn't know about.

------
oceanghost
"Average is Over" by Tyler Cowen. It maybe isn't revolutionary, but it tied up
a LOT of loose ends in my head about where we are and where things are most
likely headed.

His thesis statement is that scientific and social progress is now largely in
the hands of AI and that those best able to utilize those technologies to
augment their decisions, and everyone else will suffer.

I think he overestimates AI in the short term, but in the long term, I don't
see how he's wrong. I've started to study AI again (having worked in an AI lab
20 years ago).

From Wikipeida:

Cowen forecasts that modern economies are delaminating into two groups: a
small minority of highly educated people who are capable of working
collaboratively with automated systems will become a wealthy aristocracy; the
vast majority will earn little or nothing, surviving on low-priced goods
created by the first group, living in shantytowns working with highly
automated production systems.

------
tracer4201
I’ve been reading Release It - design deploy production ready software.

This is a fantastic book with several lessons my teams learned either by
failing. The parts on how so many issues tend to be blocked threads, how you
accidentally DDOS yourself, or how scaling/capacity management has failures
even when you follow all the textbook, sound patterns... it takes many of my
personal experiences and some failures I haven’t had (but will) and provides
such a fresh perspective.

[https://www.amazon.com/Release-Design-Deploy-Production-
Read...](https://www.amazon.com/Release-Design-Deploy-Production-Ready-
Software-ebook/dp/B079YWMY2V)

------
quirkafleeg3
Mattimeo, the third of the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. Charming, funny and
surprisingly action-packed.

Currently reading Northern Lights, the first of the His Dark Materials trilogy
by Phillip Pullman. My first time reading it, great so far.

~~~
lmiller1990
I read the Redwall books in high school! Great fun, maybe I’ll revisit. My
favorites were Mossflower and Martin the Warrior.

------
xtiansimon
Hamilton, Gabrielle. “Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a
Reluctant Chef.” (2011).

This is a chef’s journey in the same general category of Anthony Bourdain’s
“Kitchen Confidential” (2000) or Bill Buford’s “Heat” (2007).

Before I had my current fabulous career, I was an out of work marketing / web
designer and needed to make money. The latter two books were my ‘mentors’ for
dealing with working in professional kitchens without any experience.

I recommend all three for their insights into the world of professional chefs
and food hospitality. And, of course, they all make you hungry. Haha

------
diehunde
Just finished "Get a financial Life". Pretty good stuff if you want to improve
your financial skills and learn about investments, real state and tips on many
things related to money.

------
w4tson
I listened to the Selfish Gene on Audible recently and was blown away by it.

All through school I never had much of an interest in biology or genetics. I
think if I’d read this earlier it may have changed my mind.

Planning on reading the Blind Watchmaker at some point.

Spurred on by reading the former I thought I’d listen to A Brief History of
Time. Wow that is a whole different kettle of fish. I had to stop because I
realized it wasn’t the right format (Audiobook), for me at least.

------
jerome-jh
"Nobody's boy" (Orig title "Sans famille") by Hector Malot. A huge classic in
Vietnam, I have been said, but a little bit forgotten in France. Bar a couple
of unlikely events, pretty enjoyable. Absolutely very much superior to the
anim. Emphasize on education throughout the book.

------
adamraye
The Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller and Fear & Loathing in Las
Vegas by Hunter Thompson. There's something I really enjoy about these two
almost magical realisim type books that never tires and I re-read them both at
least once every few years.

------
bill_rr
The Overstory

PS Does anybody use Goodreads anymore?

~~~
padraic7a
I do. Mostly I use it to log the annual reading challenge. I have mixed
feelings about it because of Amazon's ownership, and that probably results in
me using it less than I would otherwise.

------
abhijat
I just finished Shogun and The Terror one after the other.

The reason I liked these is that I found the dogged determination of the
respective captains in the face of adversity (especially in The Terror)
inspirational.

~~~
Mobius01
Shogun is such a great book. I like to escape to it every year or so.

------
lb1lf
Just finished Higginbotham's Midnight in Chernobyl on the accident, the
cleanup and its consequences. At times it read almost like a thriller, while
still being extremely informative.

------
rohitbhats
'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' can't stop recommending it. I am
currently reading the 3rd book 'Life, the Universe and Everything'

~~~
aibrahem
Can I ask what is so fascinating about it, It's been recommended to me a
couple of times and I've tried everything to enjoy it and failed.

I got the book, tried the audio-book and even tried watching the movie, I
couldn't get myself past the first half of the book or the movie.

It just seems (to me) so childish and incoherent, am I missing somthing?

~~~
me_me_me
It's one of my favorite books too, but I couldn't drag myself through Catch
22. And a lot of people are fanatical about it.

Different type of people like different things :) no need to feel bad about
it.

p.s I would use word playful instead of childish.

~~~
silvat
I tried reading catch-22 twice before successfully getting through it. I felt
the same as you did. I think my problem the first 2 times was that I was
looking for the 'hook' or whatever it was that people were so fanatical about.
As a consequence, I think I was glossing over the dialogue and not really
ingesting what was going on. The third time I decided to just take it at face
value, try and enjoy the dialogue and if no bigger picture emerges, so be it.
This approach turned out to be the key. It's an incredibly funny and poignant
book and what happens is that while you get through all these seemingly
(initally) trivial scenes, a point does in fact start to emerge. The
triviality is actually central to the main point. People keep dying off for
arbitrary reasons and the being part of the war is so detached from the
apparent reasons for the war is actually taking place. It's one of my favorite
books. I truly recommended trying to read it again.

------
codefreq
I am reading An Anonymous Girl by Greer and Sarah and it's a hell of a ride. I
try to answer the questions asked by the doctor and makes me wonder about
myself.

------
deadmanwalking
David Eddings The Belgariad series ( 5 books) and then the Mallorean series (5
more books) which follows on from the Belgariad. An amazing piece of fantasy
writing.

------
gadders
House to House by David Bellavia. It's an account of his part in the 2nd
Battle for Fallujah and how he won his Medal of Honour. Really well written.

------
kaushikt
I am finally reading "The Subtle art of not giving a f*ck". First 3 chapters
in. Good read and more importantly, it's very well written.

~~~
dance2die
All those f __ks in the first chapter really put me off..

------
MattLeBlanc001
Just finished the "four steps to epiphany". A must read for any startup
founder. 10/10

Currently reading "never split the difference".

------
sprremix
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

Does anyone have other hacking related books with story telling like in this
book?

~~~
adamraye
Well I remember reading in one or two sittings "Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers
on the Computer Frontier" by John Markov and Katie Hafner just before I
discovered The Cuckoo's Egg and both gripped me in the same way.

------
atlasunshrugged
Graham Allison's Destined for War about Thucydides Trap with an examination of
the US and China was quite good

------
gkolli
The Peregrine - the way the author describes nature and the beauty and focus
of everyday life is awe-inspiring.

------
HNLurker2
Ryan Holiday - 366 days of stoic (journal)

~~~
diehunde
Also reading that. One per day. I would say one every 5 or 6 meditations I
find very valuable stuff.

~~~
HNLurker2
I read the whole book man. The questions are just tools. You should read any
stoic you like, preferably the one who you relate the most with (Zeno of
citium even to Taleb doesn't matter)

------
fouralarmfire
The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin (and then the rest of the Broken Earth series)
great dystopian sci-fi

------
louismerlin
Moby Dick

Finally got around to reading it, I was amazed at how modern it felt for a
book written in 1850.

~~~
ageitgey
This is an amazing book, though I jokingly like to describe it as the best
beginning and ending prose ever written with 100 chapters of
whalefacts.tumblr.com sandwiched in between.

------
znerp
The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David
Quammen

------
elamje
Lenins Tomb: Soviet history primarily focused on the later years.

------
Kuzutsukake
Belonging by Nora Krug.

Nice mix of personal narrative and history, and the visuals were wonderful.

It's about the authors investigation to uncover her family's role during Nazi
rule, to hopefully absolve her sense of inherited guilt and to discover her
"heimat" \- a German word used to describe where you come from.

The author presents the story through a mix of handwritten letters, old
pictures, and drawings, weaved together into a very creative scrapbook style.

Something I really enjoyed were the cultural and historical sections that
started each chapter. I was able to learn something new that was separate from
the narrative, yet still keep my mind in the story world.

One of those parts I found interesting was on how important bread is to
Germans...so much as to file their recipes for recognition by UNESCO! I had no
idea.

Not to say that was the best part. The story itself was very good.

------
nateferrero
Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason

------
tunnuz
Gut by Julia Enders, a pop-sci book on our digestive system.

------
chelmzy
Gravity's Rainbow

------
wurp
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is blowing my mind.

------
sebcat
150 pages into The Fountainhead at the moment. So far, I can highly recommend
it.

~~~
HNLurker2
Ayn Rand... Please don't

~~~
bill_rr
No, it's good. It stands alone as a piece of literature. Atlas Shrugged
doesn't - it's skippable. The Fountainhead is about work, art and passion.
It's also just a much better story.

