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Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• shakna 5y ago
  The Science of Discworld series. It isn't a group of heady physics textbooks, but they do seem to unlock interest and understanding in the fields they address for a layperson. Probably precisely because they embrace that quite a lot of explanations only hold within particular models.
• aerovistae 5y ago
  It's not my field, but feels like an appropriate answer. After the recent death of the myrmecologist EO Wilson, I decided to order a couple of his books and have spent the last few nights reading "Journey to the ants". It has been completely fascinating, I can't put it down.
• openfuture 5y ago
  I feel the question highlights how stupid it is to limit yourself to a single field of study.
• ecesena 5y ago
  The code book, by Simon Singh. History of cryptography, really fascinating.
• mkaic 5y ago
  Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez. I'm a filmmaker and that book glorifies guerrilla filmmaking like no other. Really fun book by the guy who unfortunately didn't go on to make very many critical successes but did create the masterpiece of cinema that is Sharkboy and Lavagirl
  • georgeecollins 5y ago
    Robert Rodriguez is incredibly successful on his own terms. 99% of his world would kill to have his career. When I was younger I tended to have less respect for people that weren't at the pinnacle of their careers. A scientist who just teaches at a university and publishes papers.. how mundane. A filmmaker with mixed success, a game developer who never made a famous game, an entrepreneur without a unicorn IPO.. Really all these people are probably very talented and living fulfilling lives that many envy.
• adyer07 5y ago
  "The Art of Responsive Drawing" by Nathan Goldstein. It's an in depth analysis of the elements of drawing and, more importantly, what those elements actually do. It really celebrates the expressive and creative aspects of drawing, in a way that's both beautiful to look at, and accessible to read.
• bananamerica 5y ago
  How Hollywood Tells It, by David Bordwell.
• marcocevoli 5y ago
  About translation and language studies: "After Babel" by George Steiner.
• beernet 5y ago
  Not exactly my field, but I think "Building a Storybrand" by Donald Miller is a great read for everyone dealing with creating products customers love.
• deleted 5y ago
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• pxska 5y ago
  A very tough question. I feel that it might be quite hard to lure a curious person into Computer Science, who doesn't know anything about the field yet. One of the books I liked (since I actually studied Linguistics in my Bachelor's) and what drew me towards CS was "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold.
  • Trex_Egg 5y ago
    The best book that I have read in the computer science.
  • worldmerge 5y ago
    I think maybe some of the history books could do it for cs. Like I'm very early into the book Crypto Anarchy, Cyber States and Pirate Utopias (2002 MIT PRESS), and it's kinda interesting. I'm not sure how the later parts are but chapter 1 is interesting. It definitely has an audience in mind but I think it could be an interesting book for someone outside of CS.
    • pjbeam 5y ago
      It stays interesting, or at least it did for me. A lot of the thoughts in there capture the spirit of reflection during a long since ended period of the Internet but there are some timeless ideas as well. Enjoy!
    • bakuninsbart 5y ago
      For me it was the german book "Das Chaos Computer Buch", which is basically a retelling of CCC shennanigans in the 80s. It has just the right mix of adventure, humour and technicality to get a 13 year old interested in hacking and computers.
  • ghostpepper 5y ago
    Another one like code but even more gentle is Understanding the Digital World by Brian Kernighan
  • inamiyar 5y ago
• congoe 5y ago
  Lifespan by David Sinclair would be my recommendation if you want to energise someone for molecular biology/ biotech
  • folli 5y ago
    For me it was Dawkins' "the selfish gene" that drove me to biology. It's quite eye-opening how the simple rules of evolution result in this enormous diversity and complexity we see in nature.
• porknubbins 5y ago
  Code by Charles Petzold then doing Nand to Tetris has given me an abiding (though amateur) fascination with computer architecture, which lead to building a 6502 machine and reading about lots of other architectures.
  • redwoolf 5y ago
    I came here to mention this book. I think it's a great introduction to how computers work and well written.
  • bennysomething 5y ago
    I went through the nand book too,it's amazing. What do you mean exactly by building a 6502 machine? In real hardware? You bought a 6502 and created a whole computer from other bits?
    • porknubbins 5y ago
      Yes in real hardware, though its a breadboard computer where the io is push buttons and an led array. So more a computer in the 70s hobbyist sense. I learned from Ben Eater’s youtube videos which are a good followup to nand to tetris.
      • bennysomething 5y ago
        Thanks for this , I'll look at his videos
• Tomte 5y ago
  It is off-topic, insofar as it's not my field, but let me answer a dual question: The Vital Question by Nick Lane made me think that were I to start over, be young and finish school, I'd study biology and biochemistry.
  • estaseuropano 5y ago
    If you haven't read it yet, pick up "Sex, Power Suicide" as well. Very dense reading but I learned something new or understood something I knew better from basically every page I read.
• Issaclabs 5y ago
  Chaos by James gleick for multiple fields in physics
  • Tomte 5y ago
    Professor Sapolsky on Chaos (class on Human Biology/Biology of Behaviour): Chaos year after year after year in this class provokes the strongest opinions. A quarter of the people decide it is the most irritating, irrelevant thing that could possibly have been assigned in the class and hate it. About half the people never quite figure out what's up with it. And a quarter of the people, their life is transformed. They no longer have to meditate, they no longer have to have a—just they are at peace. At peace, I tell you. Because what this book does is introduce this whole radically different way of thinking about biology, taking apart a world of reductionism. For five hundred years we have all been using a very simple model for thinking about living systems, which is, if you want to understand something that's complicated, you break it apart into its little pieces. And once you understand the little pieces and put it back together, you will understand the complex thing. And what Chaos as an entire field is about—and this was pretty much the first book that was meant for the lay public about it—what Chaos shows is, that's how you fix clocks. That's not how you fix behaviors. That's not how you understand behaviors. Behavior is not like a clock, behavior is like a cloud. And you don't understand rainfall by breaking a cloud down into its component pieces and gluing them back together. So read through that book. A lot of it is from physical sciences rather than biological, so we'll just be suggesting the chapters you should read. I will tell you it is the first book since, like, Baby Beluga where I've gotten to the last page and immediately started reading it over again from the front. Because, along with Baby Beluga, it's had the greatest influence on my life. I found this to be the most influential book in my thinking about science since college. So that is a sign.
    • agucova 5y ago
      Sapolski's book (Behave) and his Stanford classes on YouTube are just awesome.
      • smcl 5y ago
• maybelsyrup 5y ago
  Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic" for mental health / clinical psychology / psychiatry.
• CyanBird 5y ago
  Kicking away the ladder by Ha-Joon Chang Industrial development and political economy, it really is a must read for anyone even mildly interested on the field, then you could go to Joan Robinson's criticism of Ricardian economics, but these are slightly more in depth topics
  • mdp2021 5y ago
    We should also add that Ha-Joon Chang - Economics: The User's Guide is a very, very good primer.
• zabzonk 5y ago
  Not entirely sure what you are asking here, but: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Threaded-Interpretive-Languages-R-G-Loeliger/dp/007038360X https://www.amazon.co.uk/Threaded-Interpretive-Languages-R-G... It's quite easy to get into and you can expand it and have all sorts of fun with it. Certainly not a revered epitome.
• Trasmatta 5y ago
  I think Masters of Doom is a great book for getting people interested in either software development in general, or game development. Alternatively, some of the horror stories may actually turn them away. But every time I read it, I get excited about writing code again.
  • CamperBob2 5y ago
    Agreed, re: Masters of Doom. Given the inherent interest of the subject matter to its likely audience, that book was much better than it had to be. Same is true for Steven Levy's Hackers.
  • anderspitman 5y ago
    I've read a lot of books and it definitely stands out. It's so inspiring as a programmer.
  • shrikant 5y ago
    I loved the book and the stories in it, but I did have your alternative experience: it put me off wanting to work in the games industry entirely!
• zeta0134 5y ago
  My "field of study" is more like a hobby, but the definitive book is "Racing the Beam" by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort. If you're at all interested in retro game consoles and especially the clever tricks old programmers used to push these systems to their limits, it's an incredibly fun dive.
  • ericd 5y ago
    (Racing the Beam) :-) and agreed, amazing book.
    • dgeiser13 5y ago
      I want to Race the Bean
      • zoover2020 5y ago
        ;-)
• an-selm 5y ago
  Measurement/A mathematicians lament by Paul Lockhart. The first is not by any means very advanced/interesting mathematics per se, but it is written by somebody with an incredible passion for mathematics, which you can feel throughout the whole book, and which was totally novel for me coming from schoolish mathematics drudgery. Also, the way he approaches mathematics and teaching is quite interesting. Nothing for somebody who is already into mathematics, but as an entry point it is absolutely great. The second is a critique of school math, freely available online (https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/Lockharts...), that absolutely hits home on a lot of problems of math and school in general, but in a way that basically says "Look, its so cool, why are we ruining it? Lets do this better." which is much better than another bitter, destructive critique. And its well written and only twenty pages. Definitely recommend.
  • debanjan16 5y ago
    Measurement is good. But it would be better if the in-chapter questions had solutions to check.
• anyfactor 5y ago
  Accounting... The rule of accouting is that if anything excites you about accounting you shouldn't do accounting. The most fun I had studying accounting was learning about tax evasion, money laundering, defrauding stakeholders etc. Any academic book about forensic accounting could be deemed interesting if you just read only the case studies.
  • karambahh 5y ago
    What book on forensic accounting would you recommend for entertainment value? I have some knowledge of french accounting, been exposed to US style, and thoroughly enjoyed long forms involving forensic accounting, money laundering and the like...
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • HideousKojima 5y ago
      Not a book but CNBC's series "American Greed" is great. My favorite episode was about a guy who was (on paper) the second largest biodiesel producer in the country. He was literally just making up fake green energy credit numbers in a spreadsheet and selling them to companies looking to buy green energy credits. The EPA was made aware of him but did nothing even after they physically inspected his biodiesel "factory" and discovered it was basically just an empty warehouse. What finally brought him down was his taste for expensive sports cars and his being an asshole neighbor. He was always parking his sports cars pn the street, blocking school bus stops, etc. Local parents suspected he might be a drug dealer because of how many cars he had and how lavishly he spent his money, and they asked the local police to look into him. It was the local investigation that uncovered the fraud and brought him down. https://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/rodney-hailey-sentenced-to-more-than-12-years-in-prison-for-selling-9-million-in-fraudulent-renewable-fuel-credits/ https://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/rodney-hailey-sentenced-to-...
      • sumedh 5y ago
        > The EPA was made aware of him but did nothing Did the EPA give any reason?
• bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
  Stalking the Wild Asparagus - Eueull Gibbons.
• I_complete_me 5y ago
  Finally, a question on HN I am "qualified" to answer. During my university education I came across Structures[1] by J.E. Gordon who, unlike me, was an aeronautical engineer but his take on structures really made so much sense to me, as a student of engineering, in a way that the fustian delivery of the professors at college did not. Some books stay with you for life - this one did for me. [1] Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down by J.E. Gordon. Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245344.Structures https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245344.Structures
  • karaterobot 5y ago
    I can confirm that this book made me interested in "real" engineering (as in, engineering physical things in the real world rather than abstract symbols) when I read it. A bit too late for a career change, but I have talked to a few other people who hold this in high esteem as well. Good recommendation!
    • m_a_g 5y ago
      What makes you think those "abstract symbols" are not real?
      • braingenious 5y ago
        Probably the word “abstract”
      • renewiltord 5y ago
        Surely the fact that he put “real” in quote marks is sufficient to not have this tiresome argument.
  • leobg 5y ago
    It’s a favorite of Elon Musk. He has recommended it several times.
• hencq 5y ago
  For Industrial Engineering or Operations Research, I'd say The Goal by Goldratt. An easy to read novel that leaves you looking at things differently.
• imranq 5y ago
  "Fermat's Enigma" for Mathematics "The Pleasure of Findings Things Out" for science "How To Draw: Drawing And Sketching Objects And Environments From Your Imagination" for concept art / industrial design
• luminadiffusion 5y ago
  Physics & Mathematics - Anyone who seriously pursues these fields learns to embrace the challenges as beautiful and the struggle to unravel their nature as fulfilling. To do this, we embrace the beauty in nature and see the connection with everything around us. Four books come to mind. Physics: 1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman 2. The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking Mathematics: 1. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by J.A. Paulos 2. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by D. Hofstadter These books brilliantly illuminate the beauty in these fields. They show you that underneath all of that complex notation and "math speak" are beautiful ideas about life, the universe, and the nature of reality. These fueled me, even in to my PhD research. I still love them today.
  • debanjan16 5y ago
    Aha! GEB! Do you think a complete beginner with no knowledge in higher math should read GEB?
    • reducesuffering 5y ago
      GEB really doesn't have much complicated math. If you're willing to spend a bit of time thinking about the (logical) concepts presented, you should read it just fine.
      • wink 5y ago
        I actually thought of GEB and did a search over all comments because I thought it might be mentioned. I'd love to hear a non-programmer/non-mathematician's take on it because I kinda didn't like it at all. I found it very elaborate and slow-developing with no real insight (maybe because the concepts weren't new or maybe because I'm more someone who prefers reading an encyclopaedia over watching a historically correct movie about something).
        • mdp2021 5y ago
          Gödel, Escher, Bach is an artistic appetizer over the stimulating world of structures, - not a manual. They young mind is opened by being shown relations it did not yet see. Read the extreme in that direction: Italo Calvino - Le città invisibili (which not only masterfully connects ideas, but most of the realm of existence and experience) - you should be able to see that principle at its apex. And there is no technical teaching: just an education to see the subtle.
• auslegung 5y ago
  Software engineering - Steve Wozniak’s autobiography - The Phoenix Project - The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
• Errancer 5y ago
  I would go with "Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical" by Lakatos, its a dialog-form history of defining Euler's formula and it shows the human side of mathematics as a science. I think its great as math has this unique status as providing with undoubtable knowledge but history shows that human error is possible even in this field. Alternately "The Unreality of Time" by McTaggart, it has less than 20 pages and argues that time doesn't exist since it is logically incoherent. Not sure if this would get someone hooked up but for me those two were extremely fun reads. EDIT: Just to be clear – both are meant as philosophy books, even if they touch on other things. :)
  • spindle 5y ago
    I second Lakatos, but more general introductions to philosophy that I always recommend are Simon Blackburn: The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (not intended as an introduction but IMO it makes a really fun introduction) Thomas Nagel: What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy
  • cartucho1 5y ago
    Philosopher here as well. I'd strongly recommend Thomas Kuhn's "The Copernican Revolution". It's a beautiful book that shows how ancient astronomy, cosmology and philosophy were interwoven, with valuable lessons for how science works even today. From the classics I'd also recommend Hume. The "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" is short, very well written and argues, among other things, that causality is an illusion :)
  • mdp2021 5y ago
    > Proofs and Refutations - The Logic of Mathematical Discovery Do not, do not miss the transcripts of the lessons held by Imre Lakatos at the London School of Economics (LSE), "Lectures on Scientific Method" - available in -- Motterlini, Matteo (ed.), For and Against Method, including Lakatos’s Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence (1999), Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  • unnah 5y ago
    The Lakatos book is a great introduction to mathematical thinking in that it shows the importance of definitions - how even simple definitions are malleable and can be changed to properly handle special cases. All the details are discussed in human-readable prose without formulas more complicated than simple addition.
• gaba 5y ago
  Not my field of study but the book but I got really engaged with this book on architecture (houses) patterns https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TXSR1O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TXSR1O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
• rsfern 5y ago
  Materials Science: Stuff Matters, Mark Miodownik https://archive.org/details/StuffMatters https://archive.org/details/StuffMatters Very accessible and fun to read, and the book is structured around introducing a lot of fundamental materials science concepts in the context of everyday objects (silverware, chocolate, etc)
  • halo 5y ago
    There was a 3-part BBC TV series by the author called "How It Works" which convered essentially the same material which I far preferred to the book - I don't have a stream link, unfortunately.
    • rsfern 5y ago
      Cool! I hadn’t seen the series before. Seems like it predates the book actually, which I wasn’t really expecting I haven’t found a streaming link yet, but these (related?) clips look pretty interesting https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hkyfr/clips https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hkyfr/clips
  • ajot 5y ago
    I would say Geoff Rayner-Canham's "Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry". It is obviously a university level teaching book, but I find it very appealing and not really hard to grasp. It made me fall in love with chemical processes and some material science concepts.
• 2bitlobster 5y ago
  Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug. I used it for years as a required text in pretty much every UX related class I taught. Entertaining, super digestable and very nutritious.
  • karaterobot 5y ago
    I expected to see this one or "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman. I don't know a designer who hasn't read one or both.
    • carlmr 5y ago
      I'm not a designer, but I found TDoET immensely helpful in terms of designing software interfaces, be it APIs or GUIs. It really teaches a few simple concepts that apply in wide ranging areas.
    • kriro 5y ago
      It taught me to smile whenever I see a door or use a faucet. One of the great gems that I picked up on a complete whim. This "Don't Make me Think" which the parent suggested and "About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design" are my "UXy" books on the shelve.
• amateurlogician 5y ago
  Girard's rhetoric never fails to keep me hooked. I treasure any number of works of Girard, whether his introductions to Type Theory and his Linear Logic or notes on his quest for Transcendental Logic. Clear prose of exposition, to the point and clearly motivated, intermingled with literary allusions in critique of philosophers' ideas of truth, the work of Girard is truly a gem. Particularly entertaining is his 'A pure waste of paper' (Appendix A of 'LOCUS SOLUM') (https://girard.perso.math.cnrs.fr/0.pdf https://girard.perso.math.cnrs.fr/0.pdf). I could flip to a random page of his 'appendix' and just sink in. A fine introductory work of his to the subject would be 'PROOFS AND TYPES' (https://people.mpi-sws.org/~dreyer/ats/papers/girard.pdf https://people.mpi-sws.org/~dreyer/ats/papers/girard.pdf).
• cl42 5y ago
  "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott I started my career in international development, and the book above provides a dozen case studies on states using scientific management, stats, etc. to try and control their growth/populations/economies and failing miserably. It is a beautiful book in that it illustrates how difficult it is to actually manage a country and economy well, especially if you are trying to completely change it (i.e., "develop" it, solve poverty, etc.). It humbled me as a 22 year old "professional" wanting to fix the world. "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs is a close second to this theme of economic, technocratic development. EDIT: I notice 22 upvotes. WOW! If you are a fan of this book or curious to hear more, please comment. Happy to elaborate. If you want a third book, The Evolution of Civilizations[1] is another fun one here. It tries to apply scientific principles and hypothesis testing to historical analysis! [1] https://10millionsteps.com/review-evolution-of-civilizations https://10millionsteps.com/review-evolution-of-civilizations
  • ihodes 5y ago
    This book is next on my reading list. One question that's come to mind before having read the book is if Singapore is an example of a highly-legible planned state's success?
    • cl42 5y ago
      That's a beautiful question. I am not intimately familiar with Singapore's planning processes. The authors above (Jane Jacobs, James C. Scott) would argue that the best cities/countries are ones that have a centralized strategy that leaves enough leeway to enable each community to optimize their specific situation on their own. I don't know if Singapore does that or not. Do you have a POV? I've been meaning to read Lee Kuan Yew's "From Third World to First" to learn more but haven't found the time.
      • mbg721 5y ago
        Singapore does have the advantage of being compact and having the ability to set policy at all levels at once. The US can't do that, because cities and towns depend on the state and federal governments for funding, but those same cities and towns have some autonomy in how they run day-to-day governance.
• realroadl 5y ago
  Working as an UX Engineer, I always recommend „refactoring UI“ by Adam Watham. It‘s super easy to read, most pictures speak for themselfes. This book targets developers who like to put their UI on the next level.
  • mkl 5y ago
    Couldn't find it by that name, turns out it's Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger.
• isaacyes 5y ago
  Atul Gawande - Better or Being Mortal Non-technical but very interesting and emotive to most people. Healthcare analytics
  • OminousWeapons 5y ago
    I would also add Complications to that list. As a former life sciences researcher, I've loved everything that Atul Gawande has written.
• lifeplusplus 5y ago
  any physics book for hs... but without penalty of failing tests etc. Why sky is blue, how does heat get to earth from sun, how do computers work, how does magnet work, how to tell how far ball will go if i throw it, why do balloons stick to wall when rubbed, etc....
  • jimhefferon 5y ago
    Maybe Physics for Fuure Presidents? https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Future-Presidents-Science-Headlines/dp/0393337111 https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Future-Presidents-Science-Hea...
  • nomadiccoder 5y ago
    Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space
• spchampion2 5y ago
  Anyone interested in product management shoulder read "INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan.
  • scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
    This book both introduced me to what a PM is and showed me that I already am one in my role at my company. And it opened my eyes to a few new directions and inspired some ideas.
• ghostpepper 5y ago
  I am not a cryptographer but I do work in security and The Code Book by Simon Singh is an excellent history of the history of cryptography/cryptanalysis presented as periods through history where the pendulum swung between giving the edge to the code makers or breakers. The code makers have been ahead since about the 1970s.
  • misterpurple45 5y ago
    > The code makers have been ahead since about the 1970s. Or so the code breakers would have us believe…
  • seanw444 5y ago
    Been on a cryptography kick lately, so I went to the city library a couple days ago to find what they had, and I came out with this book. So far, I've gotta give the +1 on this one.
  • mimimi31 5y ago
    I picked that one up because of a similar recommendation, but didn't finish it. I think I was expecting an extensive collection of different ciphers throughout history with some short historical anectodes to go along with them. But it's really more about a few selected historical applications of encryption with a heavy focus on their historical context.
    • ghostpepper 5y ago
      Yeah it's definitely 'History with some algorithms' and not 'Algorithms with some history' but I think the latter book is probably easier to find, no?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • rizzaxc 5y ago
    I was a middle schooler when I read it. Definitely written for the general public and written well. I remember being stoked when I encountered those concepts again in college and ended up with an extra major in network/ security
• KarlKemp 5y ago
  "The Molecular Biology of the Cell", an actual textbook. It's like the owners' manual for your cells.
  • vibrio 5y ago
    This had great impact on me…and the quick read of Ptashne’s “a genetic switch” really pulled me into molecular biology. They helped me start to conceptualize how a group of inanimate objects (eg proteins, lipids, nucleic acid) can collectively be “alive”, including reproduce, and “make decisions”.
  • OminousWeapons 5y ago
    If we are recommending actual life sciences textbooks or literature, I would recommend the Hallmarks of Cancer, which is actually a review article. Simply reading that alone will give someone a strong basic understanding for how cancerous tissue actually develops and evolves capabilities until it becomes deadly.
• Random_BSD_Geek 5y ago
  The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll.
• alexvoda 5y ago
  I totally recommend this series for various domains: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manga_Guides https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manga_Guides
• temptemptemp111 5y ago
• oyebenny 5y ago
  POC || GTFO
• wannabebarista 5y ago
  For logic: Language, Truth and Logic by AJ Ayer. It is an account that tried to introduce logical positivism to the English speaking world after the author visited Vienna in the 1930s. While logical positivism didn’t pan out, the book is full of the excitement of resolving multiple perennial philosophical problems all at once. The author’s enthusiasm is infectious.
  • cartucho1 5y ago
    For a more sociological view of what happened to logical empiricism in the US (and I'd argue, to analytic philosophy in general), George Reisch's "How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic" is awesome.
• kulikalov 5y ago
  “Our mathematical universe” by Max Tegmark. I’m not a physicist, but this book took me very close to abandoning my CS career and getting into theoretical physics.
• kwhitefoot 5y ago
  The Feynman Lectures.
• artemonster 5y ago
  The art of electronics for electrical engineers. It is dated, but it has everything
  • amelius 5y ago
    Except a good scientific explanation of how transistors work, how to build an amplifier given a number of constraints (power, bandwidth), how to design an antenna ... It's a nice book for hobbyists, though.
    • szajbus 5y ago
      Do you recommend any alternative or perhaps complementary book?
      • amelius 5y ago
        Better have a look at some opencourseware courses, and the books they use. For example, http://web.mit.edu/6.331/www/ http://web.mit.edu/6.331/www/
• e2e4 5y ago
  Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Michael Sipser
• biztos 5y ago
  Ways of Curating by Hans Ulrich Obrist should do the trick for anyone considering contemporary art in galleries, museums, etc, and it’s also a great read for artists and collectors. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20613616-ways-of-curating https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20613616-ways-of-curatin... For me personally this helped a lot with the decision to create an international art center (small, and still under construction!) instead of just pounding my artist head against the wall of the market forever. But generally speaking, it’s an eye opener and a great illustration of how to generate influence from enthusiasm. It’s probably hard to read if you aren’t already familiar with European contemporary art, but it rewards patience.
• werber 5y ago
  Eloquent JS, for coding, On Photography by Sontag for Photography, Anything James Baldwin for literature, Anything Angela Davis or Emma Goldman for political theory, A blank (perhaps square lined, Rhodia brand) notebook and a pack of Stabillo pens for creativity.
  • ravish0007 5y ago
    Eloquent JS is well narrated. +1 from my side.
  • izzygonzalez 5y ago
    Eloquent JS changed my life. It made me realize that it would be hard, but I really could do this.
• foobarbecue 5y ago
  As a volcanologist, I feel everyone should read "No Apparent Danger" . It's quite a critical account of the profession, so it might not "lure" you, but it's what you need to read if you are interested. Accessible and full of true drama and tragedies you probably didn't know about. Original poster: Did you mean "tome" when you said "epitome"?
• ipnon 5y ago
  PiHKAL by Alexander and Ann Shulgin is on its face a book about love and chemistry. Taken together it becomes more of a treatise on how psychopharmacology is a method of personal and sociological analysis. Drug use becomes a psychological tool to manifest the phenomena of the mind that are normally hidden, and novel synthesis becomes a tool to then access the areas of the mind unexplored throughout history. Aside of all this, the Shulgin's story is one of absolute dedication to science in the face of its many impediments: internal psychology, interpersonal relations, social stigma, technical innovation, and authoritarian censorship.
  • biofox 5y ago
    Shulgin was a gateway into psychedelics and the study of consciousness for me, however my overconfident use of psychoactive drugs ended up giving me PTSD. I'd advise anyone interested in this area to be cautious, and only work with experienced people you'd trust with your life.
  • michaelwm 5y ago
    You've said everything I could ever say about PiHKAL; it's a masterpiece. TiHKAL, published three years after the Shulgin's lab was raided by the DEA, is also a fantastic read.
  • robocat 5y ago
    This looks like a PDF of PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved): https://dailydialectics.com/education/pihkal/PIHKALAnthologyShulgin.pdf https://dailydialectics.com/education/pihkal/PIHKALAnthology...
  • grafelic 5y ago
    If you're also interested in ethnobotany and more specifically the use and history of psychoactive plants I can highly recommend this tome: Ratsch,C - Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants Unlike many other books on this subject matter, it is very well researched and referenced, but at the same time also contains personal anecdotes and experiences from the author himself.
  • nemo1618 5y ago
• unoti 5y ago
  "Deep Learning for Coders" (aka Fastai) https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/deep-learning-for/9781492045519/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/deep-learning-for/97814... This book will take you from knowing nothing other than high school algenbra to knowing both practical applications and theoretical foundations and best practices for AI. If you're interested in AI and machine learning, you need this book.
  • destroyerofsoul 5y ago
    True!!. Also with video tutorials are great source for learning. I like the way Jeremy explains every concepts in simple english.
  • copperx 5y ago
    Is there any truth to the Amazon comment that says that the code in the book is outdated?
    • Zachsa999 5y ago
      No. Video is not a sustainable learning medium.
  • michaelscott 5y ago
    Highly recommend this course (it's free) if you're interested in machine/deep learning as a "regular" programmer. My knowledge of linear algebra and calculus is pretty elementary, but I was able to follow with it easily and the way it developed took me from building simple, straightforward CV models to writing a lot of Pytorch utilities from scratch. If nothing else it will deepen your understanding of modern deep learning considerably, while giving you practical skills in the field
    • wlecometo 5y ago
      i guess this is the course you are referring to: https://course.fast.ai/ https://course.fast.ai/
• throwaway743 5y ago
  If you're looking into user experience/usability, then: "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug "Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman
• alexashka 5y ago
  I think there ought to be a book that explains how the modern world works at large, that'd include many many fields of study and explain how they all work together. I'm not aware of anything of the sort. If anyone else knows, let me know :)
  • talliedthoughts 5y ago
    Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but I found this entertaining: How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39026990-how-to-invent-everything https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39026990-how-to-invent-e... It's written in a comedic style, and takes you through what you would need to build to "reimplement modern civilization" if you found yourself stuck back in time.
  • marttt 5y ago
    Maybe try "Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It" by David Fleming. Really interesting structure; basically it's, indeed, a "dictionary". Took the author more than 30 years to write (sadly, he passed away before finishing it entirely). Amazing effort, really. About David Fleming and the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleming_(writer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleming_(writer) Apparently there's also an online version of the whole work: https://leanlogic.online/ https://leanlogic.online/
• going_ham 5y ago
  The entire ray tracing in one weekend[1] series is really good book for getting into computer graphics. It covers a simple implementation of path tracer and getting the image is really satisfying! Modern hardware and light simulation makes art fun! [1]: https://raytracing.github.io/ https://raytracing.github.io/
• mourner 5y ago
  A hobby rather than a field of study, but Open Crumb Mastery by Trevor Wilson made me fall in love with sourdough baking, it's amazing. I'm baking regularly for 2 years now since reading it and has gotten pretty good, even with difficult pastry like croissants and panettone.
  • estaseuropano 5y ago
    The book is described explicitly as "not for beginners". Do you have a recommendation for beginners?
    • erikcw 5y ago
      I like Ken Forkish’s “Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza”
• mk416 5y ago
  "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini (1984) "How to Make Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie (1936) Two great books that could lure a curious mind into sales. However, I recommend both to everyone.
• barkingcat 5y ago
  Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine for computer engineering.
  • mbrodersen 5y ago
    One of my favourite computer engineering books. Highly recommended.
• jll29 5y ago
  Mathematics: Burns, Marilyn (1975) I hate Mathematics Book, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Brown-Paper-School-Books/dp/0316117412/ https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Brown-Paper-School-Books/... Mathematics, philosophy, music, molecular biology/biochemistry, computer science, visual art, poetry, cognitive science: Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979) Gödel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid. New York, NY: Basic Books. ("GEB") Computer Science: Abelson, Harold and Gerald Jay Sussmann (1984) Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ("SICP") Stoll, Clifford (1989) The Cuckoo's Egg. New York, NY: Doubleday. Linguistics: McCrum, Robert, Robert MacNeil, William Cran (1986). The Story of English. New York, NY: Viking. https://archive.org/details/storyofenglish000mccr https://archive.org/details/storyofenglish000mccr Accounting: n/a
  • smcl 5y ago
    I think SICP is a good text that is attractive for a very specific type of person, but in my experience the majority of people would be put off by it.
• motohagiography 5y ago
  Ones I would suggest as gateway drugs would be: The Code Book, by Simon Singh is a very accessible history of cryptography and its role in historical events. The Nazi Census, by Aly, Roth and Black, is an important survey of how data collection methods get used for bad things, and I recommend it to anyone doing large scale systems architecture, or working in privacy. (replace statisticians with 'epidemiologists', and you start to see a theme.) The Mathematical Theory of Communication, by Claude Shannon is beautiful, and gives you an intuition for concepts like bandwith, signal, message entropy, finite fields, among others. Power, by Jeffery Pfeffer, when combined with the Dictator's Handbook by Smith and DeMesquita forms the foundation for any serious management and strategy consulting. GEB, by Hofstader was a way to have an intuitive frame of reference about cognitive science and theories of mind, which I think are going to be the next great cultural battle ground, and also relevant in the context of machine learning, and consulting. My field? Security, privacy, and risk management.
• cercatrova 5y ago
  Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata It teaches Latin in a very cool way, where the entire book is written in Latin but it starts off with simple sentences anyone with a Romance language background can understand, before diving into deeper sentences, all while being illustrated so one can still follow the plot if they're stuck. It contrasts with very dense Latin books that focus on grammar and spelling, which often bore students. LLPSI instead takes readers on an entertaining journey.
  • imperistan 5y ago
    That sounds amazing. I'll check it out. Does anybody if there are similar books for the original languages of the bible?(Hebrew and Koiné Greek mainly). Of course there is the added burden of different writing systems. But maybe someone came up with a clever solution for that too :)
  • 0x7E3 5y ago
    It seems that people who recommend LLSI rarely mention the accompanying workbooks. Do you feel like they are a good value add, or is Famillia Romana strong enough on its own? Consider the perspective someone who does not know anything about this book previous to reading your comment. Searching Amazon for Hans H. Ørberg is not likely to make it clear which book (or books) you are actually recommending.
    • cercatrova 5y ago
      LLPSI Pars I, Familia Romana LLPSI Pars II, Roma Aeterna These are the two main books. Each has companion books such as exercise books and teachers' guides. After these two, you should be able to read Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, but Ørberg also has other books. As for whether the workbooks are worth it, I never used them, but then again I only read the main book for leisure, not in an academic setting or for serious study. If you're in the latter, then I'm sure the workbooks would help.
  • jeffreyrogers 5y ago
    This book is awesome. I wish they made something similar for other languages (actually French has a video series, French in Action, that is similar but not quite as effective as LLPSI).
• adastra22 5y ago
  The Case for Space by Robert Zubrin. Puts recent developments by SpaceX in context, and shows how we really are about to settle the cosmos in an economically sustainable way. A call to action to anyone who wants to participate to start making space companies now. Radical Abundance by K. Eric Drexler. Re-introduces the concept of atomically precise manufacturing (aka molecular nanotechnology) and shows how it can solve basically all major global problems from climate change to energy crisis to wars over resources.
• Mikeb85 5y ago
  "Capital in the 21st Century" by Thomas Piketty. No matter your opinion on his politics or the reference to Marx it's interesting and the data collected is vast.
  • dS0rrow 5y ago
    hn is not pleased ofc.
• amirkdv 5y ago
  (1) Real Mathematical Analysis, by Charles Pugh is a wonderful introduction to pure mathematics for a mathematically inclined engineer. The back cover starts like this > Was plane geometry your favourite math course in high school? Did you like proving theorems? Are you sick of memorising integrals? (2) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks. I think it's impossible to read this (or a number of other works of Sacks') and not be mesmerized by the workings of the human brain. Disclaimer: I wouldn't call neuroscience my "field of study" even though I did study it.
  • debanjan16 5y ago
    Regarding Pugh: what was your knowledge before Pugh?
• jaqalopes 5y ago
  "The Name of the Wind" by Pat Rothfuss. (I'm a fantasy fiction writer)
  • snake42 5y ago
    Note that this is part of a trilogy that hasn't had the third book released and its been 10 years. I doubt it will be out in another 10, so tread with caution if you don't like to wait on a book release. Amazing book though.
    • juancn 5y ago
      I think the trilogy is unfinishable. There's no possible way you can end this in a single book. Anyway, it may be for the best (think Matrix 3 and 4). "The Slow Regard of silent things" is also a beautiful book that builds slowly and expands a little detail of the world of "The name of the wind"
  • tinco 5y ago
    I've read (or listened to) this book maybe five times. Maybe for a bit of context for someone who's not that into fantasy fiction. The crazy thing about it is that is the basic story is the most standard wizard book ever. It borrows more than a little bit from the classic Wizard of Earthsea for example. But Rothfuss just takes every one of those tropes and wires them together into absolute riveting story telling. He basically perfects the genre. If it takes another 5 years for the last book to be released, I might just take up fantasy writing myself and come up with an ending for it, I guess it invites the reader into the field that way..
  • kriro 5y ago
    For this, I'd also highly recommend Brandon Sanderson's lecture series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc
• nanomonkey 5y ago
  On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, is perhaps one of the more interesting books on food science that is not a cook book. It's not something that you would read straight through, but great none the less. Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold is perhaps the most beautiful group of cook books, although quite pricey. Professional Goldsmithing by Alan Revere is hands down one of the best books on jewelry fabrication in precious metals.
  • Agamus 5y ago
    As a former chef with 33 restaurants of experience and a lifelong passion for science, I can say that if you have an interest in "the science and lore of the kitchen" (subtitle), you must own McGee's On Food and Cooking.
  • dwighttk 5y ago
    Is Alan related to famed silversmith Paul?
• kaycebasques 5y ago
  Thank you debanjan16 for constructing a well-formulated question that delivered lots of high-quality additions to my "to read" list! Strangely enough nothing is coming to mind for my field, technical writing. Docs for Developers is great at covering the end-to-end basics of a high-quality documentation process. But I feel like there is some book out there that has inspired me to think more deeply about how to effectively communicate ideas and instructions to other people, which is the true heart and soul of technical writing as an art and science. How We Learn by Benedict Carey is the right direction but I don't remember thinking of it as a masterpiece.
  • ivansavz 5y ago
    It's not a book but a website[1] and a talk[2] that explains a good strategy for writing docs, based on four quadrants. [1] https://documentation.divio.com/ https://documentation.divio.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vKPhjcMZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vKPhjcMZg
• donaldcuckman 5y ago
  FOUNDATIONS OF MECHANICAL ACCURACY Wayne Moore
• rajansaini 5y ago
  I am surprised that Algorithms to Live By has not been mentioned. (Disclaimer: I am still reading it.) That book is both accessible and practical for any layman. However, just enough hints at variations of the discussed algorithms are given that even a non-technical reader might be motivated to dive further into theoretical CS and read a paper or two.
  • mdp2021 5y ago
    > I am surprised that Algorithms to Live By has not been mentioned That's just because the solution space is (fortunately) still rich... But Brian Christian; Tom Griffiths - Algorithms to Live By - The Computer Science of Human Decisions is an unmissable work in Computer Science and *Economics*. Surely some of us have been drawn to Economics, as then patently a "Science of optimization", after having read this jewel (and after the further focus on the theory of optimization that CS gained with the boom on function automation, e.g. ANNs. Even this is part of the book, e.g. the paragraphs on "simulated annealing"). Tom Griffith (Princeton, dept. of Psychology) also gave a "TED talk" - a tiny fraction of the book, but a good appetizer for some. By the way: I just found Tom Griffith also published a Griffiths, T. L., Lieder, F., & Goodman, N. D. (2015). Rational use of cognitive resources: Levels of analysis between the computational and the algorithmic. Topics in Cognitive Science, 7, 217-229 ...given his masterpiece divulgational book, this article could be another gem...
• notagoodidea 5y ago
  "How to lie with maps" by Mark Monmonier https://www.amazon.com/How-Maps-Third-Mark-Monmonier/dp/022643592X https://www.amazon.com/How-Maps-Third-Mark-Monmonier/dp/0226...
  • Jill_the_Pill 5y ago
    Came here to say this. It's maybe starting to feel a bit out-of-date, but it's still got the hook.
• typhonic 5y ago
  I don’t think a really good title exists, but the closest might be “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Control Room” by Gregory McMillan. It is basically a comic book written by an engineer in the industrial controls field.
• handojin 5y ago
  Discipline and Punish (Michel Foucault) Not my field of study or existence, but what happened in a bare hundred years to make public execution private, and prisons into factories into schools? It's a great book, you should read it. The Republic (Plato) How do you get someone to listen to you? (first answer: threaten them with violence). "Footnotes to" etc.
• didntknowya 5y ago
  the James Herriot series is a good, light-hearted (if not outdated) intro to the veterinary industry.
• kradeelav 5y ago
  "Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Typography Works" - Spent at least a decade now doing design work to some degree (graphic design manager now) and while I read this one recently it's hands down the most easily accessible, no bullshit, funny design book with meaty tips and thoughts. Heartily recommend to basically anyone.
• crossroadsguy 5y ago
  After spending more than a decade and a half in the field of software development/computer science I’ve come to realise some fields simply are not attractive to many/most people of other fields. Not at all. Hell, CS is not attractive to a lot of people working in the field. They work because it pays the bills. So no, at the risk of sounding like I’m full of myself, I’d say there’s simply ZERO such books at least for computer science. It’s a very specific field that many people get zero exposure to from school till the end. Unlike fields like history, arts, even medicine/diseases etc.
  • musicale 5y ago
    While not exactly books per se, magazines can be inspiring as well. Along with availability of inexpensive hardware, I suspect that electronics and computing enthusiast magazines were one of the catalysts for computing becoming a popular hobby in the 1970s and 1980s. Although we may not currently have as many cool electronics and computing enthusiast magazines as they had back then, we do have a few of them including Make:, Linux Format, and RasPi. (Not to mention the internet and youtube, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start and where to go, and print media are good for that.) In the area of computer music production, I rather like Computer Music; a typical issue provides music production apps and plugins that you can download and use as well as instructional articles and video explaining how to use them. Recently I was also inspired by wizardzines.com - I think we need more books (or zines) in a fun and tutorial style!
  • mdp2021 5y ago
    Read at least Algorithms to Live By and think again. > I’d say there’s simply ZERO such books Sorry but that's plainly illogical. "Read them, come back and report." (Can you notice that the form of that very sentence shows a clash against the mentality that could align with a passion for CS? A CS specialist that formed such expressions would signal to be forcing against inclination.)
  • TrackerFF 5y ago
    Seems like you're getting downvoted, but I think it's a fair point. If you, as the reader, are at the point where you can dive into a technical textbook and keep focus enough to read it - chances are you're already somewhat interested in the field, or have some exposure to related field. I don't think there's any book that can attract ANYONE to the field. Had the question instead been "Which lecture / article / video", then I'd say that there's tons of good bite sized pieces that can light a fire for most people...but whole / complete books? That's gonna be a particular type of audience. Even undergrad 101 books are made for people with a certain level of interest.
• goldname 5y ago
  CLRS
• zwayhowder 5y ago
  Not my fields but. The Armchair Economist by Steven Landsburg for economics. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman for design in any aspect. Closer to my field of organisational performance/psychology. The Fearless Organisation by Amy C Edmondson.
  • georgeecollins 5y ago
    Thumbs up Design of Everyday Things! I had a class with Donald Norman when I was in college because he was the head of my department. I thought I was going to go into research at that time because I worked in a lab. Later when I was a video game designer I realized that was probably the most useful class I ever took.
    • zwayhowder 5y ago
      I have never held a design job, but I think his teaching has made me a much better human whenever I am making a decision in the workplace. I look for the affordances in anything we are doing.
• oreally 5y ago
  I think a lot of people are completely missing the point if they're recommending textbooks or prescription-like books - it's very likely you were already interested in these subjects beforehand and are really just upholding that book as a great solution. What really gets people interested is the narrative behind these subjects. What interesting thing happened within that field of study? What are the current problems we can solve and where are we headed? And the less the technical mumbo-jumbo, the better. Michio Kaku's books - "Physics of the Future", "The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind (", etc. are the sort that would really influence young, fresh minds to pursue physics. He details what happens, and what could be to a sufficient detail without overloading the user with the mathematical rigour associated with these math heavy subjects.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• pyuser583 5y ago
  For Medieval Studies I recommend the novels of Umberto Eco. Especially Baudilino.
• Randolf_Scott 5y ago
  Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse ISBN 0-02-905980-1 https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility" Short Read, very dense, and fully free.
• renjimen 5y ago
  Geology: The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson Though he does such a good job of passionately portraying so many topics in these books I feel they could get people into any one of the earth sciences. Hell, even politics and economics.
• popcube 5y ago
  the Selfish Gene. this book can attract people who want understand how creatures work
• movedx 5y ago
  I'm currently writing (almost finished) a book that's designed to get people into a junior level IT position as a systems administrator (in an environment with public Cloud infrastructure): https://upload.academy https://upload.academy is the platform it will be launched on (also my platform.) I'm hoping to enable people to get into this amazing field of ours so that they can enjoy a better life with better options and long term economic prospects.
• ChaitanyaSai 5y ago
  What a great question! The book that got me into neuroscience was Phantoms in the Brain by V. S Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee. A 22-year old book that wowed 20-year-old me. Principles of Neural Design by Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin is a more recent book. It is brilliant, beautifully written and probably should be required reading for anyone looking to do graduate studies in neuroscience. In a field inundated with data and siloes and jargon, it bats for a focus on jargon-free understanding of principles that can explain much of the complexity. It was hugely inspirational for us when doing our own book (plug alert!). I hope that Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, a book I co-authored, a book which drew inspiration from these two books, is able to do the same for many looking to study neuroscience and AI now. Phantoms in the Brain https://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ https://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Huma... Principles of Neural Design https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Design-MIT-Press/dp/0262534681/ https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Design-MIT-Press/dp... Journey of the Mind https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Mind-Thinking-Emerged-Chaos/dp/B09M2WCW72/ https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Mind-Thinking-Emerged-Chaos/d...
• borroka 5y ago
  For my previous career as mathematical biologist: "The Ecological Detective" by Hilborn and Mangel, and "Introduction to Quantitative Genetics" by Falconer and Mackay. The first is a fascinating, exciting, and readable journey into biology, statistics, and thinking like a detective (data, models, theory, and how much weight one should assign to each component of the investigation), which is how people doing biological research should think. The second is a very readable introduction to Quantitative Genetics, which comprises the mathematical and statistical tools we should use when we talk about selection, drift, and heritability of traits.
• restlessbytes 5y ago
  For general linguistics: "The Unfolding of Language" by Guy Deutscher.
  • triyambakam 5y ago
    Thank you, I came looking for a linguistics recommendation
  • garfieldnate 5y ago
    I love Guy Deutscher! I wish he had more books. His "Through the Language Glass" is fantastic, as well.
• marttt 5y ago
  (I'm in my late 30s, but I always try to look for "time-tested" books first. Books that seem to hold their value after decades; see also: Lindy effect.) Language and linguistics: "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By Systems thinking: "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald M. Weinberg (1975): https://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/General_Systems.html https://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/General_Systems.html I still often use Weinberg's Systems Triumvirate when feeling stuck on a problem: 1. Why do I see what I see? 2. Why do things stay the same? 3. Why do things change?
  • yesenadam 5y ago
    Lakoff and Johnson followed up with Philosophy in the Flesh, applying their conceptual metaphor analysis to philosophies and philosophers. One of the most enlightening philosophy books I've read - and I read mostly philosophy for many years - it felt like having my eyes opened. And the book that helped me in understanding art and music far more than any other, Dewey's Art as Experience, I picked up because of good things they say about Dewey in the first pages of Philosophy in the Flesh! I'm a musician and artist, so I'm extremely grateful for that lead.
    • marttt 5y ago
      "Philosophy in the Flesh" has stubbornly been in my "most relevant books" reading list for several years, hmm. I came across it when I had interest in mind-body relationship, and immediately thought about it as the book for me. Unfortunately, those interests have shifted a little for now; or maybe it's just the 600+ pages that has been holding me back (considering that "Metaphors We Live By" was also quite a demanding book). Thanks very much for reminding about this one, though. Feeling inspired to look into it again now.
  • biofox 5y ago
    Weinberg's book should be required reading for all scientists and engineers.
  • sinbadpalomar 5y ago
• sterlind 5y ago
  The Algorithm Design Manual by Skeina got me hooked on algorithm design, after the CLRS book discouraged me. Skeina does a fantastic job of conveying the intuition behind how each algorithm works, so it's not a cookbook or nitpicky textbook. He also has these wonderful war stories of problems he solved, and example problems like "which telephone exchanges do you need to bomb in order to take the grid down?"
• kgarten 5y ago
  Not really my field of study, just on a hobbyist level I got into nonlinear dynamics. All started with Steven Strogatz' book sync. https://www.stevenstrogatz.com/books/sync-the-emerging-science-of-spontaneous-order https://www.stevenstrogatz.com/books/sync-the-emerging-scien... I then found the amazing intro course on Complexityexplorer: https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses/136-nonlinear-dynamics-mathematical-and-computational-approaches https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses/136-nonlinear-dyn... by Liz Bradley. Since then I am hooked :)
  • edge17 5y ago
    Why specifically nonlinear dynamics rather than starting with just dynamical systems? Curious because, in my expereince when studying control theory, nonlinear controls is usually one of the courses that is taken later in the sequence after a lot of linear control techniques.
    • kgarten 5y ago
      Good question ... I spent a long time trying to understand probabilistic graphical models. Using them to make sense of time series data (more specifically on-body wearable sensors to detect specific activities in maintenance). E.g. Kevin Murphy's and Daphne Koller's work (highly recommend their books). The type of problems in that space usually didn't work well with linear control theory, although I'm not strong in theory ... at the time mostly playing with some signal processing packages in matlab (e.g. Kalman Filtering). Recently, I got interested in group and social dynamics (we recorded a couple of large scale datasets). I found an approach found in some of the non-linear dynamics practitioner's lectures/works intuitive and fun for me. You could call it "Explorative Experimental Computational Mathematics": 1. find an interesting phenomenon 2. record data, run simulations and plot data 3. look at the visualizations 4. fit a model /formulas based on the visualizations Iterate. If I have completely misrepresented a field/research please forgive me. Just an enthusiast amateur here.
• niek_pas 5y ago
  For cultural anthropology, I'd say it's 'In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio' by Philippe Bourgois. It's a fascinating read based on the authors ethnographic study of life on the margins in NYC in (I think?) the 90's.
• ggm 5y ago
  The soul of a new machine
• tokujin 5y ago
  Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks. I'm a chemist trying to turn physicist and the childish enthusiasm of little Oliver (he's around 11--13 in the book) for “the lovingly detailed, naturalistic, descriptive chemistry of the nineteenth century” makes me feel less remorseful about my choice.
• yourdeadneopet 5y ago
  The Phoenix Project is a fiction novel about an IT department for a large car company that experiences management dysfunction and battles frequent technical debt, but ultimately overcomes it by adopting the best practices of DevOps. I first read its non-fiction companion book, the DevOps Handbook, which got me drinking the Kool-Aid, but this is also a wonderful, breezy read (no small feat for such a technical topic) that is an even more gentle introduction. Not only did these two books make me come to appreciate DevOps, they also taught me about Kaizen and Toyota Production Model, which DevOps began as a software translation of. Subsequently, I have also applied these principles to the field of screenwriting.
  • wink 5y ago
    I am a little torn on The Phoenix Project. My first (and later) impression was that it was in some way really cheesy and 'show by example', but in the end it's a quick read and I actually liked it. I think I wouldn't unequivocally recommend it because it could be hit or miss, so a bad choice for "one book only", but overall: yes, worth reading.
    • yourdeadneopet 5y ago
      It's not the best technical book and it's definitely not the best fiction book, but I absolutely love that a hybrid of the two exists and wish there was more in the genre. The reason I recommend it is because of how accessible it is. If I tell my friends to read a DevOps book, their eyes will glaze over a few sentences into my pitch. But when I tell them about this crazy idea for a book, they're usually interested enough to give it a shot.
• mdp2021 5y ago
  Chemistry: I have only started it, but knowing the author and from the few pages I could yet read I have good reasons to believe that the following will fit: Lowe, Derek B. (2016). The Chemistry Book: From Gunpowder to Graphene, 250 Milestones in the History of Chemistry.
• DarkCrusader2 5y ago
  The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner. Gives a great and accessible overview of the incredible work that happened at Bell Labs from it's inception till it demise. Bell Labs is what happens when you bring the greatest minds of your time under one roof and give them creative freedom. It's was fascinating to read how much engineering discipline progressed due to direct result of the inventions made there and how they influence pretty much every aspect of our modern lives.
• lngnmn2 5y ago
  https://cs3110.github.io/textbook/cover.html https://cs3110.github.io/textbook/cover.html This just emerged right in front of our eyes. Highest quality. Way better than Real World Ocaml. Graham Hutton's Programming in Haskell 2ed (plus his video courses). Programming in Scala Fourth Edition.
• billfruit 5y ago
  Some books from a few different domains which may be of the type OP is asking for: 1. The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric : Understanding the Nature and Function of Language by Sister Miriam Joseph. 2. Introduction to Logic by Irving Copi. 3. Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Randall Bryant and others. 5. Prolog Programming by Ivan Bratko. 6. Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms by David MacKay 7. Geometry by Brennan. 8. Understanding Poetry by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brookes
• jerryzh 5y ago
  I am not a physicist now but, The Feynman Lectures on Physics really lured me to love physics in high school
• thinkingemote 5y ago
  Great question actually, love the wording and framing of it. For field archeology: The Making of the English Landscape by Hoskins.
• rurban 5y ago
  In my field it was only SICP. And then maybe during the fractal wave The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants.
• shreyansh26 5y ago
  Someone post something about astronomy also please!
• jvvw 5y ago
  Alice in Numberland by Baylis and Haggarty was one of the books that made me want to become a mathematician when I found it in the school library and read it as a teenager. There was also a little set of booklets called Derek Holton's Problem Solving Series that drew me in but I'm sure they must be impossible to get hold of now.
  • stevesimmons 5y ago
    Holton's Problem Solving Series is still published. Here's an Amazon UK link [0]. That probably means they are broadly available elsewhere too. [0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-Holton-Problem-Solving-Series/dp/B011L3P9QE https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-Holton-Problem-Solving-Series...
• auxym 5y ago
  Mechanical (or aerospace) engineering. Fun/easy reading: Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed (Ben R. Rich) Textbook: Shigley's Mechanical Design (recent editions are by Budynas/Nisbett by older editions with Shigley as an author are just as good as an intro)
• j7ake 5y ago
  “What is life?” By Schroedinger. Mostly because it is such a short book and describes the underlying questions very well.
• kriro 5y ago
  [Accounting && Finance/Investing] Not my current job, but understanding the basics of accounting was related to technical jobs I previously held (in ERP) and finance/investing is useful in general. I'd highly recommend "The Accounting Game" for anyone that quickly wants to understand accounting basics (U.S. accounting) and how everything fits together. It basically walks you through being a child with a lemonade stand and doing the accounting for it. Similarly if you want a quick overview of some of the multiples and what they mean for finance/investing, I'd recommend "Visual Finance". The most fascinating book that I've read in the accounting/finance domain is "Financial Shenanigans" which outline different ways to manipulate financial statements. It would be my recommended goto book for the field of financial fraud. For personal investing, my goto is "Quantitative Value" which methodically walks through different value investment strategies and backtesting them. I think the overall recommendation of buying companies that have low acquisition costs relative to their operational profits is good and it's how I screen stuff I buy, but the general mindset and systematic approach is what makes this book very valuable. This is not a book that will "attract anyone" but I'm pretty sure it's the one investment book I'd recommend to an analytical/scientific kind of person which I'd say is what the HN crowd is for the most part.
• vijayr02 5y ago
  "Fooled by Randomness" by N N Taleb for a real life overview of markets and decision making under uncertainty. And to a lesser extent "The Black Swan" He's not the most straightforward authors to read on these topics but his self awareness is refreshing compared to some of the charlatans in the industry (I'm thinking of a large tech oriented ETF here...)
• stdbrouw 5y ago
  "Statistical Rethinking" by Richard McElreath gets a lot of people excited about statistics again, after having suffered through the standard curriculum. So it's a lure, but with the caveat that it does expect that you do already know quite a bit of statistics.
• mdp2021 5y ago
  Linguistics: some time ago, a member recommended Mark Forsyth's Etymologicon , which I promptly found and read: not only it is a must-read in general (if you speak, read or write), but surely it should lure one into an interest in studies concerning language.
• bluejay2387 5y ago
  In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation -- William J. Cook
• georgeecollins 5y ago
  Godel Escher Bach influenced me to major in Cognitive Science. I don't imagine that book as impactful today as it was then, because many of the ideas it discusses have become popular topics. But it may still be fun to read.
• docmars 5y ago
  "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug, and "Thinking With Type" by Ellen Lupton
• le-hu 5y ago
  What really got me into strength training was accidental read of Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength This book turned out to be infinite knowledge source about physical training and how our body works in general. At first I wasn't convinced as the author looks more like a computer geek than ultra strong gymnast - but once you read it, you get to understand what strength really is, and why size of your muscles do not convey how strong you are.