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Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

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Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#141

Post by ploppyploppy »

yawz wrote: post #31

My best nonfiction read was The 1619 Project. It's a heavy read, but I highly recommend it. The runner up would be Christian Livermore's We Are Not OK. Best fiction read was Tim Winton's Breath or (there's probably some recency bias at play here) Sebastian de Castel's Traitor's Blade. I also read a few comic books. I love the East of West series (at least the first three books).

> My best nonfiction read was The 1619 Project. It's a heavy read, but I highly recommend it. The runner up would be Christian Livermore's We Are Not OK.

lmao

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#142

Post by kcartlidge »

For sheer entertainment value: I've just finished KC Alexander's two "SINless" books - Necrotech and Nanoshock. Both were excellent reads. Nothing heavy, just some extremely filthy and brutal transhumanist SciFi with a hint of cyberpunk in there too (not enough to make it that genre). Fast, frantic, gritty.

Great writing by a young bi-polar feminist writer with a great future.

Also, the introduction and the first few chapters of "Letters from the Desert" by Carlo Carretto.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#143

Post by rg111 »

jsenn wrote: post #139
rg111 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved Three Body Problems as well. What are your other favorite sci-fi novels, and books in general? (Send some general fiction recs on my way if you feel like it.)

If you haven't read Ted Chiang's short stories yet, do so. His first collection (Stories of Your Life and Others) was my favourite, but his more recent one (Exhalation) was also very good (the title story, Exhalation, is gorgeous ). Stories of your Life is what the movie Arrival was based on and (as ever) the story was better than the movie. As far as sci-fi novels, I have pretty generic tastes for this crowd: Dune,…

Thank you. I will try Ted Chiang.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#144

Post by kcartlidge »

gbro3n wrote: post #93
ad-astra wrote: post #84

If you’re into Science Fiction: (Note: I listed to these all via the Audible audiobooks, they were all very well narrated and I’d highly recommend listening this way.) #1: The Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is amazingly fascinating from beginning to end, if you like speculative evolution zenofiction space operas, you’re in for a real treat. I feel like these books were written for me. I went the…

Am 90 pct through Project Hail Mary and agree this book is brilliant. If you're technically / sci-fi inclined you'll love this. The author ties together a great story with scientific knowledge which must have taken significant research. Children of Time is my next audio book coincidentally.

I'd agree, and I really enjoyed it. Bad news though. You're at 90%, and the last 5% felt rushed to me. So enjoy 90% to 95%, and here's hoping that 95% to 100% is just my personal preference!

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#145

Post by TurkishPoptart »

clydethefrog wrote: post #119
joyeuse6701 wrote: post #94

1. Breathe - James Nestor I was a lifelong nighttime mouth breather due to a very dry winter climate growing up in Chicago, clogged up my sinuses. The book inspired me to look into solutions for this problem and now wake up with considerably less brain fog than I did before. 2. War and Peace / Anna Karenina - I wanted some sort of insight into Russian Imperialism and was surprised by how much my father was like some…

Interesting list. What was your solution for nighttime mouth breathing?

Not OP, but I know some people will use medical tape to hold their mouth shut at night.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#146

Post by TurkishPoptart »

Pietertje wrote: post #102
tathagatadg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent list - Inspired and intrigued - thanks for sharing the list. I hardly get to do sit down and read, and became heavily reliant on airpod+audible after the baby - do you want to share a little more on your reading habit? Like did you get everything on kindle or paperbooks etc. Thanks again ...

I love the feeling of an actual book in my hands. So during the daytime I read paperbooks. During the evenings/nights I read on my ereader as this requires less light so i dont wake up my spouse or the baby. I make sure I have both so I can read whatever I like. Something which I discovered this year is reading multiple books in parallel. And start reading the book which you feel like reading, not the book which you…

Are you retired, by chance? With work, I can only read perhaps a max of 50 paperback pages a night. I would love to read more, but am just stuck on the computer with work so much.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#147

Post by kcartlidge »

psithurism wrote: post #40

Sociology: - The Coddling of the American Mind - The Tao of Pooh - Guns, Germs, and Steel - Weapons of the Weak Religious: - Guru Granth Sahib - Bible (King James Version) - Q’uran - The Book of Mormon - Tipitaka Fantasy: - Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw - The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan - The Way of Kings series by Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn also by Brandon Sanderson - Red Rising by Pierce Brown - The Lican…

Good recommendations, but for other readers I'd strongly avoid the KJV Bible as the language isn't just archaic but on occasion even the meanings of words has changed in the intervening hundreds of years. At the very least go for the New King James (NKJV) if you like the language style, but otherwise something like the ESV or CEV will read better for the modern mind.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#148

Post by notarob0t »

lawlorino wrote: post #137
notarob0t wrote: post #132

-Demon Haunted World A Candle In The Dark - Carl Sagan I enjoy his writing in general, but this one talks a lot about being a skeptic and critical thinking which is paraphrasing strongly. -The Pillars Of The Earth - Ken Follett. Could not stop thinking about it when I wasn't reading it and was pretty bummed when it was over. Its about a cathedral being built in the 1100's. My most favorite book this year and probably…

> The Pillars Of The Earth - Ken Follett Same, one of my favourite books ever. The others in the series are not quite as good, but I think you will enjoy them.

right on, ive been wondering if i should go down that road. most likely will after i move through some other books ive been wanting to check out.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#149

Post by euroderf »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #140
euroderf wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the book, just some plot spoilers, so take this with a big grain of salt: it seems to be yet another book that flatters the reader by positing that humans are relatively more sentient than other spacefaring species. Where are the books that posit the opposite (which I'd think is actually much more likely) ?

(Spoilers naturally) Trying to summarize a half-remembered book, but the big revelation is that the aliens are not sentient at all. They are rather operating on instinct. The point of the book was more to discuss the nature of being human and is consciousness/sentience all that necessary. Lots of philosophical waxing on the nature of thought. As to your question about other species, I think you are posing a rather ch…

To paraphrase Arthur C Clarke, any sufficiently advanced alien species is indistinguishable from God. And in that spirit, Merry Christmas...

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023

#150

Post by than3 »

The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith), and its follow-up The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (Landis).

Having been written in 1778 it still stands prominent with regard to its descriptions of how markets work, and the importance of the division of labor.

The latter book, also describes common pitfalls, often unknown to those living in the northern hemispheres with regard to Civilization development in tropical regions, and why Africa and Latin America are not more developed, and by extension what we can expect as climate change drives those tropical climates north.

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