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Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

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Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#391

Post by romperstomper »

iammiles wrote: post #276
romperstomper wrote: post #273

The Lord of the Rings

I'm rereading the Lord of the Rings after about ~15 years since my last one. For this read through I've been thoroughly delighted by the interlude of poems and songs whereas before I'd just gloss over them. I wonder if this is an effect of getting older.

This time I read LotR in original for the first time and this was quite an effort for me as non-native English speaker. And yes - poems and songs have much more sens and much more beautiful in original if compared with translated ones.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#393

Post by georgeecollins »

Best novel of the year for me: Playworld by Adam Ross.

I read a lot of books for work, talk to people who read a lot of books, and that is my #1 recommendation. Also this year I enjoyed Demon Copperhead, Mobility, Land of Milk and Honey, Afterworld, The Terror. Many of those books aren't new, but I enjoyed them in 2025.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#394

Post by FunnyLookinHat »

beilabs wrote: post #325

I really enjoyed Leaders Eat Last and Careless People. 2025 brought me to: The Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick Leaders Eat Last - Simon Sinek A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms The Time Machine - H.G. Wells What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School - Mark McCormack The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change - Adam Braun Neuromancer - William Gibson Blood of Elves - Andrzej Sapko…

I really enjoyed Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood. It's fairly obscure though - I was surprised to see it mentioned here.!

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#395

Post by secstate »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #52
DJBunnies wrote: post #10

Very much enjoyed the Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Cantos

Spoilers, but the excerpt posted here [0] of Aenea was one of my favorite scenes from Hyperion Cantos. "Choose again" as a gentle reminder to reevaluate our beliefs and structures, and to really choose, not just go along with whatever. You can always choose again. [0] https://raccaldin36.livejournal.com/1849917.html

Oh man ... it's been years since I read this, but it all came flooding back reading that post. Brilliant. And interestingly, "Choose again" is shockingly similar to Steve Job's "Don't be trapped by dogma," philosophy.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#396

Post by kylehotchkiss »

yuchtman wrote: post #345
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #189

I stick to HN for finding interesting technical articles (whenever you all aren't bikeshedding about LLMs lol) 2025 Online: Noahpinion, Zeihan on Geopolitics, Ezra's column NYTimes, Where's Your Ed At 2025 Books: Abundance, Human Nature - Thomas Bell, (Plus a handful of books on maintaining faith despite not being politically conservative) Looking forward to in 2026: Everything is Tuberculosis - John Green

I'd be interested in a recommendation about maintaining faith. Preferably specific-church-agnostic.

Mere Christianity - cs Lewis (timeless), “losing our religion” by Russel Moore, “the justice of Jesus” by Joash Thomas are the 3 that helped me out the most. I end up handing out every copy of mere Christianity I get!

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#397

Post by homeonthemtn »

port11 wrote: post #310

I'm not influential enough but I'll share the recommendations I think will help people like me: struggling parents. This year I've reread The Discontented Little Baby Book. If you're getting/have a newborn, this is the book I'd read. It's humane. No sleep training, no nonsense about babies. We went full ‘possum’ with our baby and I like how happy he became. I've also read Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's…

For what it's worth, we're a handful of days out from our first so, thank you for that recommendation.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#399

Post by whatgoodisaroad »

qkeast wrote: post #368

Some highlights from this year include: - The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera - Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - The Devils by Joe Abercrombie - A Frog In The Fall (And Later On) by Linnea Sterte (A graphic novel) Overall I'm at 65 books on the year—I maintain a reading list[1] on my personal site that has the rest. [1] https://quinnkeast.com/reading

i love Linnea Sterte books, stages of rot is also excellent

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#400

Post by mcswell »

ffuxlpff wrote: post #290
mcswell wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the 1960s, when I was a tween- or teen-ager, I read every copy of Analog Science Fiction/ Science Fact I could put my hands on. You can now read lots of those stories on-line (like at https://www.freesfonline.net/Magazines2.html ). Some of them have stood the test of time, but some are really really bad. John Campbell, the editor of Analog back then, was racist, and also convinced that smoking tobacco was a G…

The sudden all encompassing popularity of smoking is one of the most astonishing things in modern history. I can think nothing that would show better the power of advertising. Everyone knew from the start smoking is unhealthy, or at least not healthy and addictive. Nicotine probably happened to help with the new kind of stress and frustration the higher tech world caused and so it kind of answered to a real need. Now…

I think the movie you're referring to is World without Sun (1964), and the scene (which I too remember) takes place in the "Starfish House", at about ten meters depth. They were breathing ordinary air continuously pumped down to them. So there was plenty of ventilation (although given the two atmosphere pressure, the cigarettes would have burned more quickly).
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