Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?

I’m sure not everyone came here to hear tech book recommendations, but I will add another vote for Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppman. It’s one of the best tech reference books I’ve ever read. It manages to explain SO much while requiring so little prior knowledge from readers.<p>Another book that is relatively new that I loved was Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen. I worked in productionizing ML systems for 3 years and this book equips you with exactly what you need to do so. It does a great job of explaining the whole ML modeling pipeline and some of the commonly overlooked nuances that can cause your models to fail spectacularly in production. I will be referencing this book for years to come.

How the World Really Works by Vaclac Smil is one of the best book I&#x27;ve read this year. It gives such a great perspective on how much energy and material we use.<p>It&#x27;s one of the most readable books by Smil and has gems like this :<p>“Moreover, within a lifetime of people born just after the Second World War the rate had more than tripled, from about 10 to 34 GJ&#x2F;capita between 1950 and 2020. Translating the last rate into more readily imaginable equivalents, it is as if an average Earthling has every year at their personal disposal about 800 kilograms (0.8 tons, or nearly six barrels) of crude oil, or about 1.5 tons of good bituminous coal. And when put in terms of physical labor, it is as if 60 adults would be working non-stop, day and night, for each average person; and for the inhabitants of affluent countries this equivalent of steadily laboring adults would be, depending on the specific country, mostly between 200 and 240. On average, humans now have unprecedented amounts of energy at their disposal.”<p>My review is at : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4708765021" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4708765021</a><p>Another excellent book is Arbitrary Lines by Nolan Gray - which is a great book about zoning and why we should all be YIMBYs.<p>My review is at : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4800787011" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4800787011</a><p>How Asia Works by Joe Studwell is a fascinating look at why Japan, South Korea and China have done so well.<p>My review is at : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4806521204" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4806521204</a><p>Another book I really enjoyed was Firepower : How Weapons Shaped Warfare by Paul Lockhart<p>review at : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4417950705" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;review&#x2F;show&#x2F;4417950705</a>

Non-Fiction &#x2F; Self-Help:<p>No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model<p>IFS for short.<p>Written for normal people, not psychologists&#x2F;psychiatrists. It has a very valuable core philosophy&#x2F;teaching about who we are underneath all the masks of our personality(s). It closely resembles something I experienced during an Ayahuasca retreat in 2018, about the soul &#x2F; inner child&#x2F;god entity.<p>For something a little more tangible that digs in closer to the mechanism&#x2F;science, see Dr Tori Olds on youtube, she has 5 videos on the topic that is incredibly powerful in understanding your own behaviours. Will take less than 2 hours of your life but can change it permanently for the better!

- Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico by Hugh Thomas , because he brings history to life and the story of the Spanish and the Mexica is stranger than fiction, more subtle and terrible than you might think, and has many lessons on human behavior applicable to today.<p>- Ecclesiastes by Qoheleth: In my opinion, superior to Marcus Aurelius&#x27; Meditations. &quot;Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white; let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.&quot; (Eccles 9:11)<p>- Amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman: We thought we had to worry about 1984 and big brother. We were wrong. We are living in Huxley&#x27;s Brave New World where digital media has made us dumber, distracted and cut our connections with one other. Our smartphones substitute rosaries and entertainment becomes the dogma.<p>- Structure and Intepretation of Computer Programs by Hal Abelson and Gerlad J. Sussman: Need I say more? This books makes me fall in love all over again with programming every time I pick it up.<p>- Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle: What does it mean to live well? How can we be happy? Aristotle makes the striking claim that everyone knows how to be happy, but we have to create the habits that are in accord with reason and right judgement in order to get there. Also, happiness is not a state but rather the result of our active will and right ordering of desire. Required reading for any political leader.<p>- Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser: Javascript frameworks come and go, language standards change, Computer platforms rise and fall, but math and the underling concepts of computation stay the same. Knowing what computation is, what its properties are, etc. will not only make you a better programmer but a better thinker. Church-Turing Thesis essential reading for anyone serious about algorithm design and analysis.

Gene Wolfe&#x27;s The Book of the New Sun series. As someone who read a lot of sci-fi, I&#x27;m surprised I&#x27;ve discovered it only now. It&#x27;s considered the Dostoevsky of scifi, very different from golden age hard scifi. Already started books of the Long Sun. Disappointment of the year - The three body problem. Feels like buying on amazon a product with thousand of rave reviews only to realize its all fake Chinese reviews.

Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants<p>Ignition breaks down the fallacy that huge innovations come from large professional teams. It demonstrates that getting the right mix of risk tolerance in your team is a large part of innovation. Too little risk tolerance and you never create anything amazing; too much and you can blow it all up (either literally or go bankrupt).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bookslegit.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;ignition-by-john-clark&#x2F;review" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bookslegit.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;ignition-by-john-clark&#x2F;revi...</a>

Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing by Robert. A. Caro. He is known for his biographies of Robert Moses (The Power Broker) and of Lyndon Johnson, and for his extensive research of these subjects.<p>Early in the book, covering his early career when he was working as a journalist, one of his bosses gave him a lesson in investigative reporting in a nutshell: <i>Just remember, turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page.</i> The book contains various subsequent examples of him doing exactly that in various research endeavours, and also going to extreme lengths to put himself in a better mindset for writing whatever he is working on at the time, like moving to the area a subject grew up in to live there for a year to better research his early life.<p>There are examples of him sifting through many boxes of documents in an archive that would seem to be inconsequential, but then happening on a receipt or memo that is just an allusion to something that gives him the lead he needs to uncover some real information.

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton [1]. A haunting and disturbing account powerfully told and rendered. Beaton is well known for Hark! A Vagrant, but this is her best work to date.<p>The Kalevala [2]. I am familiar with the Eddas, the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, but the Finnish national epos was beautiful and refreshingly different. While I&#x27;m sure the English translation pales next to the original, it was nevertheless quite lyrical.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;59069071-ducks" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;59069071-ducks</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;elias-lonnrot&#x2F;the-kalevala&#x2F;john-martin-crawford" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;elias-lonnrot&#x2F;the-kalevala...</a>

Nomi Prins, All the Presidents Bankers, and also Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World.<p>Those two books illustrate the financialization of the US and global economy over time, and although dense, are well worth the effort. She has a new book out as of Oct, &quot;Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever.&quot;<p>Peter Anderas, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America<p>A very fun historical read, covering everything from textile machinery smuggling from Britain to the American colonies, to rum and whiskey smuggling into Indian Country in the 19th century, to opium smuggling to China, to Prohibition and the modern Drug War, cotton smuggling by the South to Europe to finance the South&#x27;s Civil War army, and the smuggling of people from slaves to immigrants. Very eye-opening, a lot of America&#x27;s &#x27;wealthy families&#x27; got their first pool of capital in this manner.<p>Also:<p>Junji Ito, Uzumaki and No Longer Human<p>William Gibson, The Peripheral and Agency

× The Cyberiad (English translation) by Stanisław Lem. It&#x27;s the most hilarious science fiction I&#x27;ve read. It hits a special note with me, I actually immediately started reading it again from the start as soon as I finished it.<p>× The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber &amp; David Wengrow. An amazing rethinking of archeology, a denunciation of social orthogenesis and an invitation to dream of a better world<p>Other mentions are long fantasy series, including a complete re-read of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett and Tchaikovsky&#x27;s Shadow of the Apt (not his best, but frighteningly relevant in 2022. A story about the Eastern &quot;wasp empire&quot; invading the west and all its strategies of propaganda, division and subjugation)

Blindsight by Peter Watts.<p>It was mentioned here several times, so I bowed to peer pressure and pirated it like a child of the 1990s Internet that I am.<p>It&#x27;s <i>definitely imaginative</i>. I do love a good unique universe that is distinct from everything else. It&#x27;s <i>not</i> a space opera in the traditional sense. It explores notions that likely no other author has, such as the Chinese Room thought experiment.<p>The spaceship captain is a vampire, and that&#x27;s just a <i>detail</i>, but a part of the plot, <i>but not at all how you would assume</i>, which is what makes this book great.

Anthony Trollope - The Warden. Trollope presents us, realistically and convincingly, a decisive figure of modernity: the sincere idealist who, in the pursuit of illusory abstractions, (un)consciously destroys people, undermines communities with tradition and worsens the situation even for those whom he tries to help.

The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. You will not see the world the same way. You can then read Industrial Society by Ted Kaczynski and understand his desperation.

<i>One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union between Intelligence and Organized Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein</i> book 1 and 2 are pribably the best books of the year and Whitney Webb deserves a Pulitzer for the sheer volume of research she has done on the networks predating Epstein and those like him and their evolution into what they are today.<p>If you want to know about how the world truly works, pick up these two books, but be prepared to be shocked at what you learn about how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Memories of Ice, by Steven Erikson.<p>It is the third instalment in his epic fantasy decalogy, The Malazan Book of the Fallen.<p>To say that I&#x27;ve shed a couple of tears during the finale of the novel is an understatement.<p>The thing with the whole series for me is that the books don&#x27;t feel consistently good throughout.<p>However, the endings are often heart breaking and the more I read, the more I am drawn into the history of the world and destinies of the characters.<p>Not to mention that there are at least 5 deeply moving quotes in each of the novels. Ones that make you stop reading, drop the book and run to your loved one to share the quote with them.<p>Currently finishing book 4, with book 5 already waiting for me on my bookshelf.<p>Can&#x27;t wait for book 6 though, people say it&#x27;s the best.

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch and The Three-Body Problem Trilogy by Liu Cixin.<p>I especially recommend reading this combination. Both books fill up with optimism about humanity. First one by providing framework for infinite progress of humankind. (written by acknowledged quantum physics professor). Second one by by outlining how we can overcome difficulties on the way (written by talented Chinese science fiction writer).

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells are fun, most are short novellas

I went on a kick of reading &quot;competency porn&quot; (think Project Hail Mary&#x2F;The Martian but not necessarily solving engineering problems). On top of PHM, I read Sixteen Ways to Defend A Walled City (great dark satire despite the shit ending) and The Goblin Emperor (more on the social engineering side of things, so better characterization than something like The Martian)

Probably some of my favorites this year have been the Greek mythology audiobooks written and narrated by Stephen Fry. I could listen to Stephen read the phone book, but he also does an incredible job giving you a narrative primer of all the Greek myths and makes both historical and contemporary observations of how these myths influenced and were influenced.

* Dead Souls by Gogol<p>I read it to try to understand why Russia sees it self as a super power. It is an amazing book, it does not bring enlightenment but made me see the war propaganda in another light. There was a recent thread with Russsian literature: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33032708" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33032708</a> where the short stories by Gogol were recommended, I agree.

Mostly science fiction, and most Adrian Tchaikovsky science fiction at that:<p>* Elder Race - Tchaikovsky&#x27;s Hugo-nominated novella does this really neat thing where it tells the same story from two different perspectives, which happen to perfectly meld fantasy with hard scifi in a super clever conceit.<p>* Children of Time - A hard scifi-meets-entomology-study take on how shifting perspectives work and the no-stone-left-unturned world building he does just really works. Its sequel Children of Ruin was great too, and the final in the trilogy comes out next month.

I finished the quadrilogy Terra Ignota, also known by its first book title, Too Like the Lightning. It is one of the most unique set of books I&#x27;ve read, taking place in the 2400s but referencing events 300 years in our past, so it is as if our current time is right in the middle of both ends. It is quite long and flowing in its writing, something that not everyone may like. It has a very high amount of allusion to other Western works, particularly ancient Greek works, so if you&#x27;re not familiar with those, read them before reading these books.<p>I am also reading Fire and Blood, which is on the opposite spectrum, much terser but somehow still enjoyable as its blunt style makes imagining the scenarios that play out in the story much easier than the flowery prose of Terra Ignota.

Top 2 so far:<p><pre><code> * Washington: A life by Ron Chernow * The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won by Victor Davis Hanson </code></pre> The Washington book is a very detailed by clear overview of his life. Easy to follow (even for complex situations) and very week written.<p>The WW2 book is amazing. Compares the countries fighting in around 20 different areas (technology, leadership, geography, aircraft) and says who is better and why.<p>Also very good:<p><pre><code> * FDR by Jean Edward Smith * Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro * The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King * The years of Lyndon Johnson 2 – Means of Ascent by Robert Caro * Blood, Sweat &amp; Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan * Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe * How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom by Matt Ridley * Yeager: An Autobiography by Chuck Yeager * The years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert Caro * The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson * Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson * An Economist walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk by Allison Schrager * The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood by Julie Salamon * Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton</code></pre>

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo.<p>A beautifully written, immensely moving, very funny novel with a really nuanced but profoundly important message.<p>It’s essentially a call for empathy.<p>I thought of myself, a white male, as progressive and very aware already of the issues of gender and color in our societies’ power structures. This book made me very humble. It made me look at the place women, and women of colour in particular, have in today’s society in a completely different way.<p>Just give it a go guys, just the reading experience is worth it.

* The Frayed Atlantic Edge* by David Gange<p>A book about a kayak journey around the Atlantic coast of the UK and Ireland that the author undertook in 2016. Published in 2018. The author (who is a historian) develops essays about the history of the coastal communities with a lot of references to earlier work and current writers. There is a Web site with additional material. [1] The book starts off with the mechanics of kayaking through coastal waters and slowly edges into quite deep historical reflections.<p>I&#x27;m working my way around the Atlantic edge of the UK slowly as currently disrupted travel allows.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;frayedatlanticedge.wordpress.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;frayedatlanticedge.wordpress.com&#x2F;</a>

Of the books I&#x27;ve read this year, the fiction ones that stand out to me would be:<p>1. The entire Sprawl Trilogy by Gibson, and the entire Bridge Trilogy, also by Gibson. The former I&#x27;d read before (multiple times) while the latter I had not read all the way through until now. Neuromancer I&#x27;ve read probably 7 or 8 times total in my life by now. I&#x27;m not as crazy about Gibson&#x27;s later stuff, but the Sprawl and Bridge books are great.<p>2. The rest of the HHGTTG &quot;trilogy&quot; besides the first book. I&#x27;d read the first book a couple of years ago but never got around to reading the rest until this year. Note that when I say &quot;the rest&quot; I&#x27;m excluding that one book that was written by another author after Douglas Adams&#x27; passing. I may still read it one day, but I&#x27;m not in any hurry to do so.<p>In terms of non-fiction:<p><i>Real-World Reasoning: Toward Scalable, Uncertain Spatiotemporal, Contextual and Causal Inference</i> by Ben Goertzel, Nil Geisweiller, and Lucio Coelho is the stand-out of the lot. <i>How the Mind Works</i> by Steven Pinker and <i>How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe?</i> by John R Anderson are also worthy of a mention.

Probably not a classic for the ages, but I enjoyed the new Max Brooks novel, <i>Devolution</i>. It does for Bigfoot what World War Z (the book, not the film) did for zombies by injecting a bit of versimilitude and detail stolen from reality.<p><i>Freeze Frame Revolution</i> by Peter Watts combines epic mind bending ideas with some hard sci-fi details.<p><i>Piranesi</i> by Susanna Clark was very Iain (M) Banks style epic fantasy.

I really enjoyed reading Build by Tony Fadell. It&#x27;s about building startups, but the stories embedded throughout the book really makes it. He speaks about pouring his heart into little details highlighting his experience designing the iPod, iPhone, and Nest. Lot of inspirational motivation balanced with practical examples and reality checks.<p>One of my favorite examples of a seemingly tiny, yet delightful experience was a tool delivered with each Nest thermostat. It was a beautifully crafted screwdriver with multiple magnetic heads (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;zgZRnS1.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;zgZRnS1.png</a>). Why? To make it easier to install the thermostat without having to drag out the process to go look for a tool. But it doesn&#x27;t just stop there. Even years down the line if someone were to open their tool drawer, they could have a delightful run-in with their Nest tool once again, which can help them with something else! Small details, but apparently it was an iconic memento for the company.

&#x27;Psalm for the Wild Built&#x27; and &#x27;Prayer for the Crown-Shy&#x27;, both by Becky Chambers.<p>They are a pair of sci-fi novellas that explore the idea of finding purpose (and much more) through a series of adventures and conversations between a monk and a robot.<p>They are incredibly good thinky-feely books. I have ordered a copy of Psalm for at least a half dozen people in my life in the last month.

Feeling Great The New Mood Therapy. Fantastic book for therapy. It has helped me significantly. Even though the situations, and dialogues described by the author might come as edgy sometimes but they are helpful nonetheless. I haven’t finished reading the book but I am looking forward to what else the book provides.<p>The concept of distortions is bang on.

Leech, by Hiron Ennes. Gothic SF&#x2F;horror story, set in a cold northern town built around a crumbling chateau. A doctor from the Institute is sent to find out how the previous doctor died, because the Institute has always known immediately when one of their own dies, until now. Memorable characters inhabit an unsettling world.<p>Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory. SF yarn in which a startup created a drug that makes you know that God is real and loves you. The protagonist is one of its creators who had too much of it, and is now followed around by an archangel in a lab coat that only she can see. The drug was never released because of side-effects like this, but now it’s been spotted in the wild and she wants it eradicated. This one is tons of fun.

The two books that really stayed with me the most this year are Father and Sons by Turgenev and 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.<p>Both are classics and fairly well known.<p>The former is a dive into niihilism and how destructive some of the ideas might be. It has some really impactful imagery.<p>The latter is a portal to a living world dipped in magical realism that one can get lost in. It is beautifully written and has a neat cyclical nature to it.

“21 Lessons for the 21st Century”, by Yuval Harari. I am blown away.<p>His first book, “Sapiens” clarified a few cultural concepts which made the world a little easier to understand. This book is a firehose of more of that. Harari explains complex political, sociological, cultural problems through a practical lens. The book provides little advice, but a lot of tools for understanding. It’s left-leaning, but carnal and if you are sensitive about your views, do not read it. On the other hand, if you are curious, looking for perspectives and tools for understanding the world around us, and are not afraid to have your views challenges or upturned, give it a go.

2022 was the year I learned how to articulate what a random email or piece of paper means to me, whether there is work to be done about it, what the work looks like when it has been completed, and what my next physical step to do it is.<p>That&#x27;s right folks, I read getting things done by David Allen, and as per my usual modus operandi, I am at the far end of the adoption cycle near the laggards.<p>But I read the book five or maybe six times now, twice as a paperback, the rest via audiobook.<p>Why? Because I wanted to be sure that I survived the initial onboarding of making the good habits in the book and implementing the system last for the two years needed to make it stick.

Burn Rate - written by Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos. It’s part startup story part mental health story. It’s very well written and goes into deep detail about his struggle with bi-polar disorder.<p>Project Hail Mary, The Martian, and Artemis - science fiction books by Andy Weir. All very different and very technical. I like Project Hail Mary the most. One of the best sci-fi books I’ve ever read.<p>Turn the Ship Around, by David Marquet. It’s a story about turning followers into leaders from the perspective of a military submarine captain. I’ve read dozens of management and leadership book over the years, but this one really resonated with me.

I&#x27;ve read over fifty books this year (I read a lot). The ones I&#x27;ve enjoyed the most are:<p>* The MurderBot Series (Wells) - So good I read them all twice through<p>* The Interdependency Series (Scalzi) - Creative and fun, but I didn&#x27;t like the wrap-up and ending.<p>* Project Hail Mary - Surprising fun! <i>jazz hands</i><p>* Old Man&#x27;s War series (Scalzi) - First three were great, last three were so-so<p>* Anne of Green Gables - My daughters loved this one. I just now got around to reading it and found it deeply touching AND amusing. I laughed aloud a lot!<p>* Lord of the Rings - I re-read it once a year.

Read 34 books (and audiobooks, I guess that counts) so far this year. Best have been<p>Fiction:<p>- Revolutionary road by Richard Yates<p>- Anathem by Neal Stephenson<p>- Silence by Shusaku Endo<p>Non fiction:<p>- Atomic Habits by James Clear<p>- Man’s search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl

For all the music and emotional intelligence lovers: The storyteller by Dave Grohl <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;57648017-the-storyteller?ac=1&amp;from_search=true&amp;qid=VKAsNFdMWa&amp;rank=3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;57648017-the-storyteller...</a>

I&#x27;d say <i>Pastoral</i> by Andre Alexis. This was the last book in the <i>Quincunx cycle</i> that I read -- five novels that share characters and settings but are not sequels; each story uses a different theme and style. This one is a <i>pastoral</i> of course. Others include <i>Fifteen Dogs</i>, an apologue; <i>Ring</i>, a romance; etc.<p>I had also read <i>Ring</i> this year and I was surprised that I had enjoyed it as much as I did. I&#x27;ve never been huge into romance novels. It has definitely left me more open minded.<p><i>Pastoral</i> was my favorite for its sheer, stunning beauty and the tragic, bucolic little town and the people that lived in it. I was taken most of all by how effortlessly Alexis can dive deep from the scents and sounds of a scene into the emotional reasoning and memories of a character. The story has a pleasing cadence and tempo. The mystery of the relationships of the townsfolk and the challenges to the main characters&#x27; faith feel so real and believable. It&#x27;s a wonderful escape.

“Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche” by Ethan Watters.<p>I have been chronically depressed since I was 6 years old. I have had suicidal tendencies as long as I can recall being sentient. I would estimate this book singlehandedly cured 90% of my mental “disorders”. If you have ever suffered from depression or any “mental disorder” you will thank me after reading it, trust me.

The Unwomanly Face of War: A Oral Histoy of Women in World War II. By Svetlana Alexievich.<p>Thought it was timely, and wanted to know more about the soviet perspective, from a different angle. Easy to go through as it&#x27;s a series of short oral accounts written down. Sometimes a person shares a single memory, sometimes a few. Hard to get through at points due to the subject, obviously.

Railsea by China Miéville - it is a marvel of imagination and world building.<p>G.S. Denning&#x27;s &#x27;Warlock Holmes&#x27; series always makes me laugh out loud with Holmes cast as a rather unstable magician being bailed out by the ever-logical Watson.<p>The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi foresees dystopian cities and cutthroat water rights along the Colorado river.

I&#x27;ve read 80+ fictional books so far (mostly fantasy and sci-fi) and these are my 5-star reads:<p>* &quot;Legends &amp; Lattes&quot; by Travis Baldree<p>* &quot;Dreadgod&quot; by Will Wight<p>* &quot;Tongue Eater&quot; by John Bierce<p>* &quot;The Umbral Storm&quot; by Alec Hutson<p>* &quot;Soul Relic&quot; by Samuel Hinton<p>* &quot;The Weirkey Chronicles&quot; by Sarah Lin<p>* &quot;The Eldest Throne&quot; by Bernie Anés Paz<p>* &quot;The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet&quot; by Becky Chambers (reread)

I read the main Earthsea Cycle books by Ursula Le Guin. Really enjoyed them, her prose is so evocative yet terse, especially in comparison to what would now be considered young adult fiction.

Dune books 1-4 I tried reading book 5 (heretics of dune) but lost interest after around 100 pages due to the sheer number of different characters that I couldn’t keep track of!

I Choose Elena and My Body Keeps Your Secrets by Lucia Osbourne Crowley.<p>Can highly recommend these to any man who is wanting to better understand issues of sexual assault against women, in terms of how normalised it is, the challenges women face in being believed by other men and the long term health effects that manifest themselves after such attacks and after hiding the truth.<p>Wanted to mention it here because I become more aware each passing week of the blindspots in the HN community regarding the struggles and perspectives of women.<p>If you want to get a bit out of the male dominated tech bubble and learn about some drastically different experiences from your own these are highly recommend.<p>Edit to differentiate the two books: The first is basically a memoir of the author in terms of her own experiences with assault and chronic illness, where the latter is a sort of collaged memoir from multiple people.<p>The latter is definitely the more powerful book and the breath of experience juxtaposed with the commonality of those experiences is very effective. If you&#x27;re only going to read one I go for My Body Keeps Your Secrets. However there is enough that builds upon the first book, I Chose Elena, that I think it&#x27;s definitely worth checking them out. The vulnerability shown by the author when she reflects on ICE in MBKYS is breath taking

&quot;How Bad are Bananas&quot; by Mike Berners-lee (Tims brother). A great and easy read with the aim of putting the carbon footprint of things into perspective.<p>&quot;Immune&quot; by Philipp Dettmer (founder of Kurzgesagt). Deep dives into aspects of the immune system, particularly of interest after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Piranesi was a comforting other worldly read that really helped with escapism.

I haven&#x27;t read a single book in 2022. Somehow, over the years, I&#x27;ve lost the habit of reading.

Nick Lane&#x27;s &#x27;Transformer - The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death&#x27; (2022).<p>I read it just after reading his 2016 novel &#x27;The Vital Question - Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life&#x27;.<p>Can recommend both, and I believe both were suggestions I picked up from HN originally.

Fiction - I started reading the Cosmere universe by Brandon Sanderson.<p>Mistborn Trilogy, Stormlight Archives, and Warbreaker.<p>Pick 1 - Start with Warbreaker or Mistborn.<p>I&#x27;m new to fantasy fiction and his writing totally hooked me. I think of &quot;hard&quot; fantasy as a puzzle. The world has a unique physics and the plot of the story is based around characters figuring out how to operate inside of those physics... what are the bounds, how can it be manipulated, etc?<p>What I&#x27;ve loved about Sanderson is the plot turns are never Ex Machina. Every new development fits inside the rules of the world and deepens your understanding of what can be.

Designing your life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.<p>How applying the principles of design thinking to our life can help us have a better life.

Hmm. This year wasn&#x27;t that great for me book-wise, but there were some decent contenders:<p>- Ellul&#x27;s - Technological Society - picked up on HN recommendation and I will admit it is interesting and worthwhile.<p>- Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism - Hard to implement and certainly not a quick fix, but the author is onto something here.<p>Fiction:<p>I am re-reading Witcher the series. It is still one of the few books, where it is worth to learn the author&#x27;s language to read the original ( even though translation is also very good ). I forgot how good it is.

Re-read Blindsight and Echopraxia by Watts, dark dystopia about the singularity.<p>Differently Morphous and Existentially Challenged by Yahtzee Croshow, a lot of magic comedy.<p>The Price of Time by Chancellor, about how the current financial everything bubble came to exist and how it&#x27;s always the same story.<p>The World for Sale by Blas, about the history of commodities traders in the past century.<p>Chaos by O&#x27;Neill, 20 year investigation about Manson murders finds ties to government agencies.<p>I read about 10 other books but they were all terrible. It&#x27;s becoming more and more a needle in a haystack.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;48484.Blindsight" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;48484.Blindsight</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;18490708-echopraxia" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;18490708-echopraxia</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;59056157-the-price-of-time" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;59056157-the-price-of-ti...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;52199304-the-world-for-sale" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;52199304-the-world-for-s...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;43015073-chaos" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;43015073-chaos</a>

Guide to Reliable Distributed Systems by Kenneth P. Birman: gave me the same effect that the people who read DDIA&#x2F;Designing Data Intensive Applications claimed it gave them.<p>I first tried reading DDIA before it since it was newer and it had more hype. But DDIA is so dense that most of the things went over my head. Then I came across Ken Birman&#x27;s book and I found it easier to follow. Although it had a hundred pages more than DDIA, it doesnt cover as much ground such as it didnt mention object storages. The niche topics were also better in DDIA, such as error correction schemes was only mentioned once in Birman&#x27;s book. DDIA seems to be more complete. So I&#x27;ll re-read DDIA again next year.<p>Harassment Architecture: saw it on Amazon and I could never understand the humor behind the reviews for the book. So I tried a few pages, and something about it was gripping. All I could say is that I&#x27;ve never read anything like it.

Spec fiction - Nona the Ninth (my review: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;timothyrice.org&#x2F;nona&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;timothyrice.org&#x2F;nona&#x2F;</a>)<p>Third entry in the absolutely fantastic Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. Highly, highly recommended it.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;series&#x2F;229503-the-locked-tomb" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;series&#x2F;229503-the-locked-tomb</a>

I Contain Multitudes. By Ed Yong. Everyone should know more about bacteria. Especially considering we are carrying trillions of them in our body and further gazillions surround us. And yes, we are related, more than you&#x27;d think.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;27213168-i-contain-multitudes" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;27213168-i-contain-multi...</a>

Cosmos and The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. Sagan has many great books, but these two I read in 2022. I love the way he writes, and there&#x27;s something so optimistic about it.<p>At the same time, it&#x27;s saddening to see that important issues he&#x27;s mentioning 40-50 years ago still not solved, such as climate change and the threat of nuclear warfare.

Two vastly different ones:<p>* Starting the evolution by Namkhai Norbu - on spiritual development using an authentic tradition, not some new age stuff<p>* John Osterhout&#x27;s Philosophy of Software Design - vastly overdue, I love this book. I already apply many points presented in this book but several fragments gave me an enlightening perspective on my daily tasks

The ones that stand out: Fiction: Project Hail Mary. Non-fiction: The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch

Don&#x27;t know if it counts as a book, but I read through The Art of the Propagator, and it&#x27;s a very enlightening text on a programming paradigm that may be a good fit to certain problems that the two popular paradigms (OO and FP) may not be ideally suited to.

I&#x27;ve just finished The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class by Joel Kotkin and I share many of its worries.<p>On a more light hearted side<p>The Diary Of A Bookseller (Shaun Bythell) A Factotum in the Book Trade (Shaun Bythell) Children of Hurin (Tolkien)

Leading in Ambiguity: How to Transform Uncertainty into Possibilities by Katrin Elster

Team of Teams by Stanley McChrystal<p>Although the first third was a slog (a simplistic history of management), the rest was filled with great insights in every page. I read those very slowly, almost meditating, because it was so good.

Bobiverse and Project Hail Mary<p>They&#x27;re sci-fi but fun reads.

William Poundstone, Fortune&#x27;s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street<p>Scott Patterson, The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It

Somewhat related… I’m seeing way too many non-fiction books with titles like:<p>“BLAH — The New Science of FOO. And how to really BAR your BAZ”<p>(Fill in your variations if BLAH FOO BAR BAZ)<p>And I instinctively do not want to read them :)

Salvation Sequence by Peter G Hamilton<p>A realistic alien invasion hard scifi trilogy set during different periods of time in our future. &quot;Read&quot; in audiobook format, narrated by John Lee who is also great.

This year I discovered the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman, currently five books. I read them with my son and we also had the audiobooks, which are really the best audiobooks I’ve encountered because of the voice acting.<p>At first I found the concept of the series so outlandish that I really couldn’t imagine what to expect, but it turned out that the series is incredibly complex and has a lot of interesting twists and character development. Big recommendation from me.

Madonna in a Fur Coat, by Sahabattin Ali - a short Turkish novel published in 1943, sad and charming, reminds me of Somerset Maugham.<p>The Blood Oranges, by John Hawkes - he&#x27;s a postmodern writer, but this short novel is pretty straightforward. The narrator is the best-written hedonist Casanova I&#x27;ve ever read, and the novel explores both the perks and the fallout of this outlook on life. Maybe read alongside The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, which explores similar issues and is also extremely good.

<p><pre><code> - Reread *The Diamond Age* - Neal Stephenson book on nanotech - Part way through *The Eighth Day of Creation* - A detailed history of biological accomplishments and discoveries in the 20th century; constructed from interviews with the heros - *Radical Abundance* - Drexler book on nanotech - *Neuromancer* - Inspirational scifi novel with a literary flare - *Children of Ruin* - Children of Time sequel; for those who like 8-legged creatures!</code></pre>

I&#x27;ve been mostly reading fiction:<p>Tom Holt &quot;Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City&quot; and its two sequels. Sardonic fantasy similar to Ursula Vernon. Fun.<p>Max Gladstone &quot;Last Exit&quot;. Magic&#x2F;alternate-worlds&#x2F;tentacled-horrors-ish America. Will definitely win the Hugo.<p>Chuck Tingle &quot;Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus&quot; (from which I learned that Chuck Tingle actually <i>writes the stories</i>, not just the title, and they&#x27;re ... actually not terrible and pretty funny and very meta.<p>Katherine Addison &quot;The Grief of Stones&quot;. Sequel to Goblin Emperor&#x2F;Witness for the Dead. Murder mystery in an extremely engaging industrial-era fantasy world.<p>Alix E. Harrow &quot;A Spindle Splintered&quot; and sequels. Fairy tales encounter the multiverse.<p>C L Polk &quot;Witchmark&quot; and sequels. Fantastic series in a world where magic is outlawed - but the rich are aware of and use it, and imprison and exploit the poor who use it.<p>Tamsyn Muir &quot;Nona the Ninth&quot;. Book 3 in Locked Tomb. More magic skeletons. A bit more of the backstory. Do I have any idea what&#x27;s going on? Not so much. But I love it.<p>Naomi Novik &quot;The Golden Enclaves&quot;. Scholomance book 3. Magic school, metaphor for boomers ruining the world and climate change, probably. Good conclusion.<p>qntm &quot;There is no antimemetics division&quot;. A SCP novel. Not quite as good as his &quot;Ra&quot; but fun and mindbending.<p>Becky Chambers &quot;The Galaxy and the Ground Within&quot;. A warm hug of a book. Travelers stranded at a space-rest-stop find they have something in common.<p>Charles Stross &quot;The Bloodline Feud&quot; and sequels. Alternate-universes-travel, Medici-style mercantilism feuds.<p>Madeline Miller &quot;Circe&quot;. Gorgeously written, captivating reimagining of Circe&#x27;s story. timeless.

For non-fiction, Graeber and Wengrow&#x27;s <i>The Dawn of Everything</i> (which I&#x27;m still working through the references of as well, many of which are also good).<p>For fiction, my sample size this year is sadly small but probably Becky Chambers&#x27;s <i>The Galaxy, and the Ground Within</i>, the final(?) book in the Wayfarers (<i>The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet</i>) series. A great end to the series, and given that it must have been plotted originally pre-2020 oddly contemporary.

<i>The Acoustical Foundations of Music</i> has been filling a role in my geek-out time rotation.<p>Caveat: I am not well-versed on acoustics or music and that might be why I am enjoying it.

“The anatomy of peace”, by the Arbinger institute.<p>It has helped me navigate conflicts better and I have become more succesful through better collaborations and stronger relationships.

Can’t believe I’m the first&#x2F;only one to post these:<p>- Upgrade by Blake Crouch<p>- Biography of the Pixel by Alvy Ray Smith<p>Like Project Hail Mary, Upgrade is the kind of book I really wanted back when I was a michael crichton fan. His last book, Recursion was really my favorite. I love books that secretly teach you a thing or two and celebrate science and engineering.<p>Biography of the Pixel was a fascinating history of computer graphics and fundamental graphics concepts.

Nail It Then Scale It: The Entrepreneur&#x27;s Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation Book by Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom

I listened to The Expanse and First Law audiobooks and can highly recommend both of them. Stories are great, narrators are even better.

Beyond Messy Relationships: Divine Invitations to Your Authentic Self<p>Really opened my persona in being gracious towards our partners platonic or otherwise.

Dawn of Everything by Wengrow&#x2F;Graeber, by far. Hard to take many liberal projects seriously after this one. Kicked my butt

- The Network State, by Balaji S. Srinivasan<p>- The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964<p>- The Minimalist Entrepreneur, by Sahil Lavingia<p>- Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, by Serhii Plokhy.<p>He also wrote an excellent book about Chernobyl which I read last year.

“Becoming Your Own Banker” by Nelson Nash was the most practically applicable book I read. The concept was totally foreign to me. I’m still thinking it through many months later, but am about to take my first concrete action &#x2F; test run of the idea of “infinite banking” as a result of reading it.

&quot;Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the by internet&quot; by Richard Moss.

The Staff Engineer&#x27;s Path, Tanya Reilly.<p>Being a staff engineer comes with challenges that seniors don&#x27;t have, mainly the definition and content of the role itself. Tanya dives into what and how those should be handled in an easy to read book.

1. Like every year &quot;The daily stoic&quot; 2. &quot;The twilight zone&quot; by Werner Herzog 3. &quot;Thinking fast and slow&quot; 4. &quot;Hang the red lantern&quot; 5. Currently reading &quot;Menschliches allzu menschliches&quot; by Nietzsche

Code, 2nd edition, by Charles Petzold.

Queens of Jerusalem by Katherine Pangonis.<p>Amazing book about the role female leaders played in the “Holy Land.”<p>She spends chapter after chapter talking about these fascinating women who built a country.<p>She also tries to talk about the women rulers in the nearby Islamic countries. But she can’t, because there aren’t any.<p>I strongly recommend!

The Cold Start Problem is informative and a great read. Not only is it great about its subject matter, but it is a rarely non-self-aggrandising business book. It&#x27;s about solving a particular problem, not the usual &quot;Look what I did!&quot; business book.

Project Hail Mary - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openlibrary.org&#x2F;works&#x2F;OL21745884W&#x2F;Project_Hail_Mary" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openlibrary.org&#x2F;works&#x2F;OL21745884W&#x2F;Project_Hail_Mary</a><p>Was very intriguing and fun

Vaclav Smil - How the world really works<p>Excellent read, I wonder what other readers think about it

Lot of great suggestions already on here, but the top of my list so far for 2022 is Chaos by James Gleick, Antifragile by Nassim Taleb, and Algorithms to Live By.

Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World&#x27;s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life by William Green. I learn a lot of lessons from great investors.

Haven&#x27;t read many books this year, but I&#x27;m currently reading Paddle to the Amazon. The story of a man from Winnipeg who takes his family on the longest canoe trip ever from Canada to the Amazon.

* Clean Architecture by Uncle Bob<p>* So Good They Can&#x27;t Ignore You by Cal Newport<p>* Deep Work by Cal Newport<p>* The Freelance Manifesto by Joey Korenman (even though I am far from being a motion designer, it still has a lot of good principles)

The Harder They Fall, by Budd Schulberg.<p>The best book I read this year, providing a glimpse on the crude reality of corruption on boxing, an immersion in the 40s, and a very human commentary on being defeated.

Neuromancer and Snow Crash

Can someone please help with listing of all the books mentioned here along with reason as list at some place ??

I&#x27;ve just finished <i>Humankind: A Hopeful History</i> by Rutger Bregman.<p>It provides a lot of strong evidence for an optimistic rather than cynical take on human nature.

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware

Rich Dad Poor Dad. It completely changed how I view the world of personal finance and has already changed my future for the better.

The Road Ahead by Bill Gates (1995)<p>It made me realize it&#x27;s not companies I would like to be working at but people I would like to be working with.

Ali Wong, Dear girls.<p>Very funny yet insightful. One of those unpretentious books that is actually a lot less stupid than the cover suggests.

The Noonday Demon. A beautiful book on depression. Heartbreaking and life-affirming in turns.

Why we are polarized by Ezra Klein

Fiction:<p><i>Changing Places</i> and <i>Small World</i> by David Lodge. Quite old, quite funny, lots of boys (professors) behaving badly stuff.<p>History:<p><i>War of the Running Dogs</i> by Noel Barber. A history of the communist insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s. At one time the British efforts were thought to provide a model for the US to follow in Vietnam; but the circumstances were so different that it is hard to imagine how anyone thought so.<p>Philosophy:<p><i>On Human Freedom</i> and <i>The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays</i> by Schelling. Schelling was one of the German Idealist that I had never tried to read (well, there was one volume that I couldn&#x27;t make headway in ten years ago).<p><i>The Science of Knowledge</i> by Fichte, which had always defeated me in intermittent attempts to read it over forty-five years.<p><i>A Concept of Justice</i> by John Rawls. Everyone talked about it, I hadn&#x27;t read it. I do need to read it again.<p><i>Natural Goodness</i> by Philippa Foot. An argument for a more or less Aristotelian understanding of ethics.<p><i>On Beauty and Being Just</i> by Elaine Scarry. I find her writing on beauty more convincing than her attempt to tie it back to a development of a sense of justice.

My two favorites that stand out this year:<p>Earth Abides by George Stewart 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

&quot;How to do nothing&quot;

Pachinko, Three Body Problem

Paul Wade: Convict Conditioning<p>Less intellectual than most of the books mentioned here, but more healthy.<p>[Edt]

Manhattan For Rent, 1785-1850, by Prof Elizabeth Blackmar. Academic study of the rise of private property as an asset in the pre and post colonial era in Manhattan. Not that well written but <i>extremely</i> insightful. Private real property as an income producing asset has a LONG history of course- is the reason there is written history, really, to a first approximation- but Manhattan real property in this time saw a wholesale shift from abundance to deliberately managed scarcity, with all kinds of ramifications echoing even today, including why is there even a Donald Trump, what is driving back to work in COVID, why are housing prices what they are, and so on and so forth. Book is definitely not for everyone, and requires relatively intimate knowledge of Manhattan geography, but the financialization of real property is the F=ma of the human world. Book is a slog but super valuable.

The Contact Paradox, by Keith Cooper<p>It’s about the search for alien life, but it blends science with philosophy which is a very unique way of approaching the issue. It’s also very well researched.<p>The Man who solved the market, by Gregory Zuckerman<p>It’s the story of Jim Simons and Renaissance, the hedge fund with the best returns in the industry. Very informative and it approaches the development of the firm from the viewpoint of different people.<p>This is how they tell me the world ends, by Nicole Perlroth<p>This is about Zero Days and the environment they get developed and the consequences for society. It’s very well researched, although as with every book that’s written by a non-tech person it has its flaws. But overall enjoyed it a lot.<p>In the garden of beasts, by Erik Larson<p>The story of the US ambassador to Germany while Hitler was in power. You get a first hand glimpse of the environment and the atmosphere of the era, as also the intricacies of the Nazi party.

read amazing Books on systems(not programming related). It tells how things are related and impact one another<p>The fifth principle by senge System primer by donnella meadows

Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business by Anja Shortland, which is a fascinating exploration of kidnap insurance, and argues that it’s been a force in keeping down instances of kidnap for ransom by effectively regulating the market for kidnappings.<p>Escape, by Marie Le Conte, which does an excellent job of articulating why the internet feels like it lost its soul as the world jumped on board. It’s a wonderful love letter to the internet of the early 2000s, mourning the loss of the crazy Wild West that was.<p>What If? 2 by Randall Monroe, of XKCD fame. The third of his books applying serious science to ridiculous scenarios. If you hang out here you’ll probably enjoy it.

Reread Dune Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.<p>Highly recommended.

A chronicle of a death foretold

Bronze Age Mindset<p>If one book from the 21st century will be remembered in 500 years, I am convinced this will be it.

- Elon Musk biography was interesting (just finished before acquisition) - it’s amazing how close to failure his companies were.<p>- So good they can’t ignore you — some interesting takeaways<p>- Atomic habits - only takeaway I remember is habit stacking<p>- I’m almost finished with Well of Ascension - I think the use of metal is a creative source of super powers

you sleep i watch

Sex God Method.

Non-fiction: Disinformation, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa<p>Fiction: Dune and Asimov&#x27;s The Last Question.

I didn’t read a single book. I deployed to production nearly 2000 times instead.

I have read almost all of Zecharia Sitchin works on Anunnaki, the ancient astronauts, this year. Still have couple of books to go. I read the 12th planet when in elementary school a long time ago and always wanted to read more on this. So I finally did and am very glad. Best things is that he is merely interpreting in his own way all the found sumerian, akkadian, babylonian... literature and jewish writings and bible. So no one can say he is wrong because there is no authority on interpretation of those writings and translations. You can choose to go along with his ideas or not. He does not force-feed you anything, which I like. And in the end, his version of our history makes the most sense to me from anything to this day, however weird it might be at first. Scientists also confirmed the mathematically expected existence of the famous Nibiru so with time, more and more proof is confirming his views, along with new discoveries of writings and artefacts. One negative sides of his writing, after the first 12th planet s that it becomes too abstracts - descriptions of land, locations, structures... with lacking images in the books the reader becomes a bit lost and disconnected. But when he is talking about stories and events that took place in the past, that&#x27;s when you&#x27;re hooked in. Also the first book has about 80% of everything, the rest of the books is a lot of repetition for new readers and not much new information. Still worth reading but one will get most out of the 12th planet and I&#x27;d say the Anunnaki chronicles which is kind of a summary of his work and i think the last book released by his estate put together fro all his previous released and unreleased works.