That would be either 'Red Rising' by Pierce Brown, or 'All Systems Red' by Martha Wells. Though I have to add a cautionary remark: I found the books in Wells' "Murderbot Diaries" to be short enough and gripping enough that it is very hard not to trade a night of sleep for finishing them in one setting.
Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
51–60 of 651 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#52The sci-fi novel "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir. Captivating, and a lot of fun.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#53Drunkards Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
History of probability theory
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#54Aristotle's Poetics. Yes, it was published before 2021. A lot of writers try to set their own rules, but according to the best, you need limitations to be creative. Just like you would play sports with rules. That rulebook is Poetics. It's the kind of book that's so information dense that you have to read it slowly. Summaries are often as long as the book itself. There's some aging in there. Notably the concept of ha…
"you need limitations to be creative", who sold you that? this whole genre of "adversity builds character" type of advice is a backwards rationalisation at its purest. no, adversity does not build character but merely reveals it, just as limitations don't make you creative, rather creativity forces you to find newer ruts. also, you lost me at aristotle ;)
"who sold you that?"
Specifically, David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin, who directly tells everyone to read Poetics. But also anyone who engages in poetry and lyrics; the whole idea of poetry is adding limits and seeing what you can do with it.
Think of it like chords in music, or moves on a game. If you play tennis and anyone can just kick or throw the ball, that's not very fun.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#55The Social Construction of Reality[1]. This book helped me in my personal life coming to terms with my identity. But it also helped me understand the art of discourse much more deeply. It gives the tools to easily and quickly identify implicit assumptions in arguments and drill down into why and how they are made. It also makes it very clear that people in general construct very poor arguments. You may already believe this, but just how poor they are is almost unbelievable.
1. Berger, Luckmannn1966 ISBN 978-0-385-05898-8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-38...
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#56Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers. Describes the construction of the world's first electronic digital computer, used to break the Nazi's strategic-communications cipher (much more important and difficult than Enigma.)
[0] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/colossus-97801995781...
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#57The Dispossessed , by Ursula K. Le Guin. It identified so many of the "edges" of society and how I think about and interact with the world, on a daily basis. Without a doubt one of the best books I've ever read. Maybe even the best. The only other book that came close this year was Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir .
I also read the dispossessed this year. So, so good. I was shocked at how nuanced the book’s politics were too.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#58I just finished a re-read of the "Commonweal" series by Graydon Saunders, which begins with The March North:
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=MoIOAwAAQBAJ
I've never been sure how to sum up these books. They're thoroughly strange fantasy books, oddly written and frequently chewy reads. They have an interest in politics and metaphysics; but they also have magical railguns, the sorcerous application of FOOF [1], and a five-ton battle-sheep named Eustace.
The first book is fairly straightforward: A quiet backwater of the Commonweal is under threat, and its only defense is an understrength territorial battalion, a handful of experimental artillery pieces, and three of the mightiest sorcerers of the age.
Then the second book (A Succession of Bad Days) isn't at all about the military, and is more like the weirdest going-to-sorcery-school book I've ever read. It also has an extended, detailed section on using sorcery in canal construction. If you ever wanted a book about the best ways to use magic in the service of civil engineering, this series is your jam.
These books really aren't for everyone, but I kind of love them, and they aren't widely known, so I'll always take an opportunity to shill them.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#59Throughout the overwhelming majority of the year, I wasn't in a position where I had a lot of "sit down with a good book and a good drink" reading time, but I've gotten some in during the winters at each end. I think best overall was one of the ones I read way early in the year, Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche. I had been saving The Pale King by David Foster Wallace for an "in case of emergency break glass" book because I couldn't bear to finish all his writing and I just had to break the glass recently. I've been enjoying that thoroughly and should finish before the year is up; it may win out.
I know this probably paints a bad picture of my reading habits because of the present public perception of those (previously publicly praiseworthy) authors, so I feel the urge to get in front of that and (1) insist I have eclectic tastes and this year had a small sample size, (2) insist those books (well, many parts of those books) really ARE excellent, and (3) provide one more suggestion even though this is already a wordy comment: why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby. Someone shared a link to the web version on HN earlier this year, maybe it was even in a deep, 1-upvoted comment, I don't recall - but that was what occupied the whole next part of my day, and I quite liked it (having already known Ruby from some ancient rusty Rails experience).
Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?
#60438 days. A memoir of a Mexican fisherman that spent over a year drifting across the Pacific Ocean. I’m a sucker for a good survival story and finished it in a day.
Given you like survival stories, I'm guessing you've also read Unbroken. But on the off chance you haven't, definitely check it out!