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

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#151

Post by gk1 » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:01 PM UTC

I've read 13, which is half my goal of 24, but it's still more than the year prior so I'm satisfied. The three that stand out to me (recency bias in full effect):

Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky - I went back to Dostoevsky because I needed a break from business books... Something to distract me from work in the evenings. Dostoevsky's overly descriptive narrative does a great job of transporting my mind to 19th-century Russia and far, far from my work and other present-day concerns.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown, and Deep Work by Cal Newport - Pairing them together because they both reminded me the same important lessons: 1) Do fewer things and do them better, 2) Being overly busy is not a sign of success.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#152

Post by drelihan » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

Here are some of my favorites from the year ( ranked in how much they changed my thinking ):

- The Art of Being Unreasonable ( Eli Broad ) - Alibaba ( Clark ) - The Box ( Levinson ) - King Icahn ( Stevens ) - Expert C Programming ( Linden ) - A Passion to Win ( Redstone ) - Chaos Monkeys ( Martinez ) - A Truck Full of Money ( Kidder ) - The Hidden Wealth of Nations ( Zucman ) - Dead Wake ( Larson )

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#153

Post by arc_of_descent » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

thisisforyou wrote: post #140

arc_of_descent wrote: post #18

I started Jan 2016 jobless, I still am. hence the long reading list! Apart from these I've read lots on AngularJS, React, Redux, Python. * The Short Drop (The Gibson Vaughn Series) - Matthew FitzSimmons * The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins * Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution - Neil deGrasse Tyson * Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future - Ashlee Vance * Death…

'started Jan 2016 jobless, I still am. hence the long reading list!' A year of pure reading, one of the great, rare, unheralded joys of life... Enjoy it while you can!

Yeah! But I read voraciously anyway. And also I've been working on my own projects this 2016.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#154

Post by nicholast » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:12 PM UTC

Here are a few I enjoyed in 2016 by genre:

Business - Making Things Work by Yaneer Bar-Yam

Investing - Charlie Munger The Complete Investor by Tren Griffin

Essays - Michel de Montaigne Complete Essays ($.99 on Kindle!)

Physics - At Home in the Universe by Stuart Kauffman

Software - An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language

Current Events - Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom

Fiction - The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

Music - Jerry on Jerry (audiobook is a recorded interview of Garcia!)

Biography - Benjamin Franklin An American Life by Walter Isaacson

Autobiography - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

All of these are highly recomended!

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#155

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:12 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#156

Post by gallerdude » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:13 PM UTC

Annihilation - by Jeff Vandermeer was a big treat.

I like ambient music, and I'd call this an ambient book.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#157

Post by creaghpatr » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

drelihan wrote: post #152

Here are some of my favorites from the year ( ranked in how much they changed my thinking ): - The Art of Being Unreasonable ( Eli Broad ) - Alibaba ( Clark ) - The Box ( Levinson ) - King Icahn ( Stevens ) - Expert C Programming ( Linden ) - A Passion to Win ( Redstone ) - Chaos Monkeys ( Martinez ) - A Truck Full of Money ( Kidder ) - The Hidden Wealth of Nations ( Zucman ) - Dead Wake ( Larson )

Seconding Chaos Monkeys (Martinez), best startup memoir I've read so far.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#158

Post by nitins » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:18 PM UTC

- Lord of the Rings - Peace Is Every Step - The Hobbit - A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME - The Andromeda Strain - The Power of Now

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#159

Post by skadamou » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

For my birthday this year some friends got me The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Marx’s Capital Illustrated by David Smith. I’ve always been at least tangentially interested in political/economic theory and these two books offered an easily accessible new perspective on their respective subjects I hadn’t gotten before. The Dictator’s Handbook I found to be particularly insightful.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?

#160

Post by swapnull » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

Ready player one - Good bit of fun for a gamer/80s enthusist

Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger - I had no idea what was going on, i just know i enjoyed it

American Gods - slow starting but great book

Leviathan wakes - book that the netflix series 'the expanse' is based on

A Song of ice and fire books 1 to 3