Designing data intensive applications by Martin Klepmann. The best engineering design book I’ve read in my 20 yrs of experience.
Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
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Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#292Fantasy nerd.
Rhythm of War, book 4 in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. Love most stuff by this author.
And in response to Amazon making a Wheel of Time tv show, rereading that. Pleasant experience, very nice to get immersed in this huge universe.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#293The Coddling of the American Mind was a good read for me.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#294The Dispossessed , by Ursula K. Le Guin. It identified so many of the "edges" of society and how I think about and interact with the world, on a daily basis. Without a doubt one of the best books I've ever read. Maybe even the best. The only other book that came close this year was Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir .
Oh, this been one of my favorite books for decades. I was introduced by Tony Wolk, an old hippie professor of English Lit at Portland State. I took a class from him nearly every term, in part because he was good friends with LeGuin and would have her guest lecture sometimes. She was astonishing, perhaps the best combination of intellect and humanity I’ve encountered. Tony said that first and last sentences in her boo…
The ending line was a home run. Fantastic ending to a fantastic book. I read it a month ago, and it would be my favourite fiction of the year if I didn’t also read The Grapes of Wrath this year.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you’ve never read Three Men in a Boat or Tristram Shandy you might try those too.
Thanks. I have read Three Men in a Boat and I enjoyed it. I started reading Tristram Shandy a long time ago but couldn’t get into it; I should give it another try. Speaking of unread books, this year I compiled a list of fifty nineteenth century novels that nobody seems to read anymore [1]. I’ve read a couple of them myself, and they were reasonably entertaining. Maybe others on the list are as well. [1] https://blog…
The movie with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (with a cameo by the guy from Black Books whose name escapes me despite having seen him in person and I’m too proud to look up atm)
is a good skimming if not worthy of being called an abridged version.
NB: Dylan Moran
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
This book is lovely. It made me reflect on our current state of affairs. Covid was and still is a test of the value systems of the so called "Western" or "first world" societies. We have failed this test through and through. On a local level, many people didn't care about their communities enough to mask and vaxx and in turn the communities had no way to pressure them. Many, many people have mental health problems --…
+1 to the book even though I’m still 40% in. > As humanity, we didn't help each other. This was one of the aspects that has stuck with me. Where an indigenous leader visiting Europe comments on affairs of the French society. He says how can you (French) completely ignore the destitute sleeping on your city streets and call yourself a civilized society? If I introspect, it’s clear that, at least in the cities, helping…
I personally think our modern lack of community here in America is driven by two things:
1. The Suburban Experiment in America [0]
2. The decrease of church membership throughout America [1]
I can speak to my second point a bit more in depth. Churches historically were centers of communities and social places. And as time moves on we as a society are (rightly so) becoming very suspicious of religion and churches in our lives (I grew up _very_ religious but I no longer am).
In my eyes, modern 21st century Christianity is very very different than it was even before the 1960s. It seems the cultural ideologies have shifted from service oriented to worship oriented. In my evangelical church the focus was on putting Jesus (the symbol) higher than literally everything else in your life in order to achieve "eternal salvation" in heaven. The main focus was just believing that Jesus came back to life after being crucified was the only way to get to heaven. There was less focus on service, empathy, and equality. People are leaving in droves because of this. I can go on about more changes that I've noticed, but I'll spare details.
We need to build new in-person social centers that are not built on mythologies and symbolism but instead more focused on society itself like the churches of old were.
[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/curbside-chat-1/2015/12/14/ameri...
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-s...
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#297Here are all books I read (this year so far I read 50 books):
https://books.j11g.com/search.php?log=3
Three books from 2021 stick out:
- If This Is a Man by Primo Levi. I would urge everyone to read this. This history should be known to everyone.
- Defying Hitler (the story of a German 1914 - 1933) by Sebastian Haffner. Masterfully written autobiography that explains the rise of nazi Germany more than any other history book I ever read.
And one more for the HN crowd:
- The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz. Often tipped, but it really is an insightful book, and a fun read.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#298Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. It's a great read, and I learned a lot about the early years of the US. It's also the book that Lin-Manuel Miranda used as a reference for the musical, so I watched the musical for the first time after reading the book, and it blew me away.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#299The new Graeber, Dawn of Everything Completely tears apart recent trendy anthro books like Sapiens for ignoring both old and very new research and tries to set a new framework for understanding humanity’s potential
I'm looking forward to reading this. I listened to this excellent podcast with David Graber's coauthor, David Wengrow about the book and the fascinating discussion really hints that this will be a good read.
https://srslywrong.com/podcast/242-the-dawn-of-the-dawn-of-e...
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#300Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb. Changed my life and my perspective on doing business, building company and understanding luck. Such a classic. Also honourable mention: Super Pumped by Mike Isaac. Great read on the legendary Travis' journey.
I bought all the other books of him after reading Skin In the Game.
Insanely nice book and it was easy to read!