[jeffreyrogers]

Red Plenty, a novel that is loosely about the invention of linear programming in the Soviet Union (a branch of mathematics, only somewhat related to computer programming). Good description of what the process of scientific invention feels like in the first part of the book. (if you want more depth on the mathematics of linear programming, Understanding and Using Linear Programming is a very readable (and short) textbook that only requires basic linear algebra knowledge).

Moneyball, people have been recommending this to me for years but I never read it because I find baseball so boring. I'm glad I finally read it. It's not really a book about baseball it's about finding and exploiting unappreciated edges.

Who We Are and How We Got Here, makes a lot of the recent genetic research on human origins understandable. Especially relevant this year due to Svante Paabo's nobel prize.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, possibly better than the movie (which I love). Reads a bit like a script. The dialog is very good and contains many "scenes" that aren't in the movie.

$12 Million Dollar Stuffed Shark, if you are interested in modern art or how things that look like something anyone could do can sell for absurd amounts of money this book is worth reading.

A Sailor of Austria: In Which Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Hapsburg Empire, one of the reviews I read before starting this described it as something like "a techno-thriller set on an austrian submarine in world war one". If that sounds appealing to you, you'll probably like this book. If not don't bother starting it.

[jmeister]

You will probably enjoy CMU Statistician Cosma Shalizi's fabulous review of Red Plenty: http://bactra.org/weblog/918.html

[michaelcao]

Moneyball is a good investing book by Michael Lewis. Legendary investor Bill Miller recommends to read books by Michael Lewis.