Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012 • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#151

Post by jamesmcn » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 4:36 AM UTC

Walter Jon Williams' The Green Leopard Plague, which is also part of an anthology of the same name. The anthology includes several other stories that build up the world that GLP takes place in. Some interesting ideas about identity and consciousness in a society with extremely advanced bioengineering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Leopard_Plague

Umberto Eco's Prague Cemetery which expands greatly on a tiny section of Foucault's Pendulum. Eco's writing is extremely dense. Similar to Neal Stephenson, but with more of a literary flavor than a technogeek flavor. A nice way to balance out your reading if you find you are a bit too focused on modern technology.

I finally read Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy. Early Internet and web culture was so deeply infused with RAW's ideas that the trilogy felt like one long déjà vu session. Lots of fun. RAW + Eco are a great antidote to taking conspiracy theories seriously, while having a ton of fun at the same time.

Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. Wow. Since the release of the Blue Ant books, I've been telling people that Blue Ant is the place to start, as it updates a lot of the underlying themes of Sprawl for this decade. But Sprawl is still very current and relevant. If you read Sprawl during or before the dot-com bubble like I did, you probably focused on the prophetic internet stuff. If you read it again, you will find out that there is plenty more interesting stuff to feed your brain in Gibson's early novels.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#152

Post by ceautery » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 4:38 AM UTC

QuantumGuy wrote: post #110

judofyr wrote: post #42

I'm going to repost my collection of Hacker News threads that contain book recommendations: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4185504 — Hacker News stories which contains plenty of book recommendations (sorted by points, labeled by topic): Science Fiction: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2978027 Computer Science: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3595599 General: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752139 De…

Military strategy? Some people have ambition of world domination I suppose but in all seriousness all you need is The Art of War. Oh yeah the link in the second computer science thread is bad.

Nonsense. "A Book of Five Rings" is the strategy book for the pure pragmatist. "Art of War" is for sounding cool at parties.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#153

Post by imrehg » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 4:58 AM UTC

Gravity's Rainbow - took 4 months out of my year, but and it's still mostly a whoosh, but every time I started reading another book after that, it was just amazing how much better Pyncheon writes. Will revisit it for sure, though not very soon.

Anna Karenina - just a whole different level, Tolstoy's writing in a way I don't feel many contemporary writes could. Feels creepy how similar the people's lives in the 19th Century was to ours. Creepy but fun too.

If On A Winter's Night A Traveller - Italo Calvino will just punch you in the face, this is a book for people who love reading books.

The Magicians - adult magic fiction, and somehow it feels that if magic was indeed real, it would be like it is depicted here, not like anything in Harry Potter's (no matter how much I loved the storytelling, the magic theory was just so full of plotholes).

The Casual Vacancy - JKRowling's not-Harry-Potter-book. It's very gritty, and feels very real. Still having my cold shivers thinking of small-town living after this.

(Except for the last one the others are older releases, don't usually jump into the newest ones, I just take it casual)

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#154

Post by ericfrenkiel » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 5:00 AM UTC

elliottcarlson wrote: post #145

Sadly I don't really read quite as much as I used to; but following are the books I read this year (though none of them were released this year). - Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Problem... Excellent book covering interviews with founders of companies that became really big. I thought this book was really insightful and inspirational. - Coders at…

I'm a huge fan of Dan Simmons, and his Hyperion series is well worth the time. Once you make it beyond the first few pages of Hyperion, I guarantee you'll be hooked. There are a total of 4 books in the series and each is truly a masterpiece in science fiction.

I would also recommend "The Terror," which is a historical fiction piece loosely based on the first expedition to the North Pole.

Simmons has won multiple awards in Science Fiction and leaps across categories with aplomb. I highly recommend any of his work!

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#155

Post by taytus » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 5:01 AM UTC

ceautery wrote: post #152

QuantumGuy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military strategy? Some people have ambition of world domination I suppose but in all seriousness all you need is The Art of War. Oh yeah the link in the second computer science thread is bad.

Nonsense. "A Book of Five Rings" is the strategy book for the pure pragmatist. "Art of War" is for sounding cool at parties.

I wonder what kind of parties are you going

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#156

Post by dminor » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 5:07 AM UTC

arram wrote: post #104

I read 27 books in 2012. Here are some of the more interesting ones: Shogun - James Clavel . 'Epic' is the best word I can use to describe this historical fiction. I first read it in 2009 and have reread all 1100 pages multiple times since. The first English pilot to reach the Japans discovers a culture that, while strange, is in many ways far more advanced than his own. The fictional Lord Toranaga is based on the hi…

> Lieutenant Hornblower - C.S. Forrester. Shogun taught me that reading historical fiction made regular history much more interesting, which made me seek out more historical fiction. This is a series of 12 books covering the career of a British navel man during the Napoleonic Wars. Gene Roddenberry based the character of Jean Luc Picard on its protagonist. My recommendation won't be as strong as these gentlemen though: "I find Hornblower admirable." -Winston Churchill, and "I recommend Forester to everyone literate I know," -Ernest Hemingway

If you liked this, check out Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commmander" series - it's the cream of the crop for this sort of historical fiction (or any sort, really).

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#157

Post by zem » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 5:14 AM UTC

brin's "existence" was definitely up there.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#158

Post by zem » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 5:18 AM UTC

inetsee wrote: post #126

mindcrime wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will do! I have a handful of other Stross books waiting in a pile to be ready already, but not sure I have any more of the Laundry ones yet. I know I have several of his other traditional sci-fi works waiting, and I'll definitely get to the rest of the Laundry books eventually.

I can highly recommend "Accelerando". It's one of my all time favorite books. I've read it a half dozen times, and I'll probably read it again, just not right away. I also liked his Eschaton series, "Singularity Sky", and "Iron Sunrise". In spite of loving "Accelerando", I've never been able to get into his non-hard science fiction series, like the Laundry series, or Merchant Princes.

"singularity sky" is not necessarily my favourite stross book, but it's the one that impressed me the most. one of the best treatments of FTL in a relativistic universe I've seen (as in "fine, have FTL, but you can't ignore the fact that it violates causality".)

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#159

Post by dgtized » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 5:37 AM UTC

Didn't get aorund reading it till this year, but I highly recommend _The Windup Girl_ by Paolo Bacigalupi. _Pump 6 and Other Stories_ by him is also quite good. Finally got around to reading the Takahashi Kovec's novels, _Altered Carbon_ by Richard K Morgan and it's sequels.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012

#160

Post by lemma » Wed, Dec 26, 2012, 5:48 AM UTC

andrewcooke wrote: post #119

lemma wrote: post #35

1Q84. True "literature" without feeling like it. I wish I could read the original Japenese. Also, too bizarre to really describe accurately.

just want to warn others - this is by far the worst of murakami's books. above all, it's way too long. if the three volumes were edited to one, it would be much improved. i wish i had googled for reviews (which were generally negative) before buying and reading these.

It's my first of his novels, I'll check out the others. I can see the point on length, I wonder how much of that is a function of translation and of the desire to create the sensation of having lived that year. I just finished, so it'll take me some time to gain a better perspective on it.