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Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
141–150 of 459 posts
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#142Complications and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Made me appreciate modern medicine more. One other l book that shifted my thinking completely about AI and how far we are from AGI: A Brief History Of Intelligence by Max Bennett. Evolution is a heck of an algorithm.
Also read Apple In China. Was pretty interesting to realize how much Apple (and China) are what they are because of how much they poured into each other
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#143I finally got around to reading Wheel of Time. It didn't quite take the whole year but a few solid months. If I had tried spreading it out over a longer period I wouldn't have been able to remember the overall plot or characters, I think.
What did you think of it? I got to about the third book and completely lost interest
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#144I was actually writing, been doing it full time for months. I've spent probably over 1,000 hours ... Not trying to make any money, just feel compelled to do this. A fiction story about how personal computers have dismantled society over 40 years... it takes place in 1983 and involves a vulnerable opportunistic time traveler who's getting more than he bargained for. Here's some quotes to give you a feel: "The smartpho…
Interested. Sending an email
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#145I read a lot of books, the one I'd recommend the most is Greg Egan's "Axiomatic" short story collection.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#146For fiction I read a lot of Brandon Sanderson: the second Mistborn series, plus a few of the Secret Projects. I quite liked Tress of the Emerald Sea . Also currently reading R. F. Kuang's Katabasis which I'm really enjoying so far. For nonfiction, I found Amanda Ripley's High Conflict to be excellent and insightful. I also finally got around to reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins; I expected it to be fine, bu…
Sanderson really writes incredible stuff. I read the entire cosmere last year and got a tattoo =)
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#147I mostly read historical books this year, multiple analysis of WW1 and WW2. George Bruce's book on British expedition in Afghanistan in 1939. The peacemaker, on Reagan's presidential tenure. Stalin's 2-part biography. Deng Xiaoping biography. The book Collapse of Soviet Union. Sharlock Holmes collection. And many more.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#148> The Gulag Archipelago
I did read it a few years ago, that's very though and it describes in a very technical way how gulags worked. In hindsight I'm not sure it was the best way to do it.
If you liked it tho, id suggest the two kravchenko books on the trials, Rudolph Hess book (very interesting), Simon Sebag Montefiore book on Stalin.
I can provide many more about this kind of subject, I found that fascinating for a few months and did read a lot of books on it.
Although I'd argue that the most fascinating is watching the usa, from outside, turn into a totalitarian state. That is truly incredible to be able to witness how much Trump achieved in a few months.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#149I read a lot of books, the one I'd recommend the most is Greg Egan's "Axiomatic" short story collection.
Nice! I haven't read Axiomatic yet, but this has been my "Greg Egan year". I have read Permutation City and Diaspora: maybe the two most stimulating scifi novels I have ever read.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#150The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter.
Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins.
These two books stuck with me. We are often too comfortable with being comfortable. There is nothing wrong with that, but real growth happens when we step outside our comfort zone. We are far more capable than we think.