Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

Seeking recommendations for books about how hard things got done. I like the Acquired podcast, but am looking for reading deeper than it.

I’m reading The Big Rich about the oil boom in Texas and like it. I also liked Barbarians at the Gate about how private equity got created and how deals went down.

Less interested in people and character studies. More interested in the mechanics of how things that we take for granted actually got built and what the world they were made in was like.

Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World http://www.simonwinchester.com/exactly

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd

The Soul of a New Machine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine

“South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914–1917” by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Here, Shackleton documents the journey of the Endurance expedition, which aimed to traverse Antarctica but instead became a legendary tale of survival after the ship was trapped and destroyed by pack ice.

> hard things

How about consistently competing at fighting video-games at the highest level in the world for more than 30 years?

"The Will to Keep Winning", by Daigo Umehara. He was the first Street Fighter 2 player to reach the top (being considered either the best player or top 3), and he was able to stay at the stop since then. No other video-game player has ever been so consistently good as Daigo. He may not have won many EVO or Capcom Cup titles, but he has always stayed at the top. And he's the protagonist of Evo Moment 37.

Also, his story is good. The book may make you cry. And it's a very short book.