Slashdot Mirror
What's the Best Book You Read This Year?
The year is almost over. It's time we asked you about the books you read over the past few months. Which ones -- new or old -- were your favourite? Please share just one title name in the comments section (and if you would like, rest in parenthesis). Also, which books are you looking forward to reading in the coming weeks?
1984
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I only read good books, but Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" impressed me this year. Are there any good books left after the death of Terry Pratchett and Jack Vance? Luckily that Gaiman is still alive.
http://www.palgrave.com/us/boo...
If by best you mean funniest? Oh good grief, yes, the "revolution"!
train-of-thought, but a good book
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Everything by Robert Ludlum.
Shoedog by Phil Knight. His memoir and the history of how he built Nike.
Now I have the skills to be President someday!
Daring Greatly - Brene Brown
Not just the best book I read this year, but one of the best I have read in my life.
I know it's hip for kids to rail on it, but it's really well written, and if you take it for what it is - half dramatised historical account and half allegory - you'll meet pretty much every trope that's been used in fiction since.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Cloud Atlas
The first two are related (one about Ken Kesey, the other by him), and I picked up Cloud Atlas on a whim.
I gots smelly feet you see.
The one that stood out more than others is Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque. It's an old book by modern standards but I think the plot will never get old, if anything it's only getting more relevant in our every day reality.
You can't handle the truth.
Cuckoo's Egg. Cliff Stoll. It's excellent. Here's a link to the book on Amazon. If you're a sysadmin you should read this. It's set in the era of mainframe unix and you'll know why the editor wars exist after reading. You'll also gain an idea of just how hard it is tracking someone when they have weaved their way through different links to get onto your system. Although factual, Cliff Stoll does a good job of telling the story with some good humour.
Why UNIX?
I have read nothing this year. Every day I try to spend time by myself I am constantly interrupted by emails, text messages, phone calls, radio calls, news of major world events, work, work, work, chores, commitments, and career. I now sleep with great difficulty and can hardly make it through a newspaper article without another interruption encroaching. By this time next year I will be Mad!
"The Brilliant Disaster" by Jim Rasenberger is a fascinating account of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
By NK Jemsin
The Dark Forest.
I love the Cixin Liu books... refreshing sci-fi.
Theory of Moral Sentiments
For those who care to really understand the political climate of 2016 and the near future
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
A real page turner. Blew threw it in 3 days.
Runner up is The War on Cops. Nothing like numbers to quell the tyranny of emotional reaction of social guilt.
The Butt of all Slashdot Polls
The Myth of Mirror Neurons, by Gregory Hickok.
It's a "critical review" of the development of the theory of mirror neurons, done in layman's terms. As a layman myself, I can't say how valid the critique is, but the text itself is light reading and very entertaining.
Nerf said.
Now more than ever.
Very funny.
It's mandatory, just like 'Mein Kampf' was for his 'predecessor'.
(Finally got around to reading this. It was beautiful.)
Because the free time I had I used to write my own stories to get away from the constant stress of IT and other people.
It's gotten so bad that I had to decide to say goodbye to employment and take the plunge into writing full time to keep the little bit of sanity I have left.
Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse. This book in my opinion is the best literary classic combining humor, crime, and passion in a sedate and laughable way. Once you start reading you will not be able to put it down! Arguably the best book ever written by Sir Pelham G. Wodehouse, I was extremely gratified that he was finally recognized by the British Public -- a special section of his collection is in the British Library Archives and this was long overdue! Highly recommended!
I look forward to reading the Golf stories of P,G. Wodehouse in the new year.
Of course, about computer programming.
Worth a mention, in case some of us haven't heard about it yet.
1. IPv6 Essentials
2. Planning for IPv6
3. IPv6 for Beginners
4. Real World IPv6
5. DNS and BIND on IPv6
6. IPv6 Address Planning
by Ian Rankin
Getting Started with Data Science is definitely worth the time investment for anyone interested in data science and/or data analytics and seeking a more in-depth treatment about how to get started. The Art of Data Science provides a succinct overview using brief examples without delving into the hard-core material which makes this book an excellent introduction to data science.
Democrats: What Fucking Morons
Best book ever.
Shalamov, "Kolyma Tales". Small Gods by Pratchett was also good.
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World changed my view of Mongolia......Genghis Khan was actually kind of a good leader (which makes sense, since people were willing to follow him), and the book kind of changed how I saw history. That is, it helped me understand the broad trends and why things happened, all across the world, in the first half of the last millennium. Things aren't isolated, and the Mongols were the catalyst for communication throughout the world (including spreading plague, probably).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
translated by David Liu.
I read the whole Three Body Problem trilogy this year. A masterful work of speculative imagination. No wonder he's won so many awards.
Just wrapped up the series for the second time this year. Just like last year, and the year before.
Can't wait to start again next year.
Picked up Dorsai! from a bookshelf and kept going through the other four books from there.
Definitely, the books I enjoyed re-reading the most this year.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
shoe dog, the biography of Phil Knight founder of nike
Had this waiting to be read since i saw "The Pacific". Terrific book on what it was like to be a Pacific island hopping Marine rifleman in WWII.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
The current Slashdot crowd must be a riot at parties.
1984? Real upbeat...
The best book I've read this year was Jule Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon". Read a stack of books from Verne, actually, but this one was one of the most fun so far.
I mean, shooting people to the moon using a HUGE cannon - and missing (setting up the stage for the sequel)? Priceless! 19th century Science Fiction at it's finest.
His books are quite entertaining, with likeable characters (unfortunately tainted by certain, um, outdated social views) and oddball inventions. Though it is a bit dry at times.
Secret of Light by Walter Russell
Now reading some of his other books too.
Hugh Howey's Silo post-apocalyptic series is really worth reading. I read the first part, Wool, in a few days : it's about people living in a one hundred forty-four stories silo buried in the ground and the reason why they survive like that. Very good.
I went from dicking around with Event Sockets for about a week to getting an ESL perl script going in a day. Now I'm refactoring it by referring to other ideas elsewhere in the same book. Money well spent.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
I forget to mention your next year query. I will be rereading the entire Known Space series and related. It should let the pressure out of my brain. I shall start with Ringworld and Luis Wu with his motley crew.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Richard Dawkins traveling from the present back down what we currently know of the tree of life. 10+ years old. Fantastic book.
Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny (3rd reread)
Honor Harrington Series by David Weber
Multiverse Series (Hells Gate) by David Weber
John Rain Series by Barry Eisler
Please share just one title name in the comments section (and if you would like, rest in parenthesis).
You must be new here. Attempting to tell people how you want them to post won't work on Slashdot. At all.
Best book I read this year was an old one, "Dangerous Visions", edited by Harlan Ellison. And Knuth's TAoCP, Volume 4 Fascicle 6, was also the best one. So was Hitchen's "god is not Great".
None of the books that came out in 2016 that I read were even good enough to reach a top-500. Most new books these days are utter crap, with a quality akin to paint-by-numbers.
This year's books:
1. Werner Munter 3x3 Lawinen (in German). A book on estimating the probability of an avalanche and how to reduce the avalanche risk while skiing)
2. Yanis Varoufakis, And the weak suffer what they must? (in English). A book on the recent/ongoing European economic crisis. Very eye-opening. It strengthened my pessimism on the topic, although the book itself ends in a rather optimistic tone. It confirmed my suspicion that the former greek finance minister was more of an academic and less of a competent politician.
3. Charles Bukowski, Post office. Finished it in a day. There are very few books that can be read so easily and be so multy faceted and insightful at the same time.
I would be inclined to vote for Post Office, but the book on avalanches is already proving itself quite useful...
Full Title:
Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in The Post-Crisis World
by Ruchir Sharma,
Sharma is an investment analyst and brings a very pragmatic perspective to the economic situation in the world. He backs up his opinions with a lot history and statistics, but it is not a dry or hard to read book. Apparently he has met everybody. For example, he cites an incident when he gave a talk in Russia, with Putin present. He praised how Putin had done things to revive the economy, but suggested that he was now steering a wrong course. He saw Putin taking notes and thought Putin was writing down his advice. Uh Uh, he became very much persona non grata in Russia after that.
I think I should also mention my runner up, Hillbilly Elegy a sort of memoir of growing up by J. D. Vance. He grew up mostly in Ohio, but with a Hillbilly ancestry and cultural milieu. Eventually he graduated from Harvard Law School even though he was a fish out of water there. But I would say his main purpose was to provide insight into the poor, and poorly educated, lower class white segment of America, from an insider's point of view.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Great book, awesome conflict, cool, relevant tech, just love it all around!
Definitely The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Enchiridion by Epictetus, and various writings by Seneca the Younger. Anybody in the quest for philosophical insight would be well served by giving the Stoics a shot. Kind of a western analytical version of Zen Buddhism.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The Aeronaut's Windlass, by Jim Butcher.
Its a mix of fantasy, Roman forerunners, and steampunk.
Fuck you and your fairy tales.
With Multiple Personality Disorder: An Unauthorized Autobiography
A charming little retro science fiction novelette that's actually the preface of a book-series in the works. Could have been titled, "How I brought bell-bottoms and funk back by saving the world."
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman
A hoot and a half to read.
We watch youtubes now gramps!
I think it accurately expresses what Americans want as a whole.
I had a similar experience. Turns out that 'Good News' is an exta strong strain of cannabis. It certainly helped me experience some visions
You literally read the whole Bible every year? Or just sections? That's a lot of reading.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's amazing how relevant his criticism is today.
followed by The Sea Wolf, both by Jack London.
I started picking up out of copyright publications to read on holiday, using the free books app and enjoyed these immensely.
My favorite book this year was Digital Apollo. It's as much about the human/machine relationship as it is about the computer itself. Great book!
Becky Chambers "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" and it's sequel, "Closed & Common Orbit" come to mind. They're sci-fi with good plot and intrigue, but without being overly dark and heavy, as is the case with so much sci-fi and fantasy of late...
I'll tell you what, somebody left this book at my house back in April and I threw it in my pack on a road trip from Connecticut to Houston, Texas. Bored with motel TV, I started reading it sitting next to an empty pool not far from Gettysburg, PA and continued a bit every night. I had some Bo Crowder-looking dude give me the fisheye in a Waffle House in Tennessee when he saw what I was reading, and a Civil War buff in Virginia sat down and talked to me for like an hour in a diner since he had read the book and loved it.
I'm not usually a Civil War history guy, and political biographies have never been my thing, but this dude... I highly recommend this book. I bet your local library has like a dozen copies, so you'll be able to read it for free right now.
https://www.amazon.com/America...
You are welcome on my lawn.
When Amazon had the ebook version of "Battlefield: Earth" by L. Ron Hubbard for a buck, I finally bought a copy to see if the book was as bad as the movie. Surprisingly, the book was very good. I'm now halfway through the "Mission Earth" decalogy (ten volume) series.
birth of a theorem by cedric villani. fast paced and intricate, i couldn't put it down.
'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss (also its sequel, 'A Wise Man's Fear')
By E. O. Wilson, the myrmecologist/evolutionary biologist, explaining the evolutionary origins of humanity and the inherent conflict between self-promoting and group-benefiting pressures that make us what we are. Fascinating reading filled with tidbits about the variety of life on Earth, finishing with a rebuttal of scientific dogma that demonstrates the vibrant process of science. This book changed my view of the world.
The chapters in The Meaning of Human Existence are collected from earlier writings, giving the book a choppy feel. A longer, more detailed, less anthropocentric, but (at least to me) equally fascinating treatment of the material by the same author is The Social Conquest of Earth.
The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Not-Giving-Spending/dp/0316270725/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482778852&sr=8-1&keywords=the+life+changing+magic+of+not+giving+a+fck
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
The Grapes of Wrath, i seen the movie a few times and i knew the movie is based on a book so i decided to read the book, and the book is better and there are some differences, and the book is a lot more tragic than the movie, it is a great book i recommend it
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Cuckservatives: How "Conservatives" Betrayed America
Love it or hate it, the alt-right is growing in influence and most of us would be wise to learn more about what they think and what they want.
See that "Preview" button?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He wrote it in 2016, and I finally got around to having a copy. An insightful look at existential malaise in Europe through the filter of Muslim immigration, Catholicism and hookers.
Alternative Right.
Go to the source: Alternative Right
Alternative Right.
"To Build A Fire.
Alternative Right.
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, by Samuel P. Huntington.
Alternative Right.
1984 argues that humanity is destroyed by totalitarianism; Brave New World by Aldous Huxley argues that human individualism creates the conditions for totalitarian rule.
Alternative Right.
The Living Labyrinth
By Ian Stewart and Tim Poston
The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets
By Simon Singh
Facebook
because I always pay cash
It is an enlightening book about how we deal with ambiguity. Definitely worth reading in these days.
One of those books that changes the way you see the world! Over 800 pgs of charts, graphs, statistics showing how VIOLENCE OF ALL KINDS AT EVERY LEVEL OF SOCIETY HAS DECLINED dramatically in the last few centuries. Makes you seriously wonder why the press seems to emphasize just the opposite, and everybody thinks the world is getting crazier and more dangerous. I noticed in the news that Mark Zuckerberg was reading it too.
Reading the Face of Battle by John Keegan. A study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. Only on the intro right now, but any book that spends the first 100 pages solely on the historiography of battlefield accounts has to be good.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
This is a history of WW2 tank warfare and the autobiography of the commander of several major Panzer divisions. Guderian was the top German tactician and proponent of the use of tanks. He was leader of a tank army that was involved in the Blitzkrieig in May 1940 including at Dunkirk and later in Russia You learn much about the rise of Hitler and his direct involvement in military decisions that led to the foolish attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 and the declaration of war against the US.
As the end of the war approached, Guderian realized that the best he could do was to protect the lives of his men from the maniacal ravings of Der Fuhrer. Although he was held in prison for several years after the end of the war, Guderian was never charged with a crime and was released. His time in prison gave him the opportunity to write his version of events.
As we enter an era of fascist rule in America, it's helpful to see how all this has happened before.
By George McDonald Fraser. Nothing better. I reread them every few years, just to refresh my Victorian era history :-)
History of the drug wars: the war on drugs and the war for drugs. Compelling argument that drugs are not the problem, prohibition is.
Damn jebbies made us read it Jr year.
I can honestly say, I've slept on just about every page. Cheated my way through Jr year catholic brainwashing. Wasn't doing anything for me, I hadn't gotten the early years of the slow grift.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The Mythical Man Month. Most people follow the antithesis of this book.
Light read, yes, but a surprisingly engaging novel.
Leatherman's Handbook II - Larry Townsend
ISBN-13: 978-1881684206
http://amzn.to/2i8uVZP
Next up is:
The Complete leatherboy Handbook - Vincent L. Andrews
ISBN-13: 978-0985900410
http://amzn.to/2i0qbY1
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Surprisingly engaging.
Coloring book edition by Fareed Cherry Pickin Zakaria. See all you dying white bitches @ Davos.
Achilles was not what you thought it was, lol.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Tower Of Basel
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
god is religion's sockpuppet of authority used to control and manipulate their congregations, and is merely a bronze age myth, and a plagiarized myth at that
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
wtf is a jebbie
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming
The Liberation of Folks Bell Link on Amazon
Even the Sun goes down.
It took me a couple of months to get through (the Gideons left a copy in my room at university and I ran out of other things to read in my first year). I wouldn't recommend it. There's a reason that the same few dozen stories keep getting made into films: the rest of it is tedious drivel (and a horrific basis for an ethical system).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
A story that takes place on space and on Mars written by a computer programmer.
I'm pretty suree I didn't understand the vast majority of it. Isaiah, what is that about? Ezekiel? At least Daniel was readable.....
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Although the SevenEves was a disappointment, REAMDE was not bad, and Anathem was outright amazing...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Most eye-opening book I have ever read. Really challenged my basic assumptions about all religions and cultures. It also enlightened me somewhat to seeking truth above all else.
For those that are interested it is available on Amazon for a pittance but also his pdf is available for free download on his blog.
Starting Out with Java: From Control Structures through Objects 6th edition by Tony Gaddis.
I feel like this book more than any other is the one that really took me into the world of computer science in a clear, methodical, easy-to-follow way and has opened my mind to whole new realms of thinking. Another great book is "Starting out with Python" which is very similar, and I'm finding that reading them both together is helping me even more in understanding how different languages approach different things.
Some may find the methodical approach to perhaps be tedious as some points, but it is exactly this kind of gradual building chapter after chapter that gives you a strong sense of deliberate progression and certainty about your increasing knowledge that is so necessary when undertaking the monumental task of learning computer science.
Favorite read this year is REAMDE, by Neal Stephenson. Looking forward to many books, but probably the Genesis of Shannara series by Terry Brooks would be at the top.
Correctness matters. Mercy matters more.
HPMOR. Definitely Harry Potter and the Method Of Rationality. How is this book not mentioned all over already in the comments ?
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." --Ezekiel 23:20
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Win...
It taught me that anyone who says otherwise is a cuntwad and a Trump-U alumnus.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The Creature from Jekyll Island. by G. Edward Griffin. About the Federal Reserve. Never has reading a book made me so angry. Should be mandatory reading for everyone in the country.
Loved the wool series by Hugh Howley. Also enjoyed The phantom of the earth series by Raeden Zen.
Be Excellent To Each Other
I re-read it every four years, once the campaign season starts to gather heat (not light). :-/
Error: NSE - No Signature Error
Command and Control - Eric Schlosser
https://www.amazon.com/Command...
With a Forward by the Dalai Lama.
The latter is regarded as a terrorist by the CCP. This gives you some measure, of modern China and those who do business with it. Conversely, it gives you limited measure, of the people who live in a single party state.
Honorable mention mention, Thomas Piketty's "Capiltal in the twenty-first century."
GreekGeek :-)
"What is Thought?" by Eric Baum, MIT Press.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/what-thought
Will change your mind-view of reality (not kidding, in a good way I think...)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - Michelle Alexander. While I don't agree with everything 100%, it's a fantastic book. Bonus points if you watch Ava Duvernay's "13th" documentary as well.
Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation
The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command - and extended look at the evolution of tactical and communications doctrine from Trafalgar to Jutland, and it's effects on the Battle of Jutland.
A comprehensive guide on how to take any text and turn it into incomprehensible gibberish. Bonus chapter: how to do the same thing again two days later.
by Norm Macdonald.
We all know it is the future. http://www.os2world.com/wiki/i... (looking for crazy open source developers to clone Presentation Manager)
The Pentagon's Brain - DARPA's colorful history, with a shocking amount of expensive, dangerous, and secret operations.
A brilliant work that strips away layers of bullshit that's encrusted onto Hitler's image over decades. What's left is truly frightening. How easy it is for a nation to fall into madness. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
I had my first science fiction novel published this year and, while I love reading books, actually writing and publishing one has been an amazing process. (Now working on Book #2.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Nemesis by JB Everhart was a fantastic military science fiction novel!
Simple question, tons of answers that most moderators will have no interest in: it will be difficult to get an insightful answer here.
Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja. Sci-fi comedy. Easily the most entertaining and fun read of the year so far. Re-reading it now for fun. I read a lot of fiction as escapism, but I'm also ever so slowly working my way through 'the road to serfdom' by Friedrich Hayek. Its serious stuff, and takes focus to read, so Im taking it slow to be sure I get it all.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Help me Jeebuz!
I went through the entire Robot/Empire/Foundation series and found Pebble in the Sky the best - but you have to read it first
I also re-read the 'A World Made By Hand' series, this time including the latest installment. Its a different take on the 'post-apocalypse' format. Less depressing, a little more hopeful, but still forboding and alarming in its own ways.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
The Peripheral by William Gibson. Am a big Gibson fan, and I have or have read all his books
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
"Favourite"is the correct English spelling of the word, unlike the lazy phoenetic spelling so beloved of Americans.
I am currently reading "Dark Money." I am about 3/4 of the way through and give it a string thumbs up. It contains a lot of detail information, it is well researched; yet, through all that, it remains very readable.
Nightsongs, Book 1 in The Necropath series. It's an adult thriller dealing with adult themes, though it effortlessly blends vampirism, witchcraft, and a very interesting take on ghosts and hauntings. It comes across as Stephen King and Michael Crichton (RIP) writing a thriller together, and having Anne Rice edit. Came out in late 2014, and its prequel the following year. I read that the next installment comes out next week. If it's half as good as Nightsongs, I'll have a lot more sleepless nights (in a good way), and oddly, learning to appreciate my own marriage more. (You have to read it to understand fully, but there is a good amount of tension in the marriage of two primary characters, and it engages the reader from page one.
"The Princess and the Penis"
https://www.amazon.com/Princess-Penis-RJ-Silver-ebook/dp/B005ORR6HE/
Daemon could be considered SkyNet's nice little brother.
This first of a trilogy(that I didn't know was part of a trilogy until I finished it) managed to get the slightly cyberpunk(or maybe cypherpunk) flavored noir mystery without actually being cyberpunk or having that typical cyberpunk "Hey look at me I'm a badass merc from an action movie" sort of part that I have to cringe through just because I like cyberpunk. I started to suspect that cicada 3301 could be at least partially inspired by it. I have a feeling this is something a lot of people have already read, definitely not some hidden gem, but I'm surprised a lot of the people who've read the sprawl trilogy have never heard of this.
QF32 by Richard de Crespigny - The book is about an air accident involving an A380 flight from Singapore to Sydney. Fascinating stuff.
Recently remembering grade school but never read it then; 'Catcher in the Rye'. Interesting book.
"Red Notice" is a must read! This very current auto-biographical book by Bill Browder, millionaire financier, lays a foundation and then turns into a page turning deadly American-Russian thriller. When you are done reading it, you have a clear and very chilling view of Vladmir Putin and his coterie of murderous oligarchs. It is even more relevant given the ascendancy of Trump, and the Russian's desire to have sanctions lifted. The book tells a story of billions looted from the Russian economy, of murder, and of the consequent birth of the US congressional Magnitsky Act, authorizing sanctions against Russian oligarchs. I read a lot, and this is the most amazing book I've read in a long time! I bought a dozen copies for my friends, and I've never done that before! The author wrote it as his best shot at not getting murdered by Putin, as it would now be obvious to the world who did it.
"Imajica" by Clive Barker
The same for favorable expectation over the coming weeks.
by Eric Schlosser, comprehensive coverage of accidents and risks in USA nuclear weapons, especially during the Cold War.
Armor by John Steakley.
Herbert Werner was one of the few surviving German u-boat captains at the end of WWII. This is his account of the war from the vessels he served in to his views of Germany in general during his visits to his home and family. I've read several American submarine captain's books and this tops most of them.
Finally got around to reading Heinlein. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is next.
Biased because I personally know the author, but... give Reddened Wasteland a shot. It's by an indie author I personally know, Kyle Perkins. Cool dude, and it's quite an interesting sci-fi dystopic, the first part of a trilogy, and it's a bit like Red Mars, just a bit more character-driven. Look for it online or in your local library with ISBN 978-1523716753.
I downloaded a free set of eBooks from http://www.obooko.com/obooko_s... (the exact html page might vary as I'm logged in there)
It is an excellent site with free (promotional?) eBooks sorted by over a dozen of genres.
The books are in an dystopian world, where companies rule, a bit of cyberpunk as the main characters are "augmented" for deep sea living (as in deeper than 3000m below the surface). ... ) ...
Plenty of "mental" issues, twisted background lives of characters, strange drugs used to keep the population and/or police and/or mighty "in line".
World wide surveillance (but the guys conducting it, bound by drugs to not "abuse" what they see
When a deadly microbe is threatening all human and most carbon based life, AIs running "mad", small scale wars break out and the mighties try to escape into isolated sanctums (not even knowing what exactly is going on) the dying are kept in country sized concentration camps
A story much to complicated to really "enjoy" it (as a non native english reader), but certainly one of the best books I read in the last 10 years.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But among the best i have read this year have been (not in order.. cannot decide..):
The Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naam
Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Year Zero by Rob Reid
"John Adams" by David McCullough
What did you smoke while reading it? And in what language did you read it? You do know that the english translations are far from "the real thing"? They only let you know what they want you to know.
Perhaps your smoke works with my favourite SF books, too?!
Plx drop me a message!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm reading "Weapons of Math Destruction" right now, about how "Bug data increases inequality and threatens democracy".
It shows how algorithmic systems have a serious side-effect: they can create new forms of inequality in society. It's brilliant because it absolutely destroys the "I have nothing to hide" argument in a new way: Big Data is not just about finding criminals, it's about finding all people that deviate from anyone's norm. People who are financial risks, people who are bad teachers, people who are bad lovers, people who are prone to health problems, people who are not team players. These systems are overly reductive, create false positives, etc. And that is having a serious effect on a lot of people's daily lives, often unfairly impacting their chances, their voice, and their wallets.
https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/
If I may be so bold: my favorite book this year has to be my own. I wrote an accessible book about privacy design for the Internet of Things (which also points out to the problems mentioned in Weapons of Math Destruction).
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/design-my-privacy-8-principles-for-better-privacy-design/
The best ever twist to a story in the very sentence of the book.
I've read the Bible over a two-year period several times. It is a lot of reading, and not easy to absorb. However, I have to say that each time I got a lot of new insights and ideas from it. It complements the tons of technical and sci-fi reading that I do otherwise. Understanding the relationship between the Old and the New Testament is key, I think, and explains a lot of the ethical issues. I found two things interesting with regard to that - first, Jesus really gives an amazing ethical basis in the Sermon on the Mount, and I am so glad that a huge part of our Western civilization is built on its premises. And second, Jesus' message in the end does not seem to be about the new ethical rules, but rather about how to deal with the fact that we're all breaking them. Fascinating reading, but from the discussion here it seems it is definitely not for everyone.
by Eliezer Yudkowsky: https://www.goodreads.com/book... Hilarious and insightful.
God Is Not Great by Chrisopher Hitchens
I guess this wasn't actually the question, but shall we assume no one in the new White House will be reading Animal Farm?
Top 2016 read book: Songs of the Dying Earth--a collection of short stories written by a variety of talented sci fi writers in tribute to Jack Vance, edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois--quite a engrossing and mind-expanding journey.
A close second was The Political Writings of William Penn. He was a Christian Founding Grandfather (100+ years before the American Revolution) that would likely be appalled at current right-wing "Christian" politics.
Not that new, but The Shallows was quite interesting. Even older, but quite interesting was Bait and Switch . Best recent book might be Data and Goliath . None of them appear to be visible in the other comments so far. I read over 100 books a year, so it's often hard for me to pick the best ones.
I'd have commented earlier if I'd noticed the topic, but now that it's about to die is the best time to look for funny comments...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
American Gods
33,000 missing the feds wish they had. By HRC
(published 1918)
Theodore Roosevelt; an Intimate Biography
by William Roscoe Thayer
The Bible, how to live, how to love, where to go
Already mentioned, but I'll repeat, Cixin Liu's "Earth's rememberance" series, starting from "three body problem". One of the more original science fiction books that I've got to read. I also think that the author's chinese nationality allowed him to avoid adhering to western political correctness, which allowed a story that is more varied than many western stories today.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
How the right got in touch with their homosexuality and used it to win the white house.
Story of how the alt_right ends up as militia stomping the heads of everyone else in their generation.
Google's Site Reliability Engineering was my favourite book of 2016.
Even without diving too deep into technical aspects (with the Load Balancing chapter being a good exception) there's plenty of good information around running large scale teams and systems. The concept of SRE is one of a kind and the details shared in the book help to understand how DevOps is not SRE and vice versa.
Last but not least such transparency is welcome and more big players should follow the example.
Girl in a Fishbowl addresses the problem of knowing what is true or not in the information age. Very relevant to our times.
The translation in French of the novel "Jo confesso" by Jaume Cabré.
Yes, I'm reading it. I've never watched it on TV or DVD. I started reading it in June (?) and am now about halfway through the 5th novel. Each one runs right about 1000 pages, apparently regardless of book format (I have Book 4 in small paperback and Book 5 in supersize / trade paperback, and both clock in at something north of 1000 pages).
Needless to say, I'm an avid reader.
Also needless to say, it was a shock to my system when I was finishing up the 4th book, bought the 5th, and *then* found out that there will be 2 more books before this saga wraps up. They've all been really good reads, and Martin weaves a very complex and entertaining tale. I simply didn't realize that I was committing to *not* reading anything else until I get through this. The writing is compelling, and the characters are as good as (e.g.) Tolstoy's - and just as numerous.
Fascinating Chinese SF, translated into English. I got this from last year's Hugo Reading List, and was just blown away by it's complexity and writing style. This is actually the first book of a trilogy that concludes in The Dark Forest (which I've just finished and is awesome), and Death's End (which I'm on my way to pick up today).
Short book report: Great social criticism and honest assessment of the internet and its aftermath abound in Jarett Kobek's _I Hate The Internet_. Funny, thoughtful and cutting. Bought two copies of the book for friends and they both loved it and quoted it to me.
By J.L. Bourne, Author of the excellent Day By Day Armageddon series :
https://www.amazon.com/Tomorrow-War-Chronicles-Max-Redacted/dp/1451629141/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482855821&sr=8-1&keywords=tomorrow+war
"I'm Fascinated by Sacrifice Flies: Inside the Game We All Love Hardcover" by Tim Kurkjian
By John Ringo. Loads of fun! The first in a 4-book series and a fresh look at the zombie apocalypse.
Jesuits aka jebbies.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature, edited by Jacob Weisman. I don't generally read short stories, but this collection is quite good. Stories from "literary" writers not normally known for science fiction. Not all of the stories are really sci-fi-- which is a positive aspect. I wouldn't go so far as to call it literature, but many of the stories do have themes and the style that one might typically find in literature. Really one of the best short story anthologies I've ever read. Here's the Amazon link: https://smile.amazon.com/Invad...
By Jenny Lawson. She is a very popular blogger that writes about her depression in this book. It feels quite manic at times but overall a very engaging story. I also enjoyed Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Rober Pirsig, which eventually explores the idea of Flow. You just have to be looking for it. And War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells was the best fiction because unlike the movies it is set in a time when we have zero technology. Imagine fighting aliens when the telegraph was the "big thing" in tech.
Survival Quest (The Way of the Shaman: Book #1) is a good fun LitRPG. I've gone through the other books in the series with English translations. I'm eager for the remainder of the books to be translated to English.
The Big Picture by Sean Carroll
Excellent overview of theoretical physics as applied to thinking about everyday life.
Hands down, the ultimate book to read this year regarding the economic meltdown and fraudclosure scam is David Dayen's brilliant book, Chain of Title --- also great, Jane Mayer's book, Dark Money, and for further elucidation on the JFK assassination, David Talbot's book, The Devil's Chessboard.
Would also recommend Evicted, by Matthew Desmond and Someone Is Hiding Something, by Richard Belzer.
Sadly the author passed away.
I don't WANT to post as "anonymous coward" but I don't really know how to fix that... Just in case anyone really reads these things, the newest trilogy by Alma Alexander - "Random" "Wolf" and "Shifter", forming the cycle known as the Were CHronicles - put the science back into fiction, while keeping all the heart. WELL worth picking up.
And yes, I know it came out in 2014, I'm late to the party.
Notable mentions:
PROJECT ANIMAL FARM by Sonia Faruqi
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Inferno by Dan Brown
The Martian by Andy Weir
Tenth reading in 45 years. The similarities of the most corrupt characters to the Obama administration is sometimes startling.
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There has been a great deal of serious scholarship that's gone into making English translations of the Bible, so it's unlikely that a person studying several versions is going to have hidden from him something that's in the oldest available documents.
That said, why bother? Why not do something that in comparison has some value, like translating Lord of the Rings into Klingon?
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Foundation by Asimov. Contact by Sagan. Childhood's End by Clarke... But this year's discovery - Cixin Liu and his Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy.
A civilization based on the ethical teaching of the Sermon on the Mount would be meek and boring. It would never reach an Industrial Revolution.
The philosophical root of Western Civilization is Aristotle.
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SJWs Always Lie by Vox Day is, without a doubt, the best book I've read this year. If you want to know how to deal with these odious creatures, you must arm yourself with this valuable knowledge.
I finally learned the basics of the Python programming language and have been using it for several months now to automate system administration and desktop configuration tasks. I wish I had learned Python years ago, but at least I have it now thanks to Al's book.
BTW: It's completely free online --- https://automatetheboringstuff.com/
Great swords and sorcery book. Completely engaging story
No comment on the first part :D ;D
As plenty of the translation in "The Kings Bible" are plain wrong
Why not do something that in comparison has some value, like translating Lord of the Rings into Klingon? ... there is a big culture gap, I mean as in Elves having some kind of culture and Orcs on the other hand, oooops Klingons ...
Planning to do that. However I wanted to wait for a clean version in high Elvish. What you think? Is it worth it to start sketching a klingon version and fix the obvious mistakes later? On the other hand
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
"The Snow Goose" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You can read the whole thing in a couple hours.