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Ask HN: Read any good books lately?
Niall Ferguson's the Ascent of Money and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. The former is extremely informative, the later is a work of art.
- jor-el 7y agoSuper thinking: The big book of mental models, it has been discussed on HN before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20211572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20211572. Haven't completed it yet, so far I am finding it good.
- nestorherre 7y agoZen mind, beginner's mind. It's the first book that I've read about Buddhism and found it quite insightful, will keep on reading more books on the topic. It introduced me to Zen meditation, which I started practicing a few days ago and find useful.
- shaban1234 7y agohow do iget to karma 2
- HNLurker2 7y agoLet's karma 4 karma (501 so we can dislike)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- atlasunshrugged 7y agoGraham Allison's Destined for War about Thucydides Trap with an examination of the US and China was quite good
- arikr 7y agoAlchemy by Rory Sutherland. "Why is Red Bull so popular, though everyone—everyone!—hates the taste? Humans are, in a word, irrational, basing decisions as much on subtle external signals (that little blue can) as on objective qualities (flavor, price, quality). The surrounding world, meanwhile, is irreducibly complex and random. This means future success can’t be projected on any accounting spreadsheet. To strike gold, you must master the dark art and curious science of conjuring irresistible ideas: alchemy."
- donw 7y agoI may be utterly alone here, but I actually like the taste. Reminds me of the white Smarties at Halloween as a kid.
- clay_the_ripper 7y agoI love the taste of red bull. Although I agree that their marketing is genius and probably has more to do with their success than anything.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- nateferrero 7y agoPsychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason
- tunnuz 7y agoGut by Julia Enders, a pop-sci book on our digestive system.
- znerp 7y agoThe Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen
- lb1lf 7y agoJust finished Higginbotham's Midnight in Chernobyl on the accident, the cleanup and its consequences. At times it read almost like a thriller, while still being extremely informative.
- rohitbhats 7y ago'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' can't stop recommending it. I am currently reading the 3rd book 'Life, the Universe and Everything'
- aibrahem 7y agoCan I ask what is so fascinating about it, It's been recommended to me a couple of times and I've tried everything to enjoy it and failed. I got the book, tried the audio-book and even tried watching the movie, I couldn't get myself past the first half of the book or the movie. It just seems (to me) so childish and incoherent, am I missing somthing?
- me_me_me 7y agoIt's one of my favorite books too, but I couldn't drag myself through Catch 22. And a lot of people are fanatical about it. Different type of people like different things :) no need to feel bad about it. p.s I would use word playful instead of childish.
- silvat 7y agoI tried reading catch-22 twice before successfully getting through it. I felt the same as you did. I think my problem the first 2 times was that I was looking for the 'hook' or whatever it was that people were so fanatical about. As a consequence, I think I was glossing over the dialogue and not really ingesting what was going on. The third time I decided to just take it at face value, try and enjoy the dialogue and if no bigger picture emerges, so be it. This approach turned out to be the key. It's an incredibly funny and poignant book and what happens is that while you get through all these seemingly (initally) trivial scenes, a point does in fact start to emerge. The triviality is actually central to the main point. People keep dying off for arbitrary reasons and the being part of the war is so detached from the apparent reasons for the war is actually taking place. It's one of my favorite books. I truly recommended trying to read it again.
- demygale 7y agoIts a book for tween boys. You’re not missing anything. It’s cool to read children’s literature as an adult. Less cool if you think it’s literature’s final form.
- srijanshetty 7y ago"JCIP - Java Concurreny in Practice", finally was able to complete this monster and now I see the world differently. I had a aha moment, just like Neo in the Matrix. "The Sandman: Kindly Ones" and "The Sandman: Wake", masterpieces from the master writer Neil Gaimann. Reading "Never Split the Difference" which is about the art of negotiation and has been an enlightening read as of now. It argues negotiation isn't rational but is an affective exercise and I couldn't agree more.
- jerome-jh 7y agoWas the haha moment like what can be felt reading "The problem with threads" https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-1.pdf https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-... ?
- srijanshetty 7y agoI'll confess that I haven't read "The problem with threads", my aha moment was the existence of 'happens-before' relationships and the Java Memory Model which for a good part of my life, I didn't know about.
- sebcat 7y ago150 pages into The Fountainhead at the moment. So far, I can highly recommend it.
- tracer4201 7y agoI’ve been reading Release It - design deploy production ready software. This is a fantastic book with several lessons my teams learned either by failing. The parts on how so many issues tend to be blocked threads, how you accidentally DDOS yourself, or how scaling/capacity management has failures even when you follow all the textbook, sound patterns... it takes many of my personal experiences and some failures I haven’t had (but will) and provides such a fresh perspective. https://www.amazon.com/Release-Design-Deploy-Production-Ready-Software-ebook/dp/B079YWMY2V https://www.amazon.com/Release-Design-Deploy-Production-Read...
- louismerlin 7y agoMoby Dick Finally got around to reading it, I was amazed at how modern it felt for a book written in 1850.
- ageitgey 7y agoThis is an amazing book, though I jokingly like to describe it as the best beginning and ending prose ever written with 100 chapters of whalefacts.tumblr.com sandwiched in between.
- abhijat 7y agoThis is the third book I am reading in my sequence of naval adventures.
- adamraye 7y ago.. and how sudden the ending was right? It's one of my favourite books too. I dip into it a few times a year reading specific chapters, I find it incredibly evocative.
- hirundo 7y agoI was surprised nobody told me about (spoiler) the quite sincere same-sex interracial marriage early in the book, in which the one groom gives half of his worldly wealth to the other, and then they sleep together. Even if it isn't about sex, I'd think that scene would be better known if more than a few nerds like me read the book. It's in one of the greatest American novels, we've just gone through a great debate around marriage freedom, but actually reading it was the first time I came across it.
- hirundo 7y agoAnother great sea story: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk.
- paradoxos 7y agoI can really recommend The Kingkiller Chronicle. It is an outstanding piece of fantasy. The way of magic is developed / presented in a way you really can feel how it could be possible. A great piece of art by Patrick Rothfuss. The last book (of three) is currently in the making. I am really looking forward to read the first two books again once the last part is published. I want to know more about The Doors of Stone - now! :-)
- jor-el 7y agoI second this. It is very well written and among the top fantasy books I have read. The only frustrating part is the release of third book is no where near in the horizon.
- dilippkumar 7y agoJust finished the second book of this series. I agree with the parent comment - strongly recommend. I also finished book 10 of the Malazan series. Imagine Dan Carlin (Hardcore History podcast) and Quentin Tarantino took both the red pill and the blue pill that Morpheus offered Neo and ground both the pills together, snorted it, shook hands and agreed to create something better than Game of Thrones. I imagine they would have come up with something almost as good as the Malazan series. You’ll have to power through the first book (Gardens of the Moon). It is notoriously difficult - I recommend following up each chapter with commentary on Tor’s Gardens of the Moon reread. I will also guarantee that the way book 1 ends will not make sense. But keep reading - the payoff is waiting as early as the end of book 2. And again at the end of book 3. And again all through books 4 and 5. And it’ll stay that good till the end.
- mattmanser 7y agoI found the Malazan books quite frustrating, every book he introduced a new character and storyline and left so many previous ones unfinished. Too many balls. And the end was just a bit silly for me. I thought they were pretty good, but I'm enjoying GoT more.
- redrobein 7y agoIf anyone hasn't tried playing Tak yet checkout playtak¹. Login as guest and challenge one of the bots to a game, or grab a friend to play with you. 1 https://www.playtak.com/ https://www.playtak.com/
- HNLurker2 7y agoRyan Holiday - 366 days of stoic (journal)
- diehunde 7y agoAlso reading that. One per day. I would say one every 5 or 6 meditations I find very valuable stuff.
- HNLurker2 7y agoI read the whole book man. The questions are just tools. You should read any stoic you like, preferably the one who you relate the most with (Zeno of citium even to Taleb doesn't matter)
- pknerd 7y agoThis is my 2nd year of reading. I can't recommend it enough!
- elamje 7y agoLenins Tomb: Soviet history primarily focused on the later years.
- sprremix 7y agoThe Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage Does anyone have other hacking related books with story telling like in this book?
- ageitgey 7y agoI must have read this 100 times when I was a little kid interested in programming in the late 80s / early 90s.
- adamraye 7y agoWell I remember reading in one or two sittings "Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier" by John Markov and Katie Hafner just before I discovered The Cuckoo's Egg and both gripped me in the same way.
- jfrd 7y agoI read Cuckoo’s Egg and also liked “The Soul of a New Machine”, “SkunkWorks”, and “The Making of the Atomic Bomb”.
- codefreq 7y agoI am reading An Anonymous Girl by Greer and Sarah and it's a hell of a ride. I try to answer the questions asked by the doctor and makes me wonder about myself.
- ageitgey 7y agoThe Count of Monti Cristo is a really fun book. It was published as a serial and was kind of like the Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones of 1850s Paris that everyone was talking about at the time. It's fun to read for both the revenge story itself and for the implicit look into the history of the French Revolution and what the life of a (dramatized) high roller was like back then.
- adamraye 7y agoOh yes, the unabridged version is huge - and quite daunting at first - but once you let the thing just flow over you, it's a real great slow burner of a revenge story. Very highly recommended if you like a long read.
- 5555624 7y agoRead it as a serial. The last time I read it, a couple of years ago, I read a chapter each night. The hardest part was not reading a second or third chapter each night. Another approach would be to read it as published. That's something like 18 parts in as many months.
- peter_chickens 7y agoI recently finished The Three-Body Problem, and I think it is the best book I have read in years. It held my attention all the way through and I am now starting the sequel.
- whichquestion 7y agoThe sequels are as excellent as the first in the series, so if you read the first and really like it, read the others too.
- docwpipe 7y agoIt is one the best sci-fi books out there. You will love the way it ends. It brings us to realise what we know and what we presently dont understand in the field of physics.
- Breza 7y agoI made it through all three books and really enjoyed them (especially book 2). But I have to admit that I don't know how to feel about the ending. Definitely not the ending I anticipated.
- bill_rr 7y agoI've been wanting to read this.
- fouralarmfire 7y agoThe Fifth Season by N K Jemisin (and then the rest of the Broken Earth series) great dystopian sci-fi
- jerome-jh 7y ago"Nobody's boy" (Orig title "Sans famille") by Hector Malot. A huge classic in Vietnam, I have been said, but a little bit forgotten in France. Bar a couple of unlikely events, pretty enjoyable. Absolutely very much superior to the anim. Emphasize on education throughout the book.
- quirkafleeg3 7y agoMattimeo, the third of the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. Charming, funny and surprisingly action-packed. Currently reading Northern Lights, the first of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. My first time reading it, great so far.
- lmiller1990 7y agoI read the Redwall books in high school! Great fun, maybe I’ll revisit. My favorites were Mossflower and Martin the Warrior.
- abhijat 7y agoI just finished Shogun and The Terror one after the other. The reason I liked these is that I found the dogged determination of the respective captains in the face of adversity (especially in The Terror) inspirational.
- Mobius01 7y agoShogun is such a great book. I like to escape to it every year or so.
- deadmanwalking 7y agoDavid Eddings The Belgariad series ( 5 books) and then the Mallorean series (5 more books) which follows on from the Belgariad. An amazing piece of fantasy writing.
- marshallbananas 7y agoBad Blood by John Carreyrou, a book about the infamous blood testing startup Theranos. I couldn't put it down. Read the whole thing in a day and a half. It's basically a gripping thriller set in Silicon Valley. The story focuses on what went on within the company since its inception. It's completely mind boggling how and why it all happened.
- MattLeBlanc001 7y agoI Recommend this too. Read this back in January. 10/10
- JimmyAustin 7y agoI'll recommend this as well. Another great book in the "company exploding in a case of massive fraud" genre is Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, which goes into the 1MDB scandal.
- xtiansimon 7y agoHamilton, Gabrielle. “Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef.” (2011). This is a chef’s journey in the same general category of Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” (2000) or Bill Buford’s “Heat” (2007). Before I had my current fabulous career, I was an out of work marketing / web designer and needed to make money. The latter two books were my ‘mentors’ for dealing with working in professional kitchens without any experience. I recommend all three for their insights into the world of professional chefs and food hospitality. And, of course, they all make you hungry. Haha
- kalado 7y agoNon-Fiction: - Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman | book on human rationality and irrationality - An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield Fiction: - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality | Petunia married a professor, and Harry grew up reading science and science fiction. http://www.hpmor.com/ http://www.hpmor.com/ - Off to Be the Wizard (Magic 2.0 Book 1) by Scott Meyer | Reality is defined in a text file, making the protagonist a wizard when he discovers it while hacking a company. - The Magicians (series) by Lev Grossman
- paradoxos 7y agoRegarding Kahneman, keep in mind that in the following years there has been a lot of doubt - including by Kahneman himself - about the scientific validity of the evidence. See also: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/#comment-1454 https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-underpowered-studies-nobel-prize-winner-admits-mistakes/ https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...
- kalado 7y agoVery interesting! I found the chapters on priming hard to believe anyway. Still a lot of good stuff in that book. It's one of those lessons that you feel you know but get a much better understanding of when reading about it in-depth. Same as "How to win friends and influence people"
- adamraye 7y agoThe Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson. There's something I really enjoy about these two almost magical realisim type books that never tires and I re-read them both at least once every few years.
- MattLeBlanc001 7y agoJust finished the "four steps to epiphany". A must read for any startup founder. 10/10 Currently reading "never split the difference".
- gadders 7y agoHouse to House by David Bellavia. It's an account of his part in the 2nd Battle for Fallujah and how he won his Medal of Honour. Really well written.
- oceanghost 7y ago"Average is Over" by Tyler Cowen. It maybe isn't revolutionary, but it tied up a LOT of loose ends in my head about where we are and where things are most likely headed. His thesis statement is that scientific and social progress is now largely in the hands of AI and that those best able to utilize those technologies to augment their decisions, and everyone else will suffer. I think he overestimates AI in the short term, but in the long term, I don't see how he's wrong. I've started to study AI again (having worked in an AI lab 20 years ago). From Wikipeida: Cowen forecasts that modern economies are delaminating into two groups: a small minority of highly educated people who are capable of working collaboratively with automated systems will become a wealthy aristocracy; the vast majority will earn little or nothing, surviving on low-priced goods created by the first group, living in shantytowns working with highly automated production systems.
- diehunde 7y agoJust finished "Get a financial Life". Pretty good stuff if you want to improve your financial skills and learn about investments, real state and tips on many things related to money.
- kedean 7y agoI'm working my way through Steven Pinkers "How The Mind Works", it's a really interesting perspective on the brain and how it theoretically might produce human intelligence and consciousness. I didn't expect to be exercising my CS background while reading it, but it's very heavy on CS techniques and jargon despite being a psychology book (the author spends a solid chunk of the first chapter walking the reading through creating what turns out to basically be Prolog). On the fiction side, I'm on my third Discworld book and loving them (Men At Arms).
- chelmzy 7y agoGravity's Rainbow
- wurp 7y agoZen Mind, Beginner's Mind is blowing my mind.
- kaushikt 7y agoI am finally reading "The Subtle art of not giving a f*ck". First 3 chapters in. Good read and more importantly, it's very well written.
- dance2die 7y agoAll those fks in the first chapter really put me off..
- w4tson 7y agoI listened to the Selfish Gene on Audible recently and was blown away by it. All through school I never had much of an interest in biology or genetics. I think if I’d read this earlier it may have changed my mind. Planning on reading the Blind Watchmaker at some point. Spurred on by reading the former I thought I’d listen to A Brief History of Time. Wow that is a whole different kettle of fish. I had to stop because I realized it wasn’t the right format (Audiobook), for me at least.
- bill_rr 7y agoThe Overstory PS Does anybody use Goodreads anymore?
- padraic7a 7y agoI do. Mostly I use it to log the annual reading challenge. I have mixed feelings about it because of Amazon's ownership, and that probably results in me using it less than I would otherwise.
- Kuzutsukake 7y agoBelonging by Nora Krug. Nice mix of personal narrative and history, and the visuals were wonderful. It's about the authors investigation to uncover her family's role during Nazi rule, to hopefully absolve her sense of inherited guilt and to discover her "heimat" - a German word used to describe where you come from. The author presents the story through a mix of handwritten letters, old pictures, and drawings, weaved together into a very creative scrapbook style. Something I really enjoyed were the cultural and historical sections that started each chapter. I was able to learn something new that was separate from the narrative, yet still keep my mind in the story world. One of those parts I found interesting was on how important bread is to Germans...so much as to file their recipes for recognition by UNESCO! I had no idea. Not to say that was the best part. The story itself was very good.
- gkolli 7y agoThe Peregrine - the way the author describes nature and the beauty and focus of everyday life is awe-inspiring.