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Ask YC: Good books to take on a week away?
I'm heading off on holiday in a fortnight, for a week break. I've decided to leave my laptop behind, to avoid the week long hotel hacking session, that was last year's 'holiday'.
Since this year i'm going to force myself to relax by the pool with a book or two, I was wondering what things people would recommend?
I'd prefer things not directly technical (since I tend to read many of them while working) though not necessarily fiction.
Thanks!
- rsa 18y agoFountain head by Ayn Rand.
- senthil_rajasek 18y agoAs a hacker you will like this non-technical fiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog_in_the_Night-time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog...
- ovi256 18y agoIt was amazing. As a blurb, I could describe it as an insight into the mind of an autist. On a personal note, I'll say it was a trip through the mind of an almost ramen.
- LPTS 18y agoCryptonomicon is great if you haven't read it. I think it's a canonical piece of scifi. It's two generations of nerds from a family. One is a WW2 codebreaker, and his grandson is a startup tech guy. The book tells the story by switching between 1940s and 1990s. Lots of historical people, alternate timeline stuff. Lots of interesting ideas about economics and information. A great read.
- knv 18y ago+1 or Cryptonomicon. Although I don't call it SciFi. Nerd Fiction?!
- Shadow84 18y agoOne could ad Neal Stephenson books in general. Especially Snow Crash. Jointly, with Cryptonomicon, one of the best books I've ever read! In Snow Crash, the author envisioned stuf like Google Earth or Second Life, only in a much more advanced way. The book was written in 1992 :-)
- bigtoga 18y agoHow about these: Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works: http://tinyurl.com/3ftxva http://tinyurl.com/3ftxva Founders at Work:http://tinyurl.com/4cytwa http://tinyurl.com/4cytwa (links are to amazon.com)
- lbrandy 18y ago> I'd prefer things not directly technical though not necessarily fiction. Sounds exactly like me. I strongly suggest: 1. The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) 2. The Demon-Haunted World (Carl Sagan) ...or if you need a little inspiration... 3. Founders at Work
- ca98am79 18y agoI'm on a week vacation right now and brought along Founders at Work - it is great.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoTake "no books". Use this time to physically get in touch with the rest of the world. Spend time with you, then with total strangers. Now if you are an introvert like me, this will look scary, but I think it will do you more good then reading. Enjoy your vacation.
- gruseom 18y agoOh, goody: an excuse to link to the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com
- michael_dorfman 18y agoWow. Amazing site. (I mean, "amazing" site.) Thanks for that.
- gruseom 18y ago"Your welcome".
- JacobAldridge 18y agoMister God, This is Anna A short book that shows the awesome power in looking at things in a new light (in this case, through the eyes of a child). Not directly religious as the title may seem. Warning: I can't get to the end of Page 1 without crying.
- xirium 18y agoSee http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191715 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191715 for audio book suggestions See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176710 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176710 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=110899 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=110899 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=85840 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=85840 for favourite books.
- soundsop 18y agoSiddartha by Herman Hesse. It's a short read but very interesting.
- jsomers 18y agoSiddhartha, by Herman Hesse. Quick read, very elegantly written. Nearly everyone that I know who has read it puts it at the top of their list.
- ola 18y agoCrash by JG Ballard
- jordyhoyt 18y agoAnything by Vonnegut that you haven't read. Almost all of his books would be readable in a week or so. ("Player Piano" may be most appropriate to suggest given the nature of this site.)
- robg 18y agoThe Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon - I'm finishing it this weekend and it's a good fun read with lots to like: portrayal of early comics' culture, history, and impact, working long hours to produce a passionate product, leveraging your best qualities, and finding meaning when it appears bleak.
- justindz 18y agoHaruki Murakami. Sputnik Sweetheart, Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore. After the Quake, if you like short stories. Great stuff. If you want something lighter, try Banana Yoshimoto. If you want something with more sex and gruesome murders, try Ryu Murakami.
- Tichy 18y agoI'd recommend to start with Norwegian Wood for Murakami. Didn't like Sputnik Sweetheart at all, and many of his other books tend to be too esoterical for my taste. But NW was esoterics-free, if I remember correctly.
- justindz 18y agoYou do. I'm a fan of magical realism, so the esoteric content doesn't bother me but I totally get your ranking on that point. Norwegian Wood is all psychology and no parapsychology. If I remember correctly, South of the Border, West of the Sun is similar in that regard.
- brlewis 18y agoDale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
- tomjen 18y agoSecond. This is a great book.
- xirium 18y ago> This is a great book. Which version did you read? Dale Carnegie's estate has published a slightly different version almost every year since Carnegie's death. The version I read mentioned Stevie Wonder. I was thinking 'WTF? I thought that Stevie Wonder became famous after Dale Carnegie died.' Indeed, I was right. Anyhow, for this reason, I recommend the earliest edition you can obtain so that it is closer to Carnegie's intentions.
- signa11 18y agoprogramming the universe, seth lloyd is very nice.
- fizz 18y agoThe Telegraph's list of the "50 best cult books" has some great ones in there. Whatever a "cult book" is... I guess I read lots of cult books. :) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/04/26/nosplit/boanotherlist126.xml http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/04...
- pfedor 18y agoAnything by Greg Egan. It is a science fiction author who actually has a very good understanding of science (he's published articles in a scientific journal about quantum gravity) and makes non-trivial use of it in his plots. Plus, he's a computer programmer and you can go to his website and see a collection of applets, some of them illustrating the concepts from his novels and short stories. On top of that, he is good with all the soft stuff, like character development and psychology etc., that is essential for great fiction but that some science-intensive science fiction is very much lacking. There are other very good nerd literature authors out there, like Vernor Vinge and Neal Stephenson, but to me none of them was as big a revelation as Greg Egan. If you don't mind something non-mainstream and a bit dated, but first-class literature nonetheless, you can try Stanislaw Lem. It's a Polish author but most of his work has been translated to English. I consider him one of the best science fiction authors ever. "The Star Diaries" is light and funny, a perfect pool side reading.
- scorpioxy 18y agoWell, for non-technical books; I have enjoyed the following in no particular order: - Founders At Work - Eric Sink on the Business of Software - The Great War for Civilization - Pity the Nation - On Intelligence - The State of Africa - Long Walk to Freedom ....etc
- timcederman 18y agoThings The Grandchildren Should Know - Mark Oliver Everett (as in son of Hugh Everett, many-worlds theorem physicist)
- chasingsparks 18y agoThe Picture of Dorian Gray
- eznet 18y agoI know what book I am taking for my week away next week: The Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide - 5 complete novels and 1 story. This is an awesome group of stories that are really fun to read. If you haven't read them at least once or have only read the guide to the galaxy, you should definitely check it out.
- avinashv 18y agoGEB? Might take you more than a week, but it's great reading.