Ask HN: What are you reading these days?
HN users share an eclectic range of current reads, spanning classic literature, science fiction and fantasy epics, technical handbooks, and contemporary non-fiction on topics like education, climate, AI, and geopolitics. Beyond simple title lists, many offer mini‑reviews, reading advice, and comparisons between series (e.g., Malazan vs. Stormlight), as well as reflections on how books shape thinking about culture, ethics, and technology. Threads also branch into debates on themes raised by certain books—such as “wokeness,” meat consumption, and education systems—highlighting how reading choices intersect with broader social and political concerns.
Overall Reading Trends
- Very wide range: classic literature, contemporary fiction, sci‑fi/fantasy, history, politics, philosophy, religion, math/science, self‑help, technical computing, and comics/graphic novels.
- Many people juggle multiple books at once (e.g., one heavy non‑fiction plus lighter fiction).
- Humble Bundle, arXiv, and web serials are common non‑book sources.
Fiction & Series Discussion
- Sci‑fi/fantasy is heavily represented: space opera, “big idea” SF, post‑apocalyptic settings, epic fantasy cycles, and literary speculative fiction.
- Several threads about long/unfinished series: frustration and caution around starting series with stalled final volumes, but some still recommend them for exceptional prose or worldbuilding.
- Comparisons between major fantasy series (e.g., difficulty, complexity, “maturity,” narrative payoff).
- Some readers return to older or “underrated” works and argue they prefigure many modern genre ideas.
- Comics/graphic novels are praised as an art form, with recommendations spanning superhero, indie, and more experimental titles.
Non-Fiction & Learning-Oriented Reading
- Popular technical topics: software design, system administration, data systems, AI/ML, networking, TypeScript, DevOps, GPUs, climate modeling.
- History and politics: World Wars, Middle East, US history, inequality, space race, intelligence services, Middle Eastern and Indian politics.
- Education, psychology, and “wokeness”: books on schooling, campus culture, and critical theory provoke mixed reactions—some find them clarifying, others see them as pejorative or superficial.
- Habit/productivity and business/startup books are common; some are praised, others criticized as a single blog post stretched into a book.
Debates & Social/Ethical Themes
- Lengthy subthread on “wokeness,” tolerance, and the paradox of tolerance, including disagreements over what counts as “hate” and how to respond to it.
- Another large subthread on meat consumption, climate, and agriculture:
- Some argue current livestock systems are morally and environmentally untenable and foresee (or desire) sharp reductions.
- Others emphasize cultural difficulty of change, question feasibility, or point to alternative farming models (e.g., rangeland grazing, permaculture) as partial solutions.
- Disagreement over how scalable and affordable such alternatives are.
Meta: How People Read
- Split between reading primarily for fun/relaxation vs. for dense skill acquisition.
- Several note dropping books that become repetitive or padded.
- Some explicitly read “classics” and religious texts (including the Bible) to better understand cultural references.
- Audiobooks are popular for memoir, history, and long fiction.