Nine Hundred Grandmothers, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/roboman/www/sigma/review/90...
Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
11–20 of 20 posts
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#12The Masters of Doom.
It's about the history of id Software, a game development company that created Doom among other titles. Even if you're not interested in games, it's still worth a read. The writing style is very casual, almost juvenile at times with slang and swear words sprinkled throughout but the story is certainly fun. It is also very inspiring and made entrepreneurship look fun.
I learned about this book from another HN post.
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think my reasoning goes that in french, a trailing s denotes a plural much more regularly than in english (or so it seems to me, I have no way to measure this in a serious way). I know the grammar rule that says that "James's bicycle" is not correct, "James' bicycle" is (and I seem to remember that the only reason is that a double s cannot be pronounced) Combine these two facts and you've got "no s as possessive at…
"James' bicycle" is an orthographic convention; it's pronounced as if it were written "Jameziz bycycle" (i.e. both Ses are pronounced, as Zs.)
Thanks for this explanation!
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#14Blindsight, a brilliant first-contact sci-fi written by a Marine Biologist that explores the Chinese Room Paradox, "Intelligence" vs "Artificial Intelligence" with brilliant characters, writing and dialogue.
Comes with a front-cover quote by Charles Stross, a popular post-singularity author (you may have read his work).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765319640%3...
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#15A Darkling Sea, The Three Body Problem
According to Amazon, there are at least two "The Three Body Problem"s (ha!), one by Cixin Liu and one by Catherine Shaw. Which one do you recommend?
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#16Bird Box by Josh Malerman - I didn't know what to expect and it was a great book. It's the first time in a while that I've read a book has been intense/scary.
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#17"The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel" by Jasper Fforde, it starts slow, so give it 100 pages but I was hooked then and read all other books from him (and all are excellent).
"Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine - most underrated book from Douglas Adams, it's brilliant.
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#18The Iron Druid Chronicles, by Kevin Hearne - Laugh out loud funny, very interesting characters and includes themes from multiple religious pantheons. It's an 8 book series, so far, with several novellas. Very enjoyable and well written.
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#19Tend read more Sci-fi/fantasy. Some good ones this year:
Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss http://amzn.com/B0010SKUYM
Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch http://amzn.com/B000JMKNJ2
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson http://amzn.com/B003P2WO5E
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson http://amzn.com/B002GYI9C4
The above four are the first book in their respective series. I've also enjoyed the sequels to all of them. Several of the series are not yet finished.
Several of the books are on this list from several years ago by NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-s... flowchart of the NPR list: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/flowchart_for_navig...
Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Re: Ask HN: What were the best fun books you read in 2014?
#20I read lots of books in 2014, but I don't think any were better than the Martian, which you have already mentioned.