Top 1 or top 1-3 book you read this year (2025) that you would recommend to the HN community? Note: book itself doesn't need to have been published in 2025.
Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#21. Why Machines Learn - Anil Ananthaswamy
Fantastic exposition of machine learning. The author does an amazing job of bringing a technical subject down to an easily readable level.
2. The Joy of Abstraction - Eugenia Cheng
Similar to the above review. I never thought Category Theory could be made so easily readable!
3. A Little History of Philosophy - Nigel Warburton
Small, compact book. A quick interesting jaunnt through the history of philosophy. Entertaining and educational!
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#3Caves of Steel, Forever War, Childhood’s End
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#4Man’s Search For Meaning (Frankl), The Color Purple (Walker), Orbital (Harvey)
Not specifically for the HN community but these are the only books I read this year that I would recommend without qualification.
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#5Empire of AI by Karen Hao.
The whole world is going crazy for AI. This book brings the story of what actually goes on within those companies.
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#6This year I quite enjoyed:
- The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman Modern take on King Arthur, very fun, wild ride.
- The Courage to Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi Philosophy as a dialogue between teacher and student, lots to think about.
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#7Couple of books from this year:
- A short stay in hell (sci-fi): A modern take on Library of Babel. Pretty dark. Quick read.
- The Burried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Nominally fantasy, but not really. Great, like his other books.
- Small things like these (fiction). Set in 1900s Ireland, atmospheric. I learned about Magdalene laundries from this book.
- Parable of the Sawer by Octavia E. Butler, science fiction. Collapse of society, survival etc. Pretty bleak.
- Lonely Kind of War (biography). Author was a forward air controller during the Vietnam war. His job was to direct air strikes from jets and bombers on enemy positions and then confirm the kills. Interesting and depressing.
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#8- The Writer - James Patterson
- Terminal Man - Michael Crichton
- The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#9The "Sun Eater" series (7 books) by C. Ruocchio have the final book published this year. Dune vibe/A bit of Warhammer.
"Simplicity" by Dave Thomas is in the same vein of "The Pragmatic Programmer". Worth a quick read.
"Tidy First?" by Kent Beck is another one that's worth a quick read.
Re: Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations
#10Not read this year but:
1. Sebastian Junger - Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
I read it some years ago but I remember it being a good read - for men. It also mentions how older societies handled post-war PTSD. So it got stuck in my head, despite only reading it once. Author was also a guest on Joe Rogan few times.
Great addition for anyone interested in Anunnaki and Sitchin's work. This takes a different angle but comes to the same/similar conclusions as Sitchin in more straightforward and less bombastic way as the authors were strictly fact-driven and held off any personal opinions or anything they could not prove. And I find that this is the only work not written by armchair warriors, second to Sitchin.