I don't tend to read biz books, but recently I've read a ton of <i>great</i> Russian texts.<p>The Master & Margarita<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita</a><p>Goethe's Faust & the story of Pontius Pilate retold in 1930s Russia. Really, I mean <i>really</i> damn good. Very readable.<p>Books 1 & 2 of The Gulag Archipelago<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago</a><p>An expansive history of the Soviet prison camp system, almost a folk history.<p>Petersburg<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petersburg_(novel)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petersburg_(novel)</a><p>Think Joyce writing about a revolutionary plot in the Petersburg of 1910-something, involving patricide and a time-bomb set for 24 hours from now. Yeah.<p>That and slowly working through Proust (book 5). I'm not sure if I really recommend it, but I'd be interested to hear thoughts from other smarty-pants HN people.
Practical Irrationality - Dan Ariely<p>It changed the way I think about pricing, among other things, forever. He makes some wild conclusions then backs them up with scientific experiments. Its a fun read to boot.
<i>Atlas Shrugged</i> - Ayn Rand<p><i>The Four Steps To The Epiphany</i> - Steve Blank<p><i>Blue Ocean Strategy</i> - W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne<p><i>Business Model Generation</i> - Alexander Osterwalder
Short story collection:
This is not your city, by Caitlin Horrocks<p>(<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Is-Not-Your-City/dp/1932511911" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Is-Not-Your-City/dp/1932511911</a>)<p>"The Psychopath Test" by Jon Ronson - he's really good journalist and writes well. This is an interesting read about the newish "psychopaths everywhere" meme.
I recently reread Cormac McCarthy's <i>All the Pretty Horses</i>.<p>I was prompted to do so by another book discussion. Not his best book - I think <i>Blood Meridian</i> and <i>The Road</i> are better - but McCarthy is a great writer.<p>For nerd non-fiction, I just read Jim Lovell's <i>Lost Moon</i> which though not a great book, is a good solid book about greatness.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595581030" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindn...</a>)
The Strangest Man - Graham Farmelo<p>A biography of Paul Dirac. Very good.<p>---------------<p>The Fabric of the Universe - David Deutsch<p>What picture can we paint of the universe if we take together the best theories we have about fundamental things like time, life, virtual reality, cosmology etc. Easily the best book i've read in recent years.
Consider that Deutsch is a very distinguished scientist in the field of quantum cryptography/computing. He is really good at explaining things in terms that non-physicists and experts alike can learn a lot!<p>---------------<p>Roadside Picnic - Strugatzky<p>Soviet Science Fiction book about the first and only visit
of earth by aliens. The approach is very unusual since there is never any direct contact between humans and the extra
terrestrial intelligence. The book is more like a study of human society and how it could develop if suddenly there was some extremely advanced technology available to us which we are too primitive to understand/control.
sigh , i read HN all day long and have no time left for books.<p>seriously though, i use books as a reference and just hack along, i mean technical books, for non-tech books, i have not read them for years.