Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?

* The MurderBot Series (Wells) - So good I read them all twice through

* The Interdependency Series (Scalzi) - Creative and fun, but I didn't like the wrap-up and ending.

* Project Hail Mary - Surprising fun! jazz hands

* Old Man's War series (Scalzi) - First three were great, last three were so-so

* Anne of Green Gables - My daughters loved this one. I just now got around to reading it and found it deeply touching AND amusing. I laughed aloud a lot!

* Lord of the Rings - I re-read it once a year.

Early in the book, covering his early career when he was working as a journalist, one of his bosses gave him a lesson in investigative reporting in a nutshell: Just remember, turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page. The book contains various subsequent examples of him doing exactly that in various research endeavours, and also going to extreme lengths to put himself in a better mindset for writing whatever he is working on at the time, like moving to the area a subject grew up in to live there for a year to better research his early life.

There are examples of him sifting through many boxes of documents in an archive that would seem to be inconsequential, but then happening on a receipt or memo that is just an allusion to something that gives him the lead he needs to uncover some real information.

Changing Places and Small World by David Lodge. Quite old, quite funny, lots of boys (professors) behaving badly stuff.

History:

War of the Running Dogs by Noel Barber. A history of the communist insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s. At one time the British efforts were thought to provide a model for the US to follow in Vietnam; but the circumstances were so different that it is hard to imagine how anyone thought so.

Philosophy:

On Human Freedom and The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays by Schelling. Schelling was one of the German Idealist that I had never tried to read (well, there was one volume that I couldn't make headway in ten years ago).

The Science of Knowledge by Fichte, which had always defeated me in intermittent attempts to read it over forty-five years.

A Concept of Justice by John Rawls. Everyone talked about it, I hadn't read it. I do need to read it again.

Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot. An argument for a more or less Aristotelian understanding of ethics.

On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry. I find her writing on beauty more convincing than her attempt to tie it back to a development of a sense of justice.

If you want to know about how the world truly works, pick up these two books, but be prepared to be shocked at what you learn about how deep the rabbit hole goes.

- Ellul's - Technological Society - picked up on HN recommendation and I will admit it is interesting and worthwhile.

- Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism - Hard to implement and certainly not a quick fix, but the author is onto something here.

Fiction:

I am re-reading Witcher the series. It is still one of the few books, where it is worth to learn the author's language to read the original ( even though translation is also very good ). I forgot how good it is.