Any great books you cannot wait to read next year? Maybe something you wish to learn? Curious about all kinds of great book suggestions for 2020. Thank you for sharing! (And I wish you all a great, educational new year)
I hilariously overestimate the number of books I can get through when I make these lists, but my current list for 2020 is as follows:<p>Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World<p>The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution<p>Book of Proof<p>Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems<p>Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed<p>Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies<p>We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation<p>Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War (for a friend)<p>Master and Commander<p>Educated<p>Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark<p>Stretch goal: The Power Broker, as a warm-up for Caro's LBJ series<p>The Bible (perpetual, I don't get through it every year, but I get through much of it, often)<p>EDIT: I also hilariously underestimate the number of books I want to read. Here's one more I think is vital for my 2020:<p>The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
My top priority books:<p><pre><code> Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers
Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny
Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan
Design Patterns - Gang of Four
Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler
Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler
The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl
Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers
Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman, Bert Bates
Code Complete - Steve McConnell
Peopleware - Tim Lister, Tom DeMarco
Clean Code - Robert C. Martin
The Clean Coder - Robert C. Martin
Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin
Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug
Functional Design Patterns for Express.js - Jonathan Lee Martin
The Surrender Experiment - Michael A. Singer
</code></pre>
The best books I've ever read:<p><pre><code> Principles - Ray Dalio
The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle
The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker
Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin
Influence - Robert B. Cialdini
The Startup Way - Eric Ries
The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
12 Rules for Life - Jordan B. Peterson
Measure What Matters - John Doerr, Larry Page
The Fish That Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen
The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber
The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh
Management - Peter F. Drucker
Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows
Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne</code></pre>
I've begun reading The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, his first novel. It's left a very good impression so far. It's a fourteenth century murder mystery, set in a monastery, where the mystery is mostly an excuse for exploring the historical and cultural contexts, which are very interesting. Wikipedia has a nice summary: "an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory". Eco was a semiotician and a philosopher and he brings the best of that to the table in this book.
I look forward to read “Meditations”[1] by Marcus Aurelius and re-read “Black Swan”[2]. On the _craftsperson_ front I’ve heard good things about “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”[3] by Martin Kleppman.<p>Also hope to get some good recommendations here :)<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30659.Meditations?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=6PGKWaSVqW&rank=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30659.Meditations?ac=1&f...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=jVPTaf8bzO&rank=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan?ac...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23463279-designing-data-intensive-applications" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23463279-designing-data-...</a>
My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN:<p>General<p>====<p>- Master & Margarita (w reader's guide)<p>- Why we sleep<p>- The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion<p>- The wisdom of insecurity<p>- The denial of death<p>- The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it)<p>- The dubliners<p>- The devils (Dostoyevski)<p>- The name of the rose<p>- Enten-Oller (Kierkegaard)<p>- Zero to one (Peter Thiel, recommended reading as palantir new joiner - not fantastic but has some thought provoking ideas; i.e. which very important truth would very few people agree with you on?)<p>Economy/finance<p>===<p>- Basic economics (Thomas Sowell)<p>- How an economy grows and why it crashes<p>- Know the city<p>Math<p>===<p>- Coffee time in Memphis<p>- Real analysis (mathematics textbook)<p>- Problems from the book (Halfway through this one, and I found it really enjoyable, even with only a CS bachelors)<p>If anyone has read any and has feedback/notes, I'm looking forward to hearing them!
The Dune movie isn't due until December 2020, but I figured I'd get started with Dune the book, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a while. Maybe if I enjoy it I will get my hands on the rest of the Dune series.
I plan to reread a couple core works for myself. Of that list the ones that I’d recommend for others are:
Aurelius (trans. Martin Hammond)
Fear and Trembling
Man’s Search for Meaning
Tolstoy’s Confessions
Kundera’s The Art of the Novel<p>After doing a thorough reading of “How to Read a Book” I decided to try rereading a few books to pull more out of them.<p>I can’t recommend “How to Read a Book” enough - despite its anachronisms and glaring faults, it’s the only book I’ve found that has genuinely made me feel that I’ve not really read a single book in my life.
To start the year off, my casual just-before-sleep reading will be "Ender's Shadow", which is a story that isn't a prequel or a sequel to "Ender's Game", but a story parallel to it.<p>"What We Cannot Know", which is an exploration of all the topics that we might never be able to know, such as how to predict the weather, is the universe infinite etc.<p>"Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly long and I'm feeling masochistic.<p>"Commodore - A Company on the Edge" because I really enjoyed "Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made", so I think I'll also like seeing how another computer I really like (the Commodore 64) came about.
Lifespan: Why We Age-and Why We Don't Have To - David Sinclair [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age-Dont-Have-ebook/dp/B07N4C6LGR" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age-Dont-Have-ebook/dp/B...</a>
USMC Commandant's 2020 Reading List.<p>This year I am finishing up the Harvard Classics and am looking for a new view point. <a href="https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1" rel="nofollow">https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1</a><p>Unfortunately, the military only publish on New Years Day (traditionally as a sort of holiday gift to those under command), so the 2020 list is not out yet. Every title is free via either the base library or the Navy Digital Library. Most have free audio book narration. There are discussion guides also provided for free. The website is very easy to use and poke around in, I'd suggest looking at it from a Dev standpoint alone. That said, the 2019 list is here: <a href="https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/usmc-reading-list" rel="nofollow">https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/usmc-reading-list</a><p>There are a LOT of titles so here are the Poolee through PFC levels:<p>Poolee:<p>BATTLE CRY by Leon Uris<p>CORPS VALUES by Zell Miller<p>GATES OF FIRE: AN EPIC NOVEL OF THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE by Steven Pressfield<p>GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth<p>STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert A. Heinlein<p>PFC through Lance Corporal:<p>CHESTY by Jon T. Hoffman<p>ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card<p>THE LAST STAND OF FOX COMPANY: A TRUE STORY OF U.S. MARINES IN COMBAT by Bob Drury<p>THE MARINES OF MONTFORD POINT: AMERICA'S FIRST BLACK MARINES by Melton Alonza McLaurin<p>ON CALL IN HELL by Richard Jadick; Thomas Hayden<p>READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline<p>RIFLEMAN DODD: A NOVEL OF THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN by C. S. Forester<p>THE WARRIOR ETHOS by Steven Pressfield<p>The 2020 list should have some froth in it (Greitens likely won't stay, but who knows, judge the art not the artist). I think it'll be a good look into a Corps that has been punched for a long time in Afghanistan. Still, some great titles in there.
I want to finish to read Snowden’s autobiography: “Permanent Record”.<p>I started during a long train trip recently and found that I really enjoyed the tone of the first few chapters.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Record_(autobiography)" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Record_(autobiogra...</a>
I'm hoping to tackle this list in 2020, I've been wanting to read Caro's LBJ series for a while now.<p>=====<p>Robert Caro - Lyndon B. Johnson series & The Power Broker<p>S.C Gwynne - Empire of the Summer Moon<p>Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Black Swan & Antifragile<p>Graham Hancock - America Before<p>Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel<p>Safi Bahcall - Loonshots
My bare minimum is learn more about Alan Watts and his books. I saw him mentioned here many times but it wasn’t until I started reading one of the books that I got hooked by his way of explaining fundamental life stuff.
The Body - Bill Bryson<p>Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Rovelli, Carlo<p>Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman<p>Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment - Robert Wright<p>Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
Leisure Stuff:<p>Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga Of Oklahoma City, It's Chaotic Founding... by Sam Anderson<p>Midnight In Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham<p>Dune by Frank Herbert<p>The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (tried it this year and stopped, want to give it another go)<p>Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just finished Exhalation and I think it's great)<p>An Ursula K. Le Guin novel, have not picked one out yet<p>A book related to basketball (possibly Dream Team, but IDK yet)<p>Less Leisure Stuff:<p>Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John Pfaff<p>Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond<p>The End Of Policing by Alex S Vitale<p>Either Manufacturing Consent or Understanding Power by Chomsky<p>The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold<p>Work:<p>Code Complete 2 by Steve McConnell<p>The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws by Dafydd Stuttard, Marcus Pinto<p>Finish Writing An Interpreter In Go by Thorsten Ball<p>If I can get through all of these, I will be very pleased. Throw in a book or two at recommendation from friends and I think I'm full for the year.
I feel like I'm way behind on fundamentals so mostly textbooks. I'm focused on CS, maths, and finance mainly, not sure I'll achieve this in a year, kind of my perpetual read this within 10 years list. I'm also interested in literature but prefer reading to enrich my knowledge and skills as opposed to reading for leisure :<p>Maths:<p><i>James Stewart's Precalculus<p>Spivak's Calculus<p>How to Solve It<p>Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid<p>I Am a Strange Loop<p>Introduction to Linear Algebra<p>Euclid's Elements<p>The Principia: The Authoritative Translation and Guide: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy</i><p>CS:<p><i>The Algorithm Design Manual<p>Finish SICP<p>Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach<p>Computer Systems: A Programmer's Persepctive<p>C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition<p>Operating Systems: 3 Easy pieces<p>Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment<p>Hacking: The Art of Exploitation<p>The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern
Computer from First Principles<p>Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools<p>Lions' Commentary on Unix<p>TCP/IP Illustrated</i><p>Finance/Econ/Business:<p><i>Liar's Poker<p>Investor Z (Manga)<p>Trading & Exchanges<p>Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options<p>Python for Finance: Mastering Data-Driven Finance<p>Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on it<p>Alpha Masters<p>Fooling Some of the People All of Time<p>Dark Pools<p>When Genius Failed<p>Advances in Financial Machine Learning<p>Algorithmic Trading</i><p>Other:<p><i>Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free productivity<p>Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes<p>Chaos: Making a New Science<p>Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World<p>Data and Reality: A Timeless Perspective on Perceiving and Managing Information in Our Imprecise World</i>
AH! So many books to read.. I always get excited when I see these type of threads (because I can get new worthy books to add to my list), but on the other hand I get depressed that it is pretty damn hard to catch up with everything that I want to read.<p>My list would be too long to post, but these are the ones next in line:
- Meditations
- Digital Minimalism
- I Ching
- Art of War
- Tao Te King
- Steppenwolf
- Think and grow rich<p>In general want to focus on books of: business, leadership, self development, productivity and spiritualism (mostly buddhism).
3 or 4 Discworld books, as in every year. Starting with Soul Music this time, in publication order.<p>Designing Data Intensive Applications.<p>Some books on leadership from the recent HN discussion, not decided which yet.<p>Death's End (book 3 of The Three Body Problem). The first two were really good.<p>The Algorithm Design Manual. Domain Driven Design.<p>Some chess books. Some general science and history. The yearly random self help book.<p>If I manage all that plus whatever I'll decide I want in the actual year, it will be a good year for reading, but maybe I need to have some more focus. We'll see.
These are on my list:<p>Five Dysfuncitons of a Team: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21343.The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21343.The_Five_Dysfuncti...</a><p>The Advantage: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12975375-the-advantage" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12975375-the-advantage</a>
I don’t have a list handy but I do intend to read a lot. Every year I make the same New Year’s Resolution: read one book a week. The closest I came to 52 was in 2011 when I read 36. I do this because I calculated that if I met my goal from the age of 16 to 90, I’d only read 3,900 books. I grew up an avid reader and the decline in my intake bums me out. So here’s to 52 in 2020!
Well here are the books I’m currently reading (physical, kindle, and audible). I bounce around a lot. Sometimes it takes me a week to finish a book, other times I take a few months. Sometimes I never finish. But these are the ones I have some progress on so far:<p>1. Faust by goethe<p>2. I am That<p>3. Book of why<p>4. The gift by hafiz<p>5. Simulacra and simulation<p>6. Candide by Voltaire<p>7. Meeting the shadow: the hidden power of the dark side of human nature<p>8. Nonviolent communication<p>9. After the ecstasy, the laundry<p>10. Watchmen<p>11. Noble heart by Pena chodron<p>12. Developer hegemony<p>13. Brothers karamazov
Hopefully I'll knock at least a couple off my "most shameful not to have read" list:<p>- Paradise Lost<p>- The Divine Comedy<p>- The Aeneid<p>- Moby Dick<p>- Middlemarch<p>- Othello & at least the lesser Henriad<p>- Any of several Russian novels, of which I've read none (War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment probably being the biggest)<p>- Kafka's The Trial<p>- The Canterbury Tales (I've read Sir Gawain & The Green Knight but not this, WTF is wrong with me?)<p>- Don Quixote
A lot of what I read in 2020 will involve just finishing titles I started in 2019 (or before). So my "To read in 2020" list already has a lot of stuff on it.<p>But to name ones that I very specifically want to read/finish sooner than later... hmm... there are a number of books that fall more into the realms of history / anthropology / etc., that I have been meaning to read. Books like <i>Guns, Germs, and Steel</i>, and <i>Sapiens</i> - things of that nature. One of those that I'm already on, but probably won't finish before Jan 1, is <i>Human Universals</i> by Donald Brown.<p>I also want to get through some books on writing/reading mathematical proofs. <i>Mathematical Reasoning: Writing and Proof</i> by Ted Sundstrom, or <i>The Book of Proof</i> by Richard Hammack.<p>Another one I hope to get through is <i>Designing Data-Intensive Applications</i>.
The Body: A Guide for Occupants
The Topeka School: A Novel
The Yellow House
Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures
Mastery
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning
Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality
Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations
Alone at Dawn: Medal of Honor Recipient John Chapman and the Untold Story of the World's Deadliest Special Operations Force
Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
Some of the books in my 2020 to be read basket:<p>Cultural Amnesia by Clive James<p>Exhalation by Ted Chiang<p>Silver, Sword & Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Maria Arana<p>The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy<p>Alice And Bob Meet The Wall Of Fire edited by Thomas Lin<p>Masscult and Midcult by Dwight Macdonald<p>Big Bang by David Bowman<p>White Noise by Don DeLillo<p>The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann<p>A House for Mr. Biwas by V. S. Naipaul<p>A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace<p>On The Abolition Of All Political Parties by Simone Weil<p>Collected Stories by Bruno Schulz<p>On Being The Right Size by J. B. S. Haldane<p>Bela Tarr, The Time After by Jacques Ranciere<p>La Vida Breve by Juan Carlos Onetti<p>The Clown by Heinrich Boll<p>Memoirs From Beyond The Grave by Francois-Rene De Chateubriand<p>Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux<p>The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling<p>Cuentos Completos by Juan Carlos Onetti<p>Balcony In The Forest by Julien Gracq<p>Historia De España Contada Para Escépticos by Juan Eslava Galán<p>Diez Lecciones Sobre Los Clásicos by Piero Boitani<p>Waiting For The Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee<p>97,196 Words by Emmanuel Carrere<p>Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace<p>El Zafarrancho Aquel De Via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda
Here is my list, which excludes fiction. Mostly philosophy. I prefer to read fewer books but more deeply.<p>Currently reading:<p>Republic - Plato<p>Being and time - Heidegger<p>On the list to begin reading:<p>Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle<p>Recursivity and contingency - Yuk Hui<p>Wholeness and the implicate order or thought as a system - David Bohm<p>Finite and infinite games - James P Carse<p>Book lists:<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=to-read" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=to-read</a><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=currently-reading" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=current...</a><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=read" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=read</a>
Going to finish <i>Crime and Punishment</i>, <i>Year of the Monkey</i> (Patti Smith), <i>The Children of Húrin</i> (along with many cross references and letters) (Tolkien), re-reading <i>A Game of Thrones</i> for fun... as for 2020 I might read <i>Slaughterhouse 5</i> again and work through George Sand.<p>Technical things I am working through are the:<p>- <a href="https://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative/abstract-algebra" rel="nofollow">https://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative/a...</a> along with the Artin text, writing proofs out by hand and in Lean.<p>- <i>Seven Sketches in Compositionality</i>: <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05316" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05316</a>
I'm planning on going through the entire Harvard Classics. At 51 volumes, it works out pretty nicely to read one volume per week.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics</a>
I’d like to finally read something by Jason Fung.<p>I have been trying fasting on and off for about 6 months and I can see results, but I have not bothered to check the theory behind it at all.<p>If anybody would like to recommend some books on nutrition, body aging and general health regarding food, bring it!
I don't have a list because I usually look around on here for my next book to read. I see a lot of similar titles after reading through this thread. Some I've read, some I've started and got bored with and a lot I've never heard of.<p>I just finished reading Siddartha, which is a really short book, but I'd like to read more that are similar to this, any suggestions?<p>I see Designing Data-Intensive Applications quite a bit in this thread, might have a go at that one too.<p>Currently I'm reading <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Standard_Oil_Company" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Standard_Oi...</a> which is fascinating!
The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles Mann, it covers two different approaches to the environmental problems we face. Whether we can use technology to extract ourselves from these problems or restraint and a simpler life.<p>After that I'll probably read Walden again.
I plan to read:<p>- "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" by David Graeber<p>- "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief" by Lawrence Wright<p>- "The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves" by Matt Ridley<p>- "Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life" by William Finnegan
Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach is an amazing book, that I just started, and I will be working through into the new year.<p>It is a well written textbook with clear learning paths for readers with different backgrounds and learning objectives.
My plan is to read about the french revolution and as such I was thinking about reading the books recommended by Five Books[1]:<p>1. Ancien Regime and the Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville<p>2. Interpreting the French Revolution by François Furet<p>3. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama<p>4. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution by R. R. Palmer<p>5. New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789-1820s by Woloch Isser<p>Just ordered the first one!<p>[1]: <a href="https://fivebooks.com/best-books/french-revolution-lynn-hunt/" rel="nofollow">https://fivebooks.com/best-books/french-revolution-lynn-hunt...</a>
* The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos by Christian Davenport<p>* The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Stephen Brusatte<p>* Machine Platform Crowd: Harnessing the Digital Revolution Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson<p>* Kiss The Ground Josh Tickell<p>* The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by MichioKaku<p>* * * My other 95 Books I am going to continue re-read in 2020:<p><a href="http://casualwalker.com/95-best-books-to-read-in-2019" rel="nofollow">http://casualwalker.com/95-best-books-to-read-in-2019</a>
I'm moving back into a team leadership role after working for myself a while so probably The Managers Path and Managing Humans. Would love to hear other suggestions for software development managers too!
I've read over 38 books till now, so, it will be about 40 by the year-end. I have a long list of Book Wishlist on Amazon. I try to buy (both physical and Kindle) about 5 books ahead. Twitter has become a very good source of my Books to Read.<p>I also tend to and try to re-read quite a few books from before. I never have any specific books lined up for a year but I'm sure, I won't be able to finish my current wishlist.<p>The comment thread on this post is going to be another good source for my book wishlist.<p>I wish to be rich enough to have all the time to read so many books. :-)
I try to only read books that are at least a few years old, so these aren’t timely recommendations.<p>On the list for next year:<p>The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language<p>Essays of Montaign<p>Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers<p>Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology<p>The Enigma of Reason<p>Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind<p>Impro<p>Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China<p>Invisible Cities<p>Collapse of Complex Societies<p>--<p>Favorites from this year:<p>Death's End<p>One Man's Meat<p>Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution<p>A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons<p>Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery<p>Cosmicomics<p>Why Quark Rhymes with Pork<p>The Unfolding of Language<p>A Sand County Almanac
I would like to start with:<p><i>High Output Management Grove</i>, Andrew S.<p><i>7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Covey</i>, Stephen R<p><i>Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship</i>,(Robert C. Martin)<p><i>Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design</i> (Robert C. Martin Series)<p><i>Building Evolutionary Architectures: Support Constant Change</i> by Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons, Patrick Kua<p>If you have read any of them and you would like to share your thoughts, I will be truly happy to listen!:)<p>Happy reading
Ken MacLeod. I read most of his hard SF, and I am just about to finish re-reading Fractions: The First Half of the Fall Revolution (The Star Fraction + The Stone Canal). It’s a great series, often underrated because it’s more political and technical. The Stone Canal is probably the best of the series.<p>I plan to re-read Descent and The Restoration Game, at the least.<p>Haven’t made yet a list of new stuff to read, I’ll pick stuff is it comes.
- Princeton Companion to Mathematics<p>- The Art and Craft of Problem Solving<p>- Div, Grad, Curl and all that<p>- Visual Complex Analysis<p>- Ordinary Differential Equations<p>- Mathematics and Its History<p>- Geometry and the Imagination<p>- Introduction to Electrodynamics<p>- Penrose's Road to Reality
I will try getting through Goodfellows ‚Deep Learning‘ book, the maths for ML book: <a href="https://mml-book.github.io/" rel="nofollow">https://mml-book.github.io/</a> and the classic ‚The Fractal Geometry of Nature‘.<p>I’m also listening to various audiobooks, but these are much easier to get through in bulk than books I’ve actually got to sit down and read for like the above.
Currently, my list of to-reads looks like this:<p>Non-fiction:<p>The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World<p>Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity<p>Bad Science<p>I'm Afraid Debbie From Marketing Has Left for the Day: How to Use Behavioural Design to Create Change in the Real World<p>Fiction:<p>This Is How You Lose the Time War<p>Catch-22<p>The Wanderers<p>I could definitely use some more fiction. Any suggestions?
Before the next wave of Internet-from-space companies fly by, I'm going to delve in to the last great bubble. John Bloom's "Eccentric Orbits," mainly about the life and death and rebirth of Iridium–but also covering all of that company's even less successful peers–came out in 2016, but somehow I missed it until now. Lots of awards.
For me:<p>- On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche<p>- Simulcra and Simulations, Jean Baudrillard<p>- The Ruling Class, Gaetano Mosca<p>- Finish off the Enchiridion and Shobogenzo<p>For work:<p>- Envisioning Information, Edward Tufte<p>- Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Looking forward to the upcoming book by Toby Ord:<p><i>Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity</i><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Humanity/dp/0316484911/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=toby+ord&qid=1576508942&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Hum...</a>
Elements of Clojure - Zachary Tellman<p>Domain Modeling Made Functional - Scott Wlaschin<p>---<p>Stormlight Book 4 - Brandon Sanderson<p>The Doors of Stone - Patrick Rothfuss (fingers crossed?)<p>Culture series - Iain Banks
I'd like to read the Realm of the Elderlings series and the Skolian Saga, which I've neglected so far. Also, I think I'll start a thorough reading of all Spider-Man comics.<p>Regarding non-fiction, I think I will read some books about algebraic geometry and Lie groups. Haven't yet made a plan.
It’s fiction and mass-market but I enjoy reading the new John Grisham novel every October or about then. He’s consistent in quality, the books consistently interesting, and it’s about the only hardback novel I’ll shell out for instead of waiting for the paperback or Kindle version now.
"And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie<p>"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin<p>"This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar<p>"Priestdaddy" by Patricia Lockwood<p>"Black Leopard, Red Wolf" by Marlon James<p>"Consider Phlebas," and maybe the rest of The Culture series of novels, by Iain Banks
I'm not much for planning my reading, but still unread in 2019 is Tara Westover's _Educated_<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated</a>
"Thinking Fast, and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, I am in Chapter 12.<p>"System Design Primer"
<a href="https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer</a>
- Nassim Taleb's Incerto Box Set:<p><pre><code> - Antifragile (already started)
- The Black Swan
- Skin In The Game
- (there are 2 more books which I've already read)
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- The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith<p>- Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman<p>- Reread: E-Myth, Michael E. Gerber
A few PG Twitter recs:<p>* My Family and Other Animals (started, already really enjoying it)<p>* Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (started, enjoying it but moving slowly through it. It's very good, and the author is palpably excited about the subject, I just wouldn't call it a page turner)
I own more books than I can read: <a href="https://books.j11g.com/" rel="nofollow">https://books.j11g.com/</a><p>I'm currently plowing through David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest (which is enjoyable but taxing!) should be finished in 2020!
Plan to read again:<p>- How Democracies Die <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die</a><p>- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third_Reich" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third...</a>
Books I bought in 2019<p>1) Creativity Inc<p>2) Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice<p>3) Start With Why<p>4) Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love<p>5) The Hard Thing about Hard Thing: Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers<p>I only managed to finish ~50% of my planned reading in 2019
I plan to write my next book, this time on leadership and the environment.<p>I see a lack of leadership -- like a Mandela of the environment. I don't call telling people what to do or spreading facts, figures, doom, and gloom leadership. Nor do I see anyone of renown trying to live by values that would lead us to sustainability and sharing how they create joy, community, and connection. Even Greta promotes panic.<p>I believe we crave leadership so we can act on our values and overcome the jaded cynicism, shame, guilt, and pointing fingers. We want to take responsibility, to pick up other people's trash, to fly less when we see the compassion and empathy in it, when we can feel the meaning and purpose those who went to jail for other people's freedom did in the US civil rights struggle half a century ago or fighting Hitler a generation before.<p>My podcast <i>Leadership and the Environment</i> <a href="http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast" rel="nofollow">http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast</a>, and my experience acting, have taught me a lot.
I read about 25 books this year, here are the top 10 I look forward to reading in 2020, many of them informed by my favorites of 2019:<p>Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari - I read Sapiens this year and really enjoyed it. I just started this today one so I may finish that before the end of the year.<p>Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - I like books that make me think and from what I've heard, this will definitely do the trick. I read Factfulness this year and this was a suggested follow-up.<p>The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker - I've gotten really into natural languages since I've lived outside my country of origin for the last 2 and a half years and I've heard good things about this book being an entry point into linguistics.<p>Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski - With the new Witcher show coming out on Netflix I finally went back and beat The Witcher 3 then read the first book, The Last Wish. It was enjoyable enough that I want to keep going with the series.<p>Educated by Tara Westover - Was convinced by Bill Gate's blog this is worthwhile. I'm a teacher so it wasn't hard to convince me.<p>Robot Builder's Bonanza by Gordon McComb - I've been asked to teach a robotics course next year and this one seems to be The Book everyone recommends to dive into robotics.<p>Divided by Partition: United by Resilience by Mallika Ahluwalia - I recently visited the Partition Museum in Amritsar, Punjab, India and purchased this book there to learn about more stories about people impacted by this event.<p>The Elements of Computing Systems by Noam Nisan and Shimon Shocken - I just read Code by Petzold and it was one of my favorite books. Even though I studied Computer Science in University and most of the concepts weren't new to me, it was such a fun experience mentally "building" a computer from relays/transistors to logic gates and up to assemblers, compilers, and interpreters. I want to keep going with this and jump into the Nand2Tetris online course.<p>The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold - Again, I loved Petzold's Code so I looked up other books he wrote and this one looks great. I've never actually read Turing's work so I'm excited to have some background and explanation to help me not just read the words but grasp their significance.<p>ZACH-LIKE by Zachtronics - I played through several Zachtronics games this year (TIS-100, Shenzhen I/O and Opus Magnum) so I can't wait to dive into some of the thinking behind creating these and similar games.
I've curated my 2020 list over the last few months, eventually splitting it in two; 2021 has been started, but below is my 2020 list.<p>Brave New World<p>Catcher in the Rye (3rd read)<p>Tom Sawyer<p>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<p>War and Peace<p>Catch-22<p>Stranger in a Strange Lan<p>The Hobbit (3rd read)<p>The Illiad<p>The Odessey<p>Walden<p>Leisure, The Basis of Culture<p>The Seven Storey Mountain<p>Confessions<p>The City of God<p>Ways of Life St Augustine<p>Catechism of the Catholic Church<p>These Truths<p>Battle Cry of Freedom<p>The Complete Guide to Fly Fishing<p>The Lure and Lore of Trout Fishing<p>The Duck Huntingest Gentlemen
Book: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Reason: To learn how to be a human.<p>Or something like this, because apparently there's a thing called emotional intelligence, the Doctor says that I have a severe lack of it...
Tim Shipman will be writing his 3rd book about Brexit - the other two being great pieces of journalism so I'm really looking forward to the next, and presumably final, instalment.
-The Triumph of Injustice<p>-Politics of Institutional Reform: Katrina, Education, and the Second Face of Power<p>-The Economists' Hour<p>-Insurance of Dummies<p>-Architect of Prosperity: Sir John Cowperthwaite and the Making of Hong Kong
Some of the books I plan to read are:<p>* The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham<p>* Complications by Atul Gawande<p>* The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century by Fernand Braudel
I have made it a goal to read all of Cal Newport's books. This is a step in curbing my internet addiction and taking back as much attention span as I can.
Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt
Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous
Freedom from the known - Jiddu Krishnamurti
The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas (A. Grigas)<p>We (Y. Zamyatin)<p>The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper (C. Petzold)<p>Endurance (A. Lansing)<p>Economics: The User's Guide (H. Chang)<p>Oblomov (I. Goncharov)
Say What You Mean by Oren Jay Sofer<p>After that I intend to primarily focus on additional books about communication: written and verbal including listening skills
On my list to read in 2020:<p><pre><code> The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
The Rust Programming Language
Progressive Web Apps
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability
Farming the Woods
Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms
Affinity Designer Workbook
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Walden
A Guide for Desert and Dryland Restoration
Ernest Hemingway On Writing
The Two Hands of God (Alan Watts)
The Anarchist's Design Book and/or With the Grain: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood
Dune
Some other fiction reading I'll decide on after I finish Dune
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Books/Authors I've read that I would recommend:<p><pre><code> Tao of Physics, Web of Life, Systems View of Life, etc. (Fritjof Capra)
^Capra's work has heavily influenced my worldview and ability to think in systems
Designing Data Intensive Applications (just finishing this week)
Permaculture One & Two, Gaia's Garden, Edible Forest Gardens I&II
Black Swan, Antifragile, etc. (Nassim Taleb)
Cloud Hidden: Whereabouts Unknown (Alan Watts, written late in life)
Ishmael, Story of B, etc. (Daniel Quinn)
You are Not a Gadget, Who Owns the Future, etc. (Jaron Lanier)
Goethe's Italian Journey
Vonnegut, Hemingway, Steinbeck
The Wheel of Time</code></pre>
Writing a Go Interpreter<p>Writing a Go Compiler<p>No One Cares about Crazy People<p>I Heard You Paint Houses<p>UNIX: A History and a Memoir<p>Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine<p>How Asia Works<p>The Dream Machine<p>Black Earth<p>The Fabric of Reality<p>Behave (tried twice, maybe third times a charm?)<p>A Short History of Nearly Everything<p>Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers<p>Genius: The Life and Science Richard Feynman<p>Super Thinking<p>Man's Search for Meaning<p>The Cooking Gene<p>The Vital Question: Why is Life The Way it Is (re-read)<p>The Case Against Sugar<p>The 15 Decisive Battles of the World<p>The History of the Peloponnesian War<p>The Beginning of Infinity<p>The Book of Why
My to-read shelve on Goodreads has 620 books on it, but top of my list are:<p>- Feed by M.T. Anderson<p>- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff<p>- Equality by Edward Bellamy
Great thread. 2019 was the first time in about 7-8 years I made reading for pleasure a tertiary priority ((school+career)work/sleep/exercise+socializing+(NEW!)reading) and I got through about 20 books of varying length and difficulty, so here are the next 20 in my queue:<p>- Infinite Jest (already started, will likely finish in early Jan. I love it so far.)<p>- Quantum Computing Since Democritus (started in November as my nonfiction read, but took a break; I think I want to finish IJ first. Scott is an excellent writer and I was really enjoying this)<p>- Building Microservices<p>- The Code Book<p>- How Cars Work (I want to turn the projection of a car in my brain from a black box to a gray box this year, and I don't mean by purchasing a Cybertruck)<p>- To Kill a Mockingbird<p>- The Personal MBA (for years I laughed off caring about the business of business and lived in my fantasy land of being satisfied with just the technical details and being focused on only implementing great software/learning how to do so. With a few years in the workforce under my belt, I realize that such an outlook was of great detriment to me. I'm open to other suggestions on similar "catch me up to speed on general business education" material)<p>- Designing Data-Intensive Applications<p>- Island (I have a copy of this but not Brave New World. Multiple friends of mine demand I try Huxley, so here we are.)<p>- The Annotated Turing<p>- How to Invent Everything<p>- Soonish (SMBC is a daily read for me and I'm excited to get to this.)<p>- How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems (ditto XKCD modulo release schedule)<p>- Basic Economics<p>- Thus Spoke Zarathustra<p>- Seveneves<p>- The Prince<p>- Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball<p>- Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong<p>- Fahrenheit 451<p>Additionally, to tickle the part of my brain that fancies mathematics (one of my my majors in undergrad), I try to work through a chapter or two of Evan Chen's "An Infinitely Long Napkin" on a quarterly basis. If you don't mind a conversational tone to your math textbooks, I've found this to be an excellent resource for scraping the surface of a wide variety of topics and fields (including, well, topics like fields). I think I'll continue this habit.