Hacker News Books

The book that changed me was All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr. This book was so beautiful and haunting.

Set in occupied France during World War II, the novel centers on a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths eventually cross.

I'm not OP, but I just follow my interests. Thankfully, at least with non-fiction, they're fairly broad, so I've read academic textbooks on religion, textbooks on programming, general science books on physics (to complement my textbook knowledge) as well as anthropology, sociology and more. Just find a topic you're interested in, go to Goodreads (I like it a lot more than Amazon for searching books), and see what you can find. Or Google it, and see what trusted people in fields like/recommend. Or even people with interests that align with yours.

As for fiction, I like mostly fantasy, so will browse the shelves and look at hyped books on /r/fantasy, as well as other, lesser-known ones that sound/look interesting (I'm a proponent of looking at covers and titles to see if it seems interesting to look into deeper). I also used to follow some reviewers. For more "literary" fiction, I look mostly at what mainstream reviewers say. I found All the Light we Cannot See that way, and loved it (except for one scene I felt was just completely unnecessary to the novel). Then, perhaps, look for major authors. Umberto Eco is one that comes to mind that I'm fixing to start.

This reminds me a lot of the father in 'All the Light We Cannot See', building their neighbourhood in miniature for his blind daughter to learn from. As a novice woodworker and obsessive builder of all things small and useful, I find small scale construction like this fascinating. To have spent so much effort on something so devoid of practical use seems impossible for the era.

I would recommend most of the books I read this year:

* Born a Crime by Noah Trevor

* Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi

* Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Alexievich, Svetlana

* Ex-Formation by Hara, Kenya (best book I read this year)

* A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson, Bill

* Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human
Decisions by Brian Christian (applying algorithm theory to daily life)

* Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Voss Chris (meh)

* Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Knapp Jake (meh)

* All the Light We Cannot See by Doerr Anthony (loved it)

* The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro Kazuo (loved it)