The best:
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - one of the most interesting books I have ever read
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction - absolutely fascinating. actionable advice that has been unreasonably well tested and proven.
- The Better Angels of Our Nature - another one for the list of most interesting books ever
- Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy - highly recommended for anyone who struggles with depression. takes a very data-centric approach to correcting your own warped perceptions of reality. made a world of difference for me.
- A Small Matter of Programming: Perspectives on End User Computing - incredibly useful, especially given my day job. challenged a lot of assumptions that I had made without noticing
- Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking - great idea for a book. so far only fundamental attribution error stuck, but I notice it everywhere now. will certainly read again.
- Slate Star Codex - original, careful thought on all kinds of topics
The rest, in no particular order:
- The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers - applicable to both climbing and parkour. bought early in the year after freaking out on lead and was very helpful.
- Rationality: From AI to Zombies - a slog, but contains lots of useful ideas
- The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism - still reading. less sleazy than it sounds - tends to recommend that its easier to just learn to be a decent person than to try and fake subtle signals
- Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most - still reading. has been very useful this year.
- Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness - still reading. not as interesting so far as I had hoped.
- Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception - still reading. in many ways a counterpoint to the above.
- Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years - still reading. stopped early on because it was both very convincing and very one-sided. planning to resume when I have time to verify the content elsewhere.
- Thinking Statistically - ended up skimming. was nothing new to me.
- Your Brain at Work - still reading. lots of very interesting ideas but I haven't put much into practice. may need to reread and take notes.
- The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA - fascinating. in places reads almost as propaganda, but had the opposite effect of making me realise just how actively the CIA fucks with other nations
- Trying Not to Try: Ancient China, Modern Science, and the Power of Spontaneity - modern side is flimsy and it fails to come to a conclusion, but I really enjoyed the glimpse into chinese philosophy.
- Stumbling on Happiness - enjoyed it, but didn't take much away in terms of practical changes.
- Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World - has lots of neat little ideas for different ways to practice mindfulness. if you need to read a book about meditating, it might as well be this one
- Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking - loved the concept but in practice I found it sloppy compared to Rationality A-Z. stopped reading
- The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right - still reading. learned a lot already, but not sure how to apply it.
- The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't - not yet started
- The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What We Can Learn About Ourselves from Our Machines - still reading (lost my original copy). the experiments are interesting but the interpretations are not completely convincing.
- The End of Error: Unum Computing - bought the dead-tree copy, lost it before finishing. beautiful book and very well explained. not sure how to make the ideas practical any time soon, since the overhead of software implementation is going to be huge, but I did learn that floating point didn't have to be so awful
- Probability and Computing: Randomized Algorithms and Probabilistic Analysis - still reading. i love everything about this book but i never find enough consecutive hours to get to the end without forgetting the beginning
- What to Talk About - entertaining, ultimately not very helpful
- The Most Human Human: A Defence of Humanity in the Age of the Computer - have you ever read one of those news articles that wants to tell you a story for half an hour before actually getting to the point?
- Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - classic book. went from having no clue to producing passable charcoal portraits in 10-20 hours of practice. maybe just ignore the authors attempts at science though.
- The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century - feels like it should be useful but so dry I didn't retain anything
- Database in Depth: Relational Theory for Practitioners - has some useful commentary on what rdmbs were intended to be before sql. probably not worth reading unless you build databases for a living
- Training for Climbing - still reading. lots of solid advice, structured so that you can pick and choose rather than reading from start to finish.
- Time and Relational Theory - should have been useful but it bored me silly instead
- How to Solve It - classic book. always worth keeping around as a checklist for tricky problems.
- How to Prove It - seemed like a good choice for a beginners math text. the beginner in question lost interest, so maybe not
- Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension - really ought to be interesting but the author has severe syllabic diarrhea. possibly the worst-written book I have ever tried to read. somebody find this person a translator.
- Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration - lost interest quickly
- The Running Revolution: How to Run Faster, Farther, and Injury-Free--for Life - still reading. first few sets of exercises seemed to help. haven't taken the time to apply the rest yet.
- The Practice and Science of Drawing - lost interest quickly
- Superhuman by Habit - inspirational, but didn't actually lead to any improvement
- Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art - lost the dead-tree copy. was enjoying it so far.
- How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way - much like how to draw an owl
- Thinking, Fast and Slow - my second copy. classic, but somewhat dated now.
- Solving Mathematical Problems: A Personal Perspective - I don't remember this book, but apparently I paid for it?
- Math from Three to Seven: The Story of a Mathematical Circle for Preschoolers - lost the dead-tree copy. not sure what to learn from it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the transcripts
- Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth - 'accidentally' left it on someone elses coffee table
- Make or Break: Don't Let Climbing Injuries Dictate Your Success - lost the original copy. read the chapter for the specific injury I suffered and found some useful advice on rehab and avoidance
- Picture This: How Pictures Work - pretty but not very educational
- Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist - beautiful book, but far beyond my skill levels
- Bitsquid Blog - fresh thinking on data-oriented design. not very active recently, but worth reading from the beginning.
- Morning Paper - a different CS paper every day. fantastic selection.
- Dan Luu - thoroughly researched articles on areas of CS that are usually opaque to me