Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

In reverse chronological order..

The Earth is Enough (recommended if you like trout fishing)

Clean Code (recommended if you want to invigorate your desire to write better code, there was a lot to both agree and disagree with though for me anyway)

Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D (recommend if you want to study the details of an early 3d game engine, or details about the 386 that made it so hard to do games with)

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (this is the first manga series I've read, because I was obsessed by the anime for a while and wanted more, so would only recommend if you like the anime)

Land of Lisp (only recommended if you want a fun sort of scheme-ish style approach to seeing some of the features of common lisp in a simple mostly text based games setting)

The Age of Em (recommend if you want a careful and detailed analysis of what a possible future looks like should humans get mind uploading technology)

A Critique of Democracy (recommended if you want to have a chance of winning bar arguments, not the best for deeper thinking)

The End of Eternity (fun sci-fi from Asimov)

The Three-Body Problem (book 1 of (I found out after starting (again)) 3 -- good enough that I'll read the next two, but not good enough that I had to go out and get the second book immediately like other series I've read)

Beyond Happiness (meh, wouldn't recommend)

Ninefox Gambit (book 1 of (I found out after starting) 3 -- if you like "armchair playing war" sci-fi you'll probably like this more than me, but I'll get and finish the next two books at some point)

More detailed short thoughts + older reads if desired: https://gist.github.com/Jach/1610886 Maybe I'll wrap up one of the several in-progress ones before the month is out, too.

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price

The Hunting Apes: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior by Craig B. Stanford

The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith

Craft Beef: A Revolution of Small Farms and Big Flavors by Joe Heitzeberg, Ethan Lowry, and Caroline Sanders

Don’t Eat the Oil! The Health Consequences of Consuming “Vegetable” Oils by Thomas L. Copmann, MS, Ph.D.

Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes by Jennifer McLagan

The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes

Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

This year I became ex-vegan and the books I read center around nutrition as such. I would recommend all of them. The Vegetarian Myth was the most shocking, one woman's struggles with health which finally opened my eyes. The Case Against Sugar was surprising for the depth of how many people and corporations were involved in promoting sugar on an unsuspecting public. Skin in the Game is Taleb's insightful observations as usual. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration is thorough and prescient, intriguing to see the drastic physical changes due to nutrition, and was I impressed by the dedicated research to study the effects of what was not known at the time but is now believed to be vitamin K2.

I had a Chinese coworker give it up because it was too difficult. I read it again for fun (and 'cause I decided I ought to complete the hardcover collection I keep porting around as I move) last year, first time doing so since I was a child (maybe a young teen was the last time?), it has a lot of weird Britishisms that I suspect my 5th grade teacher had to explain to us when she read it to the class.

Lierre Keith is indeed a powerful writer; that's a fascinating read.

I've spent time as a vegetarian, and ethically I find it desirable, but my body doesn't fly right without some meat.

Its an inspirational story alright. I’ve recommended it to just about everyone.