Atlas Obscura
Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscuracelebrates over 600 of the strangest and most curious places in the world. Here are natural wonders--the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 45-year hole of fire called the Door of Hell, coffins hanging off a side of a cliff in the Philippines, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England. Atlas Obscurarevels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden, and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book you can open anywhere.
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2recommend
2mentions
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2016–2017years
100% recommend
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What Hacker News says
- This year involved a career change, so much of my reading was oriented around my shift from flight test engineering to software engineering.
Non-fiction (technical):
* Code Complete, 2nd Edition by Steve McConnell. I can't say enough good things about this. I have kept referring to it in the months since I read it for the first time.
* Computation Structures by Stephen A. Ward. I have read most of this one; it's a good reference for understanding computers at various levels of abstraction.
* Simulation and its Discontents by Sherry Turkle
* Scientific Computation: Python Hacking for Math Junkies by Bruce E. Shapiro. Good for getting back into Python after a few years away.
* Accelerating MATLAB Performance by Yair Altman. Altman has an exhaustive knowledge of MATLAB and this book is a must for anyone doing serious work in MATLAB.
* Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline by Cathy O'Neil
History:
* The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, by Peter Heather. Very well researched and written narrative examining how the Empire fared in the 3rd-5th centuries. Has a different perspective than the usual "Barbarian invasions ended the empire".
* One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson. I love everything Bryson writes. This is no exception.
* Rocket Ranch: The Nuts and Bolts of the Apollo Moon Program at Kennedy Space Center by Jonathan H. Ward. Also read Countdown to a Moon Launch: Preparing Apollo for Its Historic Journey by the same author. Ward writes the most amazing technical histories. It's quite obvious that he spent massive amounts of time piecing together exactly how things at Kennedy worked during the Apollo years. It's full of amazing little details like which firing rooms were used for which mission, how the entire Saturn V stack was rap-tested (literally having people lie on their backs on a work-platform and synchronously press against the rocket with their legs to try to get it to resonate), and so much more. If you are an Apollo program enthusiast you must read these two books.
Biography
* Kelly: More than my Share of it All by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson. The man was a far better engineer than writer. A much better look at Kelly's business life was put together by his protege, Ben Rich (with Leo Janos), in "Skunkworks: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed".
* Fighter Pilot, by Robin Olds. Autobiography of one of the brashest, best aces of World War II and Vietnam.
* American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day, by Robert Coram. Not as well-written as Coram's biography of John Boyd. Or maybe Boyd just appeals more to my fighter-jet engineering side.
* Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. Amazing account of what it was like to be a combat rotary-wing pilot in Vietnam.
Other Non-Fiction
* The M1 Garand Owner's Guide by Scott A. Duff. Worth it for Garand owners.
* Atlas Obscura: A Guide To the World's Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer. The print book is beautiful and ever fascinating.
* This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, by Naomi Klein. Like a lot of popular non-fiction, this could have been an excellent long-form article instead.
Fiction:
* The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 by Lionel Shriver. A book with a high concept story and poor execution.
* The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Not my first time reading it, but just as enjoyable on this go-around.
* QB VII by Leon Uris. Fiction, but based on some of Uris's own experiences as the defendant in a libel suit. A solid read.
* Noble House, by James Clavell. The only book in his Asian series I hadn't read. Amazing, as are all the rest.
* The Tao Trilogy by Wesley Chu. Eh. First book was decent, it got tedious after that. Only finished it all because I was on a business trip with poor internet access.
* The Power of the Dog, by Don Winslow. I also read the follow-up, The Cartel. Winslow researched these books for years and they are powerful indictments of the War on Drugs. They're also good fiction, but many of the characters have real-world analogues. I spent quite a bit of time during/after reading these looking up the real-world history of the drug wars since 1975.
