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Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

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Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#121

Author: Nicole Forsgren Book: Accelerate I picked up this book after hearing high praises from Martin Fowler and Dan North during conference talks. Forsgren and her colleagues have been doing research into DevOps and its effects on organizational performance. This is a much more rigorous account than is usual in this space, so I believe it is a must read for everyone in software. --- Author: Gerald Weinberg Books: *…

+1 for Introduction to General Systems Thinking

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#122

Non-fiction: - Factfulness by Hans Rosling - The War on Science by Shawn Otto - Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell - A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan - The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier Fiction: - And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson - The Magicians by Lev Grossman The non-fiction books were all incredib…

Man, the Magicians has to be the most controversial book, in terms of people either LOVE it or HATE it. I fall in the former camp and consider it my favorite book of all time.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#123
"The Noise of Time" by Julian Barnes

It's an account of the life of Dmitri Shostakovitch during the eras of Stalin and Krushchev. It's fantastic at evoking the sense of suffocation of living under absolute all-seeing power and the terror found in ordinary life. At one point, Shostakovitch is a weekend away from being taken off and "disappeared", only to find on Monday that the same has happened to his interrogator and he is let off.

Highly recommended.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#124
post #58

This year, I discovered Agatha Christie. A few years back, when I was temporarily advised bed rest for a month, my sis loaned me a collection of Hercule Poirot short stories. I was always a Sherlock Holmes fan and really enjoyed the logical detective work. Hercule Poirot felt like just like a pretentious quirky old man, making denouements based on evidence that is flimsy and tenuous at best. This year, I came across…

I'm sure they don't compare (I haven't read Doyle/Christie/Poirot), but as a teen I really enjoyed the Dick Francis books my parents had.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#126

Non-fiction: - Factfulness by Hans Rosling - The War on Science by Shawn Otto - Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell - A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan - The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier Fiction: - And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson - The Magicians by Lev Grossman The non-fiction books were all incredib…

Man, the Magicians has to be the most controversial book, in terms of people either LOVE it or HATE it. I fall in the former camp and consider it my favorite book of all time.

Yeah, me too. I thought it was a wonderful take on fairy stories and the danger of getting what you want. I think you need to read all three to truly appreciate it though.

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#128
I read 12 books in 2018 and these are my favorites from 1 to 4:

- Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

- So good they can't ignore you by Cal Newport

- 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Yuval Noah Harari

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#129
post #121

Author: Nicole Forsgren Book: Accelerate I picked up this book after hearing high praises from Martin Fowler and Dan North during conference talks. Forsgren and her colleagues have been doing research into DevOps and its effects on organizational performance. This is a much more rigorous account than is usual in this space, so I believe it is a must read for everyone in software. --- Author: Gerald Weinberg Books: *…

+1 for Introduction to General Systems Thinking

I read that and the first of the follow ons recently. They were both good reads, and I plan to finish up the 4 (e-book) series [1] over the next month.

[0] Passive Regulation, in print form it and Active Regulation were one book.

[1] https://leanpub.com/b/generalsystemsthinkerbundle

Re: Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?

#130

My highlights from this year: 1. "How to Measure Anything" (Douglas Hubbard) Presents a few simple techniques (confidence intervals, Monte Carlo simulations, regression analysis, Bayes, etc) to help with decision-making. E.g., should we build this feature or spend the same money on marketing? I put it alongside "Thinking, Fast and Slow" (Daniel Kahneman), "Superforecasting" (Philip Tetlock), "The Art of Thinking Clea…

If you want to read a book about India, you could read "Delhi" by Khushwant Singh, it is a pretty cool book about India's most interesting city. =)

I'll check it out. Thanks :)
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