Ask HN: Books you read in 2016? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#91

Post by q-base » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

stonecodegump wrote: post #38

q-base wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep Work sure is a great book, but I would recommend people with interest in the material just to go directly to Flow by Mihály Csikszentmihalyi. Read them one after the other, first Deep Work and then Flow. IF you are going to read both then I would recommend that order. Reading Flow first, then Deep Work doesn't have much to offer. Those books actually re-fueled my love of programming.

There seem to be two Flow books by the same author : Flow: The Psychology of Happiness Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life Which one are you recommending?

I agree with the guy who already answered. Flow is the one I read and found super interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#92

Post by razvanh » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:17 PM UTC

I would recommend most of the books I read this year:

* Born a Crime by Noah Trevor

* Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi

* Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Alexievich, Svetlana

* Ex-Formation by Hara, Kenya (best book I read this year)

* A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson, Bill

* Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian (applying algorithm theory to daily life)

* Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Voss Chris (meh)

* Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Knapp Jake (meh)

* All the Light We Cannot See by Doerr Anthony (loved it)

* The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro Kazuo (loved it)

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#93

Post by sateesh » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:20 PM UTC

prashnts wrote: post #29

Not a long list, but I'd recommend these: - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat ~ Oliver Sacks, 1985. This book contains tales of some of the Sacks's patients. A very interesting read. [1] - The Mind's Eye ~ Oliver Sacks, 2010. [2] - Spy Catcher (Autobiography of a MI5 agent) ~ Peter Wright, 1987. [3] - Applied Cryptography ~ Bruce Schneier, 1994. Approachable and succinate language of this book makes it easier to…

If you like books by Sacks I would also recommend reading "Phantoms in the brain" by S.Ramachandran

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#94

Post by rdeboo » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:22 PM UTC

I set myself a goal to read 20 books; I succeeded. Here's the ones I recommend most:

Kim Zetter - Countdown to Zero (on Stuxnet virus and how it was smuggled into the nuclear facility; very interesting)

Gary Kasparov - Winter is Coming (we should consider Russia a dictatorship by now; though until recently, western politicians treated it as a democratic partner country)

Mark Goodman - Future crimes (wide spanning book on crime in the age of the internet)

Philip E. Tetlock - Superforecasting (how amateurs can consistently beat domain professionals in forecasting all kind of stuff)

Venkat Subramaniam - Programming Concurrency on the JVM (good overview of your options (diy with locking / akka / clojure & STM))

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#95

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#96

Post by huuuuza » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris, My Life as a Quant - Emmanuel Derman, Plato at the Googleplex - Rebecca Goldstein, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#97

Post by Raphmedia » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

Finally got around to read hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

My favourite books of the year were Brian Jacques Redwall series.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#98

Post by catwell » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

I finished Keynes, Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics (Nicholas Wapshott), started in 2015.

I read:

* Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders (David Marquet)

* Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach To Fun on the Job (Dennis Bakke)

* Ne vous résignez pas ! (Bruno Le Maire - French politician)

* Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (Michael Hiltzik)

* Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (Dan Lyons)

* Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (Scott Berkun)

* Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy (Thomas Sowell)

* The Success of Open Source (Steve Weber)

* Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (Cathy O'Neil)

* Programming in Lua (fourth edition - I read every edition)

I started reading (and will probably finish by the end of the year) Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension (Samuel Arbesman).

As for what I recommend, it depends what you are into, but I would say I really enjoyed Making Things Happen, which is a must if you have any kind of project management to do, and Basic Economics.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#99

Post by forgetsusername » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

rdeboo wrote: post #94

I set myself a goal to read 20 books; I succeeded. Here's the ones I recommend most: Kim Zetter - Countdown to Zero (on Stuxnet virus and how it was smuggled into the nuclear facility; very interesting) Gary Kasparov - Winter is Coming (we should consider Russia a dictatorship by now; though until recently, western politicians treated it as a democratic partner country) Mark Goodman - Future crimes (wide spanning boo…

>Kim Zetter - Countdown to Zero (on Stuxnet virus and how it was smuggled into the nuclear facility; very interesting)

I know this is about books, but Alex Gibney's documentary on the subject is also decent:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5446858/

Although they chose to use a method to move the narrative that I wasn't fond of, there are some neat interviews with some of the early researchers.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#100

Post by hanoz » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

I haven't read a single book in 2016, something for which I hold Hacker News greatly to blame. I have read a good number of Hacker News book suggestion threads mind, and in turn a lot of Amazon reviews, usually up until the first unfavourable comment, which is typically enough to put me off completely. I can but look to Hacker News to make amends, so if anyone has any good advice for what I should do about this in 2017, I look forward to reading it.