Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

Real Analysis: A Long-Form Mathematics Textbook by Jay Cummings [0] finally helped me conquer elementary real analysis. It was fast, smooth and streamlined experience. Your millage may vary, though, as this one wasn't my first analysis encounter.

This book enters the pantheon of books that were tremendously helpful to me: Learning to Reason by Nancy Rodgers, Discrete Math by Susanna Epp and Linear Algebra by Kuldeep Singh.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Real-Analysis-Long-Form-Mathematics-T...

12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson.

Don’t dismiss this because you think you disagree with the politics. 12 rules is life changing.

"The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins" by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25510906-the-mushroom-at...

It's all about how in Japan there's this tradition of gifting (and never purchasing for oneself) matsutake, as a way of showing appreciation. However, this tradition grew alongside deforestation.

Japan has done a pretty good job conserving forests, but this strange mushroom they like so much only grows in deforested forests out of skinny pines, so now it has to be imported from Oregon, Finland, and China.

The author embeds herself a bit with Laotian refugees that do mushroom hunting in Oregon, and describes the various interesting ways these communities operate. Auctions, forest hunting, how kids get started, etc.

And then she explains how these two intensely social and human concepts (the gift giving and the harvesting) are connected via an impersonal cynical international supply chain that commodifies everything.

Beautiful book tbh.

Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson - amazing book about US criminal justice system. Read it.

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt - a management novel. Oddly engrossing and educational at the same time

The Everything Store by Brad Stone - about Amazon's history, culture, businesses

(None of these books was written in 2018. I just read them in 2018)