Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

The Stranger (L’Étranger) by Albert Camus is an excellent novel. I'm sure many HNers can relate to the main character.

"Money Ball" by Michael Lewis is great. It's about evaluating talent in new ways to exploit market inefficiencies in baseball.

I also liked most of those. I'm just reading Blindsight, wonderful.

The only one I hated was "Market forces" by Morgan. It felt like reading "The Pilgrim's Progress", but with Chomsky as Jesus -- a little bit too heavy handed in political propaganda. For that kind of stuff done in a fascinating way, check Ken MacLeod's "The Stone Canal" and following.

(Asher got a little too much of Space Opera for me, in the end.)

For sf, I'd add Greg Egan (Stross has been mentioned multiple times).

I'd also like to recommend the worst author I used to buy books in hardcover from -- Robert L Forward. The guy couldn't have written a believable character to save his life, but he had some cool physics ideas. RIP.

For fantasy, which I didn't see mentioned, I'd add Scott Lynch, most stuff by Jack Vance, the black company series (Glen Cook), Joe Abercrombie and Vlad Taltos (Brust).

Dawkins' Selfish Gene has been mentioned. Steven Pinker was interesting.

Edit: Re Schoeder, I've heard good things but not read anything yet. Thanks for advice and kick to start.

The Prince of Nothing series of books by R. Scott Bakker

Snow Crash is amazing. But it definitely IS related to software :)