81–90 of 357 posts
How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
Phenomenal books. I have a longer list of recommendations I've collected over the decades: http://yboris.com/reading/
- Apex [Nexus 3] (prose is meh, inevitable life goes this way)
- Factfulness (Awesome, most important book I read this year)
- Prisoners of Geography (why nations act the way they do)
- Crux [Nexus 2] (prose is meh, inevitable life goes this way)
- Debt: the first 5000 years (slog to get through but interesting)
- Nexus [Nexus 1] (prose is meh, inevitable life goes this way)
- Digitocracy (super short story, super powerful message)
- Artemis (Not as good as the martian)
- Before Mars (Starts out great, fizzles out)
- Down and Out in Magic Kingdom (How reputation based social currency might pan out)
- Blood Sweat and Pixels (How games are really made)
- Masters of Doom (Awesome story of how the game was made and what it led to)
- Foundation [Foundation 1] (Prescient with where the world is, what might happen in reality)
- Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that can't... (Ok, not great, read it on blinkist)
- Ender's Game (Under rated, most fun I had reading this year, I know...)
- Neuromancer (classic, must read)
- Pre-suation (interesting and worth reading if starting a consumer facing business)
- The Three-Body Problem (Found it tedious, honestly. Interesting though)
- Radical Candour (A lot of common sense advice we take for granted and could do better with)
- Seveneves (Longggggg, but really worth it. Shame about the ending)
- The Virgin Banker (Really good read, how a bank came into being)
- Why information grows (Great read, could of been half the length, would recommend)
- Babylon Revisited (Meh)
- Money: the Unauthorised Biography (Simplistic history of money before and after coin. Good)
- Hellbent (Enjoyed it, good for a holiday read)
- Snow Crash (Classic, Awesome, read it)
- The little prince (must read)
- To Pixar and Beyond (A different viewpoint on Jobs)
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69
Other books I liked a lot were "Operation Kronstadt" which is an incredible story about British intervention into Early USSR. Had a mix of hard engineering on how they built covert fast ships, espionage and intrigue, points around following orders vs taking initiative in an emergency, and many more. Excellent read.
"Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt" was also excellent. First book to really make my understand the Gilded Age. Terrifying read in a lot of ways, actually, but well-written and insightful.
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…
Cool to see an economics book on your list. I think it's a highly underrated subject among the tech community. I started to lightly teach myself economics this year. It was a real sobering experience learning how incredibly stupid I was towards economics and how complex it is. But even after just learning a little, it's amazing to see how that ignorance is a fear mongering tool in the media.
Non-Fiction
By Adam Tooze: Crashed, and Wages of Destruction. Both excellent economic histories, the former covering the recent financial crisis and its aftermath, the latter on the Nazi economy. Tooze does an excellent job coming up with larger trends and global narratives, I'm often amazed at just how much he's able to keep in his head.
By Richard Rothstein: The Color of Law. A quick, informative, yet more than thorough enough on the factual, legal prevention that American employed over the majority of the 20th century to prevent black Americans form participating in the housing market, both personal home ownership and public housing (a major institutional driver of household wealth and success tarting in the early 20th century).
By Jeffrey Lockwood: Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier. I had no idea the American frontier was home to devastating largest-in-the-world locust plagues that suddenly disappeared near the end of the 19th century.
By Peter Brannen: The Ends of the World. A great primer on mass extinctions and their often geologic causes.
By Rick Perstein: Nixonland. Still working on this one, but a deep dive into that era of American politics feels quite relevant at the moment, except that everything today feels stupid in comparison.
Fiction
By N.K. Jemisin: The Broken Earth trilogy. A really great self-contained story, extremely evocative, and the author actually puts out great books at an amazingly fast pace.
Cooking
By Stella Parks: Bravetart: Iconic American Desserts. If you like baking, and the history of iconic American baked goods this is a must have/read. Never thought I'd spend so much time on a carrot cake.
Educated - Tara Westover: Perhaps the best memoir I have ever read.
Killing Commendatore - Haruki Murakami. Japanese mystical fiction.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing - Hank Green. A really fun page-turner
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Welles --> kind of trashy but fun and enjoyable.
Priest by Matthew Colville --> terrible, don't read this.
It's Behind You - The Making of a Game by Bob Pape --> Interesting if you grew up in the 8bit era
Jade City by Fonda Lee --> Basically Jedi street gangs, pretty great
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson --> Near future hard sci-fi with a Big Dumb Object, excellent
Making the Monster by Kathryn Harkup --> Non-fiction about Mary Shelley, disappointing
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer --> Effectively creepy and well written
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin --> Absolutely fantastic, highly recommended
I was introduced to sci-fi last year and pretty much stuck to it throughout 2018. Perhaps the usual suspects given the crowd here but in any case below are my highlights. Completely blew me away: - Anathem by Neal Stephenson - Accelerando by Charles Stross - Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin Great Reads: - Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - Glasshouse, Neptunes Brood & Saturns Children by Charles Stross -…
Anathem was great
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm interested in checking out Basic Economics, but I'm concerned it's very ideologically slanted compared to an undergrad economics textbook. I'm moderately well read in classical political economy (and Marx) but I've heard conflicting reviews over Sowell (the man) and his book.
It's a very well written book. It's obvious that Thomas Sowell skews libertarian but he doesn't brow beat you over the head with it. The focus of the book is more to provide the analytical framework for you to make your own judgements as to how things operate in an economy. Once you ready the Sowell book make sure you read "How Markets Fail" which takes a slanted, oppositional view to deregulation.
There is a story that is about humans having a finite germ line. There is a story about a future scenario where humans can turn off their conception of "beauty" when looking at others. Then there is a story that turned into the movie Arrival, but the story is much better because it brings in a lot more physics (principle of least action equated to foresight).
Definitely the most thoughtful and inspiring book I've read this year.