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Ask HN: Best non-fiction book you read in 2024?

by vintageclothldn on 11/23/24, 2:39 AM with 57 comments

• by Meleagris on 11/23/24, 2:57 AM

  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.

• by tuna-piano on 11/23/24, 3:02 AM

  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.

• by dilawar on 11/23/24, 3:04 AM

  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.

• by bwb on 11/23/24, 2:07 PM

  Wounded Tigris By Leon McCarron

  This book is not something you can read and forget. Leon and his small team travel down the entire Tigris River. They start in Turkey, go through all of Iraq, and end in the marshes.

  I picked it up, thinking it would be an interesting adventure with a heavy dose of history. Instead, I got an utterly fascinating account of the river, its ecosystem, the heavy impact of pollution and water management, and the cultural impact of all these changes on the people who live alongside it.

  Longer thoughts here: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/bwb

  So far Ive asked around 1,200 readers for their 3 fav reads of the year. Here are the nonfiction results so far: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/nonfiction

  You can share yours too if you want :)

• by rashidae on 11/23/24, 3:06 AM

  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.

• by magnio on 11/23/24, 3:00 AM

  "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.

• by KRAKRISMOTT on 11/23/24, 3:01 AM

  Extracting book titles from comments used to be an excellent exercise in named entity recognition, but with ChatGPT and transformer, it's now trivial.

• by Yawrehto on 11/24/24, 12:01 AM

  So far? It could be (read: is) recency bias, but I recently finished Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and found it fascinating and relevant, although some of the one-off science facts are outdated. I'm planning on reading her other books. I've heard they're much more poetic annd have a nicer subject matter than how we're killing ourselves.

• by jarko27 on 11/23/24, 9:42 AM

  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.

• by kristianp on 11/23/24, 4:01 AM

  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.

• by Brajeshwar on 11/23/24, 3:54 AM

  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/

• by rugyoga on 11/23/24, 3:48 AM

  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.

• by yaskour on 11/23/24, 3:28 AM

  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

• by wingworks on 11/23/24, 4:00 AM

  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)

• by kaycebasques on 11/23/24, 4:53 AM

  Fundamentals: Ten Keys To Reality by Frank Wilczek (winner of 2004 Nobel in Physics)

• by adastra22 on 11/23/24, 3:10 AM

  "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.

• by tptacek on 11/23/24, 2:56 AM

  I'll put a word in for _High And Rising_:

  https://www.amazon.com/High-Rising-k-Soul/dp/0358494885

• by pinewurst on 11/23/24, 3:18 AM

  Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman by Susanne Schattenberg

• by incomingpain on 11/25/24, 1:15 PM

  Body keeps the score, bessel van der kolk

  I wish I wasnt in a situation that this book helped a great deal; but here we are.

• by cheshire137 on 11/24/24, 2:45 AM

  I read The Hot Zone by Richard Preston and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Enjoyed both. Think I preferred Into Thin Air.

• by foogazi on 11/23/24, 2:38 PM

  The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  I liked how it connected dis-connected stories and extracts a truth or message from observing each situation

• by habosa on 11/23/24, 3:00 AM

  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.

• by ilyaivanov on 11/23/24, 6:05 AM

  I like reading Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. It is an introduction to philosophy in an interesting way.

• by ibash on 11/23/24, 2:45 AM

  Oh no! Is it that time of year again?

• by pinewurst on 11/23/24, 5:22 PM

  The World That Wasn't: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century by Benn Steil.

• by zs234465234165 on 11/23/24, 6:32 PM

  Dr. Mike Israetel Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training (Renaissance Periodization

• by lcordier on 11/23/24, 2:56 PM

  Shameless plug, https://louiscordier.com/the_3_book_of_louis/ I wrote it earlier this year and are tracking its adoption and spreading. It is hitting a plateau though, so now I am nudging it ;)

• by 28304283409234 on 11/23/24, 12:19 PM

  Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• by throw0101d on 11/23/24, 2:13 PM

  If I had to pick one: The rise and fall of American growth: the U.S. standard of living since the Civil War by Robert Gordon. The gains that we have made in the (early) 20th century are unlikely to ever be repeated, and progress in many metrics has measurably slowed or even stalled since ~1970s (likely being asymptotic). And while the Internet (classified under the Information, Communication, Technology (ICT) chapters) gave a bump in the 1990s, it's mostly been flat since 2004.

  More economic history with Slouching towards Utopia: an economic history of the twentieth century by J. Bradford Delong. More economic ideas stuff in Value(s): building a better world for all by Mark Carney (ran the Banks of Canada and England). Also Waphsott's Keynes Hayek: the clash that defined modern economics and Samuelson Friedman: the battle over the free market.

  The currency of politics: the political theory of money from Aristotle to Keynes by Sefan Eich, Money: the true story of a made-up thing by Jacob Goldstein, and The power of gold: the history of an obsession by Peter Bernstein (also his Against the Gods on risk). Show how much of a human construct "money" is, how its meaning changes in different times and places/cultures. Should be required reading by all the 'hard money' folks (gold standard, BTC).

  The good life: lessons from the world's longest scientific study of happiness by Waldinger and Schultz (directors of the Harvard study). If there's one 'magic' thing for health and happiness it seems to be having good relationships (family, friends) in your life.

  Religion: what it is, how it works, and why it matters by Christian Smith and Strange rites: new religions for a godless world by Tara Burton. While many think that religion is in decline, the non-material/supernatural things that people believe in has actually shifted. And having beliefs in a super-human entity seems to be the basis of most societies and civilizations. Related, The warfare between science and religion : the idea that wouldn't die, a series of essays; the conflict thesis bunk, both historically and presently.

  The origins of Canadian and American political differences by Jason Kaufman, two seemingly-the-same neighbouring countries that have had different development paths when it comes to culture and government. (I'm Canadian.)

  Speaking of government: Civil resistance: what everyone needs to know by Erica Chenoweth. Seems violence/force is generally a less effective way to affect change in society than non-violence.

  The week: a history of the unnatural rhythms that made us who we are by David Henkin. Seems that while seven days has been around for a long while, making it a really 'hard' structure/schedule around it is a more recent phenomenon than you'd expect.

  If you have kids, Karen Le Billon's French kids eat everything (and yours can, too) and Getting to YUM: the 7 secrets of raising eager eaters, her husband is French and she lived there for a year and found many things done better there than US/CA. See also The happiest kids in the world: how Dutch parents help their kids and themselves by doing less by Acosta and Hutchison.

  Flying blind: the 737 MAX tragedy and the fall of Boeing by Peter Robison is an HN favourite. While we get a lot of engineer vs MBA comments, I think the bigger problem (associated with the MBA-types) is financialization, i.e., returns over everything else. Having non-engineers/MBAs can be 'fine' also long as trying to squeeze blood/money from a stone at the cost of everything else.

  Some philosophy with Alasdair C. MacIntyre: After Virtue is a good starting point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue

• by andsoitis on 11/23/24, 3:07 AM

  Sapiens

• by lovestory on 11/23/24, 5:56 AM

  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