
Ask HN: Best books you've read in 2015 - randomname2
What were the best books you read this year?
======
OopsCriticality
I'm cheating a little on the date, but _The Three Body Problem_ by Liu Cixin
stands out. It was translated into english late last year, and received the
Hugo this year for best story. It's wonderful sci-fi written on a grand scale,
and made all the more interesting and refreshing to me by coming from outside
the Western perspective. It's one of a trilogy: _The Dark Forest_ english
translation is out, and _Death 's End_ is coming beginning of next year.

Also enjoyed _Seveneves_ by Stephenson, and _H is for Hawk_ by Helen
Macdonald. The former is likely known to the HN crowd; the latter draws
comparisons to T.H. White's classic _The Goshawk_.

Among non-fiction books, I enjoyed _The Little Prover_ by Friedman and
Eastlund. It was exactly what I expected, a gentle introduction into inductive
proofs in the idiom established by _The Little Schemer_.

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Taylor_OD
I read The Martian, Snow Crash, and Ready Player One over the course of a
month or two. All three of those books have their flaws but I enjoy the style
and page turning nature of them a lot.

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schlagetown
Watchmen (Alan Moore)

Origins of Form (Christopher Williams)

Starship & The Canoe (Kenneth Brower)

The Size of Lumber (Nicholson Baker)

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Shunryu Suzuki)

Deschooling Society (Ivan Illich)

Moby Dick (Herman Melville)

Bolo'Bolo (P.M.)

Le Ton beau de Marot (Douglas Hofstadter)

Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (James Lovelock)

Mouse or Rat: Translation as Negotiation (Umberto Eco)

Neuromancer (William Gibson)

The Intelligent Investor (Benjamin Graham)

Don Quixote (Miguel Cervantes)

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stevesearer
The books I've enjoyed reading most this year are ones I ought to have read in
high school some 15 years ago, but just never did because I didn't enjoy
reading and never made the effort: The Great Gatsby, As I Lay Dying, and am
currently reading Cry, The Beloved Country

~~~
jlewallen
I found myself in a similar position recently. I've gone back and read books
usually assigned in high school and really enjoyed returning to them after all
these years. Anything Vonnegut, East of Eden, and The Things They Carried, to
name a few.

~~~
stevesearer
East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath are on my upcoming list of titles to read. A
few others I've read since high school that I ought to have then are Red Badge
of Courage, All Quiet On The Western Front, and Of Mice and Men.

------
JSeymourATL
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live,
Love, Parent, and Lead > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13588356-daring-
greatly](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13588356-daring-greatly)

Tremendous insight into our own inner critic and interaction with people. Got
turned onto to this book after hearing the author interviewed by Tim Ferriss,
highly recommend> [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/08/28/brene-brown-on-
vulner...](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/08/28/brene-brown-on-
vulnerability-and-home-run-ted-talks/)

------
monroepe
Red Rising and Golden Son by Pierce Brown (fiction)

[http://www.amazon.com/Red-Rising-The-Trilogy-Book-
ebook/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/Red-Rising-The-Trilogy-Book-
ebook/dp/B00CVS2J80)

------
rossdavidh
"So You've Been Publicly Shamed", by Jon Ronson, and "The Invaders: How Humans
and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction", by Pat Shipman, are my two
best reads this year (that were published in 2015). The first is a great
analysis of the phenomenon (usually Twitter-based) of shame-storms, and the
second is about the far, far older phenomenon of one invasive species driving
a closely related one to extinction. Both very well done.

------
VeejayRampay
Two books by a French author called Jacques Benoist-Méchin. They work as a
pair and they tell the stories of Kemal Atatürk (the founder of modern Turkey)
and Ibn Saud (the founder of modern Saudi Arabia). I've found the perspective
it brought to the modern geopolitics of the region invaluable.

PS: Benoist-Méchin was a French far-right journalist, writer and was openly
sympathetic with Nazi Germany. Not that I condone that (I don't) but the books
are excellent nonetheless.

------
merrua
The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett. His last work. Phoebe and Her Unicorn
by Dana Simpson (I'd recommend this to families with young children) CSS
Secrets: Better Solutions to Everyday Web Design Problems by Lea Verou. I'm
not really a front in person so this was an interesting look into CSS3
Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking Georgia Weidman I'm
starting next on Rework, as I've heard a lot about it.

------
sogen
1.- Sandman

2.- Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations
Industry

3.- The Advertised Mind: Groundbreaking Insights into How Our Brains Respond
to Advertising

4.- The Hidden Persuaders - "A brisk, authoritative and frightening report on
how manufacturers, fundraisers and politicians are attempting to turn the
American mind into a kind of catatonic dough that will buy, give or vote at
their command--The New Yorker

------
jo909
The Martian by Andy Weir (Fiction)

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espinchi
Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily
Lives by the Year 2100

[http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Future-Science-Shape-
Destiny-e...](http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Future-Science-Shape-Destiny-
ebook/dp/B004FGLX2Y)

------
noblethrasher
_Amusing Ourselves to Death_ by Neil Postman

 _On Intelligence_ by Jeff Hawkins

 _The Process of Education_ by Jerome Bruner

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DanBC
There's probably a small amount of passive income to be made from slurping all
the book recommendation threads and creating a nice simple web page with a
bunch of Amazon (.com and .co.uk) referral links.

You could mention how often the book has been mentioned on HN.

------
pards
Continuos Delivery by Jez Humble and Dave Farley

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0321601912](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0321601912)

------
rluhar
Return of a King (William Dalrymple 2013) - A book about the Anglo-Afghan wars
of the 19th century. To paraphrase Mark Twain: History doesn't repeat, but it
rhymes

Being Mortal (Atul Gawande, 2014) - Powerful book about old age and
confronting the mortality of our loved ones

The Dark Forest (Cixin Liu, 2014) - Wonderful science fiction from China

The Peripheral (William Gibson, 2015) - Bleak, near future science fiction.

The Water Knife (Paolo Bacigalupi, 2015) - More bleak, near future science
fiction.

------
gadders
I've just binge-read all the Martin Cruz Smith Arkady Renko novels - Gorky
Park etc. Really well written, great plots and very droll in places.

------
Maultasche
Tales of a Dying Earth by Jack Vance

That was a very good book.

I hadn't even heard of Jack Vance until recently, but it seems like he's been
an influence on many modern authors.

------
domaniac
Wool by Hugh Howey (fiction)

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_xander
_Superintelligence_ \- Nick Bostrom

 _Infinite Jest_ \- David Foster Wallace

 _100 Years of Solitude_ \- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~~~
jlewallen
I love reading just about everything and I'm having the hardest time getting
momentum on Infinite Jest. I think partly due to the fact that I personally
only have some vague idea of what I'm getting myself into.

~~~
firstworldman
Just keep going. One page at a time (easier to do if you employ 2 bookmarks in
a paper book). It will begin to gel. Just focus on how funny it is, rather
than what's going on. It is very much worth the effort.

------
_mgr
I have 3 x Audible credits. Can anyone recommend anything that maybe better as
an audio book?

~~~
Vomzor
The naked truth. Leslie Nielsen fictional autobiography narrated by the man
himself.

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tjr
Much enjoyed Sherry Turkle's _Alone Together_

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hiperlink
Beloved by Toni Morisson. Such beautiful prose.

------
tech_crawl_
Made to Stick

