5 ms·
Read at least one book this summer, you'll be better for it This is such a refreshing thing to read in a tech community that seems to so unfairly decry literat
by jmduke 13y ago
Read at least one book this summer, you'll be better for it
This is such a refreshing thing to read in a tech community that seems to so unfairly decry literature. (And, no, rereading 1984 doesn't count.)
I also recommend people check out Alexis's short eBook, Make Something People Love: (http://www.hyperink.com/Make-Something-People-Love-Lessons-From-A-Startup-Guy-b1478 http://www.hyperink.com/Make-Something-People-Love-Lessons-F...). It's ten bucks and something like seventy pages: easy to cruise through on a lazy afternoon, and has a very pleasant perspective on the philosophy behind creation. Alexis is a gifted writer, and you certainly feel his personality on the pages.
- cocoflunchy 13y ago> (And, no, rereading 1984 doesn't count.) I think (re-)reading 1984 probably counts a lot more than reading a great amount of business/self-help books.
- danso 13y agoYeah, I have to agree. I get the GP's point, that 1984 is the polemic pamphlet for anti-authoritarians...but it's a fine piece of literature on its own ground, one that I've always found new insight or a previously unnoticed turn of phrase on each reading. However, if you're tired of 1984 but are still on an Orwell kick, his non-fiction is equally fantastic.
- nether 13y agoI always thought it was ironic that 1984 is pretty much standard required reading in US public (government-funded) high schools.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- breadbox 13y agoNothing ironic about it. A populace that doesn't know what a democracy-dismantling government looks like is that much more likely to vote one into power. Of course, reading the book is no guarantee that they won't do it anyway, but a good democracy should at least try.
- jere 13y ago>I get the GP's point, that 1984 is the polemic pamphlet for anti-authoritarians... Hmmm, I thought the point was you're wasting time on a book a) you've already read and b) everyone else you know has already read. Regardless of how good the book is, you're unlikely to gain any unique insight.
- PavlovsCat 13y agoI read it first when I was in my late teens. I read it again after the war on terror (tm) had started... let's just say it was the difference between reading a book about sex as a virgin and as a man. Books of that caliber, that are that short, are rare enough IMHO, and reading them every decade can't hurt? Anyway, you can't know if you get something new out of it unless you tried it at least once ;)
- jlarocco 13y agoMeh. Some books are just fun to read.
- PavlovsCat 13y agohis non-fiction is equally fantastic. !! http://www.george-orwell.org/l_orwell-essay.html http://www.george-orwell.org/l_orwell-essay.html
- hobs 13y agoCorrect. Reading business and self help books is a great way to waste your time.
- arbitrage 13y ago> a tech community that seems to so unfairly decry literature Is this really the case? I can't recall this attitude being that widespread.
- devcpp 13y agoYeah, it's completely wrong. Statistically, it is very unprobable that I have seen so many articles about books without searching for them and no one complaining about literature in the past few months on the Internet. This claim is ridiculous.
- sliverstorm 13y agoOr, you could just read any ol' book. It's nice to branch out- if the only books you read are about work, it won't seem nearly as pleasant.
- kn0thing 13y agoWhy thank you! How'd you like a signed copy of Without Their Permission? (http://ohanian.co/WTPbook http://ohanian.co/WTPbook) Email contact AT alexisohanian.com your address and I'll get ya. I promise that book is going to be nothing less than 42x better. It also has doodles! e.g., http://instagram.com/p/Zn32KlmEq7/ http://instagram.com/p/Zn32KlmEq7/
- coryl 13y agoI got your ebook when it first came out at $1.99. I'm going to mail out stickers for my next project. (Can I has free book? Why do we have to wait till October, so far away.)
- kn0thing 13y agoWhy thank you! You want a free copy of Without Their Permission? Since your read MSPL you know I can't just give it to you, it must be imbued with some value (beyond the book itself). Show me what ya got in mind!
- coryl 13y agoI like the idea of surprising and delighting your users. My software helps make animated gifs, and is going to be free. I'm going to mail stickers to people who mention/tag us when they post on Tubmlr/twitter. I also have a mascot and a little backstory. His name is Gary and he lives in the circuits of your computer. Born in 1987 with the .gif format, he works tirelessly to compile the user's images frame by frame. He almost quit in the 90s though, after people criticized gifs as being tacky and overused. But then came the gif renaissance as users began to purposely use gifs as expressive, emotional works of art. Gary handles all the heavy lifting in our software and he loves to make people happy. Thank goodness for Gary.
- sadkingbilly 13y ago> (And, no, rereading 1984 doesn't count.) I'm on the last chapter of Atlas Shrugged. Does that count?
- xeper 13y agoUgh.
- Zuider 13y agoYou got through the speech?
- sadkingbilly 13y agoI really tried to (audio book version). I got 3/4 of the way through and then skipped.
- mr_luc 13y agoMight I also humbly suggest what I believe to be The Best History Book: "Dreadnought", by the Pulitzer-prize-winning RKM. (It's way more interesting than the book that RKM won the Pulitzer for). It'll probably cost you next to nothing on Amazon Used Books, and if it's the sort of book you don't like you'll probably know after a chapter. But I promise I wouldn't waste your time. It's about the runup to the first World War, and it's chock-full of amazing digressions and vivid characters. It's absolutely captivating, and for years you'll be able to open it completely at random and be surprised. "Dreadnought" is the book that made me track down "Grey of Fallodon" and "Dorothy Grey", and read "Castles of Steel," and read every single one of Churchill's books about the world wars, and his (now public-domain) book "From London to Ladysmith by Way of Pretoria." ----- Alternatively, if you don't want a grand, sprawling epic with a cast of hundreds, please consider "Storm of Steel", by Ernst Junger, the Best First-Person Account of the First World War -- a good english translation has only been available quite recently, 2000 or 2004 if I recall correctly.