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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?

#151

Post by the__alchemist »

dceddia wrote: post #66

I haven’t finished this yet (only at the start of chapter 6) but The Scientist and Engineer’s Guide to Digital Signal Processing [0] has been excellent so far. DSP is one of the subjects I’ve wanted to learn for years but could never get my head around, mostly (I think) due to bad instructors and very math-heavy explanations. This book is finally demystifying it for me, with explanations that go for intuition over ma…

Read that one too this year. Didn't like how he tried to scare the reader off from complex numbers though! Perhaps a product of the time it was written in?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#152

Post by the__alchemist »

OnionBlender wrote: post #136
singlow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read snowcrash as a teen but Cryptonomicon was my reintroduction to Neal Stevenson as an adult and it got me hooked.

Is it worth the effort? I've picked up snow crash a few times in the past 20 years and found it a hard read. I really want to enjoy it but I find it hard to swallow. I suppose it has been hard because it doesn't take itself seriously. My sci-fi reading history has been: - several William Gibson novels between 1995-2008 - Most of the ender's game series and home coming from 80's to 2008. - Between 2008 and 2018 I read…

Snow Crash is (I think?) his most digestible one! Shortest, at least.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#153

Post by the__alchemist »

quantumJanitor wrote: post #150
OnionBlender wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it worth the effort? I've picked up snow crash a few times in the past 20 years and found it a hard read. I really want to enjoy it but I find it hard to swallow. I suppose it has been hard because it doesn't take itself seriously. My sci-fi reading history has been: - several William Gibson novels between 1995-2008 - Most of the ender's game series and home coming from 80's to 2008. - Between 2008 and 2018 I read…

Give the Three Body Problem series a try, I think you’ll enjoy it immensely.

I don't think this is in the same league as Snow Crash, or any other Stephenson novel. Learning about parts of 20th century China political history? Cool! The Sci-fi? Makes distractingly little sense. The wire-slicer weapon was pretty cool though!

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#154

Post by kdazzle »

The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq - the writing is really beautiful. Like every sentence is poetic and the descriptions often these very original metaphors.

I read him for the first time immediately before the pandemic with A Balcony In the Forest, which is also great.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#155

Post by quantumJanitor »

CiceroCiceronis wrote: post #91

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.

I will second this recommendation. Some books simply have it all.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#156

Post by sanjayio »

dceddia wrote: post #66

I haven’t finished this yet (only at the start of chapter 6) but The Scientist and Engineer’s Guide to Digital Signal Processing [0] has been excellent so far. DSP is one of the subjects I’ve wanted to learn for years but could never get my head around, mostly (I think) due to bad instructors and very math-heavy explanations. This book is finally demystifying it for me, with explanations that go for intuition over ma…

I’ve tried to learn electrical engineering and bounce off with more advanced circuit arithmetic. It feels like DSP is a level above that. Does this digest well with someone with a CS degree?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#157

Post by tehnub »

Fiction: Berserk. Not a book, but a long-running manga that began in 1989 by then-22-year-old Kentaro Miura, and which was ongoing until his tragic death this year in May. It is a fantasy; some parts are grim, some immensely tragic, but at its core it is human and uplifting, and we see moments of incredible beauty and deep emotion. On top of this, the art is absolutely gorgeous and is in a class of its own. If you're interested in Berserk, I recommend reading the original manga, but the 1997 anime is excellent as well.

Nonfiction: To Pixar And Beyond. The former CFO of Pixar, Lawrence Levy, tells the story of Pixar's IPO and the making of Toy Story. Very interesting reading for anyone interesting in Steve Jobs, Pixar, or the business of movies and tech.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#158

Post by nestorD »

cushychicken wrote: post #17

The Dispossessed , by Ursula K. Le Guin. It identified so many of the "edges" of society and how I think about and interact with the world, on a daily basis. Without a doubt one of the best books I've ever read. Maybe even the best. The only other book that came close this year was Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir .

I came to say that my favorite book read this year is her "The Birthday of the World and Other Stories".

Very nice to read science fiction that is about people rather than things.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#159

Post by the__alchemist »

sanjayio wrote: post #156
dceddia wrote: post #66

I haven’t finished this yet (only at the start of chapter 6) but The Scientist and Engineer’s Guide to Digital Signal Processing [0] has been excellent so far. DSP is one of the subjects I’ve wanted to learn for years but could never get my head around, mostly (I think) due to bad instructors and very math-heavy explanations. This book is finally demystifying it for me, with explanations that go for intuition over ma…

I’ve tried to learn electrical engineering and bounce off with more advanced circuit arithmetic. It feels like DSP is a level above that. Does this digest well with someone with a CS degree?

Yea - way less mathematical abstractions than other DSP books. It has a more practical bent. I'm reading through Oppenheim and Schaefer's text, which is far tougher.

I mean, if you're using your CS degree for Haskell, I'd recommend something like O + S instead!

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#160

Post by gibspaulding »

I just finished this one so it might just be fresh in my memory, but I really enjoyed Kiril Yeskov's "The Last Ringbearer". It's a sequel/retelling of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" written from the Mordorian perspective and based on the premise that LOTR is "a history written by the victors".

It has a completely different feel than Tolkien's writing, and sort of stuffs something resembling Cold War politics into Middle Earth. It's obsurd, but somehow makes perfect sense.

I originally saw it recommended on hn, so thank you whoever you were!

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