Hacker News Books

- Shoedog by Phil Knight
- Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
- How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
- Deep Work by Cal Newport

Just finished The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris. I can’t express strongly enough my gratitude that if I were to need surgery, it wouldn’t be in an operating room where “the screams of those struggling under the knife mingled discordantly with everyday noises drifting in from the street below: children laughing, people chatting, carriages rumbling by.”

Currently reading These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lapore where she argues for the pressing relevance of our foundational principles. It’s a hefty tome of about 800 pages, so I still have a ways to go.

Next up are two books which have been featured in several end of year lists: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe and Exhalation by Ted Chiang.

Reading aloud with my 10 year old daughter: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (Penguin’s 150th anniversary annotated edition with a Patti Smith foreword). Enough said about how influential this experience is for both of us.

List plain text (from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2019-...)

    “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power,” by Shoshana Zuboff
    “The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company,” by William Dalrymple
    “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,” by Casey Cep
    “Girl, Woman, Other,” by Bernardine Evaristo (Booker Prize winner)
    “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present,” by David Treuer
    “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,” by Jenny Odell
    “Lost Children Archive,” by Valeria Luiselli
    “Lot: Stories,” by Bryan Washington
    “Normal People,” by Sally Rooney
    “The Orphan Master’s Son,” by Adam Johnson
    “The Yellow House,” by Sarah M. Broom (National Book Award winner, nonfiction)
    “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland,” by Patrick Radden Keefe
    “Solitary,” by Albert Woodfox
    “The Topeka School,” by Ben Lerner
    “Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion,” by Jia Tolentino
    “Trust Exercise,” by Susan Choi (National Book Award winner, fiction)
    “We Live in Water: Stories,” by Jess Walter