Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs
GREAT book.
Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#22The Compass Rose - Ursula Le Guin
Witch Piss - Sam Pink
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#23Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke Set in the near-ish future, a big asteroid comes whizzing into the solar system. Looks weird, so we investigate. It's a total page turner, and reads like an adventure/mystery. Highly recommended. --------- The Malazan Book of the Fallen series - Steven Erikson A fantasy series, set in a really unique setting. It's an epic fantasy series with a huge ensemble cast and a bunch of…
It took me a huge time to get through Rendezvous with Rama. (I stopped reading and then finished it almost an year later). Even though it is a pretty short book. For me, it just too much hard-SF with none of the character development. The ending doesn't help with that either.
But then, I didn't like Eon either (Greg Bear), so maybe hard-SF isn't really for me.
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#24The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin My first introduction to non-western sci-fi. Intriguing concept and very good translation.
I'll second this, along with its follow up book. I read it close to a year ago and the description of the particle unfolding into higher dimensions has still stuck with me.
My only major complain with the book is that very often it uses particle physics as hand-wavy magic to break any rules it wishes to, and that breaks suspension of disbelief for me.
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#25Fifth Season - N. K Jemisin.
Epic Fantasy, set in a alternative Earth, where the magic system works on Earthquakes. Won the Hugo this year, which is why I read it. Breaks a lot of core writing rules, and tries hard to do things that are rarely seen in the genre.
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#26The vital question
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#27There is some remarkable fiction coming out this season by some of the best:
Jonathan Safran Foer's Here I Am
Zadie Smith's Swing Time
Ian McEwan's Nutshell
Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad
Carl Hiassan's Razor Girl
Alan Moore's Jerusalem
Jonathan Lethem's A Gamber's Anatomy
Ha Jin's The Boat Rocker
T.C. Boyle's The Terranauts
Michael Chabon's Moonglow
Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger
I've got plenty of friends who never touch fiction because "it's not real". Preferring science, history, economics, biography and virtually anything else. But I think its obligatory at times. The soul requires it's own nourishment, if not more so than the body and the mind. Indulge yourself. If only because great writing will make your writing greater, as if by osmosis. But ultimately, because only fiction can uncover the truths that can't be revealed any other way ;)
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#28The End of Error: Unum Computing - John L. Gustafson
https://www.crcpress.com/The-End-of-Error-Unum-Computing/Gus...
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#29Here's the best books I've read in the last year or so:
>> Computer History & biographies:
The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story, Michael Lewis
The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman
Machines of Loving Grace, by John Markoff
The Innovators, by Walter Isaacson
Ghost in the Wires, by Kevin Mitnick
Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft, by Paul Allen
Creativity, Inc, by Ed Catmull (reading)
>> Startups:
The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz
The Founder's Dilemmas, Noam Wasserman
The Launch Pad, by Randall Stross
>> Other books:
Trilogy: Off to Be the Wizard (series), by Scott Meyer
Search Inside Yourself, Chade-Meng Tan
Joy on Demand, Chade-Meng Tan (reading)
Re: Ask HN: What good books have you read lately?
#30Wise Guy - Nicholas Pileggi
This is the chronicle of the life of Henry Hill, a half-Irish half-Sicilian kid from Brooklyn, New York who rose through the ranks of the Mafia back in it's heydays. The most entertaining book concerning organized crime that I've ever read, by far (these guys really had it all. they were both feared and respected. they could quite literally do whatever they wanted to do, whenever they wanted to do it and they need not have any fear of reprisal from anything or anybody). Also, this is the book that gave birth to the Martin Scorsese movie GoodFellas -- but as is so often the case, the book is much better than the movie. Given that the movie is fantastic, that is really saying something IMHO.