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Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

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Re: Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

#142

Post by kreyenborgi »

On the Calculation of Volume, by Solvej Balle.

It's a septology, curiously self-published by an established author, which she started on decades ago. Books 1 through 5 are out in Danish. The main plot device is superficially reminiscent of Groundhog Day, but with a completely different execution. Starts out kind of claustrophobic, then goes through these waves of revelations and disappointment and hypothesizing and hopefulness and rebuilding. I find it hard to compare to anything.

Re: Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

#143

Post by bwb »

If you guys want to browse, I've had 1,300+ readers share their 3 favorite reads of the year here: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024

You can browse by a lot of different genres, etc.

You can also submit yours here -> https://shepherd.com/bboy/my-3-fav-reads

You can see my 3 here: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/bwb *Every submitter gets a page like that.

What were my 3? 1. The Cold Cold Ground - Fantastic police procedural set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. 2. The Aggressor - Near future Tom-Clancy-like sketch of a USA/China war. 3. Wounded Tigris - Amazing Nonfiction about a team traveling down the entire Tigris River. Heavy on environment, history, and people. Utterly fascinating.

Re: Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

#144

Post by cinntaile »

teleforce wrote: post #94
mike978 wrote: post #91

A couple of my favorites from this year, I read a lot (50 to 100 a year) Fiction: - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver - Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky - A Man with One of Those Faces by Caimh Mcdonnell - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine - Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton - Where the Body Was by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips Nonfiction: - E…

Asking for myself, is there any trick or strategy to achieve reading 100 books per year, are you retired, or part-time employee. Is hard to imagine a full-time employee to read that many books in one single year?

They don't read, they listen. The title specifically asks for books you read so I'm not sure why they mention them.

Re: Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

#145

Post by ivansavz »

parallax_error wrote: post #55

I found “Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - Autobiography about Richard Feynman very interesting

I recently learned[1] that he didn't write this book. He was telling stories to Ralph Leighton, who then wrote the books, and there is reason to believe many of the stories were embellished/enhanced. I'm kind of disappointed now that he didn't write the book himself, but I remember enjoying it when I read it as an undergrad.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc

Re: Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

#146

Post by dimbulb321 »

Two books by Ty Gagne:

- The Last Traverse; Tragedy and Resilience in the Winter Whites

- Where You'll Find Me: Risk, Decisions, and the Last Climb of Kate Matrosova

Each book covers a wintertime climbing tragedy in the NH White Mountains but they're really about human nature, risk management, and decision making. I found both books riveting, devoured each in a few evenings of reading.

Re: Ask HN: What were the best books you read this year?

#150

Post by rasulkireev »

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut.

It is about scientists that are fully consumed by their work, going mad somtimes. Their work is making a world a better place, but at the same time is used to kill lots of people.

This is the first book for me that I can say is beautifully written. Even though the subject was heavy at times, I couldn't stop reading it.

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