Reread The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek.
Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
121–130 of 651 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#122The 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…
I almost got past this recommendation without having to read another sci-fi book but your Anathem pitch got me.
I’ve been stuck in sci-fi for 3 years straight and thought I was finally going to read something else before 2022.
Bah humbug!
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#123438 days. A memoir of a Mexican fisherman that spent over a year drifting across the Pacific Ocean. I’m a sucker for a good survival story and finished it in a day.
You've likely already read it at this point, but "Endurance: Shackletons Incredible Voyage" by Lansing is an amazing survival story.
Skip the retelling and go straight to the source, South, by Ernest Shackleton.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#124Abraham Heschel, "The Sabbath" (1951) “Gallantly, ceaselessly, quietly, man must fight for inner liberty” to remain independent of the enslavement of the material world. “Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constan…
"This, then, is the answer to the problem of civilization: not to flee from the realm of space; to work with things of space but to be in love with eternity. Things are our tools; eternity, the Sabbath, is our mate. Israel is engaged to eternity. Even if they dedicate six days of the week to worldly pursuits, their soul is claimed by the seventh day."
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#125Foundation- this book blew my mind. What I found fascinating about it is that it’s a science fiction book but at its core it’s about how to resolve Geopolitical issues using diplomacy. It feels like this should be a primer for anyone who wants to understand and improve modern geopolitics.
The prequels are pretty enjoyable (tracks the life of Seldon), but the sequels outside of the trilogy have been much more of a slog.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#126Radical Focus by Christina Woldke
Great book on a different method of managing goals and time, both in and out of a company setting.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#127Gravity’s Rainbow. Too much to explain.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#128Nonfiction: "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" by Eliezer Yudkowsky. It was a fantastic deep-dive into the topic, and despite being extremely long was very readable.
Fiction: "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. I've read other Steinbeck before this one, but this stands out as a clear masterpiece. I especially enjoyed the way he blended the experiences of specific individuals with the experiences of a general population - the narration style was very enjoyable.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#129I’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.
I tried to read Cryptonomicon as a first introduction to Stephenson. Kept waiting for the good parts, and actually just stopped reading halfway through out of sheer boredom.
A few years later and I read Seveneves. Absolutely fall in love, and read Anathem right after. Loved it too.
To this day I still don’t understand why the first book felt so boring and the others didn’t. To make it worse, when you go looking for a synopsis of Cryptonomicon, everyone is so vague!
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#130Politics is for Power by Eitan Hersh. He argues that the nationalization and "hobby"-ization has caused the political dysfunction we see today and argues that individuals should pursue politics exclusively to gain more power for what they believe in. One handy distinction he makes is the difference between politics as a noun: something you know about like current events (which is a waste of time) and politics as a verb: something you do in your community to gain more power.