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YC’s 2018 Summer Reading List

391 points by craigcannon 8y ago

ryanmercer 8y ago
Lost in Shangri-la is good (read it last year, there's video from the rescue mission on YouTube if you search for it), also good: - Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World - Escape From The Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew - Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon's Relentless Madre de Dios (not as good but still worth reading).
sgillen 8y ago
“This is water” has to be one of my favorite short essays/speeches of all time. If you haven’t read it/seen it before so yourself a favor and go through it, it doesn’t take very long. Seriously wish I could get these ideas into everyone’s head.
- tudelo 8y ago
  FWIW, I have seen people use the image related to this piece (seen through a google search...) in the most annoying way to discredit peoples views on a subject because "they are a fish in the water." I have not known the source of this garbage, so I hope it's a simplification of the actual source, but I will listen carefully :)
  - nicklaf 8y ago
    We don't know who first said, "We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a fish", but we're pretty sure it wasn't David Foster Wallace. [1] [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/23/water-fish/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/23/water-fish/
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  That was excellent, thank you for the recommendation. To save others a trip to the search engine: http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf
- lintroller 8y ago
  I'm really glad you took the time to highlight this speech as worth my time. It's short enough to be a "quick" read and deep enough that I'll be chewing on the message for some time.
- jackstraw14 8y ago
  Not everyone is ready for a philosophical smack in the head. I'm glad it was preserved beyond the commencement speech, because I can't imagine sitting there listening to this on graduation day and taking much away from it besides "don't forget to think." This is the kind of stuff that you have to find at the right time in your life.
- deleted 8y ago
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- gaurgo 8y ago
  Seriously, excellent suggestion. Thank you. I'm in the middle of making the switch towards maximizing positive outcomes for others, having realized that I have enough for myself. The author paints a description of self-awareness here that I'll be sure to return to every now and again.
- adamiscool8 8y ago
  I've read this three times now, yet I still don't see the profundity. It seems like a lot of obvious "how" -- of course your framing changes your outlook -- but no "why". I can imagine everyone in traffic, or in the grocery store has a perfectly legitimate reason for why they're acting whatever bothersome way they're acting. But how does that help me accomplish my goal any more efficiently?
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    The irony here is that you're asking how to use an essay about avoiding self-absorption in order to accomplish your goals more efficiently. It's not about your goal when you're in a grocery store, it's about the fact that you can't focus on anything other than your goal. The idea is not that there's a profound insight hidden in there. In fact, the essay repeats several times that there's no trite lesson or platitude to walk away with, and that the basic idea is already obvious - the world doesn't revolve around any given person. What's not obvious is exerting the mental effort to consider that fact when you feel like you're the only person who has any self-awareness in a crowded grocery store. On a more practical level, if you're looking for a lesson then this is close to it - you get in your own way, intellectually speaking, by defaulting to the easy path of discounting the myriad reasons for other peoples' behavior while rationalizing your own. We tend not to think about the things that are so obvious they're dreadfully mundane, but because of that we close ourselves off to insights that could be very helpful but for the fact that we're locked into our first-person perspective. More succinctly: if you find yourself thinking that you're surrounded by people who lack self-awareness, you might be lacking some of it yourself.
- anacleto 8y ago
  Ordered it. Thank you.
  - anacleto 8y ago
    Thank you for that comment. It was one of the greatest things I have ever read.
- dolzenko 8y ago
  Found it through this thread and it's great indeed. Worth keeping in mind author did commit suicide before his 50s though :/
edanm 8y ago
Happy to see some great books recommended there. Specifically, let me call out: The Three Body problem. The Lathe of Heaven. And while I haven't read Parable of the Sower yet, everything I've read of Octavia Butler has ranged from really good to some of my favorite books ever, so I'm sure it's a good one. One anti-recommendation (kind of): I recently read Finite and Infinite Games, after many (many) recommendations for it, and didn't particularly like it. Obviously I'm in the minority on this, but I really wonder what other people saw in it.
- shry4ns 8y ago
  I loved Octavia Butler's Kindred. More than the science fiction, its cultural importance cannot be emphasized enough.
  - cbcowans 8y ago
    Agree! Great book.
  - edanm 8y ago
    Agree. But question - when you say cultural importance, do you mean in terms of what it talks about? Or was the book itself important culturally? (I'm not sure how well-known the book itself was, I've always gotten the impression that Octavia Butler is a less-known SF author).
- _fs 8y ago
  The three body problem: I found this book fascinating how the cultural revolution was weaved in to the story. It really highlighted my ignorance of recent Chinese history, and many times found myself turning to Wikipedia to learn more of the specific events mentioned. The English translation also includes several lengthy footnotes and see-also's when historical characters or events are mentioned, as I'm sure many western readers are less familiar with the details of the events and historical characters. Without giving away anything, I also found the Egyptian scene truly awesome.
  - edwinksl 8y ago
RosanaAnaDana 8y ago
Lathe of Heaven an incredibly beautiful story. One of my favorites of all time.
jmondi 8y ago
I am really glad to see Mans Search for Meaning on here for another year in a row. It is a short read with a very powerful message. A few others I would really like to see on this list would be: - Principles by Ray Dalio - Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday - Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
- Gatsky 8y ago
  Listening to Mans Search for Meaning right now, agree it is very worth wile, and quite distinct in the Holocaust literature.
b_b 8y ago
I saw someone mention it in a HN comment before, but I'd like to restate it here since it is definitely one of those perspective-altering books: "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. The author is a professor and prolific researcher of the effects of sleep on the human body, and goes into nearly every nook and cranny of what sleep does for the human body. He has scared me off of my usual practice of sleeping 6 hours or less to get some work or studying done and to get more hours in the day. Throughout the book, the author cites a scientific study and article on nearly every page, so you know that these are real hard facts. If you are curious about some common causes of ailments or what the function that consumes pretty much 1/3 of your lifetime does, I'd absolutely whole-heartedly recommend this book.
- craigcannon 8y ago
  Walker also covered many of the ideas in the book on Joe Rogan's podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig
- westoncb 8y ago
  > Throughout the book, the author cites a scientific study and article on nearly every page, so you know that these are real hard facts. This is almost discouraging to me. If spending too much time on HN has taught me anything, it's that citing a study (especially medical, nutrition, and psychology papers, among other fields I'm probably missing), is not nearly enough of a guarantee that some assertion should be called a 'hard fact'. I tend to depend more on the force of overall coherence in an argument, as well as its fidelity with my own experiences. Of course this is a problematic heuristic in its own right, since it by definition limits your ability to believe counter-intuitive but true results—but I'm not sure what's better. I think with enough reproductions of results in varied contexts, unintentional reappearance of results in overlapping or unrelated studies, applications being developed on top of results (treatments, engineering applications, other fields of study)—then you can start considering the result to be 'factual'. But from the above description, the impression I get of the book is that it's probably one of these taking a bunch of new studies which can be read a certain way to push a hypothesis the author is in favor of, but it'll take a decade or more before we have a good sense of whether the whole thing was BS (or at least badly exaggerated) or not.
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aschearer 8y ago
To offer some alternatives here are three books which I believe are relevant given these challenging times: * Enlightenment Now (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35696171-enlightenment-now https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35696171-enlightenment-n...): Offers a defense that our current institutions have delivered the goods and should be defended. The left doesn't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should continue improving the system we've got -- especially urgent today as they're under seige. * Your Money or Your Life (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78428.Your_Money_or_Your_Life https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78428.Your_Money_or_Your...): Philosophy masquerading as personal finance. Challenges the reader to ask "What is enough?" and honestly evaluate whether they are living an integrated life that is consistent with their values. Lays out one way to help answer these questions and course correct as necessary. * Stand Up! (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35989237-stand-up https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35989237-stand-up): A hand book and call to action to answer the "knock at the door" and step up to address "a world on fire". Especially useful for those interested in or actively leading volunteers. If, like me, you're upset about the current state of affairs and unsure where to go from here I recommend the above as a small tonic and, hopefully, stepping stone.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  This is Vis a Vis your first recommendation, and how it's associated with "left wing" politics. Its fascinating to me that I have a fairly sepcific idea of what you are talking about, without being able to specifically define the key concepts. Wtf is left/eight anyway, and how come we can classify politics this way in polities and topics that are novel to us? Anyone got a "history of the left and the right" thats a good read?
  - nolantait 8y ago
    Thomas Sowell splits it down collectivist lines: "If we attempt to define the political left by its proclaimed goals, it is clear that very similar goals have been proclaimed by people whom the left repudiates and anathematizes, such as Fascists in general and Nazis in particular. Instead of defining these (and other) groups by their proclaimed goals, we can define them by the specific institutional mechanisms and policies they use or advocate for achieving their goals. More specifically, they can be defined by the institutional mechanisms they seek to establish for making decisions with impacts on society at large. In order to keep the discussion manageable, the vast sweep of possible decision-making mechanisms can be dichotomized into those in which individuals make decisions individually for themselves and those in which decisions are made collectively by surrogates for society at large." [1] [1] https://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/sowell-the-left-right-dichotomy/ https://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/sowell-the-lef...
AaronM 8y ago
Looks like a missing word in this blurb. “Science have already proven we can grow all kinds of animal protein in labs. This book is the founding story of a revolution that will how we eat and the planet forever.” – Gustaf Alstromer I believe it should be This book is the founding story of a revolution that will change how we eat and the planet forever.”
arminiusreturns 8y ago
I'm currently readin "Apache Wars" (can't remember the rest) so far, it's the best book on Iraq I ever read.
yazr 8y ago
> Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet I was very disappointed with this book. The book TLDR : Current solar technology is great but will flat-line at XX% of energy usage. We need new stuff. In fact, this book could have been written 10 or 20 years ago. It pushes all sort of mythical solutions and still-in-lab technologies. And it hand-waves away the entire progress in solar/battery/EVs in the last 10 years.
- barbegal 8y ago
  "Sustainable Energy – without the hot air" is a much better book and available free to read online at https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.com/ Whilst it's a bit out of date and focuses mostly on the UK, it contains a wealth of figures and references for all possible renewable sources. It covers the topic in a neutral and non-biased way presenting the numbers and graphs to make the point that the transition to renewable will have to require a number of technologies as well as huge energy savings in transportation and heating.
westoncb 8y ago
Anyone else read "The Undoing Project" (a Michael Lewis book on Daniel Kahneman, which was on the list)? I thought it sounded super interesting, but I'm getting mixed impressions from Amazon reviews.
- swanson 8y ago
  Yeah, I liked it -- was a good mix of biography/personal stories about Kahneman and Tversky and brought in some real-world examples of applied topics covered in Thinking Fast And Slow.
- jseliger 8y ago
  Yes: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/12/22/the-undoing-project-a-friendship-that-changed-our-minds-michael-lewis https://jakeseliger.com/2016/12/22/the-undoing-project-a-fri...
- koolhead17 8y ago
  Loved reading it. :)
aslkdjaslkdj1 8y ago
Pretty cool of YC to link to the books on Amazon and not include affiliate links for monetization. Creates more trust in the "realness" of the creation of the list.
- ljw1001 8y ago
  What percent of YC's revenue comes from affiliate links?
kraftman 8y ago
H is for Hawk: I gave up reading this book about halfway through. It drags out a lot with needless fluff; she spent about 3 pages just naming the bird! She seemed to really hate T.H. White's 'The Goshawk' so I decided to give it a read. I much preferred it (he names his bird in one sentence) and felt she'd read between the lines much more than there was in the book. The three body problem: This is a brilliant book until the end, which basically solves all of the interesting problems it's been building up to throughout the book with 'magic supercomputers that can do anything!', which is a shame because it had me hooked.
- mrexroad 8y ago
  You read Dark Forrest or Deaths End (other books in the 3BP trilogy)?
  - kraftman 8y ago
    Nope, is it worth continuing?
    - johntam 8y ago
      I think so (not the original replier). SPOILER FOR THE FIRST NOVEL . . . . . . The whole paradigm of Earth defense changes so dramatically, as people realize sophons can see everything people do. I highly recommend continuing, as you see society changes in the series.
    - kranner 8y ago
      Not GP, but hell yes, worth continuing.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  If you think Helen McDonald and thought she hated the book you saw only the barest surface of what she was trying to say. T.H. White lives in McDonald’s head. The Goshawk was if not the first book she read with any level of criticism and complexity. I can see why you’d put it down, it’s neither swift nor light reading, but the entire point of writing a memoir of grief combined with the taking of a goshawk, all overlaid and intertwined with the story of T.H. White’s life is to bring us a little closer to seeing the broken and bleeding human beings everywhere around us. They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.
henryw 8y ago
Yay for The Untethered Soul. I would add: Adversaries into Allies: Master the Art of Ultimate Influence Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box Rejection Proof: 100 Days of Rejection, or How to Ask Anything of Anyone at Anytime Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection
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sushid 8y ago
Under a book on Napoleon, Sam Altman says: > An incredible primary-source portrait on a brilliant (but obviously deeply flawed) individual. What is the obviously deeply flawed characteristic about him that Altman is referring to? I read Napoleon: A Life a few years ago and found him fascinating with character flaws like every other human being, but nothing that particularly struck me as "deeply flawed."
- ljw1001 8y ago
  Maybe that whole lets conquer Russia thing that ended in the deaths of 400,000 of his countrymen (IIRC)? Have you seen the Minard plot? https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/229-vital-statistics-of-a-deadly-campaign-the-minard-map https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/229-vital-statistics-of-a-...
  - sushid 8y ago
    Makes sense. I guess I was hung up on the flaw being some personal issue but I guess killing a million people counts as one too. And thanks for the link.
ms512 8y ago
The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane makes the case of the evolution of life from the vantage point of energy transfer. I found the book accessible and compelling.
aestetix 8y ago
I'm pleasantly surprised to see Robert Caro on this list. I have read all of his books, and they are some of the most profound expositions into the nature of power I have ever seen.
klarrimore 8y ago
Nobody going to mention Bad Blood - Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup?
- gustaf 8y ago
  I had it on my list. But wanted to include optimistic recommendations
  - klarrimore 8y ago
    Understandable but I think there's a strong need for awareness and scrutiny too. All rainbows and unicorns is what enables disasters like that to take shape.
ljw1001 8y ago
Perhaps I'm the only person who finds this list disappointing. So much SciFi. So many works a hop and a skip from get-rich-quick stuff. Of course, when I was younger, I-ate-that-shit-up. Truly. And a second helping, please. IDK, the world is under great stress on so many levels. The people at YC are wonderfully bright and well educated. Is this really the best they could come up with?
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  You're not wrong, but- those two are prototypical hacker/hustler startup fodder genres
- AnthonBerg 8y ago
  I would really appreciate any recommendations or suggestions you could give!
idlewords 8y ago
The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a terrific study of power, and I'm glad to see it on this list. It's also really, really, really long. I highly recommend the audiobook if you drive a lot.
suckerburg 8y ago
Ready Player One seems to be the weakest thing on the list, read it recently and I was very disappointed.
- Jaruzel 8y ago
  I'm very surprised to see it on the list. It's a mediocre teen-fiction, that starts off strong, but completely loses itself into an endless list of standard story tropes by the end. (trying not to spoiler, here) It's only still popular now because the film has just left cinemas.
- KevanM 8y ago
  Yep, surprised at this. I think even if you enjoy it on some level you have to acknowledge that it is a thin spread of nostalgia on a slice of very weak plot and characterisation, with no real heart to speak of.
stakhanov 8y ago
I have slightly ambivalent feelings about an institution like Y-Combinator getting into the business of promoting those sorts of books. -- Making a reading list on books teaching you programming or statistics or business skills like accounting is one thing. But when you're talking about reading materials that promote a certain world view, certain values, a certain political position, or instill in an individual a certain kind of "cognitive programming" (for lack of a better word), like psychological self-help books and the like, that's a whole different story. This is one thing that I distinctly remember as a negative about the young entrepreneurs' scene back at university, that so much of it bordered on brainwashing.
- nomat 8y ago
  the people who read HN are a self-selected tribe of a certain bent and it would be strange if YC's reading list didn't have an underlying theme to it. i dont think there's anything wrong with a "this is what guys like me are reading" (guys like me? hey, i'm a guy like me!) list of books. maybe it is a little narrow but YC is rather niche to begin with in terms of appeal so it doesn't seem like there's conflict of values here.
  - stakhanov 8y ago
    Angel investors frequently follow a mode of operation where they actively seek out young and impressionable minds (doing motivational speeches and mentoring programs at universities and so forth) and trying to establish themselves in the role of educator/mentor/role-model at the same time as trying to establish themselves as business partners of those young people. That is a conflict of interests, to say the least. Now, if I were an angel investor and I had gathered around myself a group of such people who look up to me for mentoring and education and who might depend on me for financing their lives' ambitions, I don't think it would be quite appropriate for me to say, even just by innuendo, "By the way: Here is how I feel about xyz [political issue]..."
tramGG 8y ago
Man's search for meaning is good. The first part describing life in the camps that would lead to this philosophy really does an amazing job of framing the rest of the book.
mapcars 8y ago
You are so late, summer is almost gone :D
HNNewer 8y ago
what are these books? Some of them are just crap
deviationblue 8y ago
Interesting choice, Wizard of Oz. One question I've always wondered, what to do about narcissists who think someone else is the narcissist? Also, funny thing I've seen happen at work: there was someone this one (but influential) person didn't like because of office politics, and wanted to have that person be dismissed in social circles in the office. Easy job for them- label them as a narcissist. Honestly, everyone is a little selfish, so it's not hard to pick and choose behavior from any one person, and make it fit into that narcissism box.
chriselles 8y ago
Lost in Shangri-La book is excellent. End of World War II true story of a plane crash into remote New Guinea. The survival/rescue/recovery mission is remarkable. If you like Robinson Crusoe, The Martian, and Lost In Space, you’ll enjoy this remarkable true story.
Dowwie 8y ago
Are there any EconTalk listeners out there who are taking up Russ's challenge to read "In the First Circle" by Solzhenitsyn?
allthing 8y ago
Robert Caro's series on LBJ is IMO possibly the greatest nonfiction work of the last century. The depth of research, the quality of writing, and the study of politics and power are what make the series so enticing. Sure the volumes are long, but it never seems like necessary information or too much detail and it never drags. I highly recommend reading at least one of the volumes.
misiti3780 8y ago
Shoedog was so boring, why does everyone think it is so great?

391 points by craigcannon 8y ago

Lost in Shangri-la is good (read it last year, there's video from the rescue mission on YouTube if you search for it), also good: - Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World - Escape From The Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew - Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon's Relentless Madre de Dios (not as good but still worth reading).

sgillen 8y ago

“This is water” has to be one of my favorite short essays/speeches of all time. If you haven’t read it/seen it before so yourself a favor and go through it, it doesn’t take very long. Seriously wish I could get these ideas into everyone’s head.

tudelo 8y ago
FWIW, I have seen people use the image related to this piece (seen through a google search...) in the most annoying way to discredit peoples views on a subject because "they are a fish in the water." I have not known the source of this garbage, so I hope it's a simplification of the actual source, but I will listen carefully :)
- nicklaf 8y ago
  We don't know who first said, "We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a fish", but we're pretty sure it wasn't David Foster Wallace. [1] [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/23/water-fish/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/23/water-fish/
throwawaymath 8y ago
That was excellent, thank you for the recommendation. To save others a trip to the search engine: http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf
lintroller 8y ago
I'm really glad you took the time to highlight this speech as worth my time. It's short enough to be a "quick" read and deep enough that I'll be chewing on the message for some time.
jackstraw14 8y ago
Not everyone is ready for a philosophical smack in the head. I'm glad it was preserved beyond the commencement speech, because I can't imagine sitting there listening to this on graduation day and taking much away from it besides "don't forget to think." This is the kind of stuff that you have to find at the right time in your life.
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gaurgo 8y ago
Seriously, excellent suggestion. Thank you. I'm in the middle of making the switch towards maximizing positive outcomes for others, having realized that I have enough for myself. The author paints a description of self-awareness here that I'll be sure to return to every now and again.
adamiscool8 8y ago
I've read this three times now, yet I still don't see the profundity. It seems like a lot of obvious "how" -- of course your framing changes your outlook -- but no "why". I can imagine everyone in traffic, or in the grocery store has a perfectly legitimate reason for why they're acting whatever bothersome way they're acting. But how does that help me accomplish my goal any more efficiently?
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  The irony here is that you're asking how to use an essay about avoiding self-absorption in order to accomplish your goals more efficiently. It's not about your goal when you're in a grocery store, it's about the fact that you can't focus on anything other than your goal. The idea is not that there's a profound insight hidden in there. In fact, the essay repeats several times that there's no trite lesson or platitude to walk away with, and that the basic idea is already obvious - the world doesn't revolve around any given person. What's not obvious is exerting the mental effort to consider that fact when you feel like you're the only person who has any self-awareness in a crowded grocery store. On a more practical level, if you're looking for a lesson then this is close to it - you get in your own way, intellectually speaking, by defaulting to the easy path of discounting the myriad reasons for other peoples' behavior while rationalizing your own. We tend not to think about the things that are so obvious they're dreadfully mundane, but because of that we close ourselves off to insights that could be very helpful but for the fact that we're locked into our first-person perspective. More succinctly: if you find yourself thinking that you're surrounded by people who lack self-awareness, you might be lacking some of it yourself.
anacleto 8y ago
Ordered it. Thank you.
- anacleto 8y ago
  Thank you for that comment. It was one of the greatest things I have ever read.
dolzenko 8y ago
Found it through this thread and it's great indeed. Worth keeping in mind author did commit suicide before his 50s though :/

edanm 8y ago

Happy to see some great books recommended there. Specifically, let me call out: The Three Body problem. The Lathe of Heaven. And while I haven't read Parable of the Sower yet, everything I've read of Octavia Butler has ranged from really good to some of my favorite books ever, so I'm sure it's a good one. One anti-recommendation (kind of): I recently read Finite and Infinite Games, after many (many) recommendations for it, and didn't particularly like it. Obviously I'm in the minority on this, but I really wonder what other people saw in it.

shry4ns 8y ago
I loved Octavia Butler's Kindred. More than the science fiction, its cultural importance cannot be emphasized enough.
- cbcowans 8y ago
  Agree! Great book.
- edanm 8y ago
  Agree. But question - when you say cultural importance, do you mean in terms of what it talks about? Or was the book itself important culturally? (I'm not sure how well-known the book itself was, I've always gotten the impression that Octavia Butler is a less-known SF author).
_fs 8y ago
The three body problem: I found this book fascinating how the cultural revolution was weaved in to the story. It really highlighted my ignorance of recent Chinese history, and many times found myself turning to Wikipedia to learn more of the specific events mentioned. The English translation also includes several lengthy footnotes and see-also's when historical characters or events are mentioned, as I'm sure many western readers are less familiar with the details of the events and historical characters. Without giving away anything, I also found the Egyptian scene truly awesome.
- edwinksl 8y ago

RosanaAnaDana 8y ago

Lathe of Heaven an incredibly beautiful story. One of my favorites of all time.

jmondi 8y ago

I am really glad to see Mans Search for Meaning on here for another year in a row. It is a short read with a very powerful message. A few others I would really like to see on this list would be: - Principles by Ray Dalio - Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday - Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

Gatsky 8y ago
Listening to Mans Search for Meaning right now, agree it is very worth wile, and quite distinct in the Holocaust literature.

b_b 8y ago

I saw someone mention it in a HN comment before, but I'd like to restate it here since it is definitely one of those perspective-altering books: "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. The author is a professor and prolific researcher of the effects of sleep on the human body, and goes into nearly every nook and cranny of what sleep does for the human body. He has scared me off of my usual practice of sleeping 6 hours or less to get some work or studying done and to get more hours in the day. Throughout the book, the author cites a scientific study and article on nearly every page, so you know that these are real hard facts. If you are curious about some common causes of ailments or what the function that consumes pretty much 1/3 of your lifetime does, I'd absolutely whole-heartedly recommend this book.

craigcannon 8y ago
Walker also covered many of the ideas in the book on Joe Rogan's podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig
westoncb 8y ago
> Throughout the book, the author cites a scientific study and article on nearly every page, so you know that these are real hard facts. This is almost discouraging to me. If spending too much time on HN has taught me anything, it's that citing a study (especially medical, nutrition, and psychology papers, among other fields I'm probably missing), is not nearly enough of a guarantee that some assertion should be called a 'hard fact'. I tend to depend more on the force of overall coherence in an argument, as well as its fidelity with my own experiences. Of course this is a problematic heuristic in its own right, since it by definition limits your ability to believe counter-intuitive but true results—but I'm not sure what's better. I think with enough reproductions of results in varied contexts, unintentional reappearance of results in overlapping or unrelated studies, applications being developed on top of results (treatments, engineering applications, other fields of study)—then you can start considering the result to be 'factual'. But from the above description, the impression I get of the book is that it's probably one of these taking a bunch of new studies which can be read a certain way to push a hypothesis the author is in favor of, but it'll take a decade or more before we have a good sense of whether the whole thing was BS (or at least badly exaggerated) or not.

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aschearer 8y ago

To offer some alternatives here are three books which I believe are relevant given these challenging times: * Enlightenment Now (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35696171-enlightenment-now https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35696171-enlightenment-n...): Offers a defense that our current institutions have delivered the goods and should be defended. The left doesn't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should continue improving the system we've got -- especially urgent today as they're under seige. * Your Money or Your Life (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78428.Your_Money_or_Your_Life https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78428.Your_Money_or_Your...): Philosophy masquerading as personal finance. Challenges the reader to ask "What is enough?" and honestly evaluate whether they are living an integrated life that is consistent with their values. Lays out one way to help answer these questions and course correct as necessary. * Stand Up! (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35989237-stand-up https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35989237-stand-up): A hand book and call to action to answer the "knock at the door" and step up to address "a world on fire". Especially useful for those interested in or actively leading volunteers. If, like me, you're upset about the current state of affairs and unsure where to go from here I recommend the above as a small tonic and, hopefully, stepping stone.

dalbasal 8y ago
This is Vis a Vis your first recommendation, and how it's associated with "left wing" politics. Its fascinating to me that I have a fairly sepcific idea of what you are talking about, without being able to specifically define the key concepts. Wtf is left/eight anyway, and how come we can classify politics this way in polities and topics that are novel to us? Anyone got a "history of the left and the right" thats a good read?
- nolantait 8y ago
  Thomas Sowell splits it down collectivist lines: "If we attempt to define the political left by its proclaimed goals, it is clear that very similar goals have been proclaimed by people whom the left repudiates and anathematizes, such as Fascists in general and Nazis in particular. Instead of defining these (and other) groups by their proclaimed goals, we can define them by the specific institutional mechanisms and policies they use or advocate for achieving their goals. More specifically, they can be defined by the institutional mechanisms they seek to establish for making decisions with impacts on society at large. In order to keep the discussion manageable, the vast sweep of possible decision-making mechanisms can be dichotomized into those in which individuals make decisions individually for themselves and those in which decisions are made collectively by surrogates for society at large." [1] [1] https://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/sowell-the-left-right-dichotomy/ https://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/sowell-the-lef...

AaronM 8y ago

Looks like a missing word in this blurb. “Science have already proven we can grow all kinds of animal protein in labs. This book is the founding story of a revolution that will how we eat and the planet forever.” – Gustaf Alstromer I believe it should be This book is the founding story of a revolution that will change how we eat and the planet forever.”

arminiusreturns 8y ago

I'm currently readin "Apache Wars" (can't remember the rest) so far, it's the best book on Iraq I ever read.

yazr 8y ago

> Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet I was very disappointed with this book. The book TLDR : Current solar technology is great but will flat-line at XX% of energy usage. We need new stuff. In fact, this book could have been written 10 or 20 years ago. It pushes all sort of mythical solutions and still-in-lab technologies. And it hand-waves away the entire progress in solar/battery/EVs in the last 10 years.

barbegal 8y ago
"Sustainable Energy – without the hot air" is a much better book and available free to read online at https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.com/ Whilst it's a bit out of date and focuses mostly on the UK, it contains a wealth of figures and references for all possible renewable sources. It covers the topic in a neutral and non-biased way presenting the numbers and graphs to make the point that the transition to renewable will have to require a number of technologies as well as huge energy savings in transportation and heating.

westoncb 8y ago

Anyone else read "The Undoing Project" (a Michael Lewis book on Daniel Kahneman, which was on the list)? I thought it sounded super interesting, but I'm getting mixed impressions from Amazon reviews.

swanson 8y ago
Yeah, I liked it -- was a good mix of biography/personal stories about Kahneman and Tversky and brought in some real-world examples of applied topics covered in Thinking Fast And Slow.
jseliger 8y ago
Yes: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/12/22/the-undoing-project-a-friendship-that-changed-our-minds-michael-lewis https://jakeseliger.com/2016/12/22/the-undoing-project-a-fri...
koolhead17 8y ago
Loved reading it. :)

aslkdjaslkdj1 8y ago

Pretty cool of YC to link to the books on Amazon and not include affiliate links for monetization. Creates more trust in the "realness" of the creation of the list.

ljw1001 8y ago
What percent of YC's revenue comes from affiliate links?

kraftman 8y ago

H is for Hawk: I gave up reading this book about halfway through. It drags out a lot with needless fluff; she spent about 3 pages just naming the bird! She seemed to really hate T.H. White's 'The Goshawk' so I decided to give it a read. I much preferred it (he names his bird in one sentence) and felt she'd read between the lines much more than there was in the book. The three body problem: This is a brilliant book until the end, which basically solves all of the interesting problems it's been building up to throughout the book with 'magic supercomputers that can do anything!', which is a shame because it had me hooked.

mrexroad 8y ago
You read Dark Forrest or Deaths End (other books in the 3BP trilogy)?
- kraftman 8y ago
  Nope, is it worth continuing?
  - johntam 8y ago
    I think so (not the original replier). SPOILER FOR THE FIRST NOVEL . . . . . . The whole paradigm of Earth defense changes so dramatically, as people realize sophons can see everything people do. I highly recommend continuing, as you see society changes in the series.
  - kranner 8y ago
    Not GP, but hell yes, worth continuing.
barry-cotter 8y ago
If you think Helen McDonald and thought she hated the book you saw only the barest surface of what she was trying to say. T.H. White lives in McDonald’s head. The Goshawk was if not the first book she read with any level of criticism and complexity. I can see why you’d put it down, it’s neither swift nor light reading, but the entire point of writing a memoir of grief combined with the taking of a goshawk, all overlaid and intertwined with the story of T.H. White’s life is to bring us a little closer to seeing the broken and bleeding human beings everywhere around us. They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

henryw 8y ago

Yay for The Untethered Soul. I would add: Adversaries into Allies: Master the Art of Ultimate Influence Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box Rejection Proof: 100 Days of Rejection, or How to Ask Anything of Anyone at Anytime Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection

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sushid 8y ago

Under a book on Napoleon, Sam Altman says: > An incredible primary-source portrait on a brilliant (but obviously deeply flawed) individual. What is the obviously deeply flawed characteristic about him that Altman is referring to? I read Napoleon: A Life a few years ago and found him fascinating with character flaws like every other human being, but nothing that particularly struck me as "deeply flawed."

ljw1001 8y ago
Maybe that whole lets conquer Russia thing that ended in the deaths of 400,000 of his countrymen (IIRC)? Have you seen the Minard plot? https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/229-vital-statistics-of-a-deadly-campaign-the-minard-map https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/229-vital-statistics-of-a-...
- sushid 8y ago
  Makes sense. I guess I was hung up on the flaw being some personal issue but I guess killing a million people counts as one too. And thanks for the link.

ms512 8y ago

The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane makes the case of the evolution of life from the vantage point of energy transfer. I found the book accessible and compelling.

aestetix 8y ago

I'm pleasantly surprised to see Robert Caro on this list. I have read all of his books, and they are some of the most profound expositions into the nature of power I have ever seen.

klarrimore 8y ago

Nobody going to mention Bad Blood - Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup?

gustaf 8y ago
I had it on my list. But wanted to include optimistic recommendations
- klarrimore 8y ago
  Understandable but I think there's a strong need for awareness and scrutiny too. All rainbows and unicorns is what enables disasters like that to take shape.

ljw1001 8y ago

Perhaps I'm the only person who finds this list disappointing. So much SciFi. So many works a hop and a skip from get-rich-quick stuff. Of course, when I was younger, I-ate-that-shit-up. Truly. And a second helping, please. IDK, the world is under great stress on so many levels. The people at YC are wonderfully bright and well educated. Is this really the best they could come up with?

Apocryphon 8y ago
You're not wrong, but- those two are prototypical hacker/hustler startup fodder genres
AnthonBerg 8y ago
I would really appreciate any recommendations or suggestions you could give!

idlewords 8y ago

The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a terrific study of power, and I'm glad to see it on this list. It's also really, really, really long. I highly recommend the audiobook if you drive a lot.

suckerburg 8y ago

Ready Player One seems to be the weakest thing on the list, read it recently and I was very disappointed.

Jaruzel 8y ago
I'm very surprised to see it on the list. It's a mediocre teen-fiction, that starts off strong, but completely loses itself into an endless list of standard story tropes by the end. (trying not to spoiler, here) It's only still popular now because the film has just left cinemas.
KevanM 8y ago
Yep, surprised at this. I think even if you enjoy it on some level you have to acknowledge that it is a thin spread of nostalgia on a slice of very weak plot and characterisation, with no real heart to speak of.

stakhanov 8y ago

I have slightly ambivalent feelings about an institution like Y-Combinator getting into the business of promoting those sorts of books. -- Making a reading list on books teaching you programming or statistics or business skills like accounting is one thing. But when you're talking about reading materials that promote a certain world view, certain values, a certain political position, or instill in an individual a certain kind of "cognitive programming" (for lack of a better word), like psychological self-help books and the like, that's a whole different story. This is one thing that I distinctly remember as a negative about the young entrepreneurs' scene back at university, that so much of it bordered on brainwashing.

nomat 8y ago
the people who read HN are a self-selected tribe of a certain bent and it would be strange if YC's reading list didn't have an underlying theme to it. i dont think there's anything wrong with a "this is what guys like me are reading" (guys like me? hey, i'm a guy like me!) list of books. maybe it is a little narrow but YC is rather niche to begin with in terms of appeal so it doesn't seem like there's conflict of values here.
- stakhanov 8y ago
  Angel investors frequently follow a mode of operation where they actively seek out young and impressionable minds (doing motivational speeches and mentoring programs at universities and so forth) and trying to establish themselves in the role of educator/mentor/role-model at the same time as trying to establish themselves as business partners of those young people. That is a conflict of interests, to say the least. Now, if I were an angel investor and I had gathered around myself a group of such people who look up to me for mentoring and education and who might depend on me for financing their lives' ambitions, I don't think it would be quite appropriate for me to say, even just by innuendo, "By the way: Here is how I feel about xyz [political issue]..."

tramGG 8y ago

Man's search for meaning is good. The first part describing life in the camps that would lead to this philosophy really does an amazing job of framing the rest of the book.

mapcars 8y ago

You are so late, summer is almost gone :D

HNNewer 8y ago

what are these books? Some of them are just crap

deviationblue 8y ago

Interesting choice, Wizard of Oz. One question I've always wondered, what to do about narcissists who think someone else is the narcissist? Also, funny thing I've seen happen at work: there was someone this one (but influential) person didn't like because of office politics, and wanted to have that person be dismissed in social circles in the office. Easy job for them- label them as a narcissist. Honestly, everyone is a little selfish, so it's not hard to pick and choose behavior from any one person, and make it fit into that narcissism box.

chriselles 8y ago

Lost in Shangri-La book is excellent. End of World War II true story of a plane crash into remote New Guinea. The survival/rescue/recovery mission is remarkable. If you like Robinson Crusoe, The Martian, and Lost In Space, you’ll enjoy this remarkable true story.

Dowwie 8y ago

Are there any EconTalk listeners out there who are taking up Russ's challenge to read "In the First Circle" by Solzhenitsyn?

allthing 8y ago

Robert Caro's series on LBJ is IMO possibly the greatest nonfiction work of the last century. The depth of research, the quality of writing, and the study of politics and power are what make the series so enticing. Sure the volumes are long, but it never seems like necessary information or too much detail and it never drags. I highly recommend reading at least one of the volumes.

misiti3780 8y ago

Shoedog was so boring, why does everyone think it is so great?