YHK - yet another hacker news clone

The authors argue that rigid, goal-oriented planning and metric-driven objectives actively prevent true innovation and groundbreaking achievement.

Not sure if this one qualifies as more meaty :)

I like how he has the slow, almost clinical way of revealing interesting worlds and systems. It’s not the kind of book that’ll make me cry, but I really like world building with fun enough characters

I don't tend to be great at finishing (or starting) books, and this is a big one. I've also never had any interest in Medieval or Renaissance history, for me it's been a black hole between the fall of Rome and the modern age.

But recently I saw some Youtube videos of Ada, and her enthusiasm is totally infectious [2]. She's fun and paints these vivid pictures of Florence and renaissance Europe that are incredible, absurd, and relatable, which makes sense since given she's also an accomplished sci-fi writer. She also reminds me of one of my favourite high school teachers. So I ordered the book right away.

The book is in the same tone as her videos, so it won't be for everyone, but I've really been enjoying it and now I'm fascinated by Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli, merchant republics, etc.

1. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo246135...

2. (My favourite example) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68p3jVQQdFk

The Works of Vermin. Exceptionally well written. Not an ounce of flab anywhere.

The Carryx series, 2 books so far. Best villains ever.

Tainted Cup and sequel. Sherlock Holmes meets Godzilla.

Goblin Emperor

The Prophet (Gibran)

Los Alamos (Kanon)

Hyperion (reread)

Finally, a shout out to the best book I read in 2025: Terra Ignota. Yes, the whole series.

Its a pretty good history of the X-48 program.

Edit: also reading the "The Anduril Thesis" in parallel.

Highly recommend the game for anyone who liked Dark or Primer (or any other fiction that features stable time loops).

Sadly found I could have been reading a better abridgement, which I'll get for the 2nd reading now.

I'm not reading anything at the moment since I'm taking a break and watching season one of Deadwood and also re-watching season one of Boston Legal.

But when I'm done, I plan to re-read "The Cold War A Very Short Introduction" by Robert J. McMahon. I read it about five years ago and it's time to read it again.

Having said that, I can't pass on this opportunity to share the books I've read (some are re-reads) thus far this year that I recommend. I'll just list them while saying that they all come highly recommended by me.

In the famous words of Frank Zappa - So many books, so little time.

1. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris

2. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

3. Lying by Sam Harris

4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

5. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

6. Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

7. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins

8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

9. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

10. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

11. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling

12. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

13. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

14. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

15. Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan

16. Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide to Atheism by Richard Dawkins

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (1818/1831), https://frankendiff.com; and Tales of the Dead, by Mrs. Utterson (1813), https://archive.org/details/talesofdead00utte

Just started Homer's Iliad (Fagles translation) and Christopher Logue's War Music (2015).

Just finished re-reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (1980). I think it holds up well. Last time I read it, I was much younger than Arthur Dent; now I'm much older. And now that we have computers with Genuine People Personalities, it's hard to remember what it was like in the Before Times.

Recently finished Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908). For better or worse (no spoilers here), it kept me guessing.

There was an article on HN a month or two ago about how some books drive people to the kind of madness that would make them do a degree in literature. This is probably the one for me. Excited to read it again in 5 years and see it differently again.

I knew many everyday expressions and phrases come from his work but I had no idea it was so many.

I'm currently about halfway through at 3.2k pages.

Currently reading and enjoying: Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel.

Next to Read: Hollywood, Ending by John Green.

Ask HN: What Are You Reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45283087 - Sept 2025 (42 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39248780 - Feb 2024 (92 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading these days? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237730 - Nov 2023 (281 comments)

Ask HN: What Are You Reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21457827 - Nov 2019 (49 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you currently reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16160091 - Jan 2018 (43 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you currently reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14859274 - July 2017 (80 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14608397 - June 2017 (36 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10175465 - Sept 2015 (79 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636361 - June 2015 (37 comments)

Ask HN: What book are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8108932 - July 2014 (86 comments)

Ask HN: What Books Are You Reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7968124 - June 2014 (80 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4596721 - Oct 2012 (40 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading? What've you read lately? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3335496 - Dec 2011 (41 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3230965 - Nov 2011 (59 comments)

Ask HN: What books are you reading - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2615647 - June 2011 (53 comments)

Ask HN: What are you reading right now? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1865350 - Nov 2010 (298 comments)

What are you reading? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=797070 - Sept 2009 (214 comments)

I was very happy to find this. I heard complaints that it's just a Tolkien clone and Jordan doesn't portray women well. But what I found was kind of a relic. It's an excellent fantasy series that probably couldn't be written again. Wish we had more like it.

The Power Broker by Robert Caro.

Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka.

The Time Tax by Annie Lowrey.

Fiction(before bed): Quicksilver Neal Stephenson

Audio(during chores): Dungeon Crawler Carl(Up to book 6)

Next up:

Non-Fiction: Ten things I wish I knew about raising boys, Outdoor kids in an indoor world, Intentional(Chris Bailey)

Fiction: The rest of the Baroque Cycle, then moving onto The Laundry Files by Charles Stross, then the rest of Discworld

Audio: The rest of DCC then I'm going to switch to podcasts for a while nothing else planned after this right now.

[0]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-emergency-with-geo...

About halfway through- it’s really good so far. He makes a compelling case for how our culture has changed in many ways, often for the worse, with the introduction of television.

nearing the end. i've found it a bit complicated to follow in some spots (there are several 'main' protagonists and it switches between them without much warning or introduction) but overall it's scratched the fantasy itch.

(i suppose it's actually 3 books, but i have the omnibus version)

Always.

My goal is to read the history of ideas from Renaissance period till 2000s. Started with The Florentines by Paul Strathern. Then read The Clockwork Universe by Edward Dolnick. Now at the enlightenment era. It has been eye opening to read about the life and times of some of the great minds like Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Locke and more.

- "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang - "Ficciones" by Borges - "I have no Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison.

I'm also slowly plowing through "The Big Book of Science Fiction" edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer.

I love short speculative fiction. And the above are among my favorites.

- The Women by Kristin Hannah

- Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton

- Platform Decay by Martha Wells

- The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

- Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the End of the World by Eric Jay Dolin

- All the Sinners Bleed by S A Cosby

- Project Hail Mary and Artemis by Andy Weir

- Cibola Burn and Nemesis Games by James S A Corey (the Expanse series)

"7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy" - Recommended by @pc in an interview. I'm ~50 pages in and not really blown away. Its a nice accumulation of Alpha creating strategy... but I think its really missing some nuance. I do LOVE that they take an economist approach and actually provide the math/algorithms behind the concepts. Theres some good stuff in here but so far it feels like 30 pages stretched out to make a book.

"Monetizing Innovation" - dropped this book, do not recommend. I was expecting a really nice accumulation of how pricing should work with companies who are innovating... and it came no where near that hopeful concept. The case studies were weak, the hypothesis were weak, the writing was weak.

- The Left Hand of Darkness

- The Nerd Reich

- What Happened to Liberal Democracy?

Chips wars, for me as a dev without a strong hardware background is a fascinating read into the history of Silicon Valley, from the 50s right up to nvidia and Taiwan semiconductor.

I'd be re-reading Tolkien's _Old English Exodus_, but proofreading the typos got to be too much.

It was a mix of fantasy & humor. It is a bit long but it is extremely funny & entertaining. It is the first fantasy book I have read other than the Harry Potter series (not sure if it is considered fantasy) but I loved it.

One of the best non-fiction books I read this year was Doppleganger: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/138505710.

I have grown playing MMORPG's and this one brings the nostalgia vibes without investing the time into grinding for gear.

> "Over the course of this book, we have looked at some eighty years of this history. We have seen how the idea of nuclear secrecy was initially born out of a very specific fear—that the world’s worst nation could achieve nation-destroying power—that, over the course of many transformations, morphed into something more generalized. More than totalitarian regimes were the target of this secrecy: allied nations, private industry, democratic institutions, and “the public” more broadly became understood as targets as well, for reasons both justifiable and not. The secrecy problem moved wherever the problem of the bomb went, which was far indeed. The desirability of control over nuclear knowledge became totalizing because the threat of loss of control was tied to the almost unimaginable power of the bomb itself. These two forces—the desire for control, the fear of its loss—became locked in a vicious cycle, each driving the other."

I guess it will take me years to have reason of both.

It's an autobiographical history which recounts the lives of the author, her mother, and her grandmother throughout an extremely transformational century in Chinese history.

I went into this knowing little to no Chinese history, and it has opened my eyes to this fascinating country. I hope to visit China for the first time in 2027. Before I go, I'm doing a deep dive into Chinese history. Open to recommendations on what to read next!

On my Kindle I have two ham radio books I'm reading, one is about grounding antennas, the other a General test prep.

- Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur - Ham Radio General Class License Study Guide

- Hiroshima

- The Doomsday Machine

- Command and Control

Highly recommended if you’re feeling too happy and full of faith in humanity.

I keep track of all my favorite books here: https://recleague.com/james/collections/books

(Full disclosure: I'm a cofounder of Rec League)

I'm reading Deadly Quicksilver Lies, right now.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/series/49491-garrett-files

I'm on Book Two of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

Non-Fiction:

More than I can count, as far as "I've read at least some, put a bookmark in it, and intend to finish it eventually." But in terms of the books I'm really actively engaging with right now, the top one is:

Neuroscience: Exploring The Brain[1] by Mark F. Bear, Barry W. Connors, and Michael A. Paradiso

And sort of in parallel with that, is

Analog Computing: Development, Programming, Applications, and Future Directions[2] by Bernd Ulmann

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0781760038/

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Analog-Computing-Development-Programm...

Nettle and Bone I really enjoyed

Some desperate glory also enjoyed

East of Eden very meaty if you want an epic

God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre by Richard Grant about hiking through cartel-run Mexico alone

I'm 50% of the way through and it's good but I don't entirely see the hype. Brontë is more atmospheric, Austen funnier and more incisive, Dickens more immersive. But I've still got a way to go.

- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks comes to mind. I had no idea how rampant purposeful discrimination was so recently for example, but the point of the book is the HeLa cells - and biology is also not my forté so loads of new information there as well. It was very interesting in expected and unexpected areas for me

- Daniel Suarez' Kill Decision has only gotten more relevant since its release in 2012. Not sure I'd call this meaty though, but his thrillers are always good (near-ish future tech) and the author iirc also said this particular one is meant as food for thought and not only entertainment

Also still working through Civilization and Capitalism by Fernand Braudel.

What I finished recently and was really surprised by: Der Geisterbanner by Karl Friedrich Kahlert from 1792.

- Most Jewish victims of the Holocaust died by gunshot in the occupied USSR

- In March 1942, 80% of Holocaust victims were still alive and by February 1943 80% were dead.

- Per capita incomes were equal in the first and last years of the British Raj

- Indian grain exports increased in the 1880s and 90s and there were 3(?) different famines at that time

rattling around in my head in the same part that holds on to "Pakistan has never had a PM finish a 5 year term," "The Lions, Falcons, and Bills (non-exhaustive) have never won a Super Bowl," "There are no surviving contemperaneous attestations of Hamilcar and Hannibal Barca" and "the first drummer of the Beatles was called Pete Best and made an album called Best of the Beatles"

I had to listen to the books twice because there are a lot of details that you won't get the first time through unless you're extremely intentional and detail oriented, but I found it was worth it to listen again. I'll probably listen to Infinite Jest again sometime soon, even though it's 64 hours long. IJ is actually really great sci-fi with some important questions for our time.

[1] https://bookshop.org/lists/elle-s-sci-fi-book-club

The next one was Lonesome Dove, this was my first time reading a western and I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did. The book is also absolutely hilarious and has one of my favorite characters in a book(shoutout to Gus).

I'm currently reading The Count of Monte Cresto and, boy, it's turning out to be quite the epic tale of revenge(no spoilers please!).