Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow.

Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed.

Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement among many other possible configurations. The alternative between this and going back to living in caves is a false choice.

Thanks to some extended vacations I finally got around to read "Masters of Doom" - which I got as Christmas gift.

And I loved it - despite the topic (few young guys eating pizza and staring at screens) it reads like Clive Cusslers book.

It's a great study of team dynamics and have some insides into what it takes to be the greatest at something (getting from Commandor Keen to Doom 3 costed Carmack almost 10 years of his life working day and night)

> natural state for civilized human societies

"Natural" state. For "civilized" societies.

Do you realize just how stupid it sounds?

The Cradle series by Will Wight. It's a Wuxia adapted for Western audiences. He has other great series; I liked the parallel Sea/Shadow trilogies a lot. Traveler's Gate series I enjoyed, but not as much as the rest. He recently also started a new series called Last Horizon; it's about space wizards and it's a bit whimsical, but fun.

The Expanse series is great, but I reckon people already mentioned it elsewhere in the thread.

James Islington's Licanius trilogy is one of my favourite fantasy book series probably. He recently started a new series called Hierarchy, which I also recommend. They're very "grounded" fantasy, and the magic systems is very woven into society and its structure. The human relationships in his books are pretty nuanced, which is why I like his works so much.

There is another interview done by Steven Bartlett about the same topic with Giles where it goes and discuss various topics related to calories, diets, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_vcL1cpP8