Books that I particularly enjoyed this year:

I reread the tripod trilogy by John Christopher: The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire. Hadn't read them for a while but enjoyed them as always.

Heaven's River by Dennis Taylor is the forth in the Bobiverse series.

Three Laws Lethal by David Walton.

The House of Styx by Derek Künsken took me a while to get into, but then enjoyed it.

The Oppenheimer Alternative by Robert Sawyer. Don't usually like historical fiction but will make an exception for this one.

And for something different, if you want to try rural Australian fiction find anything by Jane Harper, but in particular The Dry and The Lost Man.

Yep! Not just fiction but fantasy. It's my favorite genre, and the more fantastical the better.

I'm currently on book 9 of 12 in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Also enjoying everything by Brandon Sanderson who I believe to be greatest living fantasy writer, perhaps one of the greatest of all time.

I came across Brandon Sanderson in another HN book thread. He's such a phenomenal author in the fantasy genre. I've read most of his series at this point and they are all great. Mistborn and Way of Kings being favorites.

Brandon Sanderson is almost inhuman in his ability to churn out books. Some of his books are better than others, but hey, I'll take imperfect but shipped series any day over a series that languishes near the finish line (cough Rothfuss, Martin)

I refuse to read something from authors that don't have track records of finishing series after reading Rothfuss and Martin. The way GoT was handled should be a good indicator for TV studios that authors who can't deliver a complete story can't deliver a complete TV series. I already lost clout from my friends for recommending anything written by them when expected sequels haven't materialized in almost a decade.

On the other hand, Sanderson's Stormlight Archives made me actually like the genre again.

Yes Stormlight series, the highlight chapter being the kid who uses her superpower of 'awesomeness', that was great.

He turned that into an entire book, Edgedancer !

That chapter worked really well in the context of the book, I'm curious if it held up as a separate book?

It was decent but not amazing. Definitely one of the weaker entries in the Stormlight Archive, but hey, it's a novella so you don't expect much. You get more backstory on the "awesomeness" character.

It's always impressive to me when someone makes it through the slog that was books 4-8. Books 10-12 really pick up the pace again. I believe that's when Sanderson took over for the late Robert Jordan.

If you enjoy somewhat grittier fiction, I would suggest Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy.

> I would suggest Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy

Agree - I really enjoyed this. I particularly liked that many of the characters who would traditionally be the bad guys are treated sympathetically, and their 'badness' is motivated by their personal circumstance and experience. This is in contrast to the somewhat cliched representation in many stories (fantasy or otherwise) of the bad guys who are evil just because the plot demands it.

And Mark Lawrence’s Prince of Nothing trilogy, if you enjoy “gritty”.

It doesn’t get better than Sanderson.

My next book will be part 4 of the way of kings (rhytm of war)! Looking forward to it!

If you haven't already read the Acts of Cain books by Matthew Stover, definitely recommend those for a cool mix of fantasy and scifi. Also the main character is a total badass.

I've heard good things about Brandon, and since you speak of him so highly, which of his books or series would you recommend I start with?

While Mistborn is an excellent choice, I sometimes start people on some of his YA (as a lower commitment):

- Rithmatist is my favorite, but is only one book. - Steelheart is a very fun fresh take on super powers. - Skyward is like Dragon's Blood meets Space Invaders - it's great. The third book should be finished this year.

Finally, he does have one middlegrade series which most people seem to overlook: Alcatraz vs The Evil Librarians. It is just awesome, especially for anyone who loves trope busting.

Mistborn is definitely the best place to start. It is a fantastic trilogy that wraps up so perfectly, which is rare in the world of popular fantasy. Stormlight Archive is amazing, but it might be worth waiting for the 5th book to release (maybe 3ish years from now), which appears to be a sort of stopping point before the next five books.

Way of kings is epic in scope. Try Mistborn — it’s faster pace, lower commitment, and showcases Sanderson style and magic system building nicely. Just an aside if you have kids he has a lot of great young adult novels as well. He is simply prolific and enjoyable. I worked through most of one of his writing classes he teaches and it changed how I view fnantsy fiction.

Strongly recommend either The Way of Kings or Mistborn. They're the first books in two separate series of his. The Way of Kings is epic fantasy. Mistborn is somewhere between fantasy and YA.

I starting way of kings. Mist born was great.

I am a huge Rothfuss fan, but dudes taking his sweet time with book 3 of king killer.

I read 95% fiction, but I feel like a book list from a notable in the tech field is expected to be mostly tech non-fiction, because, honestly, why would I trust a Swift developer more than anyone else for fiction reading?

(That is, there's no reason why his recommendations would be any worse than anyone else's, but I see no real reason I'd trust his fiction recommendations more than anyone else's -- being in tech doesn't mean we'd have the same taste in fiction.)

> I read 45 books in 2020

He’s claimed to have read a fairly large number of books in 2020. So not on the basis of his writing swift, rather his taste as a reader.

I normally read a lot of fiction, but for some reason couldn't get into anything non-technical this year. I have several books that I've started and enjoyed, but couldn't make myself sit down and read. If it's technical, though, I can read it cover-to-cover in a week. Very frustrating, but maybe next year I'll get back into fiction reading.

I usually read fiction. It feels like the difference between a photograph and a painting.

My biggest complaint with non-fiction is that it often starts with a person with a story, who may not be the best writer. Thus, despite the content of the material, the prose can be rather drab. Additionally, no - fiction also falls into the trappings of 'why not just read the synopsis?'.

The non-fiction I love tends to often just be compellingly written textbooks. Eg: DesignOfDesign or Indian after Gandhi OR Blogs (Derek Lowe, Sinocism, SSC)

Fiction simply has a LOT more freedom to experiment with ideas and lets the author disto ideas in a way that non-fiction never can, due to its constraints.

I am good at suspending disbelief, so the emotional attachment for both mediums is pretty equal for me. I know many friends who can't read fiction, because they simply can't get invested in a 'not-real' story.

Yes, currently working through the Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr. Highly recommended. Bernie is a Berlin PI who ends up in the SS. It is pretty grim in spots but full of tremendous black humour as well. If you enjoy detective stories and/or historical fiction, please take a look at this series.

I second this recommendation.

The whole series is amazing. I doubt though that Bernie would appreciate to be said to "end up in the SS" :)

This was a good read. If anyone familiar with Germany authors can comment I'd love to be reading more historical fiction by actual Germans (Kerr is English, I think). I'm familiar with Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse (and of course, Goethe), but looking for authors a little more approachable than these greats. All Quiet On The Western Front was more in this category of an approachable read.

tldr; looking for recommendations from more recent German novelists translated into English because this American has a hard time finding them.

Hans Peter Richter wrote multiple young adult historical fiction books about the rise of Hitler, which have been translated to English and are very approachable. His most famous is Friedrich. They were written in the 80s, which isn't exactly modern but is certainly more recent than Herman Hesse.

Not recent at all, but as you mentioned Goethe, the comparatively lower class playwright Friedrich Schiller was considered to be his intellectual equal and rival.

Thank you! I'd really like to get away from war novels, but I'll give this one a try.

I read predominantly fiction with some occasional non-fiction thrown in. My two big recommendations from my 2020 reading are

(fiction): A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine, 2020 Hugo Winner. It could be loosely described as a SF political thriller and contains some great characters, good ideas and genuine suspense. The future context of the story is based on the author's Ph.D research into the imperial tension between the intensely sophisticated Byzantine empire and its smaller neighbours in the 11th century.

(non-fiction): Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins. This is the autobiography of the astronaut who stayed in orbit around the Moon while Armstrong and Collins gained the kudos of the first lunar landing. I've read several accounts of the Apollo programme over the years, and this was by far and away the best written. Collin's account of his Gemini 10 mission is also gripping. This involved him spacewalking to an undocked Agena Target Vehicle while John Young was manually formation flying the Gemini spacecraft. Collins had to make sure he wasn't over any of the manoeuvring thrusters that Young might have needed to use to avoid a collision with the Target.

Carrying the Fire sounds great! Thanks for the recommendation.

Because I read so much nonfiction for my work as a cognitive scientist, I tend to prefer fiction for my personal enjoyment. I suppose that I could choose other unrelated nonfiction subjects, but for some reason that seems more like work again. Though, I do read some nonfiction for personal enjoyment, such as history, pop science, etc.

The evolution of my career has been (nonfiction) writer, then (nonfiction) editor, then lawyer, and finally cognitive scientist. Almost all of my adult life has been either writing and reading for study, or writing and reading for work.

Reading is still the #1 thing I do on my own time despite it also being the #1 thing I do for work, but, please, make it pretend. :)

What novel have you read recently that you would recommend? I've asked that in the past here and was recommended The Dog Stars and The Goldfinch, both of which I enjoyed.

Probably the best books I read in 2020 are Norwegian Wood (Murakami) and Warlight: A Novel (Ondaatje).

Earlier this year I read Lavie Tidhar's 'A man lies dreaming', that was a bit of an experience. Only attempt it with a very open mind.

I just looked this one up wow - sounds provocative and interesting. The Amazon page says:

> [A Man Lies Dreaming] supposes that the National Socialists lost their bid for Germany in 1933, after which the country fell into the hands of Jewish Communists in an event known as the Fall. Now it's 1939 and an underworld of ex-Nazis has taken root in London, where they are essentially an oppressed minority.

It’s on my list now too. Thanks.

Just a heads up, that summary does not even begin to address the shocking weirdness of the book. I found it really interesting but, well, consider yourself warned...

For pure entertainment and nothing else, Lonesome Dove. It was the first Western I read. I did not think I’d like it because it’s a Western... just not my thing. I was very wrong. I went on to read the other books in the series, but you don’t need to. They each stand on their own.

Still not sure I’ll ever read another Western, but this book was a gem. I believe it has been made into films twice, although I did not watch them.

The English Patient was a great one by Ondaatje. I've been meaning to pick up Warlight since it came out.

The English Patient is the first book that ever had me enjoying the prose as much as the story itself. As I was reading it I realized that even though I know all the words Ondaatje is using, I could never assemble them is such an artful and beautiful way. That book took me a long time to get through because I would reread passages as I went.

You may also enjoy a lot of Hemingway's stuff, Wind, Sand, and Stars by de Saint-Exupéry, Out of Africa by Karen Blixen and West With the Night by Berly Markham -- all memoirs (except for Hemingway's non-memoirs) very similar in style and beauty.

If anyone else has recommendations along these lines of memoirist or novelists with excellent command of beautiful, but very simple English I'd love to hear.

Because of The English Patient book (not film), I read “The Histories” by Herodotus. It is his only possession, if you remember.

Speaking of Murakami I re-read Hard-boiled Wonderland this year which is a bit of tour de force at times but in my opinion still one of his best novels. Sci-fi in a weird way without a lot of technology and in a dream-like (nightmarish at times) narrative.

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll put Wonderland on my list.

Try The Ancestor by Danielle Trussoni. It's gothic fiction with a science twist. https://www.amzn.com/B07S6NM6TG

I can’t stand many of Murakami’s books, but Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun are really excellent.

The Goldfinch is on my list. I’m a big Murakami fan as well so I approve of your excellent taste.

I can recommend two strong stories that came out earlier in 2020:

"Piranesi" by Susanna Clarke was great. Minimalist and eerie, with a satisfying science-fantasy plot. Very different in size, scope and theme from Clarke's previous novel, "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell".

"The invisible life of Addie La Rue" by V.E. Schwab. A good character and a good story, but with a couple of tropey elements here and there. I had fun with it, but since I can't remember its end just a couple of months after reading it, suggests that it (the end) might be a little underwhelming.

Some favorites from this last year:

Gideon the Ninth, & Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.

Delta V by Daniel Suarez (space mining!!!)

Battle Grounds, & Peace Talks (Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher

Bobiverse 1,2 & 3 by Dennis E. Taylor

There is a forth in the Bobiverse series called Heaven's River. Currently only available in audiobook. Other formats later this month by the looks of it.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42950440-heaven-s-river

Thanks!!

I read Game of Thrones for the first time. I was surprised to find out how different it is from the TV series, and that it's still being written. This was after completing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, which was a favorite in high school but never finished.

This was really just nostalgia. But I figured why not, it's 2020.

They're not so good though, I think the series will be better with both books.

Yes. I want an escape these days. Worked my way through the Expanse series this year.

I'm having a hard time justifying reading those books after watching the show. I feel like typically the book gives me a vastly different experience from the on-screen adaptation. But The Expanse screenwriters did such a great job transferring it to a TV series it feels like I'm reading exactly what I already watched.

Miller in the book and on screen was one of my favourite characters ever, watching Thomas Jane own that role makes it worth it. I was really interested to learn that the book was written by two people, one wrote Miller, the other wrote the other (annoying) guy.

I felt that way but I’m on book two and it’s totally worth reading them. They’re even better. Not that the show isn’t good, the books are just fantastic.

That wears off at season 5. There is a lot of divergence from the book there already.

I read a shit-ton of science fiction books and the main reason is that I find them useful as a prelude in doing further research for various scientific issues that I'm unaware of. That and the fact that they're fun.

Can you please provide the list of sci-fi books ? I am really missing good books from sci-fi genre, these days.

Sure, here are the best ones I've read this last year (not all of them are published in 2020 though).

We are legion - D. Taylor. A four book series, haven't read the rest of the books.

Children of time - A. Tchaikovsky

The Unicorn Project - G. Kim. This would be especially interesting for the HN crowd. It's not sf per se, rather more than contemporary fiction, but the main theme is about programming and politics in a big corporation. Quite original and a lot of fun.

Agency - W. Gibson

The space between worlds - M. Johnson

To sleep in a sea of stars - C. Paolini

The algebraist - I. Banks

Hope you'll find something to your liking. Happy new year.

thanks a lot. Wish you same !

Altered Carbon, read it before you watch it imho. Amazing, awesome book/series.

Almost entirely fiction here (literary, contemporary, book club type novels mostly, occasional genre).

I enjoy the occasional history-focused narrative non-fiction, but like to use reading as escapism, so prefer stories.

I have a difficult time finding fiction that I appreciate these days. I could make a long list of things I have enjoyed, but I haven’t been able to do much to add to it.

It sounds like you have a developed taste. Once you have that, the "Search Problem" of finding new fiction is a bit easier.

Try finding interviews of - or reviews/letters written by - the authors you admire. They'll usually reference some influential authors you can expand into. If a publisher/editor is sufficiently focused, you can recurse in that direction, too.

You can recursively apply this algorithm, adjusting priority by how much you enjoy the authors you've found so far.

This requires a little bit more up-front work, and you have to be willing to tolerate/toss out the occasional dud. But it's worked well for me so far.

The same trick works for movies, and art more generally.

---

For example, see this interview of Karl Ove Knausgaard [1]. From there, you see some names you might recognize (Rene Girard, Rilke, Ibsen, Proust, Borges, Ferrante).

But you also find Paul Celan [2], Sigrid Undset [3], Knut Hamsun [4], Peter Handke [5]

[1]: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/karl-ove-knausga...

[2]: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-celan

[3]: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigrid-Undset

[4]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32587.On_Overgrown_Paths

[5]: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Handke

This method has worked wonders for me in the past. I picked up the Three Body Problem when I heard George RR Martin praise it in an interview - "It’s a strong book, an AMBITIOUS book, a worthy winner [of the Hugo award].". The series was nothing short of extraordinary. If anything, he undersold it.

If you consider all English fiction books published in , say, the last 75 years, there are beautiful opportunities that you may be foregoing. Don’t just think of books from the last few years or even from your lifetime.

Try something from a Pulitzer Prize winner, Booker Prize for Fiction , Nobel Prize for Literature, or National Book Award.

For example, John Steinbeck has some amazing novels that are often overlooked. Hemingway. There are many such authors.

I swore off John Steinbeck when I was in high school, after having a visceral dislike for The Grapes of Wrath.

Then a few months ago, I read an interesting quote here on HN -- I traced it back to Steinbeck's East of Eden, so I decided to give it a try.

I really truly deeply enjoyed the book. I hesitate to add books to a "favorites of all time" list until at least several months after reading, but it's a definite contender.

As for the different experiences between GoW and EoE, I have to assume that the inconsistency of the reader has a lot to do with it.

So, +1 on the Steinbeck recommendation. And gratitude to the lost-attribution commenter who quoted him!

Hemingway waits patiently on my TODO list.

If you don't mind me asking, what fiction have you enjoyed? Maybe some people in here can help out.

This, I feel like I have already read all of the books I'll really like.

That sounds like “I’m not going to travel anymore because I’ve already seen all the places I’ll really like.”

Haha, maybe, although I would suggest that it's easier to be exposed to all the good fiction than to visit all the good places. I can scan through a lot of books with everything online.

> it's easier to be exposed to all the good fiction

Exposed or actually read? If you read on average 1 book per month and are aged 50, that's at most 600 books you've read.

There are thousands upon thousands of books that have received awards and are worthwhile (obviously that is subjective but even if you consider 10% to be "worthwhile", there is still a huge corpus), so to say you've been exposed to all the good fiction is unlikely.

I think you need more influences if you are out of ideas. Or you're not trying hard enough.

Do you need to read a whole book to make a decision on whether you like it? I get ideas from various places then read a few pages to get a feel for a book, super easy with kindle samples, or if you're not in lockdown stand and read a few pages in the bookshop.

As for worthwhile, I don't find awards to be strongly correlated with my enjoyment, or reviews for that matter. Actually the best resource I've found in a while is the bestsciencefictionbooks.com website.

In any case, I constantly look for new things to read, and read many things that are just ok, but I just don't have as many strong positives anymore.

Mostly hard science fiction with the occasional technical non-fiction book mixed in between. For the next year I want to read more non-fiction non-technical books.

My favorite books of 2020 are : - Lolita by Nabokov, delightfully written and disturbing - the Foundation series by Asimov, a classic. Great plot

Through a newspaper article I discovered Lauren Groff. I read and liked The Monsters of Templeton, Fates and Furies and Florida.

I read a lot of Warhammer stuff, interspersed with a mix of non fiction.

I need my bolter porn though.