Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

You're not missing anything. There's a reason John Rogers wrote “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

I'm working through Introduction to Algorithms by Corsen, Leiserson, Rivest and Stein.

I've just finished Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World by Justin Marozzi. A fantastic, thrilling, unnerving read. Tamerlane's ingenuity and political nous appears to have been incredible. Learning about Temur's life may change how you read all other history books. His mere existence changes the context and relative importance of much of Western European history.

I'm also enjoying and recommend Bloodhoof by Gerthur Kristny (trans. Rory McTurk), The Zoo Father by Pascale Petit, and Black Cat Bone by John Burnside. The Zoo Father and Black Cat Bone are among the most powerful collections of poetry I've read that were published within the last three decades, and Bloodhoof is also very good.

I'm a huge believer in going back to primary texts, and understanding where ideas came from. If you've liked a book, read the books it references (repeat). I also feel like book recommendations often oversample recent writings, which are probably great, but it's easy to forget about the generations of books that have come before that may be just as relevant today (The Mythical Man Month is a ready example). I approach the reading I do for fun the same way, Google a list of "classics" and check for things I haven't read.

My go to recommendations:

http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-50th-... - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn, (1996)

http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master... - The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt and David Thomas (1999)

Things I've liked in the last 6 months:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Busin... - How to Measure Anything, Douglas Hubbard (2007)

http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineerin... - Mythical Man Month: Essays in Software Engineering, Frederick Brooks Jr. (1975, but get the 1995 version)

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/00... - Good To Great, Jim Collins (2001)

Next on my reading list (and I'm really excited about it):

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Interface-No-brilliant-technology... - The Best Interface is No Interface, Golden Krishna (2015)

The Ancient Paths by Graham Robb [1]

Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman [2]

Metamagical Themas by Douglas Hofstadter [3]

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancient-Paths-Discovering-Celtic/d...

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Warning-Short-Fictions-Disturb...

[3]: http://www.amazon.com/Metamagical-Themas-Questing-Essence-Pa...

1) The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida 2) Headhunters Hiring Secrets by Skip Freeman