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Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

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Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#351

Post by vintagedave »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #293
etrautmann wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you me? Glad others have this exact experience

Similar experience w/ my daughter (now 12 y/o) here. We read the heck out of children's books when she was little. There were nights when I really didn't want to slog thru the same Suzy Spafford[6] book again, but I did it anyway. I think it paid off. My daughter is an avid reader now. She says she still wants me to read to her, so I do. This year was a bit sci-fi heavy, and we've decided to target more fantasy and l…

I read the series and have really enjoyed the TV show. It felt like it was made for fans (the portrayal of the embedded show, Sanctuary Moon, was wonderful and I felt like whoever did their hairstyles had an immense amount of fun), yet accessible without knowing the story. Murderbot’s self-narration was good; I wanted more since it drove so much of the book but what was there in the show carried its personality well.

Alexander Skarsgard pulled the character off well. My mental picture of Murderbot from the books was very different but now when I re-read the first book after watching the show, I heard his voice. I still feel slightly sad they didn’t get a more genderless or gender-ambivalent actor (he looks male, the bot was agender before the show) or tried to portray him differently… they could have reduced this but the way they filmed him assigns gender to an ungendered character.

The other actors were all excellent too. I felt far more of a sense of them as a team and individuals than I remember from the first book.

If you enjoyed the books I think you’ll enjoy the show, except for me that it has changed my picture of Murderbot and I am not sure for the better, in terms of what I felt were social / identity values the books encouraged.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#352

Post by zargon »

UltraSane wrote: post #350
zargon wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Hays is an incredible narrator. It appears he only narrates LitRPG. Of which, DCC seems to be basically the only readable series. Would love to see him branch out.

That is odd. Most audiobook narrators narrate anything they are paid to.

I guess he really likes litrpg and gets plenty of work from that genre, perhaps? Maybe as he achieves minor fame from DCC he will find broader opportunities.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#353

Post by mindwok »

tstrimple wrote: post #256
mrexroad wrote: post #179

Been a year of re-reads and some classics I never started b/c of thickness. Standouts for me were “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Norwegian Wood.” “Kafka on The Shore”, “Norwegian Wood” - Haruki Murakami “A Tale of Two Cities” - Dickens “Count of Monte Cristo” - Alexandre Dumas LotR, “Hobbit” - Tolkien “World Atlas of Coffee” - James Hoffmann “Anathem”, “Diamond Age”, “Termination Shock” - Neal Stephenson “A Timeless Way…

Curious about your view on The Count of Monte Cristo. It's one of my more disappointing reads of the year. I'm familiar with the story line from various film adaptations, but I wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of repetition and drawn out bullshit. That's when I learned it was originally published in a journal where Dumas was paid by the word over 18 parts. Then all the meandering bullshit and repetition made so m…

I loved the first and last third. The middle is meandering and hard to get through. Watching everything unfold though is really satisfying at the end.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#354

Post by andrei_says_ »

kulikalov wrote: post #264
andrei_says_ wrote: post #263

Blindsight. Not an easy read but very rewarding in terms of sci-fi world building. The three body problem series. Also sci-fi, recommended if you enjoy deeper reading.

Loved it too! Try echopraxia next.

I did and was a bit disappointed as it didn’t seem to be as closely related as I wished it to be (aliens wise).

Waiting for the third book.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#355

Post by borroka »

jebarker wrote: post #73

My top reads this year: - How to Tame a Fox - great popsci history of a genetics experiment - "The Sixth Extinction" and "Not the end of the world" - compelling but contrasting takes on climate change - Through Two Doors at Once - posci history of the double slit experiment - Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist - Luis Alvarez should get just as much attention as Feynman does IMO! - A Matter of Death and Life - the las…

I read Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist a few years ago, and I was impressed by the breadth and depth of the great physicist. Later in life, he became a geologist, working with his son.

Those physicists worked hard: he writes in the book that 60 hours of work per week — and there were no phones back in the day to blur the lines between work and non-work — were routine in Berkeley. Those were dedicated people.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#356

Post by killerstorm »

cplanas wrote: post #149
killerstorm wrote: post #145

I 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.

I also highly recommend _Distress_ as it continues some cosmology ideas from Permutation City.

There are also several novels which kind of similar to Diaspora: Schild's Ladder, Incandescence, and stories in the Incandescence universe: Ride a crocodile, Hot rock, Glory.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#357

Post by d4rkp4ttern »

Read:

Thomas Mann’s Glass Bead game. Needed some patience to get through.

Benjamin Labatut/ When we cease to understand the world. (Fictionalized accounts of some scientists)

Bird/Sherwin: American Prometheus

Started but abandoned midway:

Stanlislaw Lem’s : His Master’s Voice Thomas Mann’s: Magic Mountain.

About reading habit: I find it useful to make it a point to read in bed at least 30 mins before sleeping.

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#358

Post by gnz11 »

Popeyes wrote: post #312
numbsafari wrote: post #164

This year: - I read the entire “Frog & Toad” collection. Probably about 30 times, some stories more. - “Little Shrew’s Day”… probably 25 times. - Many of the “Construction Site” series books, especially the OG “Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site”. The “Garbage Crew” and “Airport” books featured heavily. - Started to mix in some “Pete the Cat” titles. - “Detective Dog Nell” got a lot of air play. Lots of others,…

We went to America to see some family and we were discussing books and we were shocked that they had never heard of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler who are an absolute staple of UK kids book culture (so much so that they adapt one of her books as animations for each Christmas). So if they aren't on your radar, then they come highly recommended. https://axelscheffler.com/who-is-he https://www.juliadonaldson.co.uk/b…

The Gruffalo is quite popular in the US. Michelle Obama even read it on PBS Kids during the covid lock down era.

https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/blogs/news/mondays-with-...

Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

#360

Post by miki123211 »

"From GSM to LTE–Advanced Pro and 5G, An Introduction to Mobile Networks and Mobile Broadband" by Martin Sauter

This is the telecoms book I never knew I wanted. As the title suggests, it explains how the telecom world has evolved in great detail, with a particular focus on mobile technologies, although there's a chapter on SS7 and one on WiFi and Bluetooth. It stops short of packet layout descriptions, but it goes extremely deeply into the technologies it describes while still being understandable to somebody with little to no telecoms experience. This is the book that made me truly understand how that stuff really works.

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