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Don Knuth's Non-Tech Reading List
- briancooley 18y ago"If you're good at sightreading four-hands piano music, I have hundreds of pieces I'd like to try playing with you; please drop me a note and we can hopefully get together for a jam session." Playing four-hands piano with Knuth would be an unbelievably cool experience, and definitely a great conversation starter when among other hackers. It's almost enough incentive to start learning.
- anateus 18y agoInteresting choices. They are mostly relatively obscure. That is, not the top or even secondary tier of popularity. I'd be curious to know his book picking methodology. Personal recommendations? Book review publications? Or something else?
- kirubakaran 18y agoAren't popular books usually crap? http://www2.oprah.com/obc/pastbooks/obc_pastdate.jhtml#2008 http://www2.oprah.com/obc/pastbooks/obc_pastdate.jhtml#2008
- edw519 18y agoUsually, except for Elie Wiesel's "Night". Even broken clocks are right twice a day.
- dangoldin 18y agoI also see some Faulkner, Márquez, Tolstoy and Steinbeck.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- Prrometheus 18y agoMost "popular" books that are recognized as literary classics are good. A few may be crap, but I don't feel competent to judge them. A good rule is that any book that people are still reading several decades after it was published is worth your time. Please note that the inverse is not necessarily true.
- cglee 18y agoI don't feel competent to judge them - I guess it's a testament to your self awareness, but why let others choose what's good to you? Your experience is just as valid as anyone else's.
- dcminter 18y agoSeeing Gaudy Night there suggests to me that I should read the others, of which I'm woefully ignorant.
- lg 18y agoI'm surprised he liked The Haj; the book is basically a Rand-style propaganda piece about Arab society where all the characters are either stereotypes or their 'lives' are an obvious attempt to demonstrate some point.
- Prrometheus 18y agoSubtlety is an artistic choice, not a necessity. People that complain about the lack of realism in certain authors' works are probably the same people that hated the movie "300" because the characters weren't wearing proper period clothing.
- andreyf 18y agoare probably the same people that hated the movie "300" because the characters weren't wearing proper period clothing. Granted, if you know anything about the Persians, the historical inaccuracies were a hell of a lot less subtle.
- petercooper 18y agoI read Life A Users Manual by Georges Perec thanks to his recommendation (I read this page about two years ago, I guess). It was a real eye opener. I never actually finished it, but instead read a 600 page biography of Georges Perec.. a crazy but amazing man.
- dualogy 18y ago"Being a retired professor is a lot like being an ordinary professor, except that you don't have to write research proposals, administer grants, or sit in committee meetings. Also, you don't get paid." New one for my list of favourite quotes. Great! ;)