It’s fiction and mass-market but I enjoy reading the new John Grisham novel every October or about then. He’s consistent in quality, the books consistently interesting, and it’s about the only hardback novel I’ll shell out for instead of waiting for the paperback or Kindle version now.
Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
41–50 of 335 posts
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#42I plan to reread a couple core works for myself. Of that list the ones that I’d recommend for others are:
Aurelius (trans. Martin Hammond)
Fear and Trembling
Man’s Search for Meaning
Tolstoy’s Confessions
Kundera’s The Art of the Novel
After doing a thorough reading of “How to Read a Book” I decided to try rereading a few books to pull more out of them.
I can’t recommend “How to Read a Book” enough - despite its anachronisms and glaring faults, it’s the only book I’ve found that has genuinely made me feel that I’ve not really read a single book in my life.
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#43To start the year off, my casual just-before-sleep reading will be "Ender's Shadow", which is a story that isn't a prequel or a sequel to "Ender's Game", but a story parallel to it.
"What We Cannot Know", which is an exploration of all the topics that we might never be able to know, such as how to predict the weather, is the universe infinite etc.
"Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly long and I'm feeling masochistic.
"Commodore - A Company on the Edge" because I really enjoyed "Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made", so I think I'll also like seeing how another computer I really like (the Commodore 64) came about.
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#44My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN: General ==== - Master & Margarita (w reader's guide) - Why we sleep - The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion - The wisdom of insecurity - The denial of death - The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it) - The dubliners - The devils (Dostoyevski) - The name of the rose - Enten-Oller (Kierkegaa…
Interesting list, commenting to have a look again later.
I'm already reading the name of the rose after giving up half-way a few years ago.
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#45Plan to read again:
- How Democracies Die https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die
- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third...
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#46My to-read shelve on Goodreads has 620 books on it, but top of my list are:
- Feed by M.T. Anderson
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
- Equality by Edward Bellamy
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#47I want to finish to read Snowden’s autobiography: “Permanent Record”. I started during a long train trip recently and found that I really enjoyed the tone of the first few chapters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Record_(autobiogra...
I listened to him read it on Audible. It's really interesting. Though it started off a little slow but picks up as it keeps going. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#48My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN: General ==== - Master & Margarita (w reader's guide) - Why we sleep - The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion - The wisdom of insecurity - The denial of death - The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it) - The dubliners - The devils (Dostoyevski) - The name of the rose - Enten-Oller (Kierkegaa…
Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of overlap in my have-read/wants-to-read:
Master and Margarita: Very recommendable.
Three body problem: Got bored.
Enten-Eller: Delightful.
Basic economics (Sowell): Very recommendable.
How an economy grows and why it crashes: Childish and grossly simplifying. I read this one while taking a year's of economics on top of my CS. My impression is that some economists have a bad habit of not stating their basic scholastic assumptions. Sowell and Krugman are, in my opinion, not unbiased, but able to inform you at a level where you don't feel like they're also trying to brainwash you.
As for the remainder, I've taken a few notes for myself, so thanks. :-)
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#49I look forward to read “Meditations”[1] by Marcus Aurelius and re-read “Black Swan”[2]. On the _craftsperson_ front I’ve heard good things about “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”[3] by Martin Kleppman. Also hope to get some good recommendations here :) [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30659.Meditations?ac=1&f... [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan?ac... [3]: https://www.goodre…
It's become a yearly tradition of mine to reread this at the beach over the summer.
Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?
#50I usually don't plan in advance but I'll finish The Dark Tower series(3 to go).
The Gunslinger (part of The Dark Tower series) was excellent.
Demons and Wizards, the metal band, made a song called The Gunslinger, through which I learned of this book.