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Ask HN: What do you read for general knowledge?

128 points by leros 5y ago

I used to browse around Medium when it was free. Now I find myself gravitating towards tech oriented sites like HackerNews. I miss reading broader content, like self improvement, professional development, history, culture, etc. Any suggestions for a place where I can casually read stuff like that?

sshine 5y ago
I only read hackernews and listen to what people tell me. I do listen to podcasts (Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss) and they do sometimes mention politics, but I try to avoid it.
- gremloni 5y ago
  Joe Rogan only sometimes mentions politics?
- Bud 5y ago
  Joe Rogan seems more suitable for erasing general knowledge than for accumulating it. In particular, regarding covid, Rogan is personally responsible for a number of deaths that would make most serial killers cower from feelings of inadequacy.
  - Veen 5y ago
    > Rogan is personally responsible for a number of deaths I'm not sure how people justify this sort of thinking: "x acted on information presented by Y. X died. Therefore Y is a murderer". Rogan is a podcast host. He doesn't make people do anything. He and his guests present information, and some of it may be bad information. No one is forced to listen to or follow it. Every listener has agency and can make up their own minds. They have access to other sources of information. If Rogan told me to jump off a cliff, and I did, that wouldn't make him a murderer. It would make me a moron. Plus, what's implied here is that sharing wrong, misleading, or misunderstood information is tantamount to murder. That would put us on a very slippery slope.
- racl101 5y ago
  Ma man!
cpach 5y ago
Check out Metafilter. It’s pretty good for that kind of stuff. http://metafilter.com/ http://metafilter.com/
markus_zhang 5y ago
Papers are a good source for more advanced or "internal" knowledge. For example Federeal Reserves papers are a good source for understanding how they assess and view the economy and monatery conditions.
blackp1nk 5y ago
Finding upvoted Twitter threads from people you like is a good way to find content.
francisofascii 5y ago
Children's non-fiction books from the library. I got this idea from watching James Holzhauer on Jeopardy. You can get a broad level understanding of all sorts of topics rather quickly. Adult books tend to be a very deep dive into a particular topic.
- lcall 5y ago
  I seem to recall that Isaac Asimov wrote science books for children, like about Chemistry, maybe other things. I imagine those are enjoyable for anyone w/ general interest.
hkc 5y ago
https://project-syndicate.org https://project-syndicate.org is a good source for International Relations related op-eds.
slmjkdbtl 5y ago
Currently reading Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy, which is more like a general encyclopedia of some important history and ideas, recommend.
exaltation 5y ago
The Thinking About Things newsletter was a great way to discover intesting content, but they seem to be on haitus. [0] https://www.thinking-about-things.com/ https://www.thinking-about-things.com/
- matthewpick 5y ago
  You’re right! I haven’t seen an email from them for a few weeks now. I love the stuff they find.
WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
I heard a great hack. To get a quick intro into a new subject that will stick with you and will not overwhelm you just start reading books that target teens. Those books are made to be easy to understand and easy to read. Once you grasp a basic understanding then you move on to more comprehensive books. The biggest obstacle to acquiring new knowledge is getting past the "I have no clue what this means" on your own. This helps to get you through it and not to give up.
readonthegoapp 5y ago
Read Chomsky. This stuff, at its heart, imo, is very meta -- as in, how the world actually works. He often refers to what he considers to be good books -- there are lists online -- not sure if they are accurate or not -- but those books often drill down on various more specific topics, like "the investment theory of politics". If you're American, you will probably end up super depressed for a couple weeks. But I feel like understanding how the world works is a kind of foundation for everything else. Science and biology and all that is important and even more fundamental, but Chomsky stuff attacks all of your core assumptions even about those things. Like, I read his opinion on how he was shitting all over gpt-3 or something -- not for the reasons you might think. That happens to be a nerdy topic that might show up here on HN, but of course crosses over into ai, and language / thought / human nature stuff. So if you've ever had an aha or whoa-type moment -- while reading or being in a new situation, like your first trip overseas, there tends to be a lot of that. So it's not always new info, but new and more accurate ways to understand what you already knew -- or thought you already knew.
mimimi31 5y ago
For general knowledge I find Wikipedia's "Vital articles"[1] a good place to start. They're organized in levels, with the 10 most general articles (e.g. Human, Language, Life, Mathematics, Philosophy) on level 1 and then sort of branching out, level 2 consisting of 100 articles (e.g. Civilization, Literature, Logic, Psychology, Arithmetic) and so on. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level...
warrenm 5y ago
A [good] local library or bookstore And I follow my own advice (https://antipaucity.com/2012/12/10/finding-your-niche/#.YbitwCxOlAc https://antipaucity.com/2012/12/10/finding-your-niche/#.Ybit...): "grab the first book [or magazine] in the history section that starts with an “A” in the title – then go for “B”, “C”, etc. Then do it from some other section of the shelves – maybe relationships, scifi, teen, romance, home improvement, etc"
lcall 5y ago
A corner case, for computer security, but I subscribe via email to the Debian security advisories, because even though that is not my primary system any more, it is one of the convenient/low impact ways to know what I need to be aware of, wherever. Also blogs of Bruce Schneier and Brian Krebs. I don't always read everything, but I do read some, and even just the titles are interesting. And I echo what others have said about RSS feeds in general.
HKH2 5y ago
If you really want broader content, you might as well just talk to people directly. Sure it's not as easy as browsing to begin with, but once you're good enough at it, it's bound to be more fulfilling.
trilinearnz 5y ago
Apologies if this is obvious, but Wikipedia's home page seems to serve this purpose quite well :)
- bob667 5y ago
  Wikipedia is a sewer of fake news
khuss 5y ago
My preferred resources: - New York Times (in-depth news). - Financial Times (business news). - Library for new books about interesting topics. Currently, I am reading "The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance", which I borrowed from the local library. - Medium and bunch of newsletters about specific topics.
black_13 5y ago
First if you are in the US get a library card. Find out if they have inter library loans.
yashasolutions 5y ago
Get an RSS reader. Collect sources over time. Will be your best bet.
- clay-dreidels 5y ago
  Would anyone be willing to share an existing RSS feed list they have created? I have recently began creating a list using Akregator on Linux, but it is difficult to find the feeds of websites. Do you have any recommendations?
  - prashantsengar 5y ago
    My list contains: Lesswrong.com - thinking rationally The Economist's World this week (and other content related to my liking) - news and current affairs PG's essays I also subscribe to a few newsletters like Farnam Streets, James Clear, Ness Labs
    - clay-dreidels 5y ago
      Thank you!
- senectus1 5y ago
  yeah this, Plus that LinkLonk.com that was presented recently. I check the newsletter daily and add sources as I see I need them. Its growing faster than my RSS feed atm and that has over 1k feeds in it.
  - lonk11 5y ago
    Good to see that the newsletter works! Let me know if you have any improvement suggestions for the newsletter.
    - senectus1 5y ago
      I do wish that clicking a YES or NO didn't open a new tab. but I'm unsure how you'd fix this.
foothall 5y ago
I'm not particularly worldly or knowlegable, but I occasionally read non-fiction books and Wikipedia to learn. I find the news to be too event-oriented. I use RSS to keep up to date with some tech fields.
DantesKite 5y ago
I like https://readow.ai/ https://readow.ai/ It’s not perfect but it gives me a decent idea of what I might like to read next.
fsloth 5y ago
For me Economist is great for a weekly review of world politics and general economy and New York Times has good perspective for daily news (I'm not from US so for me it's the 'international view on news'). Lots of 'casual' content there but I'm not sure if this was what you meant precisely. Economist is a rare source in that each time they have an article about a topic I know I have fairly good grap of, they generally offer a fairly _correct_(!) popular summary of the issues. This is why I have a fairly high trust of those articles where the subject matter is less familiar.
- swissfunicular 5y ago
  +1. Also WSJ is good. The Guardian website, not the paper.
- sohkamyung 5y ago
  I also read The Economist to get news from around the globe. Some Overdrive libraries subscribe to the magazine, so you may be able to read it via Overdrive if your local library has it.
  - fm2606 5y ago
    Just checked my overdrive library and they has it. Thanks for the tip
- sasaf5 5y ago
  +great writing! I wish I could spend a few months writing for them, just as a learning experience.
  - unfunco 5y ago
    They publish a English usage style guide which you might like. https://shop.economist.com/products/the-economist-style-guide-12th-edition https://shop.economist.com/products/the-economist-style-guid...
cymon 5y ago
I browse Quora and Reddit where I have curated my feed over time by following/unfollowing specific topics and people based on my interests
- greenie_beans 5y ago
  Reddit tried to do a Spotify wrapped thing where they told you how much time you spend in your top subreddits. With that knowledge, I have deleted the app and blocked the website. Very dumb thing for them to do.
- FourthProtocol 5y ago
  Reddit and I parted ways. It became an echo chamber with no original thinking, mostly intolerant of dissenting views.
gremloni 5y ago
I like to follow link chains on Wikipedia.
- warrenm 5y ago
  Ah, yes: https://xkcd.com/214/ https://xkcd.com/214/
jimkleiber 5y ago
I really like aeon.co
- blablabla123 5y ago
  Same, they really cover most of the topics mentioned.
Bud 5y ago
NY Times Washington Post Wikipedia The Guardian Talking Points Memo The New Yorker The Atlantic Hacker News NPR BBC History, biography, public intellectuals such as David Graeber or Chomsky Library of America whatever comes up when I google for stuff I don't know about
colechristensen 5y ago
Books (your local library or book store) Harper’s Audible
Minor49er 5y ago
I like to browse through topics on Stack Exchange's sites. I don't think it's possible to run out of interesting topics and questions to explore https://stackexchange.com/sites https://stackexchange.com/sites
racl101 5y ago
Yeah, it's a shame that Medium went the way it went. I know so many people who don't go there anymore. Wonder how it has affected their views. Anyways, in addition to reading blogs that get promoted here HN. I watch a lot instructional / educational videos on YouTube. Been enjoying, for example, learning Excel from this person: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJtUOos_MwJa_Ewii-R3cJA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJtUOos_MwJa_Ewii-R3cJA I've also been enjoying channels like number numberphile and/or computerphile as well.
foofoo4u 5y ago
American Affairs Journal: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/ National Affairs Journal: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/ https://www.nationalaffairs.com/ The WSJ and the NYT for news.
sb057 5y ago
My two cents while trying to avoid too well-known outlets: >YouTube channels: Forgotten Weapons (world-class firearms history) The Tim Traveller (general European infrastructure et al history) Project Farm (one-man Consumer Reports-esque testing) MedCram (excellent in-depth scientific but accessible medical information) Tasting History with Max Miller (culinary history) Two Minute Papers (covers recent scientific papers; rather tech-related but I see no other coverage of most of the stuff he touches on) U.S. Department of State (the press briefings are immensely insightful and not a circus like the White House equivalents) >Other: Standard Ebooks (if its in the public domain and somebody bothered to professionally process it, it's probably worth reading!) Father Stephen de Young's The Whole Counsel of God Biblical lectures (In my opinion, easily the best English-language dissection of the Bible ever written or recorded. Presented from an Orthodox perspective but frankly immensely useful for anyone interested in the Bible generally.) (Also, not to be confused with his related but separate blog of the same name.) Drudge Report (obviously a hard right bias, but nevertheless more insightful than most mainstream publications, plus the formatting is such that you can digest a day's news in 30 seconds from skimming around the page) Middle East Eye (a rare seemingly independent middle east media outlet. Broadly left-wing bias.) 4chan (quite frankly, while there is a lot of noise, there's also signal buried in there that simply isn't possible with other mediums. For example, the photography board's current film thread: https://boards.4channel.org/p/thread/3971021 https://boards.4channel.org/p/thread/3971021 )
- 0xJRS 5y ago
  I think this is a really good list, especially your point about finding the signal in the noise on 4chan; once you sift through a lot of degeneracy there really is a lot of good info there.
rch 5y ago
Someone on HN recommended Financial Times to me a couple of months ago, and I've been really happy with it so far. Definitely worth the subscription. I still read the Guardian regularly, and glance at headlines on the Washington Post, but I've cancelled my subscriptions to those for now. I pay for Medium but mainly read tech-related content ... I keep looking for substantial articles on other subjects, but a lot of it reads like long form Twitter.
wenc 5y ago
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok's "Marginal Revolution" [1]. It's not merely an economics blog like most people think. Tyler's professed interest is in cracking cultural codes [2], and much of the blog is oriented toward understanding how culture affects incentives, economics etc. [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/ https://marginalrevolution.com/ [2] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/12/deconstructing-cultural-codes.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/12/de...
soheilpro 5y ago
Try pocket: https://getpocket.com/explore https://getpocket.com/explore
steerpike 5y ago
Wikipedia Current events page is great https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events for an overview of major global events. For a lot of other topics around general knowledge it can be very interesting to browse the various levels of 'Vital articles' on Wikipedia (ie, there are 11 Level 1 Vital articles, around 45K Level 5 Vital articles and around 1K Level 3 Vital articles). I like browsing the Level 3 Vital articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles when I'm looking for something to read.
antisthenes 5y ago
Hackernews. > I miss reading broader content, like self improvement, professional development, history, culture, etc. Plenty of that here, IMO. At least more than I have time to devote to reading it.
zorr 5y ago
HN is sufficient for keeping up with what is going on in tech. If I stumble upon interesting blog posts I add them to my RSS reader. For local and world news I often glance at the homepage of a local media site hln.be. It is very clickbaity and low-quality but they usually are first when it comes to breaking stories. I use it as a news barometer to see if something is going on or not. When some topic interests me I tend to go on DDG/Wikipedia rabbit holes and I often buy non-fiction books on topics of sustained interest.
epgui 5y ago
Textbooks. Everyone hates them for some reason, but then again I don't know anyone who uses them the way they were designed to be used. From economics to biology or mathematics or political science, they're a great way to develop frameworks for thinking about entire bodies of knowledge. People spend years of their lives creating them, and I can consume this knowledge for only 50-200$? Sign me up any time.
- epgui 5y ago
  Oh, and for science news, I get mine from journals, eg: - https://www.nature.com/ https://www.nature.com/ - https://www.science.org/ https://www.science.org/
- schnitzelstoat 5y ago
  The problem I have with this is that textbooks can be quite difficult to read in that they are often large A4-size pages with many images. This makes them practically impossible to read on an e-reader and even reading on a tablet isn't ideal. Meanwhile the physical copies can often be large and unwieldy. If there was an easy way to sit and read them in bed, on the bus etc. like there is with normal books and my Kindle then I'm sure I'd read a great many more.
  - macinjosh 5y ago
    In the 90s/ 00s I'd xerox one chapter at a time (only pages with actual content) and put the pages in a binder or spiral bound format for easy luggability. The iPad is good enough for me now.
  - tmaly 5y ago
    I find many of the modern textbooks loaded with colorful boxes on the sides to be quite a distraction. If the goal was to help you learn, they should have optimized for focus.
    - epgui 5y ago
      As obvious as it seems now that you say it, I think what you say makes sense.
jrmg 5y ago
Try subscribing to your local newspaper! I live in the Bay Area and subscribe to the Mercury News. I enjoy reading through the ‘e-edition’ on my iPad every morning (though you _could_ still get a physical copy if you’d appreciate the ability to disconnect for 1/2 an hour) I know I’ll get the important national and international news (so less need for doomscrolling to satisfy my FOMO), learn what’s going on in city and state politics (which I see _very_ little of online), and get a bit of pop culture and local entertainment events. I often learn things I value that I’d never ‘seek out’ online, and would likely never make it past my social media filter bubble.
DeathArrow 5y ago
Pick a subject you are interested in, research the top authors in that domain and start reading books.
alexcnwy 5y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/ https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Reddit in general is pretty good, if you find the right subs.
bebop 5y ago
I got a subscription to Harpers and it has been a nice addition to hacker news and industry books.
simonblack 5y ago
A whole lot of 'general' stuff. (Just read. Anything. Even labels on packages. Reading is the key to knowledge.) Science, current affairs, history, films, literature that was written in the last 300 years or so, geography pertaining to the history, current affairs, news, etc. Read lots of trivia, do trivia quizzes, etc. Lots of general knowledge looks like trivia, but the trivia part of it is what binds lots of those little bits of general knowledge together, making one one connected edifice. For some insight, go to YouTube and look a James Burke's "Connections" series. He used to have a monthly 'Connections' column in the Scientific American magazine too.
tambourineman88 5y ago
I subscribe to the London Review of Books. The writing is of the highest quality and the range of topics covered is wonderfully diverse.
tugberkk 5y ago
1. Hackernews 2. Pocket : https://getpocket.com/explore https://getpocket.com/explore 3. Reddit 4. Serious websites & books on specific matters i.e. I like to read on Philosophy, so I read websites & books on that (such as plato.stanford)
TheRealNGenius 5y ago
wikipedia
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
https://aldaily.com/ https://aldaily.com/ - Arts & Letters daily, also some subreddits, like this one https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ - especially the weekly digests. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html - 'astronomy picture of the day' this one has lots of links to wikipedia, fun to follow them. http://wikiroulette.co/ http://wikiroulette.co/ - random wikipedia page, sometimes interesting to click on the links. and of course the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page the featured articls, etc. youtube channels like this one https://www.youtube.com/c/TheOrientalInstitute https://www.youtube.com/c/TheOrientalInstitute
- szszrk 5y ago
  Cool list, but I'm wondering what is the point of WikiRoulette? Wikipedia has this build in, it's in main menu since I remember. It's even visible when using wikiroulette... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
langitbiru 5y ago
https://substack.com https://substack.com - You can find many non-tech content there, such as arts, culture, food and drink, faith, and politics.
gadders 5y ago
The Spectator is a good read.
Veen 5y ago
General news sources, although all taken with a pinch of salt: BBC, Guardian, Economist, Spectator, LRB, New Yorker from time to time. I pay particular attention to books that are reviewed in these and other publications. If a book is well-reviewed and seems interesting, I'll buy it and read it. Otherwise, I'll pick a topic of interest and buy a short introduction: OUP's Very Short Introductions to X [0] are quite good, although as with all summaries, it's worth keeping mind that it's the view of one academic. I'll read the introductory text and then use its bibiography to find my way to other books. Bibliographies are very useful. [0]: https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/v/very-short-introductions-vsi/?cc=gb&lang=en& https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/v/very-short-...
ravish0007 5y ago
I'm just watching lexfridman's podcasts (video/day)

da-x 5y ago

This is very true. To give an an example, in the front page of hacker news I only see what is boiling i.e what caught the attention of the masses. I hardly learn new stuff. I think this is true for any crowd-based news site rating system. In contrast, when I open up my RSS reader and see posts of the blogs I subscribed to, I often learn new things that perhaps were simply not very interesting to the common HN in the same period of time, but are enriching to my general or technical knowledge. The idea is to accumulate 300 or so low-frequency blogs, so that each day you would have a few posts to read from interesting people. Low frequency is good because the signal-to-noise ratio is often better.

warrenm 5y ago
>The idea is to accumulate 300 or so low-frequency blogs What does your list look like?
- da-x 5y ago
  It is composed of the relatively small number of the high profile developers that occasionally pop up on HN. Most are blogs I found of less known developers which I bumped into when searching other stuff or when casually browsing Github/Twitter/StackOverflow. I try to add new feeds wherever I find them. Would have shared RSS subscription list if was easily possible, however I use the newsboat [1] program and read the aggregate in the terminal. It's stored locally. [1] https://newsboat.org/ https://newsboat.org/
  - warrenm 5y ago
    I've got an RSS aggregator of sorts that I love adding good feeds to that I can get to online (more as a start page of its own) If you have a way to share you list, I'd love to see it :) I take it newsboat doesn't have a way to export its list of feeds?
Gualdrapo 5y ago
Not specially fond of private solutions, but as an exiled from Google Reader and someone who's been using RSS this way for more than 10 years, the feature I like (and use) from Feedly the most is saving stuff for when I can spare some time reading. Plus another tool for saving extra stuff (useful web apps, recipes and the like) I find there or in other places is really handy too, think like (now Mozilla's) Pocket or Raindrop, which allows you to sort your links in categories and access and sync them between your devices.
clay-dreidels 5y ago
Hi there! Would you be willing to share some of your feed sources? I'm always on the lookout for good content, but I have a hard time diminishing the noise. Thank you for your time.

randmeerkat 5y ago

What’s your favorite textbooks? How do you discover which ones to buy? Is there a space online where people are talking about this?

epgui 5y ago
I spend a lot of time sniffing them out. One thing I'll do once in a while is visit a university bookstore to get a sense of what's being used in classrooms. I ended up with a lot of my law textbooks like that. In law, I've really loved: - Canadian Administrative Law (Guy Régimbald): https://store.lexisnexis.ca/en/categories/shop-by-jurisdiction/federal-13/canadian-administrative-law-3rd-edition-skusku-cad-00635/details https://store.lexisnexis.ca/en/categories/shop-by-jurisdicti... - Tort Law (Horsey & Rackley): https://www.amazon.ca/Tort-Law-Kirsty-Horsey-dp-019886776X/dp/019886776X/ https://www.amazon.ca/Tort-Law-Kirsty-Horsey-dp-019886776X/d... - Handbook of Canadian Higher Education Law (Shanahan, Nilso & Broshko): https://www.amazon.ca/Handbook-Canadian-Higher-Education-Law/dp/1553394429 https://www.amazon.ca/Handbook-Canadian-Higher-Education-Law... I've been on a maths, stats and ML/AI binge in the last year, and so far my top picks are: - Calculus (Stewart): https://www.amazon.ca/Calculus-James-Stewart/dp/1337624187/ https://www.amazon.ca/Calculus-James-Stewart/dp/1337624187/ - Linear Algebra Done Right (Sheldon Axler): https://www.amazon.ca/Linear-Algebra-Right-Undergraduate-Mathematics-ebook/dp/B00PULZWPC https://www.amazon.ca/Linear-Algebra-Right-Undergraduate-Mat... - An Illustrative Guide to Multivariable and Vector Calculus (Miklavcic): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/3030334589/ https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/3030334589/ - Probability: A Graduate Course (Allan Gut): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1461447070/ https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1461447070/ - Statistical Rethinking (McElreath): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/036713991X/ https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/036713991X/ - An Introduction to Statistical Learning (James, Witten, Hastie & Tibshirani): https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Statistical-Learning-Applications-dp-1071614177/dp/1071614177/ https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Statistical-Learning-Appl... - Regression and Other Stories (Gelman, Hill & Vehtari): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1107676517/ https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1107676517/ - Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models (Gelman & Hill): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/052168689X/ https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/052168689X/ - Statistical and Data Analysis for Financial Engineering (Ruppert & Matteson): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1493926136/ https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1493926136/ - Reinforcement Learning (Sutton & Barto): https://www.amazon.ca/Reinforcement-Learning-Introduction-Richard-Sutton/dp/0262039249/ https://www.amazon.ca/Reinforcement-Learning-Introduction-Ri... - Deep Learning (Godfellow, Bengio & Courville): https://www.amazon.ca/Deep-Learning-Ian-Goodfellow/dp/0262035618/ref=pd_bxgy_img_1/136-5872634-9070117 https://www.amazon.ca/Deep-Learning-Ian-Goodfellow/dp/026203... - Networks (Mark Newman): https://www.amazon.ca/Networks-Mark-Newman/dp/0198805098/ https://www.amazon.ca/Networks-Mark-Newman/dp/0198805098/ I have a ton of textbooks in my wishlist that seem noteworthy and interesting, but that I haven't gotten the chance to read yet: no promises, but you might find something in there https://www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/1FWW046Q3RWWM https://www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/1FWW046Q3RWWM My area of expertise is biochemistry, life science, immunology, cell bio... So if anyone wants good recommendations in these topics I have plenty! :)
- chermi 5y ago
  +1 to Axler (linear algebra) and Newman (networks)
- randmeerkat 5y ago
  Do you have any recommendations on a good primer for biochem? It is a topic I’m interested in and I would like something that sets me up to dig into everything from viruses to cancer to life extension.
  - epgui 5y ago
    Absolutely, I have quite a few I'd recommend. If you tell me more about your background and what you're looking for, I can refine my recommendations further. Either way, the first thing you have to know is that it's a huge huge field, and you won't find any single book that introduces you well to every subtopic (it's just impossible), and the amount of background/support knowledge you need in order to be able to fully and critically appreciate even basic research papers is pretty enormous. General biochem and cell bio: - https://www.amazon.com/Biochemistry-Reginald-H-Garrett/dp/1305577205/ https://www.amazon.com/Biochemistry-Reginald-H-Garrett/dp/13... - https://www.amazon.ca/Molecular-Cell-Biology-Harvey-Lodish-dp-1319208525/dp/1319208525/ https://www.amazon.ca/Molecular-Cell-Biology-Harvey-Lodish-d... - https://www.amazon.ca/Lehninger-Principles-Biochemistry-David-Nelson/dp/1319228003/ https://www.amazon.ca/Lehninger-Principles-Biochemistry-Davi... Biotech: - https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biotechnology-Principles-Applications-Recombinant-dp-1683673646/dp/1683673646/ https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biotechnology-Principles-Ap... Cell signaling: - https://www.amazon.com/Cell-Signaling-Wendell-Lim/dp/0815342446/ https://www.amazon.com/Cell-Signaling-Wendell-Lim/dp/0815342... Immunology: - https://www.amazon.ca/Janeways-Immunobiology-Paperback-Version-Kenneth/dp/0815345054/ https://www.amazon.ca/Janeways-Immunobiology-Paperback-Versi... - https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Inflammation-Charles-Serhan-PhD/dp/0521887291/ https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Inflammation-Charles-Ser... Microbiology: - https://www.amazon.com/Jawetz-Melnick-Adelbergs-Medical-Microbiology-dp-1260012026/dp/1260012026/ https://www.amazon.com/Jawetz-Melnick-Adelbergs-Medical-Micr... - https://www.amazon.com/Microbiology-Laboratory-Fundamentals-Applications-2nd/dp/0130100749/ https://www.amazon.com/Microbiology-Laboratory-Fundamentals-... Embryology: - https://www.amazon.com/Developmental-Biology-Michael-J-F-Barresi/dp/1605358223/ https://www.amazon.com/Developmental-Biology-Michael-J-F-Bar... Haematology: - https://www.amazon.com/Hematology-Clinical-Practice-Fifth-Medicine/dp/0071626999/ https://www.amazon.com/Hematology-Clinical-Practice-Fifth-Me... Genetics and bioinformatics: - I actually have never found a great textbook, please let me know if you know of any. Anatomy & physiology (leaning more towards human & medical): - https://www.amazon.ca/Human-Anatomy-Physiology-Elaine-Marieb/dp/0134580990/ https://www.amazon.ca/Human-Anatomy-Physiology-Elaine-Marieb... - https://www.amazon.ca/Guyton-Hall-Textbook-Medical-Physiology/dp/0323597122/ https://www.amazon.ca/Guyton-Hall-Textbook-Medical-Physiolog... - https://www.amazon.ca/Medical-Physiology-Walter-Boron-PhD-dp-1455743771/dp/1455743771/ https://www.amazon.ca/Medical-Physiology-Walter-Boron-PhD-dp... Basic/general medicine (don't shoot me I'm trying to keep the list short and general): - https://www.amazon.ca/Robbins-Cotran-Pathologic-Basis-Disease/dp/032353113X/ https://www.amazon.ca/Robbins-Cotran-Pathologic-Basis-Diseas... - https://www.amazon.ca/Cecil-Essentials-Medicine-Edward-FIDSA/dp/0323722717/ https://www.amazon.ca/Cecil-Essentials-Medicine-Edward-FIDSA... - https://www.amazon.ca/Harrisons-Principles-Internal-Medicine-Twentieth/dp/1259644030/ https://www.amazon.ca/Harrisons-Principles-Internal-Medicine... Neuroanatomy (deserves a mention, one of my all time favs): - https://www.amazon.ca/Neuroanatomy-through-Clinical-Cases-Blumenfeld/dp/1605359629/ https://www.amazon.ca/Neuroanatomy-through-Clinical-Cases-Bl... USMLE step 1 prep materials are surprisingly good outlines, but not great for an introduction on their own: - https://www.amazon.ca/First-USMLE-Step-Thirty-first/dp/126046752X/ https://www.amazon.ca/First-USMLE-Step-Thirty-first/dp/12604... Cancer: - I don't know of any good textbooks on the subject, but once you have some of the fundamentals of biochem under your belt, start reading the papers referenced here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer
lifefeed 5y ago
Ask yourself, "what would batman want to learn," and learn that. That's how I ended up with Practical Homicide Investigation Tactics, Procedures, and Forensic Techniques. It's amazing.
necrodome 5y ago
This list from LessWrong is ok: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-textbooks-on-every-subject https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-t...
- chermi 5y ago
  Is this website/thread still watched and update? I have some thoughts and recommendations for that list.
mejutoco 5y ago
University requirements can be useful gor this (the book list for specific studies). Goodreads is another one.
- randmeerkat 5y ago
  Are some universities better than others for this? Do you have any favorite universities that you follow?
  - sn9 5y ago
    I think your best bet would be to compare the curricula and syllabi of different universities and see which books are the most commonly recommended. You could just look at Ivy League universities, or maybe the top N universities for undergraduates in field X.
    - wheelinsupial 5y ago
      I try to look at a mix of universities. The top couple in a field, some state schools (that aren't the top couple), and some schools that are more practically oriented. This way you'll get exposure from more theoretical to more applied. Even if the same textbooks are used across these institutions there may be a difference in emphasis and assignments. One can start from the least rigorous and work up to the more rigorous courses. Even some of the top schools may have honors and non-honors versions of courses.
  - mejutoco 5y ago
    I checked MIT‘s curriculum for Math books (logic in particular) and I got 2 or 3 that looked interesting. I thought if it more like browsing things that look interesting (checking on goodreads) more than a systematic approach.