Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023
For the past three years, I’ve set the goal to read one more book than the goal I set the prior year. I started with one a month, so this year my goal was 14 books. Some of my favorites, in the order I read them:<p>The Body Electric by Dr. Robert Becker and The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg - these books made me aware of the impact electricity may have on life - including us! Much of these two books would likely be dismissed as quackery to most, but the implication of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease as piezoelectric illnesses, the idea that limbs can be regrown, in part by electric signaling, and the massive ecological issues associated with widespread electromagnetic radiation all were things I’d never have considered. Since the latter book made me aware, I haven’t been able to stop noticing the constant tinnitus I experience.<p>Walden by Henry David Thoreau - this had been on my list for a while. I finally reached a mental state where this felt like the right book to read next; I felt that technology had gone too far, and a simple life would be a better life. If nothing else, gleaning the perspective of a man almost two hundred years ago and seeing both how different and how similar the issues regarding technology were, made me feel far less alone, and enlightened me toward ways I could make progress in feeling liberated from the ever-increasing grasp of technology on my life.<p>Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber - after spending four years working on defense systems that, in a best-case scenario, will never be used, I felt my job was useless. I saw jobs in the tech field that I thought were worse than useless - social media developers, advertisement company developers, etc. What I didn’t see, and this book discusses, is the vast swath of workers in all fields who feel, who know, that their job is worthless too. The book discusses the vast impact that this has on human mental health and societal direction. Highly recommend.<p>10% Human by Alanna Collen - I find myself referencing this book very frequently. It is all about the power of microbes in the human body (they make up 90% of us, by cell count!). That small imbalances can cause illnesses and influence our thought processes, habits, and behaviors is starting to become mainstream scientific knowledge. The implications this has for treatment of illness and prevention of illness (e.g. avoiding unnecessary bouts of antibiotics, fecal transplants, the value of breast feeding and natural birth) excite me due to the improvement they can cause in human health and quality of life.<p>Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber - Does one have to pay their debts? What does it mean to owe someone a debt? What implications does the widespread holding of debt cause for our society? Is it morally right? All these questions and more are answered in this excellent book. It changed how I saw macroeconomics, and the structure of our society.<p>The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul - This book, written in the 1960s, is astonishingly prescient about the state of humans in relation to “technique”. While the end of the book’s predictions for the 21st century are wrong (more progress was expected than was delivered), that does not diminish the rest of this book’s observations that technology can cause a great deal of issues in our society.<p>I hope at least one person can experience the joy I have from reading one of these books. I’m looking forward to what I’ll learn from your recommendations.