That would have to be One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What a profoundly human book. The kind of book that is very difficult to describe in any meaningful way, but which I unreservedly recommend to anybody.
Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
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Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#92I’m 15% into Cryptonomicon by Neal Staephenson, and it’s living up to the hype. I’ve only read a few of his books: Snowcrash, Anathem, and Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. He’s such a good thought experimentalist and decent novelist. Reading one of his books is almost like sitting in a really interesting philosophy class in college that just makes you think about familiar concepts differently or way more in depth.
Yeah, I hope it continues to live up to the hype you've heard. I had a hard letdown, but I hope that doesn't happen for you.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#93“How to change your mind” by Michael Pollen. I read a lot of books, and this is one that caused a change in my life. The succinct summary is that psychedelics are misunderstood and there is more and more research showing their potential, especially in the treatment of trauma. I had a difficult childhood. It’s something I still struggle with personal interactions because of this, even after years of therapy. After rea…
Did the mushroom trip enlighten you? Did it change how you view the world? Were you worried about a bad trip?
It changed how I see myself. I think I'm more honest and more compassionate with myself. I wasn't really worried about a bad trip, my life has been difficult enough at times that I felt I had little to lose. Few stable relationships, no family, no kids. But that's very specific to me.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#94Fiction:
Attack Surface - Cory Doctorow
Non-Fiction:
Engineering General Intelligence Vol 2 - Ben Goertzel
Honorable Mention - Fiction
Daemon - Daniel Suarez
Freedom - Daniel Suarez
Billy Summers - Stephen King
Elsewhere - Dean Koontz
Honorable Mention - Non-Fiction:
We See It All - Jon Fasman
Integrating Rules and Connectionism for Robust Commonsense Reasoning - Ron Sun
Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks - James A. Anderson
The Soar Cognitive Architecture - John Laird
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#95I didn't read as much as I normally do, mostly due to school, but I really enjoyed "The Midnight Library" and "Recursion" for fiction.
I am mostly done with Antifragile, and it's pulling me between political and philosophical sides. Don't know which side I'll land on, or how long I'll stay there.
As a side note, I've found "Deep Learning: A Visual Approach" to be very instructive.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#96An old one, but I read "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky. I was expecting it to be dense and difficult to read, but I found it incredibly engaging - easily the best book that I have read, ever.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#97"But how Do it Know?" by J. Clark Scott
Incredibly simple and elegant explanation of how computers work.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#98The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi.
It's chock full of ideas that any technologist would find fascinating. A post-singularity society in which those who "got there first" ascended to technological godhood, and the rest mostly fight for comparative scraps. Those scraps are phenomenally interesting though, and the many ways the book assumes and implies generations of growth in technology make for some truly out-there settings and cultures. If you liked the part of Anathem where you had no idea what was going on at first, but slowly learned the ways of the world as you read on... you'd love this book.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#99‘The Peacemaker’s Code’ is a fantastic sci-fi book. It is reminiscent of a business novel like ‘The Goal’, being written by a Harvard negotiation expert.
I can best describe it as a cross between ‘Arrival’, ‘The Three-Body Problem’, and ‘The Goal’
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#100The Sixth Extinction