“Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke.

Refreshing and beautiful because it’s a totally new kind of world for a story to take place in, essentially survival in a world of procedurally generated endless architecture.

Most of the time there is just one or two characters among repetitive environments, which was relaxing as I get easily confused if there are 5+ characters to remember or extensive mental visualization required.

The End of Race Politics by Coleman Hughes. Pretty good book. I used to be a bleeding heart liberal with pro social justice (read: pro affirmative action) sentiments, but he makes a compelling case against it. Also, it's very well written and fun to read

A couple of my favorites from this year, I read a lot (50 to 100 a year)

Fiction:

- What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

- Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

- A Man with One of Those Faces by Caimh Mcdonnell

- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

- A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

- Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton

- Where the Body Was by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips

Nonfiction:

- Exiles by Preston Sprinkle

- Jesus and the Powers by N. T. Wright & Michael F. Bird

- With All Its Teeth by Joshua S. Porter

- In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki

- A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

Copenhagen(play) by Michael Frayn done by BBC Radio, not really a book, but it's great. https://archive.org/details/michael-frayn-copenhagen

Some politics books I've read or re-read this year:

Fall Out - Tim Shipman, on of his astonishingly detailed quartet on Britain's exit from the EU;

Robert Blake's biography of Disraeli, magisterial yet readable;

Boris Johnson's memoir Unleashed, great fun if you like his tone;

Colonialism, a Moral Reckoning, Nigel Biggar, an antidote to the more ahistorical versions of the BLM narrative.

The Notebook - A history of thinking on paper, Roland Allen - a joyful romp through the notebook's history;

Elusive - How Peter Higgs solved the mystery of Mass, Frank Close - a nice account of the discovery of the Higgs Boson, with perhaps too much biography of Higgs, who after all as a lecturer at Edinburgh was not a thrill-seeker.

Carlo Rovelli's White Holes, implausible but beautifully written.

Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity- David Bessis

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200128457-mathematica?ac...

Excellent book on mathematical thinking in the true sense - what needs to happen in the mind's eye to really grapple with abstract mathematics. Definitely a eye (mind?) opener for someone who has some graduate level math education but couldn't gel with the crazier stuff.

Came across the book from this article which was on HN a little bit ago: https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematical-thinking-isnt-wh...

I finally read Nabokov's Pale Fire. It is far and away the best book I have ever read. I think about it multiple times a week unprompted and I'm sad because I am certain that I will never find another book like it.

The Machinery of Life by David S. Goodsell - it's a short microbiology book with paintings and renders of molecules and molecular processes. It's easy to read and imagining biology is straightforward when you can just see the molecules. I heard about it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40103590

A few of the books that stand out that I've read this year.

Troubled - Rob Henderson. About how Henderson was in state care and wound up at prestigious universities and his thoughts on the world.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176444107-troubled

Not the End of the World - Hannah Ritchie from 'Our World in Data' about the state of the planet.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145624737-not-the-end-of...

Dictatorland - Paul Kenyon - About the dictators who have impoverished Africa.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36260719-dictatorland

Magic Pill - Johann Hari - About Semaglutide and how people got fat.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201319612-magic-pill

On the Edge - Nate Silver - About how seeing the world in terms of risk and expected value can work.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204236707-on-the-edge

Orbital - Samantha Harvey - Booker Prize winner about people on the ISS and the world.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123136728-orbital

Build, Baby, Build - Bryan Caplan on why YIMBYism is a good idea. This is a graphic novel. It's really fun.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181564537-build-baby-bui...

Michel Houellebecq, Annihilation. A clear-eyed and direct novel about the meaning and measure of individual human life in our modern age -- and yet it concedes nothing to modern literary or social fashions, but instead goes for universality and timelessness.

Reentry by Eric Berger. It came out in October. It's a follow up to his book Liftoff from 2021. Great books for space nerds. Makes me really admire what Space X has accomplished while also eliminating any desire I had to work for them.

Nuclear War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen. It's a short book, with second-by-second description of the unfolding of a research-based hypothetical nuclear war that starts with North Korea launching an ICBM towards the United States. Alarming (as only the facts about the parlous state of detection and defence can alarm) and edifying in one.

Read a lot this year — a lot more than most years. A few highlights:

The making of the atomic bomb by Richard Rhodes was probably the best of the bunch. I read it because I see some parallels between the discovery of atomic power and the search for AGI, and wanted an insight on the ethics and decision making of the time. It didn't disappoint.

The dawn of everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow was a solid read and retelling of how civilization began and evolved.

The message by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I read in two sittings — it was that impactful. A reminder of how the oppressed becomes the oppressor again and again. "As it happens, you can See the world but never see the people in it"

Other highlights: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt; re-read Thinking in Systems by Daniella Meadows; re-read Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat Zinn; The light eaters by Zoe Schlanger; I don't want to talk about it, by Terrence Real.

My reads this year with my personal ratings:

Greg Egan, Diaspora (7/10)

Dan Simmons, Hyperion 1-4 (9/10)

James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes (6/10)

Scott Alexander, Unsong (7/10)

Qtmn, Ra (7/10)

Qtmn, Fine Structure (6/10)

Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary (6/10)

Wildbow, Worm (8/10)

If audiobooks count, so far enjoying the hell out of Project Hail Mary, I possibly got turned on to it by a mention on HN (I like The Martian movie, so I gave it a shot, and maybe decide to get that on audiobook too, now)

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott. If you're into Jewish history/legend, Baba Yaga, intergenerational trauma, or just good books, I would find it difficult to recommend it more. It's well-told and well-paced (note: do not read at night if you have something to do in the early morning the next day). As you would expect from a book drawing heavily on Jewish history, it can be difficult to read.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire. Excellent book that handles time travel and its implications reasonablly well. She also wrote a shorter, "children's" book series under a pen name; quotes from it appeared in Middlegame. It's called the Up-and-under series. I've only made it through book one so far, as I lost book two, but so far it's been good!

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. It's been on my list of books to read for ages and it is in fact excellent, if difficult. I'm planning on reading some of her--allegedly much less dark--books about the sea next, because I've heard she can be very poetic and in Silent Spring it shines through sometimes, but not often.

Seeing this reminds me of something I'm not proud of. I've done effectively no reading this year. At least not by my normal standards.

I generally read between 30-50 books a year (mix of fiction and non-fiction). But this year I knew my focus was going to be more on research, reading papers, writing code, etc. so I set my reading goal lower than normal (I usually set it to like 75, knowing that that's a bit aspirational). This year? I set it to like, 30. And I won't come close to hitting that. Right now I'm at 7 books for the year. So I don't have a big sample set to choose from. :-(

That said...

Of what I did read, a couple were pretty good:

Non-fiction:

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks- Scott J. Shapiro

Readings in Agents - Huhns, Singh (eds)

Programming Multi-Agent Systems in AgentSpeak using Jason - Bordini, Hubner, & Wooldridge

Fiction:

In Too Deep (Jack Reacher, #29) - Lee Child

Benjamín Labatut - The Maniac, a novelized biography about the mathematician and computer science pioneer John von Neumann.

The story of his life was absolute fascinating for me, unfortunately the last part of the book attempts a connection with the development of Alpha Go / reinforcement learning that should have been avoided.

I mostly read progression fantasy books these days. Here are some series that I enjoyed a lot:

* "Beware of Chicken" by CasualFarmer

* "The Immaculate Collection" by havlo

* "The Runic Artist" by Ellake

* "The Broken Knife" by SilverSidhe

* "Immovable Mage" by ImmovableMage

* "The Gorgon Incident and Other Stories" by John Bierce

* "Quest Academy" by Brian J. Nordon

* "The Weirkey Chronicles" by Sarah Lin

Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men (1930)

Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker (1937)

Rather difficult reads for me as a non-native english speaker, but it was worth it. It is hard to imagine a more epic science fiction scenario than "Star Maker".

My reads this read, which I enjoyed:

- Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar (an examination of the Dyatlov Expedition).

- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (fantasy).

- Be Useful by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

- Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden.

Hopefully the other responses here give me something good to read for Christmas break. :-)

53 days ago there was a thread about the best book we've ever read. As I have re-read the book this year I will link my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41758060

For a general recommendation for a book to buy for Christmas I'd say the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner is quite wonderful, if you'll pardon the pun.

Daemon series by Daniel Suarez: I can’t believe I slept on this book for so long. It would have altered my worldview fundamentally if I had read it at a younger age.

Mind Hunter: Somehow even better than the show.

A Brief History of Intelligence: Packed with so much knowledge about the evolution, mechanics, and different forms of intelligence. One of the best non-fiction books I have read in a long time.

The Deluge -- a darker take on climate change than Ministry for the Future, but also felt pretty realistic.

This is how you lose the time war -- took me a long time to start this book, and then I couldn't put it down.

Non fiction, I really enjoyed Slouching Towards Utopia. I'm a sucker for narrative history like that, and I got a few useful concepts from the book. I also really liked The Prince of Peace, a biography of Keynes.

Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada According to some, one of the great locked room mysteries. Recommended but I am guessing it's better in the original.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell Not as amazing as I thought it would be but memorable nonetheless.

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent Something nice about this book. Not for everyone. What is?

Hm, the one I enjoyed the most this year was Susanna Clarke's Piranesi – engrossing, awesome and beautiful.

Neal Stephenson has a brand new book out this month called Polostan. It's my favorite Stephenson book in a while. It's historical fiction in the Cryptonmicon genre.

The End is Always Near, Dan Carlin

A quick read on many points in history when things looked grim and it must have seemed like the end of society was coming --an interesting read not necessarily mind-blowing.

Empire World An amazing read that really opened my eye to the legacy of empire

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Empireworld-British-Imperialism-Sha...

Best one was Something Happened by Joseph Heller (Catch 22 guy). Worst one was 1Q84 by Murakami (so far).

Not sure if "the best", but one of the best was "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers. I was reading it out of curiosity for the solarpunk genre, it ended up helping me a bit on the self-acceptance side.

Other than that, "Il deserto dei Tartari" by Dino Buzzati (in english: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tartar_Steppe). Gave me some different point of view when thinking about time passing by. This was actually an audio-book, but I don't think there's any difference.

Shogun, after having watched the show. I also read the other books in Clavell's series, I thought Tai Pan and Gai Jin were interesting but not as much as Shogun. Gai Jin in particular felt like it had lots of filler.

Helen DeWitt wrote another novel after The Last Samurai, Lightning Rods. It's a very different book, but definitely worth a try! Good luck!

Either David Copperfield by Charles Dickens or Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Both are very long novels that get better and better with every page.

Grendel by Gardner (so playful and creative), Jane Eyre (a classic with wonderful language and intense story), Sapiens (extraordinarily interesting survey of human history)

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. Probably the best expose about the vileness of politicians and command ladder climbers within the service as they related to Vietnam.

I only read two books. Lost in Maths by Sabine Hossenfelder, and Nuclear War A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen. Both were worthwhile. I want to read more.

I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom - Jason Pargin. It’s about what happens when individually radicalized people collide.

Hunger Games Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

you don't have to have read the other Hunger Games because it is set about 60 years before the others

Haven't read it yet as it comes out in a week but it will be Wind of truth, book 5 in stormlight archive series.

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (Walter Isaacson)

Highly recommend it. Don't waste your time with Franklin's autobiography.

by Tariq Rashid

  https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Own-Neural-Network-ebook/dp/B01EER4Z4G
  https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-First-GAN-PyTorch-ebook/dp/B085Z96M9P

Flatland 1884 by Edwin A. Abbott

On top of my list of best books this year is The Golden Road by William Dalrymple

Firefighter Zen by Hersch Wilson

Nine lies about work by Marcus Buckingham

How to know a person by David Brooks

Signature in the cell - Stephen C. Meyer

The Divine Reality - Hamza Andreas Tzortzis

I finally read Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. Powerful ideas.

I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography

Paul Richard Halmos

Concrete Island by JG Ballard

Libra by Don Delilo

Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith

I found “Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - Autobiography about Richard Feynman very interesting

“On Tyranny,” by Timothy Snyder

Creative Way of Being, Rick Rubin

I read a very sadly sweet near-future-sci-fi book, very much in the vein of Bradbury, called “Klara And The Sun,” by Kazuo Ishiguro.

It very credibly tells an agonizingly familiar human story, from the perspective of a inescapably inhuman android protagonist - by seeing the world through her eyes, you also learn who she is, and what her experience of consciousness is - you in fact are offered a precious insight into the nature of artificial consciousness that no one else in the book is quite properly aware of.

I caught up with some science fiction this year.

The Murderbot diaries books by Martha Wells - 6/10. Mixed on these. They're fun to read. The setting is cool and the worldbuilding is shallow but effective (i.e., don't read it if you want game of thrones in space). Each novella takes an afternoon to read. I think "snarky violent droid" is overcooked these days and lost interest after book 5.

Light by M. John Harrison - 7/10 excellent prose; great multiple-storyline plot; the journey was better than the destination, but it kept me thinking

Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson - 7/10 Fun. If "near future Nigerian/British post-colonial frontier action with guns, robots, and psychic aliens" sounds cool to you, check it out. I liked his Rosewater Trilogy just as much.

Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts - tough to rate these. brilliant ideas, VERY challenging plots. I wish I didn't get so confused by the end of each book.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - 6/10 - this and the Martian read like blog posts pasted together. The grand dilemma is spelled out on page one and never gets any deeper. Pro: the plot is in your face on every page and you will never be confused when reading; Con - there is zero internal character development. Read if you like stories driven by applied science, not comparative moral decision-making.

The City and the City by China Miéville - 9/10 - you will invariably see something like "Kafka meets [some affected crime novelist] to describe this book, and that ain't wrong. Kind of SF, kind of fantasy.

Railsea by China Miéville - 8/10 - great good vs evil YA SF about, well, imagine if trains were like boats. Good character writing, tight plot.

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - 8/10 - loved this. More "realist" near-future fabulism than Gibson, but if you love cyberpunk, read this.

The Shipbreaker Triology by Paolo Bacigalupi - 6/10 - near-future YA science fiction with a lot of blood and guns. Pretty good stories.

Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers - 9/10 - reread. I had to go back. This gets a near perfect score because of its style, setting, and plot.

The Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) by William Gibson - 9/10 - I had read Neuromancer 3 times but never the next two. I was pleasantly surprised to find the second and third novel easier to read* but just as enjoyable as Neuromancer.

The Bridge trilogy by William Gibson - 8/10 so far. I am in the second book. Can't believe I slept on these for the last couple decades.

non-SF:

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad - 9/10 - if you like punk/hardcore from the 80s, this is a great read.

* Every time I read Neuromancer, Gibson's literary footguns --holograms, false memories, hallucinations, and drug-addled unreality--make me feel crazy for not being able to follow the plot at times. I'm okay with believing that was the intended effect.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

Very entertaining sci-fi. I tore through it a a couple of days.

'Built to fail' by Alan Payne painted such a richer picture than the binary "netflix came along" argument. The writing had alot of emotional investment since the author owned so many shops in the blockbuster franchise.

A little more dense: "Chip War" by Chris Miller... a macro economic/political picture of silicon valley growth that fills in so many holes in popular lore.

qntm, There is no antimemetics division.

Tamsin Muir, Gideon the Ninth

Iain M Banks, The Algebraist

D F Jones, Colossus

James S A Corey, The Mercy of Gods

Flatland 1884 by Edwin A. Abbott.

I can give you some information about UK most selling books. Follow the link below https://britishauthor.uk/the-book-people-uk-top-5