Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

I'm impressed by how little fiction you guys read. Not even the classics are listed here (minus some exceptions)

Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country, which led me to the non-fiction book Sundown Towns by James W. Loewen. I'm reading the latter right now and blowing my mind.

My understanding of the American history of racism was basically that it was generally getting better over time. Slavery, Civil War, Jim Crow, and then the civil rights era. What this leaves out was that things got rapidly better after the civil war for a few decades, and then got substantially worse. And that it didn't get worse in the south; all over America white people drove out non-whites from their towns. They created "sundown towns", places where African-Americans weren't allowed after dark.

This is an era that goes unmentioned in most official local histories, and I never heard about it growing up white. That was the case even though it was happening all around the area I grew up. E.g., not far from where my family lived was a major vacation area built by and for well-off African-Americans because they were kept out of the white ones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlewild,_Michigan

I had literally never heard of the place, let alone known its history, even though I know the name of almost every town an village nearby.

I finished Seveneves today. I agree that there's obviously a huge difference between the first 2/3 and the last - but how can you tell the second part is bad if you only read the first?

Personally I think both parts of the story are good. I think that it could possibly have been split into two different books to give the second part a bit more space. As it is now, the second part is a bit rushed, and ends quite suddenly (in classic Neal Stephenson fashion).

This year involved a career change, so much of my reading was oriented around my shift from flight test engineering to software engineering.

Non-fiction (technical):

* Code Complete, 2nd Edition by Steve McConnell. I can't say enough good things about this. I have kept referring to it in the months since I read it for the first time.

* Computation Structures by Stephen A. Ward. I have read most of this one; it's a good reference for understanding computers at various levels of abstraction.

* Simulation and its Discontents by Sherry Turkle

* Scientific Computation: Python Hacking for Math Junkies by Bruce E. Shapiro. Good for getting back into Python after a few years away.

* Accelerating MATLAB Performance by Yair Altman. Altman has an exhaustive knowledge of MATLAB and this book is a must for anyone doing serious work in MATLAB.

* Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline by Cathy O'Neil

History:

* The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, by Peter Heather. Very well researched and written narrative examining how the Empire fared in the 3rd-5th centuries. Has a different perspective than the usual "Barbarian invasions ended the empire".

* One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson. I love everything Bryson writes. This is no exception.

* Rocket Ranch: The Nuts and Bolts of the Apollo Moon Program at Kennedy Space Center by Jonathan H. Ward. Also read Countdown to a Moon Launch: Preparing Apollo for Its Historic Journey by the same author. Ward writes the most amazing technical histories. It's quite obvious that he spent massive amounts of time piecing together exactly how things at Kennedy worked during the Apollo years. It's full of amazing little details like which firing rooms were used for which mission, how the entire Saturn V stack was rap-tested (literally having people lie on their backs on a work-platform and synchronously press against the rocket with their legs to try to get it to resonate), and so much more. If you are an Apollo program enthusiast you must read these two books.

Biography

* Kelly: More than my Share of it All by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson. The man was a far better engineer than writer. A much better look at Kelly's business life was put together by his protege, Ben Rich (with Leo Janos), in "Skunkworks: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed".

* Fighter Pilot, by Robin Olds. Autobiography of one of the brashest, best aces of World War II and Vietnam.

* American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day, by Robert Coram. Not as well-written as Coram's biography of John Boyd. Or maybe Boyd just appeals more to my fighter-jet engineering side.

* Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. Amazing account of what it was like to be a combat rotary-wing pilot in Vietnam.

Other Non-Fiction

* The M1 Garand Owner's Guide by Scott A. Duff. Worth it for Garand owners.

* Atlas Obscura: A Guide To the World's Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer. The print book is beautiful and ever fascinating.

* This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, by Naomi Klein. Like a lot of popular non-fiction, this could have been an excellent long-form article instead.

Fiction:

* The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 by Lionel Shriver. A book with a high concept story and poor execution.

* The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Not my first time reading it, but just as enjoyable on this go-around.

* QB VII by Leon Uris. Fiction, but based on some of Uris's own experiences as the defendant in a libel suit. A solid read.

* Noble House, by James Clavell. The only book in his Asian series I hadn't read. Amazing, as are all the rest.

* The Tao Trilogy by Wesley Chu. Eh. First book was decent, it got tedious after that. Only finished it all because I was on a business trip with poor internet access.

* The Power of the Dog, by Don Winslow. I also read the follow-up, The Cartel. Winslow researched these books for years and they are powerful indictments of the War on Drugs. They're also good fiction, but many of the characters have real-world analogues. I spent quite a bit of time during/after reading these looking up the real-world history of the drug wars since 1975.

"It Can't Happen Here", a novel by Sinclair Lewis.

It was written in 1935 during the rise of totalitarian regimes in Italy and Germany, but before WW2. The prevailing wisdom at the time was that the American democracy was immune to the disease of dictatorship.

The novel speculates how a populist figure could manipulate people through fear, racism, corporatism, local militias and bald-faced lies.

He wins the popular vote and turns the US into a totalitarian dystopia.

It's fascinating to get a glimpse into people's understanding of the world before WW2 broke out. I pictured a series of catastrophes that were surprises to most people. But it's clear from this book that the horrors were anticipated in advance.