Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

Just a couple of weeks ago I got back into reading books again, and mainly scifi. It feels great to read again!

I loved The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, recommended previously in this thread, and that got me to Old Man's War by John Scalzi. (It might be interesting to note that Ridley Scott has hold the movie rights to this book for many years now. I can't see it really becoming a mainstream movie without cutting out some themes from the book.)

The theme in Old Man's War are sort of the same as The Forever War, but in such a minor way that it didn't bother me even once. Scalzi then turned that book into a series, all very well worth reading (except Sagan's Diary - give that a miss). After his Old Man's War series I read Redshirts (so and so), Agent to the Stars (good read) and now I'm reading Fuzzy Nation, which is shaping up nicely.

In the afterword to Agent to the Stars Scalzi actually recommends other scifi books, and per his recommendation I tried out Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (of Starship Troopers fame) but that quickly grinded to a halt. Might give it another chance later.

Oh, I also read Haldeman's Camouflage. Seems to be liked by the reviews I find online, but I found it to be a waste of time due to a very weak end chapter.

After this I plan to dive into Rama territory and perhaps Dune also.

Please keep the book recommendations coming, this thread is a goldmine. :)

Many people already joined in with great comments, but I'll also add mine.

For now Quiet seems more about getting to appreciate the differences between introverts and extroverts and how getting to respect the way introverts "works" (being someone else or even yourself) might lead to better performance and happiness.

It's not a self-help book (at least for now).

Nice book, although now I'm in the part where it's super-filled with references and it's kinda boring (I started reading it after writing the comment on HN :D )

Usually we are filled with self-help book that describe how to be "super". I was a bit bored by all that topic (although some takeaways of the self-help world are valuable), and I wanted something that went in a totally different direction.

Reading something like quiet (aside from the fact that I feel like I'm a bit introvert) is a great way to expand how I see things, because it does give me new point of view about people and the world.

Hope it helps ;)

Yep, I'm listening to the audiobook. Being a non-native english it's a nice work.

At first I bought the book thanks to many suggestions but didn't realize it was a philosophical book, it is sure training me to new levels of listening and concentration.

Sometimes I end up relistening to a part because I just didn't follow it enough closely.

If you read them in the order they were written, you will also be reading them in chronological order of their setting, if that makes sense. They are specifically not set in the same universe, but they portray different stages of posthuman development, so I think that would be a good way to read them. You can see the development of egan's own thinking along the way. Also this is ordering by increasing weirdness/hardness of ideas, which is probably a good idea too.

That being said, I read disapora first, then permutation city, and that was fine.

Recently read:

* “Disciplined Minds” by Jeff Schmidt. A mind-opening book that shows how both academia and business select for conformity.

* “Go It Alone: The Streetwise Secrets of Self Employment” by Geoff Burch. Great read, witty and savvy author.

* “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber.

* “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life” by William Deresiewicz.