Posted by dan-bailey 18 hours ago
Ask HN: What are you reading?
It's an autobiographical history which recounts the lives of the author, her mother, and her grandmother throughout an extremely transformational century in Chinese history.
I went into this knowing little to no Chinese history, and it has opened my eyes to this fascinating country. I hope to visit China for the first time in 2027. Before I go, I'm doing a deep dive into Chinese history. Open to recommendations on what to read next!
<River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze> -> one of my fav all the time. a forigner teach in this small chinese city, and he write what he observes.
for more ancient chinese history:
<1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline> -> one of the most popular china's history book for these years. highly recommnded.
i read a lot but i doubt many of them has a non-chinese version. the above ones are the ones i can think of now.
also <The Search for Modern China> is highly recommmend, but i foget if i have read it or not.
oh also another book on how chinese characters are made, 《China: Empire of Living Symbols》。 writen by a Sweden author Cecilia Lindqvist. i love it very much
Fiction: just finished The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott; about to read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (for the 2nd or 3rd time)
An indepth history of Stuxnet. A bit long but recommended. You can not find any other book which goes this much in describing a mallware (no code).
The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (How to Think About Artificial Intelligence-Before It's Too Late) By Cory Doctorow
Playing Off the Rail: A Pool Hustler's Journey by David McCumber (1996) - hustling in the golden era of pool in the usa
Its a pretty good history of the X-48 program.
Edit: also reading the "The Anduril Thesis" in parallel.