
The Best Books I Read in 2013 - kissgyorgy
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Best-Books-2013
======
Jun8
"But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how
the world works."

Boy oh boy, if I had a quarter every time I heard that probably I could get a
tall Starbucks latte. Many, _many_ people are under the assumption that
fiction is stuff that somebody made up and hence useless while non-fiction
gives you information about the world; so if you're a busy person, read non-
fiction (it's of, course debatable if such a neat classification even can be
done). What these people do not realize is that great fiction can provide
_more_ information about the world, humanity in general, and what's even more
important, yourself, then you can ever glimpse by reading another Gladwell
book.

~~~
baby
Still, fiction is fiction.

It's like all those questions : would you rather do this, or live all your
life with this. They are fun, but they are useless as they never happened.
There is no point thinking about them besides playing with your imagination.

Fiction is the same to me, yes it came from a real context, but it's still a
work of fiction and doesn't teach you anything about real life.

e.g. Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life
stories?

~~~
FreakLegion
_Still, fiction is fiction._

"You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a
story, let's say, and afterward you ask, 'Is it true?' and if the answer
matters, you've got your answer.

For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade
sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three
buddies.

Is it true?

The answer matters.

You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's
just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such
stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen -- and maybe it did, anything's
possible -- even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does
not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing
may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than
the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One
guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody
dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, 'The fuck you
do that for?' and the jumper says, 'Story of my life, man,' and the other guy
starts to smile but he's dead.

That's a true story that never happened."

~~~
ealloc
I read that book. It left me convinced that I couldn't learn anything at all
from those fictional war stories since I couldn't distinguish the truths from
the half-truths, and it was a turning point in my literary life as I realized
I do indeed prefer to read non-fiction.

(PS I still read and enjoy fiction. I don't get why everyone's so up in arms
about Bill Gate's mild preference for non-fiction)

~~~
lmm
It seems like more than a "mild preference" if what he read was that skewed to
non-fiction.

------
swanson
Well, I'm no Bill Gates, but here are the best books I read in 2013:

* So Good They Can't Ignore You (Newport). If you've ever daydreamed about how much better your life would be if you were only working at that cool company, you should seriously read this book. By not focusing on just getting a cool job, but instead doing deliberate practice and being "so good they can't ignore you" you can increase aspects of any job that are scientifically-proven to make you happier (control, autonomy, and expertise).

* The Making of a Chef (Ruhlman). If you have any interest in cooking (even if you just watch Top Chef) you will like this book. A major theme of the book is discipline which aligns well with software; code quality, good design, maintaining a test suite — all of these things are signs of a true craftsmen, but they are easy to shrug off without discipline.

* Are Your Light's On? (Gause, Weinberg). I would recommend it to anyone dealing with arguments about solutions or confusion about problems, especially when non-technical folks are involved. The biggest win for me was making a mental shift from "Problem Solver" to "Solver of Problems", which allows us to focus on finding who is impacted by a problem and identifying the real story behind the problem.

I'm currently reading Punished By Rewards (only halfway through) but it is
pretty interesting so far and will probably make the cut on my final list :)

~~~
vowelless
I'm a huge fan of Cal Newport. I've been following his blog for _years_ and I
love his methodical approach towards deconstructing and demystifying various
career related things.

Some books I read this year that stand out:

* Emperor of All Maladies (Mukherjee): Beautiful look into the most elusive disease of our generation. Mukherjee provides a biography of cancer.

* The Art of Learning (Waitzkin): I've been following Josh Waitzkin since I was a little kid. I fell in love with his Chessmaster series. Waitzkin was the inspiration for (and child actor in) _Searching for Bobby Fischer_. A chess prodigy and former IM, Waitzkin deconstructs his learning style and how it allowed him to become a leading Tai Chi martial artist.

* Humble Pie: Autobiography of Gordon Ramsay. I am a fan and found it pretty honest (although his cockiness leaks in a bit). It's a very quick read.

------
incision
Shame this thread is dominated by that single sentence on nonfiction.

Some books I enjoyed this year:

* The Player of Games - [http://amzn.com/0316005401](http://amzn.com/0316005401)

* A Guide to Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - [http://amzn.com/B0040JHNQG](http://amzn.com/B0040JHNQG)

* The Emperors Handbook - [http://amzn.com/0743233832](http://amzn.com/0743233832)

* The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future - [http://amzn.com/0393088693](http://amzn.com/0393088693)

* Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work - [http://amzn.com/B009JU6UPG](http://amzn.com/B009JU6UPG)

* Chaos: Making a New Science - [http://amzn.com/0143113453](http://amzn.com/0143113453)

* Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing - [http://amzn.com/0262019388](http://amzn.com/0262019388)

~~~
EnderMB
I think the top comment sums up a lot of criticisms about Hacker News quite
well.

On subject, I really enjoyed The Emperor's Handbook, and would definitely
recommend it.

------
skriticos2
I have an awfully long commute each day (around 3 hours) and spend most of the
time reading fiction (scifi and fantasy).

I do this for two reasons:

1\. It's fun.

2\. In fiction authors have the liberty to go dip shit crazy with their
possibilities. They can even change the inertia of the universe they are in.

I also think reading this kind of books helps to think outside the box and
often helps to get a fresh view on problems I'm working on.

It also helps me relax my mind while reading, which I feel is a prerequisite
for it to work properly.

PS: here are some of the works I particularly enjoyed lately:

Howey, Hugh.: Wool (and the entire Silo saga, very good read); Sanderson,
Brandon: Mistborn: The Final Empire and the sequels (Sanderson is a genius
when it comes to creating consistent universes); Phillips, Richard: The second
ship (trilogy, contemporary argumented with alien technology); Corey, James S.
A.: Leviathan Awakes (expanse series)

------
untitledly
Top comment on the blog post.

"Bill, you are really inspiring me to increase my concern for the critical
issues of economy and technology. You are a gift to the world. thank u."

Wow, Gates has really cleaned up his public perception.

~~~
mcintyre1994
No offence, but where have you been getting news on his perception in the last
few years? He's proven probably the most significant philanthropist in
history, this isn't new.

~~~
ternaryoperator
Let's say _one_ of the most significant philanthropists. Carnegie and
Rockefeller were extraordinary philanthropists and in inflation-adjusted
dollars, Rockefeller gave away more.

What Gates has done that's unique is to pressure/induce other super-wealthy
individuals to also donate their wealth to charity.

~~~
ghshephard
Gates isn't being measured as the most significant philanthropist because of
how much money he is giving away, inflation adjusted or otherwise. He isn't
even measured that way because he's also directing much of Warren Buffet's
(and others) wealth towards philanthropy; those those are significant
accomplishments.

Rather, he's being measured as the most significant philanthropist, because
his underlying belief systems, is so all encompassing:

From: [1]

 _Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In
developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them
the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United
States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest
resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and
life. _

[1] [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-
Informatio...](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-
Information/Foundation-Factsheet)

------
dylanz
I just took a road trip and looked at one of Bill Gates previous favorite
books list, and picked "Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically
Everything, 1966-2012". I've always wanted to know more about Mr. Buffet, so I
thought this would be a great choice.

I almost drove off the road listening to him talking about bonds vs stocks and
percentages. It was interesting, but definitely not a road trip book.

That said, I finished Snow Crash on the trip, and it was a great book. I think
I preferred Cryptonomicon a bit more, but some of the theories in Snow Crash
were incredible, and way before their time. Hiro Protagonist and YT are also
awesome characters.

~~~
maxerickson
With "The Baroque Cycle", you can combine the experiences.

(I'm mostly kidding, I enjoyed it, but some parts do go on)

~~~
tricolon
No kidding. Here I am 80% done after only six years!

~~~
arethuza
Tip - get the unabridged audiobook versions from Audible, I couldn't finish
Quicksilver in print form but I've listened to the entire Baroque Cycle
multiple times.

Edit: Jack Shaftoe is probably my favourite fictional character: King of the
Vagabonds, L'Emmerdeur, Half-Cocked Jack, Quicksilver, Ali Zaybak, Sword of
Divine Fire, and Jack the Coiner....

------
mcdowall
I find lists like this and Sivers.org/book very useful for finding new reading
material, some good ones I've read this year (in no particular order);

Who owns the future - Jaron Lanier

Canoeing the Congo - Phil Harwood

Margaret Thatcher - The Authorized Biography

Venture Deals - Brad Feld / Jason Mendelson

1000 Ultimate Experiences - Lonely Planet

~~~
bigsparky
if you like those lists check out
[http://www.sparkened.com](http://www.sparkened.com)

we are collecting lists of influential peoples favorite stuff

we have warren buffett, bill gates, elon musk, heaps more

------
imrehg
The Beginning of Infinity - David Deutsch (enhanced my critical thinking)

The Wide Lens - Ron Adner (a more complete view for developing projects,
foreseeing the inevitable problems beyond your immediate reach)

Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami (just
awesome)

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson (tomorrow's world, written the day before
yesterday)

And here's all the 40-something book I've read this year:
[https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/562634](https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/562634)

------
MichaelGG
I see he mentioned _Catcher in the Rye_. I read it after hearing so many
people say how it was such an influential book for them. John Lennon was even
killed by a guy supposedly inspired by this book, and it's been often banned
(some of the scenes might be unsuitable for a conservative school, I suppose).

Can any technical-types here explain if they found it particularly impressive?
It's well written but I didn't think it very notable. Do I need to read it
with a specific mindset?

~~~
evanrich
I am in the same boat as you. People who love it are crazy about it. I started
it on a plane flight and the guy next to me chatted my ear off about how it
changed his life for 20 mins. My current theory is that if you read it in your
childhood, it resonates with you. I was 25 when I read it and it did not.

~~~
lmm
I read it in my childhood and was unimpressed, so it's not just that.

------
gbog
Mine:

\- Jules Michelet, History of France (pg suggested somewhere to read books
about history. I now fully agree, it is a way to get the best possible
understanding of today's world. As much as we have to understand how a cell
has grown from nothing to its current state to really understand what it is,
we also have to understand how a country has been built in the long history to
understand it's current issues)

\- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (read it again).

------
gadders
I'd just like to add my annual joke that Gates really should get an Amazon
affilliate account or he's never going to make any money.

~~~
nekopa
I think it would be interesting to see if he did get an affiliate account, and
specified all of the aff money would be donated to a charity, how much cash
would it raise? A nice way to siphon Amazon's profits into charity...

~~~
gwern
What profits?

------
auctiontheory
At least no Malcolm Gladwell. Bill Gates the voice of sanity - who woulda
thunk it.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Why is this Gladwell character brought up so often? I'd never had known he
exists if it wasn't for his detractors.

~~~
spenuke
How many college-educated liberal folks with a non-engineering background do
you know? It's all but impossible to avoid him in these circles.

(I say this as a philosophy degree-holding liberal pinko who is is exasperated
by Gladwell. To be fair, I'm more exasperated with the culture of cherry-
picking near-banalities wrapped in an engaging narrative that he and the TED
folks have propagated rather than their work itself.)

~~~
mixmastamyk
I know a few, but perhaps they're not close enough to New York?

Sounds like you're complaining about style over substance... I suppose I'd
find it annoying as well.

~~~
spenuke
Precisely the opposite: he has a very engaging style, which makes his lack of
substance all the more insidious.

------
smartial_arts
1\. Chaos: Making a New Science [
[http://amzn.to/1fbmC73](http://amzn.to/1fbmC73) ] still makes an awesome read
despite its age.

2\. Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers [
[http://amzn.to/1kFszdH](http://amzn.to/1kFszdH) ] - great book on stress and
its effects by Robert Sapolsky (have you seen his lectures on behavioural
biology? Fascinating stuff, even if you always thought 'meh, biology' \- the
guy is an amazing lecturer)

------
ganessh
"Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman"

------
vram22
The Navigator - by Morris West. Not new. Has a good story along with a few
implied lessons about handling yourself and others. Set in the context of a
sea voyage from Hawaii, to find a remote, uncharted island where ancient
Polynesian navigators go to die. Is a bit like "Robinson Crusoe" or "The Swiss
Family Robinson", after they find the island, with some masala (to use an
Indian term) thrown in :-)

Masala:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_(film_genre)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_\(film_genre\))

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56966.The_Navigator](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56966.The_Navigator)

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Navigator-Morris-L-
West/dp/0688030...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Navigator-Morris-L-
West/dp/0688030610)

------
ibsathish
Need not have to label the Fiction genre as a non-educative one. Numerous
amount of fiction books teach about the world, the cultures and provokes self-
introspection.

Non-fiction, agreed. Especially Biographies of successful people who made it
from the scratch after a lot of struggling, like Mr. Gates himself.

~~~
pre-show-mac
If your dad owns private equity in starbucks and gives you money to buy
software from IBM -- THAT is hardly pulling yourself up from the bootstraps
yo.

~~~
Shamanmuni
Apparently he read Gates' fictional biography...

------
dharmach
Being a fan of some Russian authors like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gorky
and others, reading their books I got a glimpse of the Russian culture and
society of that era. Would somebody suggest me similar type of authors from
past English era?

------
DonGateley
If you want to completely lose your place in an HN thread, make a comment. I
hate that.

------
ececconi
Nonfiction still has the viewpoint of the writer. Even if the narrator is
silent, their biases and worldviews infiltrate the work. At least in fiction
this is explicit.

------
k__
Rework and Art/Fear were the best books I read this year.

------
d_theorist
>I read a lot, but I don’t always choose what’s on the bestseller list.

Wait. Is he saying that sometimes he _does_ choose what's on the bestseller
list?

~~~
onebaddude
> _" Is he saying that sometimes he does choose what's on the bestseller
> list?"_

Is that a problem for you? Does it make your hipster friends angry?

Let's see what I read from the bestseller's list this year, off the top of my
head: Quiet, Thinking Fast and Slow, Devil in the White City, Steve Jobs, and
yes, 1 or 2 of the Game of Thrones books. I also read The Corrections, which
wasn't on the best-seller list _this_ year, but was definitely hyped in its
day (Oprah Book Club! How mainstream!)

In fact, I make an _effort_ to read the bestsellers lists for ideas. It makes
me more well-read, not less.

~~~
d_theorist
Ha. I was making as joke that Bill is so powerful that he can choose what goes
on the bestseller lists (sometimes).

------
contextual
Currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's _David and Goliath_ and it's easily one
of my favorites of 2013. The introduction - Gladwell explains what actually
happened in the epic biblical battle of the same name - is revelatory and an
unforgettable piece of literature.

Malcolm Gladwell may be too popular to be 'cool', but he's a master
storyteller. Haters gonna hate.

~~~
tokenadult
Gladwell comes up so often here on Hacker News that I have a FAQ about him:

Malcolm Gladwell, who has said in an interview[1] that he writes to try out
ideas, is good, while trying out ideas, at crediting his sources. Any reader
of a Malcolm Gladwell book (as I know, from being a reader of the book
_Outliers_ ) can check the sources, and decide from there what other sources
to check and what other ideas to play with. Gladwell doesn't purport to write
textbooks, but I give him a lot of credit for finding interesting scholarly
sources that haven't had enough attention in the popular literature. He is
equaled by very few authors as a story-teller who can tie ideas together in a
thought-provoking assembly.

[1]
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html)

"Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little?

"A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation. These books are
playful in the sense that they regard ideas as things to experiment with. I'm
happy if somebody reads my books and reaches a conclusion that is different
from mine, as long as the ideas in the book cause them to think. You have to
be willing to put pressure on theories, to push the envelope. That's the fun
part, the exciting part. If you are writing an intellectual adventure story,
why play it safe? I'm not out to convert people. I want to inspire and provoke
them."

~~~
contextual
The BS on HN is _much_ worse than anything I've read from Gladwell. Where's
your FAQ for that?

~~~
onebaddude
No idea. I've asked the same question; I've read all of Gladwell's books (and
essays on his site). I've enjoyed almost everything he writes. He's great at
telling pop-sci stories. Most can be read in a sitting or two. Sometimes it's
nice for your non-fiction to not read like a textbook.

But, apparently the HN crowd only reads Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Hemingway.

------
amerika_blog
These are coffee table books about interesting/ironic details of our world,
not any actual reshaping. I used to read such books in the pursuit of being an
"intellectual," then picked up Marcus Aurelius and realized how puerile all
the coffee-table folderol really is.

~~~
minutetominute
Too many people would rather not deal with the difficulties of reading
foundational works. The task of reading coffee-table folderol is much easier
than having to actually rethink what you know when you read works that have
stood the test of time. I, too, am guilty of having read too many coffee-table
books and have only really started to learn now that I avoid those books.
Picking up a kindle and a tablet have especially helped in my newfound pursuit
of knowledge because, ironically, the most valuable books/articles/essays tend
to be freely available online.

~~~
amerika_blog
The truth is often hidden in plain sight simply because most will never go
looking for it.

