Liddell Hart's The German Generals Talk (http://www.amazon.com/German-Generals-Talk-Basil-Liddell/dp/...), originally published in England as The Other Side of the Hill. Probably the most interesting book I've ever read about WW II. I'm surprised it's not better known.
I read a number of good books but hands down my favorite that I read in 2012 was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
This is from Amazon:
At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.
It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.
Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.
A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
Ready Player One was the best book I read this year, and the best in recent memory. My wife — who isn't into video games or much of 80's culture — loved it as well.
I wouldn't class Ready Player One as the best book of 2012, but it was certainly enjoyable (when I read it in 2011). I prefer This Is Not A Game and Pattern Recognition in this genre; also worth checking out is Tad Williams' Otherland series.
I can confirm that Pattern Recognition is (in my memory) even better than Ready Player One, which is also an amazing book. Thanks for the others, didn't know about them.
In what way is Pattern Recognition similar to Ready Player One? I was intrigued by the description of RPO, but when I read you talking about Pattern Recognition being in the same genre, I was really confused.
I thought Pattern Recognition was truly awful and couldn't finish it.
I classify them all as kind of cyberpunk/ARG fiction. Pattern Recognition takes place more in the physical world than Ready Player One, but they are both digital treasure hunts. As an ARG junkie, they naturally feel the 'same' to me. The style of writing is quite different though, and Gibson's style in Pattern Recognition isn't as fun to read as Ready Player One.
Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back by Anna Anthropy
Some interesting ideas; the referenced tech is now dated. It's even easier to make games now then when this book was published.
Here's a list of books that I read this year and liked. My favorite was Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. The rest are all worth reading. I hesitated to put "The Joy of Clojure" on that list because it's too narrow, but it's one of the best programming books I've seen.
I'll second Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for top book of 2012 and for top all time book like another commenter.
If you really want to expose the bias and structure of your consciousness, this the book to read. I would also pair this book with Incognito by David Eagleman (2012) to rehash some of the ideas of Kahneman and for a discussion of the implications of these ideas in morals and justice.
Also Connectome by Sebastian Seung (2012) gives a good outline of the structure of the brain, and an interesting discussion of how understanding that structure is a great scientific goal and some hypothetical implications of that understanding.
Really, I'd recommend reading anything to do with the emerging understanding of the brain because, without hyperbole, the better we understand the brain the better we understand the self.
Gravity's Rainbow - took 4 months out of my year, but and it's still mostly a whoosh, but every time I started reading another book after that, it was just amazing how much better Pyncheon writes. Will revisit it for sure, though not very soon.
Anna Karenina - just a whole different level, Tolstoy's writing in a way I don't feel many contemporary writes could. Feels creepy how similar the people's lives in the 19th Century was to ours. Creepy but fun too.
If On A Winter's Night A Traveller - Italo Calvino will just punch you in the face, this is a book for people who love reading books.
The Magicians - adult magic fiction, and somehow it feels that if magic was indeed real, it would be like it is depicted here, not like anything in Harry Potter's (no matter how much I loved the storytelling, the magic theory was just so full of plotholes).
The Casual Vacancy - JKRowling's not-Harry-Potter-book. It's very gritty, and feels very real. Still having my cold shivers thinking of small-town living after this.
(Except for the last one the others are older releases, don't usually jump into the newest ones, I just take it casual)
Seconded.
I am surprised that there are not more of Pynchon's books in this thread.
'Vineland' is an easy, humorous read. If you want to take Pynchon head on, I can't recommend 'Against the day' too much.
"The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" Robert Caro
LBJ "hacked" the American Senate, understanding its operations better than anyone perhaps ever. He further understood its role in American politics, and the impact of American politics upon it. This 3rd volume of Caro's multi-volume biography covers LBJ's adoption of the vice-presidency, why his hopes of dominating JFK from that position failed (tldr; Kennedy was much, much smarter that Johnson understood), and Johnson's extraordinary transition to the Presidency on Kennedy's assassination.
The book would be outstanding simply for its sketches of JFK and RFK, figures secondary to its primary focus. Taken as a whole it's required required reading for anyone thinking they understood politics.
The best book I read this year was not a 2012 release, but HN participants should read it if they haven't already. That book is The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande,
which was mentioned favorably in several HN threads this year. (Thanks to the recommenders here who reminded me to read this book.) The Checklist Manifesto is practical, exciting, and thought-provoking in balance, and it will help you do your work better, whatever you do, and enjoy your family life better, whoever is in your family. It's a great read; don't miss it.
I just finished the book three days ago, really liked it, and thought, that there must be a site to collect programmers checklists for different tasks to have a similar collection as the aviation experts. Turns out, there is not...
Mostly scifi and fantasy. I've never been much of a reader, so I'm trying to catch up on classics.
* Hunger games 1-3 -- not bad, would probably recommend
* Hitchiker's guide to the galaxy -- good, surprised how short it was. really liked the style of writing, fun to read. recommended
* Stranger in a Strange Land -- currently reading this one, interesting, but nothing ground breaking. one character seems to dominate the book. don't know if I'd recommend.
* Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep -- interesting, a bit boring. I kept comparing it to the movie, and in the end I like the movie better. they each focus on different subjects, but I like the movie's subject better, and it felt more professional/solid. would recommend.
* Ringworld -- pretty good. the 'Teela problem' is fascinating to me and got me thinking a lot outside of reading, which to me is a sign of a good book. the 'spacey stuff' in the book was not that great. even the ringworld itself was not that interesting. would recommend.
* The Mote in God's Eye -- my favorite book of the year. so much to think about (moral problems/dilemmas). the realistic part of the space travel was new to me (like the consideration of g-forces in constant acceleration), and so that was more to think about. definitely recommend.
* Cryptonomicon -- a close second. Neal Stephenson goes into wicked detail in his books and always blows my mind (never heard of Van Eck Phreaking before this book, how is that possible?). definitely recommend.
Definitely read the other Hitchhiker's books. At least, the second one, which is as good as the first, if not better. Also, absolutely recommend the radio series. Even after you read the books, it's different enough to keep you entertained, and worth it for Marvin's lines alone.
Abundance - Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler.
Diamandis has an almost infectiously positive way of looking at the world. And a hope that's not just based on a philosophical belief but is backed up with hard data.
Distrust That Particular Flavor - William Gibson.
I never got into Gibson as a fiction writer, but this collection of essays, articles and talks immediately made me appreciate him as an amazing thinker, observer, and truly brilliant writer. This book is worthwhile for the pieces on Japan alone, but every single piece is wonderful.
Finite and Infinite Games - James Carse.
An old book but one I only just discovered. No book has every so subtly had an impact on my life every day. The finite vs. infinite way of looking at the world has changed the way I think and act completely on the inside, yet it's probably hardly noticable on the outside. An amazingly easy book to read, couldn't recommend it highly enough.
How Music Works - David Byrne
A unique and refreshing take on creating music that can be applied to the creation of anything. Byrne leaves the mysterious & ethereal world of 'creativity' for dead, and looks at how he creates music, and how the industry works, in a grounded and logical way. A brilliant book for anyone who creates anything.
The Plenitude: Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff - Rich Gold
Another old(er) book, but one I can't believe I only just found. Rich Gold's outlook on how and why we make things should be required reading for anyone who plans on thrusting their big idea into the world.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain
It's had a lot of press, but I'm going to recommend it anyway. HN undoubtedly has a higher than average number of introverts who truly operate in an extroverted world. This book was absolutely eye opening in how it deconstructs different situations and personalities in a useful and positive way. I wouldn't say it's 'changed my life', but it has made a few relationships with close friends and colleagues a lot better.
And a quick plug - for any avid Kindle readers out there, I've built a web app for viewing/sharing/organising Kindle highlights. If any HN'ers want early access sign up at http://kindred.it/ and I'll ping you a beta login.
Hey nichodges -- I'd love a beta account for kindred.it. I've been seriously wanting something like that ever since I got a Kindle a few years ago and am completely amazed that what Amazon offers in terms of highlight management is so extremely poor. I'm also curious about the tech under it.
Yep unfortunately there's no public API supplied. There's a few different methods out there that I've had variable amounts of success with. Currently it's written using a lot of XPath.
I'll send out emails to all of the HNers who've signed up over the next few days. Thanks for the interest!
A hell of a fiction, but the most important part is that it awakens on the reader the awe to the universe and the fascination to science, rationality, evolution, etc.
Military strategy? Some people have ambition of world domination I suppose but in all seriousness all you need is The Art of War. Oh yeah the link in the second computer science thread is bad.
Walter Jon Williams' The Green Leopard Plague, which is also part of an anthology of the same name. The anthology includes several other stories that build up the world that GLP takes place in. Some interesting ideas about identity and consciousness in a society with extremely advanced bioengineering.
Umberto Eco's Prague Cemetery which expands greatly on a tiny section of Foucault's Pendulum. Eco's writing is extremely dense. Similar to Neal Stephenson, but with more of a literary flavor than a technogeek flavor. A nice way to balance out your reading if you find you are a bit too focused on modern technology.
I finally read Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy. Early Internet and web culture was so deeply infused with RAW's ideas that the trilogy felt like one long déjà vu session. Lots of fun. RAW + Eco are a great antidote to taking conspiracy theories seriously, while having a ton of fun at the same time.
Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. Wow. Since the release of the Blue Ant books, I've been telling people that Blue Ant is the place to start, as it updates a lot of the underlying themes of Sprawl for this decade. But Sprawl is still very current and relevant. If you read Sprawl during or before the dot-com bubble like I did, you probably focused on the prophetic internet stuff. If you read it again, you will find out that there is plenty more interesting stuff to feed your brain in Gibson's early novels.
I loved Neuromancer and Burning Chrome, to a lesser extent count zero and mona lisa overdrive.
But, the blue ant books are so boring! I am so genuinely perplexed whenever anybody recommends them. Honestly I can't say anything after Pattern Recognition is any good or not as I never gave it a shot.
I guess I just struggle with what exactly and who exactly I'm supposed to be paying attention to in Pattern Recognition. Too many asides that I only found distracting and not amusing or even interesting.
But I loved the sprawl series so much, I keep trying to pick up Gibson again. I'm just left mystified what anyone sees in his recent 5 or 6 books.
I did read the Sprawl books pretty much as they were published, or within a couple years. I think I was in 6th grade when I read Neuromancer the first time.
I think it is easy to see the Sprawl books as being technology-oriented with cyberpunk window dressing. If that is your perspective going in to Blue Ant, then I can see how you might be disappointed. The Blue Ant series makes it clear that Gibson is interested in contemporary humans and their culture. Technology informs these topics, but isn't the primary focus.
Going back to Sprawl after reading Blue Ant, new layers of detail became apparent to me. There is a lot more than just an AI-driven singularity story going on. If anything, the [Spoiler!] Neuromancer-Wintermute union is a McGuffin made too explicit, distracting many readers from the rest of the interesting content. Like Space Rastas. How awesome are Space Rastas?!
I found it easy to follow the Cayce Pollard thread in Pattern Recognition. Everything seems to develop around her or eventually relate back to her. In some sense, Cayce is a hybrid of Case from Neuromancer and Marly Krushkova in Count Zero. Bigend is a hybrid of Josef Virek (Count Zero) and perhaps the physical aspects of Armitage (Neuromancer).
All of Gibson's books deal with characters that operate with relatively little wealth and power on the fringe of society and their interactions with figures of extraordinary wealth and power who have ambiguous locations within society. But these characters aren't just computer hackers / programmers. They can be marketing advisors, children, fashion designers, linguists, artists or mercenaries.
It is worth giving the Blue Ant* series a second change, there is more in common with Sprawl than first appears.
The best book I read this year was "Julian" by Gore Vidal. This is a thoroughly-researched historical fiction book about the Roman emperor Julian, the last pagan emperor of Rome. Thirty years before Julian rose to the throne, his grandfather Constantine the Great transformed Christianity from a persecuted sect practiced by a significant minority into the official religion of the state. In those thirty years, the ancient cults had mostly withered and died, their temples turned into churches or abandoned in disrepair.
Julian set out to revive the old religions and convert Rome away from Christianity. He was a bookish boy, a bit of a philosophy nerd. When he unexpectedly rose to a position of prominence, it turned out that he had a knack for military command which helped him gain popularity with the people and seize the emperorship.
I enjoyed this book because it gets you inside the head of people in a different time and place, with different thoughts and concerns than modern westerners. It also shows you how quickly the world can change. Julian lived in a time when thousands of years of tradition were changing quickly, in a blink of an eye by historical terms. These are great lessons to have in mind.
These are the ones I remember, but not necessarily for being the best.
Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson. I thought it was interesting; an honest attempt at cataloguing the life of a fascinating and complex person.
How To Win Friends And Influence People - Dale Carnegie. I'd skimmed through it in high school, and decided it was full of obvious/cheesy platitudes, but was somehow convinced to take another look this year and I'm very glad I did. It is mostly full of very basic "don't be an ass" advice, but I needed it.
Never Eat Alone - Keith Ferrazzi. I'm not sure what to think of this one. It's pretty low on actionable advice, but it did help me (together with HTWFAIF, above) reframe the way I approach interpersonal relationships.
The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje. I haven't finished this one yet, but it's part of a recent concerted effort to read more fiction. I've always loved Ondaatje's work, and this latest novel is no different.
Freakonomics - Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. I just started reading this last night, and I'm already 100 pages in. It's an addicting read, and is already causing me to re-evaluate the incentive systems that are everywhere.
Napoleon Bonaparte - Alan Schom. I've been reading this one slowly for a while (it's a hefty book). It's a very well written account of Napoleon's entire life story--highly recommended.
Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore. Just started this one last night as well (Christmas presents!) and so far it seems like it will live up to the hype.
The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg. This one, I can't recommend. As always, though, YMMV :)
Blue Ocean strategy -- Really solid and well researched book on how to create things customers will gladly pay for while minimizing your own costs. Creating uncontested market space for yourself and making the competition irrelevant.
Visual Communication -- old book currently out of print but timeless principles for effective communication. Visual communication is often more effective than words.
Eat, Drink and Be Healthy -- How to enjoy food but stay in great shape. You do not need to live on steamed broccoli and granola to do this! Lots of bland foods are unhealthy and lots of healthy foods are actually tasty. You just need to know which ones.
How to build a start up community in your city -- Book by Brad Feld with some interesting ideas about 'leaders' and 'feeders'. Read it to to build a community around http://AfriTech.org
Positioning -- interesting ideas on how to succeed in a crowded market place
Writing Non Fiction -- another old book that is out of print but lots of good ideas on how to communicate effectively
This year I either read, or started to read the following interesting books:
Mathematics: Form and Function by Saunders Mac Lane. This is one of my favorite books concerning the "build-up" of mathematics (it also contains nice diagrams of "relatedness" of subjects). On HN somebody once recommended Mathematics: Its contents, methods, and meaning (from Russian mathematicians in the 50s) which is similar but without the cross references.
Proofs and Refutations by Imre Lakatos. I have started reading this only recently and have to say that I find the approach and idea excellent. It would be great if we had something comparable for CS theory as well.
Notes on Introductory Combinatorics by Polya, Tarjan, and Woods. Have not read this exhaustively, but the introduction with Pascal's triangle and some of Polya' legendary problem solving insights (paraphrased from my memory: "you are on to something once you find a pattern") are definitely highlights in this book.
Mathematical Discovery: On Understanding, Learning and Teaching Problem Solving by George Polya. Based on the previous book and my fond memories of reading "How to Solve it", I got this one from the library. Again I can't attest for all of the contents, but AFAICT now it's another gem from Polya.
From HN advice in previous years I read The Tibetan Book on Living and Dying, which I can heartily recommend, too. It is an anti-thesis to Christian theology and I find it to contain many insightful comments and different views on leading a good, meaningful life. I disagree with some of the church-y comments on that it really is important to have a master and that only the master can do certain things, but that's probably just me being an atheist all along.
I actually read some other books, but the list is already kind of long and might hold interesting pointers for other mathematically inclined readers, too. I for one am always fascinated on how much advice on problem solving in mathematics translates to CS.
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofsteder. Barely needs any introduction here, but the depth of thought is just staggering.
Lights Out in Wonderland by D.B.C. Pierre. A wonderful story with a few incidental observations about modern society.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Sure, you can read about people who've made everything, but what about people who lose everything. Absolutely everything. Shattering, tragic fiction.
Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja by John Resig (2012) is a very hands-on look at writing a Javascript library: http://j.mp/RgOcXO
High Performance JavaScript by Nicholas C. Zakas (2010) is one of the most thorough treatments of performance and JS I have read: http://j.mp/V0R0X3
Professional JavaScript for Web Developers (2012 3rd edition) is an incredibly in-depth reference of JavaScript as it relates to the DOM. The third edition was heavily updated: http://j.mp/V3eGKC
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
by Jon Gertner published March 15, 2012
Over the span of a few decades, a single research lab invented the transistor, the microprocessor, radar, the communication satellite, the CD, and more.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
by Charles Duhigg published February 28, 2012
Why toothpaste tingles, how Febreeze was a flop, and hundreds of other tidbits that are perfect for cocktail parties and future Jeopardy episodes.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't
by Nate Silver published September 27, 2012
Weaves together baseball, earthquakes, the weather, poker, and terrorism. Chapter 7 is the best description of Bayes theoreom I've ever read.
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves
by Dan Ariely published June 5, 2012
The third Ariely book, and just as fun. Would be ranked #1 except it's essential the same formula as his prior two gems.
Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World
by Christopher Steiner published August 30, 2012
Surprisingly good read from a first-time author (and YC alum). Expands on Andreessen's quip to cover trading, couter-terrorism, the Arab Spring and more.
I found this the worst book from those three, time after time he describes an idea that sounds somewhat interesting and then every single concrete example he gives seems completely wrong, the more so the more real-world experience I have in a topic he describes. For example he goes on and on about how "random tinkering" beats science when it comes to engineering - I would love to see an engineer that would agree with him on this. What he says about evolution seems completely misguided.
I like Taleb's books. His ideas are far from novel -- especially to people who work with complex systems -- but his books are engaging. When I read them, I rarely find that I'm impressed by anything he said, yet I'm _always_ inspired to explore some tangent, which I think is very valuable. However, you have to take him with a grain of salt. The arrogance is a bit much.
I read the first book. The arrogance was a bit much, especially in a book where he's talking about the importance of randomness. But, like you, I did go off an explore about a lot of what he said. So it's a fun exercise.
There are a few great books which are too repetitive. "Black Swan" is one; he could have got all of that into a book a quarter the size and not lost much important. Another one is "Reckoning with Risk" by Gerd Giggerenzer - he takes many chapters to say people don't understand percentages, and you should really use "X people out of 10,000" when explaining risk to people.
I'm only about 1/6th of the way through (listening in the car). I did have some disagreement on the specific examples, but they seemed to just be badly chosen examples (since he only really understands finance and some liberal arts, not engineering). So he's a bad writer, but not in a way which directly detracts from his philosophical argument. (and yes, the evolution parts sounded whacko too, but I think he was quoting someone else's beliefs, and had an argument that even if the explanation was wrong, it would still be a valid conclusion due to another argument)
Why would you include examples if they aren't necessary to understand the argument, or arguments that aren't required to make your point? That sounds confusing and tedious.
Because he likes to hear himself talk (well, read his own words) and show off superficial tangential knowledge (or fairly deep tangential knowledge about some humanities things, especially classics and lebanese culture).
It's kind of grating, but works for an audiobook in the car, where I might lose a few seconds due to temporary attention increase on the road. He'll reliably spend 3-4 minutes saying the same thing with minor variations when 20 seconds would do.
Nice to hear your opinion, hearing some praise of the book I was wondering what similar-minded people think of it, I wish he just stayed closer to fields he is more familiar with, as you said.
I did really like Fooled by Randomness, so I'm a bit biased toward him. Once I finish listening to the whole Antifragile I'll probably write a review and maybe send it to him -- if it's just bad examples, coming up with some replacement examples which are actually valid seems like an improvement, and not too hard.
Another HUGE vote for 'Debt: The First 5000 Years'. This book simply changes the way you look at the entire world.
Another one I read and loved this year that is in the same sphere of interest, with a relatively similar appreciation (though it is European history focused rather than anthropologically centered) is 'Founder: Meyer Amschel Rothschild and His Time' @ http://www.amazon.com/b/dp/0571279635
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - A book on philosophy, can go as deep as you like. Was written over 25 years ago, but feels very fresh. My key take away from this book was that you should be humble enough to appreciate various models of the world - e.g. Science or Religion. Favorite quote: "When you have a Chatuahaha in your head, you can't resist inflicting it on innocent people". Still makes me smile :-)
Life of Pi - Bought it following the buzz of the movie. Read the book first, then saw the movie. A good simple read. Sort of reinforces, the 'various models' idea of the 'Zen...' book. Found the movie slightly better than the book, which was a surprise. Ang Lee has made subtle changes, which makes the story more peppy.
Perfect Rigor - Captures the story (and math) behind, the turning down of a million dollar prize by Gregory Perelman. The genius Russian mathematician, who solved a 100 year old standing problem, of the missing proof of the Poincare Conjecture. It was perhaps my best technical read of the year.
I am feeling Lucky (by Doug Edwards): Google's emplpyee number 59, writes about his experience at Google. I found it the best book on Google. Better than some of the others, which seem a bit like officially authorized versions.
Below ones I read it in 2011. But haven't posted here, so here goes:
Born to Run (By Chris Mcdougall): A health book. Has really helped my running. Highly recommended to all.
A guide to a good life: The ancient art of Stoic Joy (By Joseph Irvine): A very good book on philosophy. Read it on the reco (http://sivers.org/book) of Derek Sivers.
I tried to read Zen a couple of years ago but lost interest. I picked it up again this year and got through it this time.
I think [one of] the basic messages of the book, that of paying attention and enjoying the little things of life like understanding and servicing your BMW motorcycle is great. Unfortunately I didn't get much out of the philosophical ramblings about arete (quality) and the author's nervous breakdown, which takes up most of the second half of the book. I did enjoy the description of the road trip though, if I were living in the US right now I'd love to do it.
Yes, I think, there are various takeaways at various levels in that book. The way I understood it, at the surface level, there is the lovely story of Father and Son on a road trip.
At deeper levels a lot of things are left to the interpretation of the reader, as it is with most abstract things. He uses the word Quality in the most fundamental way. To me that word held the meaning for his life. Quality in the way in which he understands and reacts to the world.
Before he learned to fix his motor cycle, he was at the mercy of various kinds of mechanics with varying skill levels and attitudes. He particularly cites an example of some listening to music while working on the machine. Which he does not like. For him working on the machine or writing technical documents for his job, is a spiritual activity.
Also, he makes a point regarding his nervous breakdown, that for others it was a nervous breakdown. But for him, the way he saw it, it was the deepest of meditations. Following which phase the understanding and meaning of Quality, dawned on him, and he was at peace with his life.
Also, I found the way he treats his 11 year old son, i.e like an adult, very interesting.
Another delightful thing, was the book full of philosophical quotable quotes. Like the (approximate) one I have cited in my above comment.
But most basic reason I liked the book, is because, it talked to me in the tone, I wanted it to talk to me. For example the moment any book becomes very specific (for example 'Life of Pi' is very specific in being inclusive to all religions, in a rather simplistic way), as a reader I tend to start to disagree. But if it is abstract, and "Zen.." is very very abstract in portions, I can provide my own concrete implementations!
I first heard about it in Michael Lewis' Vanity Fair profile on Obama (Obama was reading it - http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-pro...), and then my cofounder Omar mentioned it as an engrossing book whilst he was reading it, specifically because of the topic it handles: the malleability of our memories.
Anyway, it was a pleasure to read, captivating, and the imagery jumping out of the pages was brilliant. I frequently had to stop and re-read parts. It also made me laugh.
A personal favourite sentence:
"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation."
On the non-fiction side, probably "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Kahneman, though I haven't quite finished it. It's dense, but filled with insight after insight.
I really liked Succeed by Halvorson, as well as Willpower by Baumeister and Tierney. The former covers research on setting goals, the latter covers research on being more disciplined. Both book are a great blend of interesting studies and practical advice.
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin - Erik Larson
Highly entertaining non-fiction that reads like fiction. Accounts of the build-up to hitler's Germany like you're actually there.
http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Beasts-Terror-American-Hitlers/...
A good no-nonsense self-help book. Outlines set of strategies for dealing with challenging situations in everyday life, touching on areas such as Parenting, Career, Dating. Author also looks into common misconceptions about how we function and which mental tricks are efficient and which are not so much.
2. "Start Small, Stay Small: - A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup"
http://amzn.to/12DMzHt
I actually have a blog post on it here - http://blog.nimblegecko.com/when-your-drugs-wear-off/ - in short it's a book for developers that focuses on how to start building an online product, with heavy emphasis on market, and marketing. It also addresses some of the common mistakes we, as developers, tend to make when conceiving and carrying out the execution of an idea.
This is classic, really. What was interesting for me in particular is the types of markets that a startup launches to - new market, resegmenting an existing market (low-end, high-end, specific features), clone market, and all of the limitations/dangers/expectations/growth profiles that choice of marketing strategy entails.
Not that I've only read this book in 2012, but I keep returning to it - that's probably one of not too many truly life changing books for me. It contains very simple, yet very efficient reframing exercise (think NLP) that helps to uncover the true motivations behind behaviours that you don't like in yourself, and change those for good, yet in a completely unexpected and never predictable ways.
I read quite a few this year and the best one is really hard to define. But my favorite and the one that had the biggest immediate impact is definitely Bounce by Matthrew Syed http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7845157-bounce
Syed was the top Pingpong player in England, and goes in detail about his trainings and what he thinks are the reasons for his success: lots of circumstantial luck, and thousands of hours of deliberate practice with immediate feedback. Even though it's too late for me to become a national player, the book forced me to refocus my thoughts on the everyday activities that are important to me, and find a way to practice and improve up on them.
Covers creating 2D games for iOS using the cocos2d 2.x framework, and Kobold2d 2.x framework. All code is in Objective-C, and it's expected you know Obj-C to understand the content. If you've done any OS X or iOS development already you'll have no problems following along. The frameworks are really simple to learn and use.
It does promote some inexpensive pay-for tools to aid in development, but always offers a free alternative if available. TexturePacker, Tiled (qt) (free), GlyphDesigner, and ParticleDesigner.
Moonwalking with Einstein. Not particularly new but a pretty entertaining book on the Art of Memory. Not particularly useful (the book kind of says so itself) but insightful and methods of loci is still a marginally useful skill to have.
Favorite novel, I think: Orthogonal by Greg Egan. First couple books in a trilogy are out. If you liked Egan in the 90s but mostly lost interest this millennium, like me, then take a look.
On a similar note, my own choice is Egan's Diaspora. Most of the characters are sentient software, and it explores some of the implications of being able to fork oneself, or rewrite your software. On top of that the physics is, to the best of my mildly-educated knowledge, an extension of General Relativity consistent with what we already know; and part of it takes place in a six-dimensional spacetime.
The only other Egan I've read is his collection Luminosity, which was similarly impressive. I'm definitely going to check him out further.
Yes to more technical, no to people, alas. Despite which, the conflicts and resolutions were pretty good. But the science fiction is brilliant.
(Incandescence also had some neat ideas, and I don't regret reading it -- it showed a reasonable way much of general relativity could be discovered before newtonian physics; but the people stuff irritated me. There was eventually an in-story explanation for the implausible characters, but it wasn't enough.)
New:
Range of Ghosts, Elizabeth Bear
Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed
Old:
The House of the Stag, Kage Baker
Soldier of Sidon, Gene Wolfe
Range of Ghosts was definitely the stand out book of the year for me, the other three I'm sure I will reread. (Actually this time around was already a reread for Soldier of Sidon.) I'm pretty sure there were a couple of other books I read and quite enjoyed that I've forgotten now. No science fiction books come to mind at all, which makes me kind of sad.
No-one seems to have mentioned Iain Banks's Hydrogen Sonata so I will. It's not first rate but it's something of a return to form over his last few (at least for me).
Not the kind of short cut book that it may lead you to think. The book is a brief introduction to modern database types and what are their characteristics, what are their use case, and why you should choose it over other database types.
Similar book as above, but introduces you to 7 different programming languages. The focus of the book is not on how to use each language, but to explore the different programming paradigms introduced by each programming language. (prototypical inheritance, functional programming, logic programming, object-oriented programming)
The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne. Probably my first favorite book, which I've read about 10 or 12 times in my life. Just re-read it again a few weeks ago. Never gets old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Island
The three titles in The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant. I'm not normally real big on zombie stories, but this one was a breath of fresh air. Part zombies, part conspiracy story, and wildly entertaining.
http://miragrant.com/newsflesh.php
Living Low Carb - Jonny Bowden. Picked this up after I was diagnosed as diabetic, and needed to clean up my diet and lose some weight. Very detailed book, explains the endocrine cycle and the relationship between carbs, fat, insulin, etc. very well, and makes a compelling case for eliminating most carbs from one's diet. I've been following this approach for the last 2-3 months and feel pretty good about it. My weight is coming down, even though I'm not doing a lot more exercise (that part will come eventually, but for now I'm basically just doing on mountain bike ride of about 2 hours, on Saturdays).
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Low-Carb-Controlled-Carbohydrat...
The Startup Owner's Manual - Steve Blank and Bob Dorf. The successor to the famous The Four Steps to the Epiphany, this is the Bible of Customer Development.
http://www.stevenblank.com/startup_index_qty.html
Winning The Knowledge Transfer Race - kinda niche, but important to me, vis-a-vis Fogbeam Labs. Our space is (largely) knowledge management, and I got a ton of ideas from this book, in terms of how to articulate problems our customers might be facing, how some of the solutions map to capabilities we're working on, etc.
http://www.michaeljenglish.com/books/winning.html
Outthink The Competition - Kaihan Krippendorff. Definitely got me thinking about the value of strategy and strategic thinking. Contains a nice catalog of basic strategies one can employ. Inspired me pick up some other books on strategy and strategic thinking as well. I definitely recommend this one, unless you happen to be in a business that might compete with us at Fogbeam Labs, in which case, forget you ever heard of this.
http://www.kaihan.net/outthinkthe_competitionbook.html
Capability Cases: A Solution Envisioning Approach - Irene Polioff, Robert Coyne, Ralph Hodgson. An interesting book on matching business problems to technical solutions through something called a "capability case". Think of a "capability case" as something like a cross between a "use case" and an Alexanderian pattern, and a business "case" like you'd study in business school. Basically it's an approach to distilling the essence of a problem an organization might have, laying out the capabilities needed to address that problem, and demonstrating the business justification for the solution.
http://www.capabilitycases.org/
The Apocalypse Codex - Charles Stross. My first foray into "The Laundry Files" and it was a good one. When somebody first recommended this series to me, they said it was "sci fi with a Lovecraftian bent" which caught my attention as a huge fan of Lovecraft. Sure enough, that's exactly what it is. As soon as I encountered the phrase "computational demonologist" I knew I was in the right place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apocalypse_Codex
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand. I like to read this for inspiration every now and again. Howard Roark is one of my favorite characters and I aspire to be more like him. Unfortunately, to date, I think I'm closer to Gail Wynand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead
Trust Me, I'm Lying - Ryan Holiday. How one man manipulated a variety of media outlets to gain free PR for his clients. Some of these tactics may seem (and probably are) underhanded, perhaps even downright unethical. But even if you don't want to use them yourself, you should probably be aware of them, as it may help you understand why certain stories get featured in the media and why others don't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying
This Machine Kills Secrets - Andy Greenberg. History of the cypherpunk movement, from the early days through Wikileaks and the Bradley Manning and Julian Assange sagas. Lots of great stuff here, definitely recommended for anyone interested in cypherpunks, government/corporate transparency, information security, and related topics.
http://www.thismachinekillssecrets.com/
Started, but haven't yet finished Taking People With You by David Novak. Another book on leadership and how to engage other people and get them onboard with whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. So far it strikes me as pretty good, with actual actionable material, not just a bunch of pithy aphorisms. But I'm only about 1/3rd of the way in, so kinda early to pass judgement.
http://www.takingpeoplewithyou.com/
Started Reamde by Neal Stephenson, but got distracted, set it aside and never resumed it. Will probably start it again sometime next year. Was entertaining up to the point I stopped.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde
Definitely recommend the rest of the Laundry books. Also be sure to check out Stross's short story "A Colder War", which came before those, and is very much in the same overall theme, although substantially darker.
Will do! I have a handful of other Stross books waiting in a pile to be ready already, but not sure I have any more of the Laundry ones yet. I know I have several of his other traditional sci-fi works waiting, and I'll definitely get to the rest of the Laundry books eventually.
I can highly recommend "Accelerando". It's one of my all time favorite books. I've read it a half dozen times, and I'll probably read it again, just not right away.
I also liked his Eschaton series, "Singularity Sky", and "Iron Sunrise".
In spite of loving "Accelerando", I've never been able to get into his non-hard science fiction series, like the Laundry series, or Merchant Princes.
I wouldn't recommend Merchant Princes too much. They're fun, but they're long, and don't really finish. At some point, the plot sort of gets lost, and the series ends with way more questions than answers. It's a cool universe, and really interesting, but IMO not used so well.
"singularity sky" is not necessarily my favourite stross book, but it's the one that impressed me the most. one of the best treatments of FTL in a relativistic universe I've seen (as in "fine, have FTL, but you can't ignore the fact that it violates causality".)
Yeah, I've got that one, but haven't gotten to it yet. The only other Stross I've read was, Halting State. But I have Accelerando, The Jennifer Morgue, Singularity Sky, and a couple of others, in the queue waiting to be read.
OMG, I was going to put an Any Rand book on there as a joke and I see one seriously posted one here. If you like Rand books now, you probably newly "discovered" her and her books and philosophy. Strong probability you are around college age, plu or minus a few years. Circle back when you are wiser and compare what you think then to what you think now.
Nope, I'm 39 and discovered Rand some time ago. I only wish I had discovered her stuff when I was younger.
Also, just because you don't like Rand doesn't mean you should go around insulting people who happen to enjoy her work. It kinda makes you a dick. Reasonable people can disagree on things, you do realize this, right? If not, come back when you're a little wiser and maybe we can talk.
Yes, I agree that reasonable people can disagree. BTW, I used to like Rand, but then I became older and wiser. My experience is typical of many, not not all, of course. Same thing with Santa. I never actually believed in him, but many did when they were younger. Some still do. Most grew older and wiser (some not so much, same with religion, I guess). That's all. No need to get angry :) Anyway, like I said, "Circle back when you are wiser and compare what you think then to what you think now." If you are "normal," you will grow wiser with age, you do realize this, right? :)
It's the result of years of his research on the process a human goes through to achieve mastery in a field. It breaks the process down to key components and stages and examines masters of various disciplines that exemplify these concepts. The subjects were pretty varied, from Leonardo to Darwin to PG!
In short this book is everything I had originally hoped for in Outliers.
I liked 1Q84. I felt it could have been a bit shorter without much loss to the story though. 'The Wind Up Bird Chronicle' and 'Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World' remain my favorite Murakami novels.
just want to warn others - this is by far the worst of murakami's books. above all, it's way too long. if the three volumes were edited to one, it would be much improved. i wish i had googled for reviews (which were generally negative) before buying and reading these.
It's my first of his novels, I'll check out the others. I can see the point on length, I wonder how much of that is a function of translation and of the desire to create the sensation of having lived that year. I just finished, so it'll take me some time to gain a better perspective on it.
oh lucky you! the others are so much better :o) they don't need to be read in order or anything, but i'd suggest trying to do so. i remember thinking that some of the later ones tended to "explain" in a certain way some of the earlier ones (not completely, and not directly, but there seemed to be references at times).
(also, from what i remember, the third volume of 1q84 was most like his other works - i almost stopped after the 2nd and was glad i continued).
ps on translation - i don't think that would make this one so different to the others (which are also translated). i do agree that murakamis books feel translated (like you could guess they were translated if you were given one and didn't know what it was), but that seems to be just something about either translated books or authors that work well in translation (or may just be me imagining things). i don't think i have ever read a book in both the original language and a translation, but i know that roberto bolano, who was recently very big in english translation, reads like a translated author in the original (if you see what i mean)...
I read a lot of books this year but these are my favorites:
The Post Capitalist Society - Peter F. Druckert
The War of Art - Pressfield, Steven
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (Bradford Books) - Braitenberg, Valentino
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering - Hamming, Richard W. (this book is even better if you are good with math, which I am not) it's still fairly inspirational.
Re-read:
Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas
Papert, Seymour A.
I actually value the "weird suggestions" most: the "latest thing" books are pretty visible. Whether bubbled up through Amazon's creaky recommendation engine or twitter or whatever, Nate Silvers' book was going to show up on my radar, whereas something like this might not have. Thanks!
The New Solution Selling -- The first sales book I ever read and extremely enlightening. It demystified much of the sales process for me.
The Intelligent Investor -- Timeless ideas on investing.
Steve Jobs -- I had no intention of reading this book but found it incredibly interesting. Very insightful.
The Intelligent Entrepreneur -- This book followed 3 HBS grads from pre-HBS to entrepreneur success, and attempted to draw some overarching conclusions on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Very interesting.
Name of the Wind -- The only fully fiction book I read this year. Great book. Waiting on the 3rd to come out before I read the second in the series.
Dreaming in Code -- I'd heard great things about this book but I felt it was very lacking in insight. Some interesting moments but overall a disappointment. Perhaps it is because I read it after ~6 years of professional programming experience + 4 years of school + a number of other programming books?
Teaching Minds -- Roger Schank's latest book on education. In this one he outlines key cognitive abilities that education should be centered around rather than subjects. Very interesting.
A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics -- I had read very little macroeconomics, and this book provided a very readable and quick guide on the basics.
Bounce (by Matthew Syed) -- Great book about how great performers became great performers. This goes back to the nurture vs nature debate, and sides very heavily on the nurture side. Syed was an olympic ping pong player from the UK.
The Willpower Instinct -- I'm still reading this one (with my wife), and find it to be unbelievably insightful. If you have any desires to change any habits or behaviors, this book is incredible.
The Innovator's Solution -- The book after The Innovators Dilemma. Very insightful, just like the previous one.
Signal and the noise by Nate Silver(Very nice read. Chapters on climate change and GDP forecasting were a bit slow, but everything else was a page turner)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/159420411X
I read Daniel Suarez's new book, "Kill Decision". I was expecting it to be a continuation of "Demon" and "Freedom", but it was a completely new storyline.
I liked "Kill Decision" a lot, and I can highly recommend it.
Invisible - Paul Auster. Definitely my favourite book of the year, and also my favourite book by Paul Auster, whose books I've been reading throughout the summer. The story itself is captivating, but the style of the book is one of the best things about it. It tells a continuous story, but is told from the point of view of several authors, and with different styles (changes from first to second to third person, for instance). On top of that, the authors occur in the main story itself, interact with other people in the main story while retelling it, and even deliberately change and obscure information.
Although this may sound very complex, the book is actually not that hard to follow. Highly recommended!
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, Mike Brown
A funny and very humanizing picture of a scientist at work: A great account of the quest to discover planets beyond Pluto, and of the upheaval that followed.
Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer
Can a normal person become a memory champion? Joshua Foer covers a lot of ground in this well-written book, including extensive historical background as well as considerations of neuroscience, deliberate practice and expertise, savantism, and immersive journalism.
In the same universe, Dreaming Void, Temporal Void and Evolutionary Void. I read the Temporal Void a year or two ago without reading the first and despite not completely understanding the story, loved it. Went back and read the whole series this year, and found it fantastic.
I found The Dreaming Void a few years ago while wandering a library desperately trying to find a good science fiction book to read - none of the suggestions I got from friends were there. I'm so glad that none of the suggestions were there.
It Starts With Food was the book that has had the most significant impact on my life this year. Power, Speed, Endurance, which I recently got, has a shot at being the next most impactful.
Among Others was one of the most enjoyable fiction reads. Beautiful. Prep was also surprisingly good, and not something I would usually have read.
Leading So People Will Follow surprisingly insightful and clearly actionable.
The Big Nerd Ranch's guide to iOS development carried me through last Christmas and the new year admirably. I haven't really read many programming books this year but it stands out as being well crafted.
I read it in Dutch as translated by H.J. de Roy van Zuydewijn. If you want to read it in Dutch his translations of The Ilias and the Odyssey are highly recommended by me and more importantly my classics teacher. The Ilias is out of print but available in the second hand market at a premium.
By the way: If you (edit: or anyone else ;) wants to read them I can loan them to you.
Of the translations, I've read only Robert Fitzgerald's. Might I recommend, as elsewhere in the comments, War and the Iliad, an NYRB collection of essays by Simone Weil, Rachel Bespaloff, and Herman Broch? The Weil essay, which I first read long ago, strikes me now as saying more about Weil than about the Iliad; Bespaloff's essays I think excellent, and blurb quotes Robert Fitzgerald to that effect. Broch's essay is fascinating, but less focused on the poem.
Of that list, "Information wants to be shared", and "The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick" stick out as being pretty good. "Climbing the Charts: What Radio Airplay Tells Us about the Diffusion of Innovation" was also very interesting, and a clever use of statistics to look at how one specific sector works. I also loved "The Oregon Desert", although it's probably not very interesting to most people out there.
Not exactly a new release, but 'Dissolution' by C.J. Sansom was without a doubt the best book I read this year. [1]
That aside, I reread the Dan Brown 'Angels & Demons' and 'The Da Vinci code' novels, worked my way through 'To kill a Mockingbird' for the first time since high school and read the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church' - to better understand the religion my girlfriend is choosing.
Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser, a memoir of WW II infantry service in Burma
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke, started in 2011, finished this year
War and the Iliad essays by Simone Weil, Rachel Bespaloff, and Herman Broch
EIMI by E.E. Cummings, his account of a visit to the USSR in 1931
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Can Be Considered As a Science, Immanuel Kant (reread many years after the first reading--interesting to be reminded how awful translations from German can be)
Best release this year for me was Josuttis's The C++ Standard Library - A Tutorial and Reference, 2nd Edition, which quickly got me to speed with the new C++11 features.
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People - Susan Weinschenk. This is the book from which I learned the most this year. It provides the reader with 100 applicable and up to date insights into human psychology: how people see, read, think, decide, etc. Very useful and well organized.
I recently came across these two interesting reads about how Eisenhower was an expert bridge player and during WWII, he required officers on his staff to be good card players as well:
Someone recommended this - at first I thought the title sounded too cheesy, but then again I already had plenty of (bad) management books, so I gave it a try:
This year I decided to dive into the Game of Thrones* series, having discovered it through the TV show. Those were some intense 3 months! These books are the very definition of immersive. While they can get repetitive and slow at times, that is more than compensated by the whole setting, atmosphere and, well, "major events".
* or, for the pedantic out there, A Song of Ice and Fire.
is the book on animation, takes you through all the basics and breaks down why disney's animators were just better than everyone else... applicable to css3 / front end development.
I read 27 books in 2012. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
Shogun - James Clavel. 'Epic' is the best word I can use to describe this historical fiction. I first read it in 2009 and have reread all 1100 pages multiple times since. The first English pilot to reach the Japans discovers a culture that, while strange, is in many ways far more advanced than his own. The fictional Lord Toranaga is based on the historical Tokugawa Ieyasu, a brilliant strategist who founded a dynasty that lasted 268 years. The book is full of the real Tokugawa's writings, which can be very profound. For anyone familiar with the 'marshmallow test' for determining how well 5 year olds will do later in life, Tokugawa had it figured out 370 years before Walter Mischel:
"The strong manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one's inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience. And if my descendants wish to be as I am, they must study patience."
Lieutenant Hornblower - C.S. Forrester. Shogun taught me that reading historical fiction made regular history much more interesting, which made me seek out more historical fiction. This is a series of 12 books covering the career of a British navel man during the Napoleonic Wars. Gene Roddenberry based the character of Jean Luc Picard on its protagonist. My recommendation won't be as strong as these gentlemen though: "I find Hornblower admirable." -Winston Churchill, and "I recommend Forester to everyone literate I know," -Ernest Hemingway
The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell. I found this through another Hacker News book thread. I enjoyed it so much that after reading the sequel I immediately went back and read the first book again. SETI discovers music coming from Alpha Centauri and the Jesuits are the first to launch an expedition to investigate. It's science fiction, but unlike most science fiction, the story is more about the characters and their relationships than it is about exploring the consequences of an interesting premise.
Call Me Ted - Ted Turner. At the peak (before the AOL-Time Warner merger debacle) Ted Turner was worth $10 Billion. His autobiography is a great look into the sort of exceptional personality that creates that kind of exceptional result. Everything from growing up in the south and almost being lynched in school when someone started a rumor that he'd badmouthed General Robert E. Lee, to transforming his dad's billboard company several times until it was a media empire with TV channels like CNN, TNT, and Cartoon Network. Here's a great excerpt from a section written by a friend of his:
"And you know what I’m going to do next after I have the fourth network?” I said, “No, Ted, what’s that?” “I’m going to run for president and be elected.” Now I thought to myself, “This guy is absolutely nuts— and I’ve just agreed to lend him all this money!” I said to Ted, “Oh, Ted, don’t tell anybody else about that, okay?” And he said, “Cuz, your trouble is you don’t understand the power of television. Let me show you.” He pulled a little book of matches out of his desk drawer and he said, “Okay, it’s Saturday morning at 7: 30 and it’s Captain Teddy’s Kiddy Hour, and I come on television and I say, ‘Hey kids, today we’re going to play a game and it’s going to be so much fun. Now, don’t tell Mommy and Daddy, this is our secret between Captain Teddy and you. Now, everybody go get some matches. See Captain Teddy’s matches? Go get some just like this.’” Then he goes over to his window he says, “All right kids, everybody got your match? Go to the window and strike your match and light the curtain or the drape,” at which point he struck his match right near the old cheesecloth thing he had hanging in front of his window and then he flung the window open and he said to me, “At that point, I’d look out over Atlanta and watch it burn.” It was an incredible performance."
> Lieutenant Hornblower - C.S. Forrester. Shogun taught me that reading historical fiction made regular history much more interesting, which made me seek out more historical fiction. This is a series of 12 books covering the career of a British navel man during the Napoleonic Wars. Gene Roddenberry based the character of Jean Luc Picard on its protagonist. My recommendation won't be as strong as these gentlemen though: "I find Hornblower admirable." -Winston Churchill, and "I recommend Forester to everyone literate I know," -Ernest Hemingway
If you liked this, check out Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commmander" series - it's the cream of the crop for this sort of historical fiction (or any sort, really).
Something fantastic I forgot to mention about Hornblower: I'd read several of the books, then picked up "Life of a Seaman", the autobiography of Lord Admiral Cochrane (one of the historical figures Hornblower is based on) and discovered that several of the episodes from Hornblower actually happened and were detailed in his journal. It's odd to read something assuming it's fiction before finding out it's fact.
Shogun is a great read. It got me started on the whole historical fiction genre. The rest of the books in Clavell's Asian Saga are pretty good too except for maybe Gai-jin. I also enjoyed reading Gore Vidal's Lincoln and Burr from his Narratives of the Empire series - very entertaining and definitely not run-of-the-mill biographic portrayals.
Shogun is an awesome read; I read it yearly. The many interleaving and embedded plots create fascinating character depth. Not only that but Clavel easily transitions between the point of view of the many protagonists creating an amazing read. I can't recommend this book enough to anyone who hasn't read it.
One of the darkest, funniest books I've ever read was called "The Loom of Ruin" by Sam McPheeters. I found myself laughing out loud regularly. You can read an excerpt here:
Didn't get aorund reading it till this year, but I highly recommend _The Windup Girl_ by Paolo Bacigalupi. _Pump 6 and Other Stories_ by him is also quite good. Finally got around to reading the Takahashi Kovec's novels, _Altered Carbon_ by Richard K Morgan and it's sequels.
Melville's Moby Dick, Crockford's Javascript: the good parts, Vonnegut's short stories, Defoe's Adventures and Piracies of captain Singleton (not about the design pattern), Amsterdam in the 70s. Not a single new release though.
I reread all of China Mieville this year and enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
I also enjoyed reading Nick Harkaway. A brilliant writer if ever there was one.
Chinaman is a must read if you are a fan of cricket.
Well, not so much as new releases, except for one. But this year I really enjoyed:
Reamde by Neil Stephenson (Can't get enough of that guy)
The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick
Close to the Machine by Ellen Ullman
"Wildwood" and "Under Wildwood" by Colin Meloy (the guy from the Decemberists) and Carson Ellis. Written for older kids but I enjoyed them too. I don't usually read fantasy books but these are different.
It's not a new release, but it's the standard by which you might measure new releases once you read it. Screw 2012, do yourself a favour and sit down with a really good book :)
Ms. Munro is a masterful storyteller. Each story is different, some you may enjoy more than others, some you will struggle through, all are boutique crafted.
"The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now" - by Meg Jay. I'm glad that I read this book while I'm still in my twenties.
Nassim Taleb's "Antifragile", Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov", Robert Greene's "48 Laws of Power" were some of the good books I read this year.
I read it since Tarr is one of my favorite directors and I saw the movie recently (the author works closely with Tarr on the screenplay and on set). It's dark, very dark but full of humor and great visual descriptions. It adds a lot to the movie, although they are separate works.
i highly recommend all of these:
- "Cathedral and the Bazaar"
- "Buddhism Without Beliefs"
- "Mindfulness in Plain English"
- "Godel Escher Bach"
- "People's History of the United States"
- "Debian Administrator's Handbook"
The Shadow of the Wind is a 2001 novel by Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and a worldwide bestseller. The book was translated into English in 2004 by Lucia Graves and sold over a million copies in the UK after already achieving success on mainland Europe, topping the Spanish bestseller lists for weeks.For more visit : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Wind
It was a good book, but not as inspirational as the Founders at Work book. Some of the stories are good, but since the majority of the people are not in my sector, the book just wasn't as interesting to me.
I have a weak spot for Charlie Huston books - he's not the best author (sorry Charlie), but his books are really easy to approach. This is one of his best ones and is about crime scene cleaners - a nice departure from all the Joe Pitt vampire novels.
It's OK... I read it half way through and then once I got busy I just couldn't get myself to pick it up again. I will finish it eventually.. just not yet.
I'm a huge fan of Dan Simmons, and his Hyperion series is well worth the time. Once you make it beyond the first few pages of Hyperion, I guarantee you'll be hooked. There are a total of 4 books in the series and each is truly a masterpiece in science fiction.
I would also recommend "The Terror," which is a historical fiction piece loosely based on the first expedition to the North Pole.
Simmons has won multiple awards in Science Fiction and leaps across categories with aplomb. I highly recommend any of his work!
I read Hyperion a few months ago, and I only read to the end so that I wouldn't be left with that nagging feeling of leaving a book unfinished. Much like the Grammy's and the Emmy's, I've found that book awards may be a good indicator of what other people like, but often not a good indicator of what I like.
