Saloni Goyal

Posted on Dec 10, 2020

[Year End] What was the best book you read this year?

#discuss #books #yearend

Discussion (36)

Wow, this is an excellent question — and a hard one for me! Deep Work by Cal Newport was probably the one that made the biggest impression. It's about eliminating distractions and getting into a "flow state" that allows you to do your best work. By far the one I recommend the most to people!

Saloni Goyal • Dec 10 '20

Thanks Stephanie, I did hear great things about the book and ordered it. Looking forward to reading it in 2021.

My favourite read this year has been Atomic Habits, very much on the same lines as Deep work I guess.

Kimberlee Johnson • Dec 11 '20

Thank you for the recommendation! I just added to my GoodReads list.

Doaa Mahely • Dec 10 '20

I’ve read so many great books this year! It’s especially hard to narrow it down to one, but here’s a few recent mentions:

Twelfth Night - Shakespeare, my favorite play so far, so funny and romantic
Insight - Dr Tasha Eurich, this is a personal development book that aims to explain what self-insight is and does a really great job at helping the reader develop more of it
Girl Decoded - Dr Rana El Kaliouby, part memoir and part tech, it’s an honest story of an amazing AI expert and leader who’s teaching computers to recognize emotions
The Library Book - Susan Orlean, this is a non-fiction that’s all about libraries, extremely well researched with a lot of awesome stories and facts

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Awesome, I also have a hard time picking just one most years.
Thanks for the book suggestions for 2021, love that there are several genres covered.

What are you looking forward to reading in 2021?

Doaa Mahely • Dec 11 '20

Part of my successful reading choices this year was because I decided to read whatever I'm into at that moment and not try to follow a plan I made weeks/months ago.
So now whenever I feel I'm in the mood for a certain genre I go to my TBR or ask for recs. This way I also got to dip my toes into genres I wouldn't have glanced at!

Here is my Goodreads if anyone's interested in connecting :)

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Sent you a request.

Saumya Agnihotri • Dec 10 '20

Atomic Habits! One of the most practical books I've read.

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Right there with you. It has to be on everyone's shelf.

Saumya Agnihotri • Dec 11 '20

True :)

Dinh Anh Vu • Dec 10 '20

As a university student, studying Machine Learning, it's Deep Learning with Python by François Chollet. It really gave me general ideas about the workflow, metrics. It's not into math too much but just good enough for me to understand the neural network.

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Sounds great, might just give it a try myself. Thanks 😊
Are you also building some projects on ML also after reading it or during?

Dinh Anh Vu • Dec 11 '20

So I have built my own neural network to play tic tac toe with me.

Dawud Ibrahim Ismail • Dec 11 '20

"Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time by Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, Hyrum Wright" . This book covers a lot on how to develop proper engineering practices making codebase sustainable and healthy.

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Need to read this!!

Dawud Ibrahim Ismail • Dec 11 '20

You'll love it

Camille Hodoul • Dec 11 '20

Data & Reality by William Kent. It's a relatively old book about data modeling , but it's very enlightening!
It isn't bound to a specific technology (that's one of the points its making), so it doesn't show its age at all.

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Timeless books are my all time favourite.

Camille Hodoul • Dec 11 '20

Can't agree more! Thank you for this thread, added a bunch to my reading list

Kimberlee Johnson • Dec 11 '20

It's tough to choose, but if I have to pick one that I think was most useful (how I'm defining best), then I have to go with Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson and team. I've applied its tactics to all sorts of tough conversations (at work, technical, and personal). While I'm no means an expert and not all of those conversations went perfectly, that book has helped me be a better communicator.

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Adding it to my list. 😃

Lynn Langit • Dec 10 '20

Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Kimberlee Johnson • Dec 11 '20

I just got this and can't wait to read!

Saloni Goyal • Dec 11 '20

Have to check this one out. Thanks for the book recommendation for 2021 Lynn! 😊

Firangiz Ganbarli • Dec 23 '20

"Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss is absolutely useful for learning how to negotiate.
"Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" by Eliezer Yudkowsky, in which Harry is a totally sensible person. This book teaches probability and rationality in the fictional universe, and helped me so much with learning about logic.
"You Are Not So Smart" by David McRaney. This book talks about some stupid beliefs that delude us into thinking wise and well. Was an eye opener.
"I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov. I loved how the rules for robots were defined, and how the relationship between humans and robots were represented.