Ask HN: Books You Read in 2019?

[dinosaurs]

I would love to know which books you’ve read in 2019 and which you would recommend.

Some of my favourite reads were:

Fascism: a warning (Albright)

Sapiens (Harari)

Normal People (Rooney)

I will comment with a full list of my recommendations.

[playing_colours]

Recently, I am unsatisfied about spending a lot of time on consuming knowledge, rather then producing. As soon as I get to some level of expertise in some area, the benefit of passive reading approaches zero. So I plan to write more and code more (mastering Julia for mathematics and CS) in 2020.

A few titles I enjoyed this year:

"An Invitation to Applied Category Theory" by Brendan Fong, David I. Spivak. It was fun to dig deeper into categories and read how you can apply thinking in them to different domains: databases, signal processing, circuits. Some mathematical background is probably required. It is available for free as a PDF: http://math.mit.edu/~dspivak/teaching/sp18/ or if you are, like me, love collecting good titles in paper, a hardcover copy is nice with good paper and colour pictures: https://www.amazon.com/Invitation-Applied-Category-Theory-Co...

"Can't Hurt Me" by David Goggins. https://davidgoggins.com/book/ It helped me to start running, and I keep doing it. It improved my mindset about overcoming physical discomfort, inspired to cultivate a savage mindset within. I lost a few kgs as well. There is an audio version of it.

"Turn the Ship Around" by David Marquet http://davidmarquet-com.3dcartstores.com/Autographed-Book-Ha... A book on leadership, told as a story of transforming the team on the nuclear submarine USS Santa Fe. Not that boring like usual leadership titles.

[sentientforest]

Data Intensive Applications

This and Object Prototypes (You Don't Know JS Series)

Fall: Or Dodge in Hell

Fortress Marin

Count Zero

Become What You Are (Alan Watts)

Swords and Circuitry

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

The High Sierra of California

Trees of Power

I highly recommend Data Intensive Applications, as have many others on HN.

If you live around San Francisco, and don't know the history of the shore batteries across the Bay, Fortress Marin is a nice, short, illustrated history of California's coastal defenses. There are good places to go hiking / camping in that area around the old fortifications.

I'm into planting trees and gardening, so I thoroughly enjoyed Trees of Power by Akiva Silver.

[mortivore]

In no particular order the best ones I've read this year(so far) are:

Children of the Nameless by Brandon Sanderson - Probably one of the few very good magic the gathering books.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt - excellent overview of the emperor

King Rat by James Clavell - fictional depiction of being a prisoner in a Japanese camp during WW2.

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann - talks about the natives in the Americas after first contact. Follow up to 1491.

Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin - Good book for people looking to write clearer, more understandable code

The Elric Saga Part 1 by Michael Moorcock - Interesting protagonist.

Currently enjoying and will finish by end of year:

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern - It's about stories so far. If you liked the Night Circus, then you will like this. Great atmosphere.

[rocco337]

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable - One of best industry related books I have read, and I think I need to read it couple more times. I highly recommend it.

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle - Explains and gives you action plan for your weight loss/muscle gaining yourney. It cleary explains macronutrients, how much to eat and in what proportions. Since there is so much misinformation on internet about nutrition, this book exlpains "real truth" and makes it simple as it is.

Child 44 - Amazing novel that took place in Staljinistic Russia. Except great plot it gives you great insight in what was to live in Communist system under Staljin regime.

[tcbasche]

Some highlights of the year:

Children of Time - (Tchaikovsky)

Steve Jobs (Isaacson) - as an aside, I've started reading his daughters (Lisa) book Small Fry

The Colour out of Space - (Lovecraft)

iWoz (Wozniak)

The Design of Everyday Things (Norman)

[ceezuns]

Just some of the top of my head...

1. Permanent Record (Snowden)

2. Maude (Mabry)