Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction by J. Allan Hobson. Hard science neurophysiological overview of dreaming.

I'm reading Rhodes' "Energy". Now I know why Great Britain got so deforested: from heating all those drafty old castles.

I recently read two books about industries that previously seemed dreadfully boring: property/casualty insurance, and community banking. I'm not sure what possessed me to read these books but I was curious about both industries since they are significant parts of the economy but I knew next to nothing about them.

The banking book is called "The Most Fun I Never Want To Have Again: A Mid-Life Crisis in Community Banking"[0] and it tells the story of an attempted bank startup in Georgia just before the financial crisis. It has a very clear explanation of the bank business model and how small banks make money. One of the surprising things I took away from it is that bank founders think of starting a bank in ways that are very similar to how tech founders think of starting of company. The main difference is that the bank business model is already well understood to those in the industry and success depends much more on your positioning in the market than it does on innovation.

The insurance book is called "Risk & Reward: An Inside View of the Property/Casualty Insurance Business"[1] and is by Stephen Catlin, who founded an insurance company that he grew to several thousand employees with offices around the world and later sold for $4 billion. Very UK centered since that's mostly where his career took place but I don't think the fundamentals of the industry change that much around the world. Pretty detailed on the mechanics of how insurance underwriting works and what insurance underwriters think about when pricing risk. Made me realize insurance is much more like trading than I'd previously thought.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ELPOA3S/

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073NRDNSC/

I've recently finished , and absolutely love it. The style is one of clarity, tenderness, and honesty, and just plain beautiful in the section where---avoiding spoilers---they journeyed through the ice sheet, which is such a breath-taking portrayal of that environmental harshness, the human vulnerability, and the tenacity of will.

It's often classified as Sci-fi, but there's nothing particularly sciency or techy about the story. As far as "how it works", there are lots of curiosity, and very few answers. The book reflects more heavily on society, politics, gender, and most centrally, the personal qualities of honor/face/loyalty.

Having recently start keeping snails, I naturally draw parallel between my dear invertebrates with the hermaphroditism in the book, which is an extra curiosity for me.

A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II https://www.amazon.com/Game-Birds-Wolves-Ingenious-Secret/dp...