I really enjoyed reading "The Blue Machine: How The Ocean Works".
It turns out the Ocean is fascinating, and I learned something crazy:
"Between 1950 and 1973, world fish harvest trippled, but the amount of fish directly consumed by humans stayed the same. The rest went into fishmeal, as a supplemental food for livestock, and this became an essential ingredient for modern industrial farming".
I didn't realize that fishmeal was a primary input to modern animal agriculture. Global fish stocks collapsed not only because people ate fish, but also because of animal agriculture in general. It's fascinating how it's all connected.
Also, sea turtles cry 8 litres of tears an hour.
Needless to say, this book ended up as a permanent fixture on my bookshelf.
No, really! The example that Czerski uses is a turtle eating jellyfish. Less than one percent of jellyfish is organic material and a turtle (the author uses a leatherback as an example) must eat 80% of her body weight.
Jellyfish have the same salinity as the ocean itself, so as you can imagine, this results in a TON of salt being ingested by turtles.
It’s not just jellyfish, either. Other marine substances and creatures have the same salinity as the sea. For example, algae.
To avoid ingesting all of this salt (which would kill the turtles), they expel it back out in the form of tears."
Without a doubt "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing.
Read it, read it now.
It's the kind of book that you once you read, you'll never forget. 4.8 stars with 23k reviews on Amazon. Similar survival story vibes as books like "Into Thin Air" or "Into the Wild" but just on another level. It follows the story of a journey to Antarctica in 1914 that goes wrong and ends up with the ship trapped in ice for many months, and follows the crews absolutely insane attempts at survival.
I am waiting for time to forget enough of it so that I can read it again.
Definitely adding this to my list. I was stationed in Antarctica for three months earlier this year and it really gave me a newfound respect for these early explorers. I can’t imagine navigating such an environment with only relatively basic equipment and the stars.
Culture of Flowers by Jack Goodie. An anthropology book that compares the culture of Flowers across civilizations. "No flowers in Africa" to China being most gifted place in terms of flowers. Variability across Europe and Muslim civilizations etc etc.
As an Indian, I found how civilizations treat luxury (flowers) and necessity fascinating. Apparently Europe had a culture of garlands before the banquet culture. India is still predominantly garlands expect for a few highly westernised places. Muslim treatment or rather rejection of flowers in mosque but giving the world spectacle of flower gardens was very fascinating.
The book is not going to win any prize for prose or even coherence structure.
I’ve been getting into self-optimization lately, and sleep has been a game-changer. Two books that really opened my eyes are Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and Outlive by Peter Attia. Walker breaks down why sleep is so critical, while Attia ties it into the bigger picture of health and longevity. Also been exploring Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint Protocol.
"Heavenly Numbers: Astronomy and Authority in Early Imperial China" by Christopher Cullen
I read it for a course assignment. The book is structured as a continuous narrative of the development of astronomy throughout the Qin and Han dynasty in early China. It balances general information with mathematical details very nicely, so I feel it will appeal to both readers interested in the history or the astronomy. A pretty fun read for me, despite my purpose.
Not 2024 book, but I found "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown valuable despite it being a mainstream self-help book.
While the core message isn't revolutionary (focus on what truly matters), it provided a useful framework for re-examining my priorities and look and my current state of things from different perspective. Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated well to sink in.
I think Your Money or Your Life (Vicki Robbins, 1992) predates it and helped inspire Mr Money Moustache, but Collins’ book is great too.
For everyone reading this, pursuing FIRE will impact your life more than any other book. Set the ball in motion and wait. Soon you’ll have time to enjoy all these other great books.
The Ray Tracer Challenge by Jamis Buck. It uses Cucumber tests to specify the behaviour of the code, without giving you the code. Not a single weekend project. I've been doing it in C++ to learn about the modern language, but any language can be used.
"The Alchemy of Air" by Thomas Hager. This covers the discovery of fertilizer, its strategic implications (it was the oil of its day), the creation in Germany of the Haber-Bosch process for producing fertilizer and gunpowder precursors from air, and how it fueled two world wars. An incredible story that is not widely known these days.
"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. This is an old one, but still a classic. The first half is like a scientific detective story about the discovery and development of quantum theory itself, in Germany and Denmark, and can be read by itself as an engaging history of physics. Then Hitler rises to power, we learn how most of the characters we've met so far escape to England and the USA, and the others except Bohr become part of the German nuclear project. It then becomes an engineering management history of the Manhattan project, and a fascinating look at the challenges they overcame. The final chapter is a sobering play by play description of what happened to the people of Hiroshima, and was hardest but necessary to read.
I don’t read much non-fiction but for this year my pick is “Everyone Who is Gone is Here” by Jonathan Blitzer.
It’s a well-researched and original account of immigration at the US Southern border. It tells the story of many individuals and also whole Central/South American countries. The news media will tell you about caravans and people sneaking through Mexico but it’s hard to get a spin-free version of who is actually coming here and why.
It was enlightening and infuriating. Both political parties have lied to us for their benefit, and it made me realize I understood almost nothing about immigration before reading this. Highly recommend. Those of us who were born in the US are very lucky to not have to fight our way in.
I am a terrible reader and I'm really ashamed of it. I don't know how people can read that many books, I think in my lifetime I've finished at most 4 books? and two of them were technical books.
I think I suffer from aphantasia which may be related to the impossibility of getting hook to anything by reading. I've tried mangas as well and it's a bit easier, but still find hard to really enjoy.
Of course, most of the books I tried are the ones that I had to read in school, but I also tried a few recommendations from friends and the result was the same.
To build up the habit or hopefully get passionate, try to read with/for your or your relative’s kid(s). Not necessarily together with the same book, just sit beside them on the couch, park, or wherever and see what conversation follows.
Need time to read? I find the best ones are while waiting to board your flight, Uber, and other transport.
I doubt aphantasia is related. I have it, but have been a huge book reader all my life. Have you tried audiobooks? That's been my go to whenever I'm driving, cleaning, brushing teeth, etc.
I really enjoyed reading "The Blue Machine: How The Ocean Works".
It turns out the Ocean is fascinating, and I learned something crazy:
"Between 1950 and 1973, world fish harvest trippled, but the amount of fish directly consumed by humans stayed the same. The rest went into fishmeal, as a supplemental food for livestock, and this became an essential ingredient for modern industrial farming".
I didn't realize that fishmeal was a primary input to modern animal agriculture. Global fish stocks collapsed not only because people ate fish, but also because of animal agriculture in general. It's fascinating how it's all connected.
Also, sea turtles cry 8 litres of tears an hour.
Needless to say, this book ended up as a permanent fixture on my bookshelf.
> Also, sea turtles cry 8 litres an hour
"Turtles cry because they’re eating.
No, really! The example that Czerski uses is a turtle eating jellyfish. Less than one percent of jellyfish is organic material and a turtle (the author uses a leatherback as an example) must eat 80% of her body weight.
Jellyfish have the same salinity as the ocean itself, so as you can imagine, this results in a TON of salt being ingested by turtles.
It’s not just jellyfish, either. Other marine substances and creatures have the same salinity as the sea. For example, algae.
To avoid ingesting all of this salt (which would kill the turtles), they expel it back out in the form of tears."
https://kookaunty.com/kook-aunty-blog/3vnblbkjnil2txo7jevy1u...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316669935_Crying_a_...
That was such an obscure fact that I had to look it up. Wow wild. Thanks for sharing.
Without a doubt "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing.
Read it, read it now.
It's the kind of book that you once you read, you'll never forget. 4.8 stars with 23k reviews on Amazon. Similar survival story vibes as books like "Into Thin Air" or "Into the Wild" but just on another level. It follows the story of a journey to Antarctica in 1914 that goes wrong and ends up with the ship trapped in ice for many months, and follows the crews absolutely insane attempts at survival.
I am waiting for time to forget enough of it so that I can read it again.
Definitely adding this to my list. I was stationed in Antarctica for three months earlier this year and it really gave me a newfound respect for these early explorers. I can’t imagine navigating such an environment with only relatively basic equipment and the stars.
> I am waiting for time to forget enough of it so that I can read it again.
Incredible book and story, I read it this year too and your statement resonates.
Yes. I could not put this book down.
If you liked this one as an against the odds shipwreck survival story, David Grann’s The Wager is also very good.
Culture of Flowers by Jack Goodie. An anthropology book that compares the culture of Flowers across civilizations. "No flowers in Africa" to China being most gifted place in terms of flowers. Variability across Europe and Muslim civilizations etc etc.
As an Indian, I found how civilizations treat luxury (flowers) and necessity fascinating. Apparently Europe had a culture of garlands before the banquet culture. India is still predominantly garlands expect for a few highly westernised places. Muslim treatment or rather rejection of flowers in mosque but giving the world spectacle of flower gardens was very fascinating.
The book is not going to win any prize for prose or even coherence structure.
Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
I’ve been getting into self-optimization lately, and sleep has been a game-changer. Two books that really opened my eyes are Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and Outlive by Peter Attia. Walker breaks down why sleep is so critical, while Attia ties it into the bigger picture of health and longevity. Also been exploring Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint Protocol.
"Heavenly Numbers: Astronomy and Authority in Early Imperial China" by Christopher Cullen
I read it for a course assignment. The book is structured as a continuous narrative of the development of astronomy throughout the Qin and Han dynasty in early China. It balances general information with mathematical details very nicely, so I feel it will appeal to both readers interested in the history or the astronomy. A pretty fun read for me, despite my purpose.
Not 2024 book, but I found "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown valuable despite it being a mainstream self-help book.
While the core message isn't revolutionary (focus on what truly matters), it provided a useful framework for re-examining my priorities and look and my current state of things from different perspective. Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated well to sink in.
This year, I decided to read more fiction, and I like it.[1] Here are some of the interesting non-fiction books I liked;
- Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller
- How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
- The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- The TATAS: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation by Girish Kuber
1. https://brajeshwar.com/2024/books/
Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
I guessed about four but i was completely blown away by some of the details. Absolutely fascinating.
This sounds right yp my alley. I'm not much of history or "human interest" reader like most of the other suggestions but this one sounds good.
Extracting book titles from comments used to be an excellent exercise in named entity recognition, but with ChatGPT and transformer, it's now trivial.
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins (the guy that started the FIRE movement.)
Great read, and not dry like many finance/investing books can be. Worth a read if you want to retire early, or even just retire normally.
If you happen to live in NZ, then Rich Enough by Mary Holm is a great read. (again about best way to manage your money, but focused on NZ)
I think Your Money or Your Life (Vicki Robbins, 1992) predates it and helped inspire Mr Money Moustache, but Collins’ book is great too.
For everyone reading this, pursuing FIRE will impact your life more than any other book. Set the ball in motion and wait. Soon you’ll have time to enjoy all these other great books.
Fundamentals: Ten Keys To Reality by Frank Wilczek (winner of 2004 Nobel in Physics)
The Ray Tracer Challenge by Jamis Buck. It uses Cucumber tests to specify the behaviour of the code, without giving you the code. Not a single weekend project. I've been doing it in C++ to learn about the modern language, but any language can be used.
"The Alchemy of Air" by Thomas Hager. This covers the discovery of fertilizer, its strategic implications (it was the oil of its day), the creation in Germany of the Haber-Bosch process for producing fertilizer and gunpowder precursors from air, and how it fueled two world wars. An incredible story that is not widely known these days.
"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. This is an old one, but still a classic. The first half is like a scientific detective story about the discovery and development of quantum theory itself, in Germany and Denmark, and can be read by itself as an engaging history of physics. Then Hitler rises to power, we learn how most of the characters we've met so far escape to England and the USA, and the others except Bohr become part of the German nuclear project. It then becomes an engineering management history of the Manhattan project, and a fascinating look at the challenges they overcame. The final chapter is a sobering play by play description of what happened to the people of Hiroshima, and was hardest but necessary to read.
I'll put a word in for _High And Rising_:
https://www.amazon.com/High-Rising-k-Soul/dp/0358494885
I like reading Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. It is an introduction to philosophy in an interesting way.
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
this book is a good read if you wanna know computer history , how it started and how it evolved
I don’t read much non-fiction but for this year my pick is “Everyone Who is Gone is Here” by Jonathan Blitzer.
It’s a well-researched and original account of immigration at the US Southern border. It tells the story of many individuals and also whole Central/South American countries. The news media will tell you about caravans and people sneaking through Mexico but it’s hard to get a spin-free version of who is actually coming here and why.
It was enlightening and infuriating. Both political parties have lied to us for their benefit, and it made me realize I understood almost nothing about immigration before reading this. Highly recommend. Those of us who were born in the US are very lucky to not have to fight our way in.
Oh no! Is it that time of year again?
Yes. Cue the “I only read 453 books this year, but here’s my top 50” comments
I am a terrible reader and I'm really ashamed of it. I don't know how people can read that many books, I think in my lifetime I've finished at most 4 books? and two of them were technical books.
I think I suffer from aphantasia which may be related to the impossibility of getting hook to anything by reading. I've tried mangas as well and it's a bit easier, but still find hard to really enjoy.
Of course, most of the books I tried are the ones that I had to read in school, but I also tried a few recommendations from friends and the result was the same.
It makes me a bit sad.
To build up the habit or hopefully get passionate, try to read with/for your or your relative’s kid(s). Not necessarily together with the same book, just sit beside them on the couch, park, or wherever and see what conversation follows.
Need time to read? I find the best ones are while waiting to board your flight, Uber, and other transport.
I doubt aphantasia is related. I have it, but have been a huge book reader all my life. Have you tried audiobooks? That's been my go to whenever I'm driving, cleaning, brushing teeth, etc.
Try picking books just for fun, and reading in a pleasant setting. It makes a big difference.
I read 453 books if you run cat | wc on all the HN submissions I read.
It's the most wonderful time on the year..
And we haven’t even started putting up the Christmas lights.
Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman by Susanne Schattenberg
Sapiens
I only have time to listen to audiobooks so I hope this list is not too basic.
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything by Nate Silver
The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto by Jonathan Taplin
The Value of Others by Orion Taraban
Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks by Geoff White
Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan
Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter by Zoe Schiffer
Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC by Roger Ver
Go Woke, Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America by Charles Gasparino
The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets by Thomas R Cech
and my book of the year
Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health by Casey Means M D