Ask HN: What're You Reading?

ddan-bailey about 4 hours ago 43 comments

ZH version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

I'm plowing through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, which is not particularly challenging as sci-fi/LitRPG goes, but entertaining enough. I'm also wrapping up Doctorow's _Enshittification_, and I'm looking for something a little meaty to keep the brain working...

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Discussion (43 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

jcubic•7 minutes ago

Finally started reading "A Philosophy of Software Design". It was on my shelf for ages. I have the 1st edition; luckily, you can grab new chapters from the 2nd edition from the author's website.

Rendello•about 2 hours ago

Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer [1].

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

mithras•about 1 hour ago

I'm currently reading her Terra Ignota series and it's great, so I was already planning to tackle this one next.

DamnInteresting•13 minutes ago

Fiction I recently enjoyed: The Ana and Din series by Robert Jackson Bennett. Sherlock Holmes vibes, with Kaiju. Also The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.

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

Next to Read: Hollywood, Ending by John Green.

NishanStepak•26 minutes ago

I am currently listening to VC An American History by Tom Nicholas, Audible 2019. I am reading Predictable Winners, A Handbook for Developing, Forecasting, and Launching New Products and Services, Stanford Business Books, 2025. I have cracked open, but not gotten very far in reading, The Rise And Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2026. The Jill Lepore book is very interesting.

quuxplusone•about 1 hour ago

You Gotta Have Wa, by Robert Whiting (1989), about baseball in Japan in the 1980s.

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.

electroweak•about 1 hour ago

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Recently passed the bit where Ammianus complained the rich had bought up much of the property in Rome and turned so many into renters and gave stats to show it. Amongst his many other complaints.

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

akkartik•about 1 hour ago

Tell me more about the abridgements. Which one now, which one next?

electroweak•about 1 hour ago

I'm reading Dero Saunders penguin classic which I picked up from a used book store. It's fine, but I'm at the point where the last 6 books of the original should kick in and Saunders treats it as an epilogue. I didn't even realize there were multiple abridgements when I started, and reviews of the others seem to include more about that and retain more of that special "Gibbonness" that's been so much delightful effort to parse. It's been a slow and halting first read I'm looking forward to a more uninterrupted story the second run through. I'll probably go for the Wormesly one and try to spot the differences. You only really start to know a great book after the second reading anyway.

PyWoody•about 1 hour ago

I couldn't remember which Shakespeare plays I had or hadn't read, so I've spent the summer going through them alphabetically. It's been a blast!

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.

ferguess_k•about 2 hours ago

This is my 13th round to recommend "The Soul of a new Machine" as well as "Showstoppers".

abstash•about 2 hours ago

The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. A book which depicts tale of a family across the East and West Bengal amidst Partition of India. This book is very renowned and well written. Being a programmer, its better to read on different topics(which is rarity these days)

lp92•about 2 hours ago

Currently reading "Beyond Tube-and-Wing: The X-48 Blended Wing-Body and NASA's Quest to Reshape Future Transport Aircraft".

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

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

akkartik•about 2 hours ago

Lots of scifi and fantasy.

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.

aeve890•about 2 hours ago

>The Carryx series

Weird. There's a species called Carryx too in a series from James S.A. Corey called "The Captive's War".

akkartik•about 1 hour ago

That's the one I mean! Can never remember the names of the books/series, hence the gesture.

theflyinghorse•about 2 hours ago

Finally got to Dostoevsky's Brother Karamazov. This will take a while.

chistev•about 1 hour ago

Read Crime and Punishment?

undopamine•about 1 hour ago

Just started Quantum Break: Zero State

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

no-dr-onboard•about 1 hour ago

The Intellectual Life by AG Sertillanges. Note that it does presuppose a Christian worldview, so ymmv depending on your belief.

softwaredoug•about 2 hours ago

I’m reading The Well of Ascension, the second book of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy

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

hosel•about 2 hours ago

Wait until you hear a detailed explanation of the magic system for the 5th time. Still a good series.

leros•about 1 hour ago

I was just listening to a Sanderson interview. He's annoyed by it too. It's his publisher wanting the books to be easy to get into. He's dealing with it in Mistborn era 3 where's he's trying to figure out how to re-explain everything and it's annoying him because he just wants to show allomancers doing cool stuff.

softwaredoug•about 2 hours ago

Well I often forget the rules, so its useful :)

rearview•about 2 hours ago

Just recently started watching Reacher S1 and it was absolutely amazing so started reading the book and wow - like its absolutely amazing

andsoitis•about 4 hours ago

Why Greatness cannot be Planned.

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

buckhx•about 2 hours ago

Infinite Jest. Enjoying it so far, but the length keeps on killing me. I'm like 5% of the way in after a couple of weeks...

desbo•about 1 hour ago

Took me a year. Loved it! Planning to go back when I have the energy. The Pale King was also really good and a little easier going.

sim04ful•about 1 hour ago

Samuel Butler's adaptation of Homer.

leandot•about 2 hours ago

The Immortal Great Souls from Phil Tucker. Very enjoyable fantasy with unique world and characters.

leandot•about 2 hours ago

The Immortal Great Souls by Phil Tucker. Very enjoyable fantasy with great world and characters.

snicky•about 3 hours ago

Private Revolutions: Four Women Face China's New Social Order

Not sure if this one qualifies as more meaty :)

pringk02•about 1 hour ago

I just got done with a second read of 2666 by Bolaño.

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.

PaulHoule•about 4 hours ago

In my bag right now I have: The Fox and the Jewel by Karen A. Smeyers and The Spiral Dance by Starhawk.

Tomte•about 4 hours ago

Back issues of The London Review of Books.

tocs3•about 3 hours ago

I do not know if this is related to this comments but if you are reading The London Review of Books so that you do not have to read the whole book, maybe it is. I do not watch movies much anymore. Sometime though I want to know what a movie is all about. So, I just read the wikipedia plot review on it. It saves me the time by not having to sit through much tedium but I get a scenes of what it is about.

I have been reading The Bible. It has been a long time project and I have a long ways to go. I am much more agnostic that a true believer but it has been interesting. Hearing popular views about it and Christianity vs. reading The Book is sort of like the difference between reading a novel and watching the based on movie.

zero_shift•about 2 hours ago

I am an atheist but I have read a little bit of the bible, mostly early OT. I recommend reading a scholarly / literal translation, because there is a lot of nuance in the Hebrew

tocs3•about 1 hour ago

Do you have any recommendations for translations? I have been reading from some I just have laying around.

I have been wanting to read Donald Knuth's "3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated".

(https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/316.html)

AbbeFaria•about 2 hours ago

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

chistev•about 1 hour ago

Oh, I plan to re-read this in the near future!

"Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence"

In my original comment, I Iisted some other books by Dawkins if you're interested -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896133

SubGenius•about 3 hours ago

The Rouse by China Miéville, great read so far.

chistev•about 1 hour ago

Thanks for this question!

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

judicious•about 2 hours ago

Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century by W. David Marx. A fascinating and approachable read.