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IMHO, this list contains only BS books. Tim Ferriss? Seth Godin? Malcolm Gladwell? Please. This is a list for those who need self-help and "motivation" books. O

by TriinT 17y ago

IMHO, this list contains only BS books. Tim Ferriss? Seth Godin? Malcolm Gladwell? Please. This is a list for those who need self-help and "motivation" books. Only exception is Livingston's F@W. The rest is pretty much junk. Please allow me to write down my personal list for those who love to learn: - The Art of Computer Programming - Algorithms (by Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, and Vazirani) - Algorithm Design (by Kleinberg and Tardos) - Feynman Lectures on Physics - Landau & Lifschitz's series - Vladimir Arnold's books on ODEs and Classical Mechanics - Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays (by Berlekamp et al.) - Elements of Information Theory (by Cover & Thomas) - Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms (by MacKay) - Network Optimization (by Bertsekas) - Convex Optimization (by Boyd & Vandenberghe) - Nonlinear Control Systems (by Isidori) - Visual Complex Analysis (by Needham) - Lasers (by Siegman) - Game Theory (by Fudenberg & Tirole) - Trading and Exchanges (by Harris) Plus a bunch of books on Classical Mechanics, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Differential Geometry, Real Analysis, Algebra, Theoretical CS, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Cellular Biology, Evolution, Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Auction Theory, Economics, Finance, etc. That would be a reading list worth considering! It would also take a lifetime to read all the books...

phugoid 17y ago
Couldn't agree more. Thermodynamics by Enrico Fermi is a little jewel.
- TriinT 17y ago
  I didn't know Fermi's book. Thanks for the suggestion :)
CodeMage 17y ago
This seems to be a trend in our society. Hard knowledge is too often considered secondary to "metaknowledge": motivation, time management, self-help (like Billy Connolly said, it's not self-help if someone else wrote the book to help you, it's just help). Or maybe this was just a ploy by OP to squeeze some money out of that Amazon Associates Program ;)
- aswanson 17y ago
  I don't think the OP is in need of money, at least the few coins you get from Amazon programs: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/10/derek-sivers-go.html http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/10/derek-sivers-go.html
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
xenophanes 17y ago
I'd add Conjectures and Refutations (Karl Popper) The Fabric of Reality (David Deutsch) Also Feynman has some shorter/easier but serious physics books that some might prefer: QED and The Character of Physical Law. And his computation lectures book is good.
- Confusion 17y ago
  Don't read Popper without also reading 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' by Thomas Kuhn and 'Against Method' by Paul Feyerabend. Those critiques of Popper put his philosophy in a much clearer light. Both contain extremely pertinent historical facts about the Galilean, Newtonian and Einsteinian revolutions.
  - zzzmarcus 17y ago
    I just finished The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and I have to agree, it's excellent on its own and it gives context to Popper. I haven't read Against Method yet, but it looks fascinating.
    - Rafe 17y ago
      Kuhn scored a hit because he provided the first major challenge to positivism/empiricism/logical empiricism that people in the US noticed. However the question has to be asked, what was really new, true and what actually represented a criticism of Popper?
      - zzzmarcus 17y ago
        I don't know enough about the field to know how much of Kuhn's research was truly new, but the book is meritorious solely because it gained such widespread recognition both in and out of the scientific community. The previous challenges to Popper's falsifiability (if there were any) failed to launch.
        xenophanes 17y ago
menloparkbum 17y ago
It's interesting that he read all the books on his list (he has notes about each one) and was still a success. Most of the people I know who have reading lists like this are a personal and professional mess. On the other hand, I've never met any rich person with a reading list like yours, but quite a few of my professors had bookshelves like that. Whether or not they actually read any of those books I'll never know. I know I've never gotten through more than about 50 pages of The Art of Computer Programming.
- eugenejen 17y ago
  My first boss (who was pretty good in forth hacking) told me not to spend too much time to read Knuth's books. He said those books are great, but people who read them tends to not able to write great programs. He advised me to try to finish some stuffs that works and learn from it. I thought he was joking. but later I know any one can learn a lot when doing a significant project of his/her own! In reality. Knuth had to learn to program computers by himself then because few was programming computers then, he can only rely on his own mind, logic and experiment to write better programs and later he tried to summarize what he had learned in "textbook" and deliver them to us, and we know most of time, it takes more text to say it clear than do it. Of course Knuth is not ignorant of fundamental stuffs. But probably the only way to gain knowledge in any unknown territory is to explore them directly. It maybe dangerous but it is the only way.
  - holygoat 17y ago
    I like to think of them as a reference book collection. Reading them cover to cover is probably not a good investment of time.
- ambition 17y ago
  I am intensely curious about your point. Is it that you think reading is a not-terribly-productive use of effort, or do you take issue with the specific books? If it's the latter, which books do you recommend?
- Confusion 17y ago
  Most of the people I know who have reading lists like this are a personal and professional mess. Yes, but they read those books, because they are a mess. They aren't a mess because of reading those books... I hope.
arthurk 17y ago
I would also add "Don't Make Me Think" to the non-junk list. Great book about web usability.
zzzmarcus 17y ago
Aside from Founders at Work, how many of the others that you're calling BS and junk have you read?
- TriinT 17y ago
  Actually, I have read a bunch of them. They're good airport reads. I can't read Feynman during a flight with the babies crying and the roar of the engines, but I can read Godin, Taleb, etc for entertainment. Those books teach nothing deep, but I never said they didn't have entertaining value. Fluffy, non-nutritious, yet entertaining...
anigbrowl 17y ago
A great list for the hardcore scientist or mathematician, but I'm not sure about the value of (say) Convex Optimization for a wider audience :) I find the Economist book reviews (or if you're pressed for time, their end-of-year roundup) a great balance of accessibility and intellectual depth.
- TriinT 17y ago
  I agree. It is my personal list, and I make no claims that the list is suitable to other people, let alone to a wider audience. However, I believe that not all of these books are for the hardcore mathematician / scientist. For example, I think everyone would benefit from reading Fudenberg & Tirole's book on Game Theory, which allows one to understand strategic interactions (which are abundant in Economics and Public and Foreign Policy, for instance). Moreover, the Simplex algorithm is used by many people who don't know how the algorithm works or why. A couple of chapters of Convex Optimization would be educational.
xiaoma 17y ago
I agree with you about several of those books, but The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less - by Barry Schwartz, was excellent. His work at Swarthmore was far from "junk". Here's a link to his TED talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_par...
Elepsis 17y ago
With all due respect, what are 99 percent of people gaining from a book on, say, convex optimization? Yes, these are great choices if you're looking to become an expert on, say, physics. But not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be. The point of the books on that list is that they are applicable to _many_ situations. You're not going to get oodles of "hard knowledge" from them, and I think people who go into them with that expectation are setting themselves up for disappointment. Rather, they present some anecdotes -- some interesting, and some not -- and say "Okay, now think about these, and see if any of them can affect the way you do things." If you read a business book and don't bother to do the thinking/applying afterwards, you are, indeed, wasting your time. The books on your list are ones that you go through, finish (though honestly, if you're just reading those books cover to cover and enjoying yourself, you're a better person than me... I'd use them as a reference at best) and can say "okay, I've learned something." The books on the original article's list are ones where once you've finished the book, you've only started learning.
- TriinT 17y ago
  "With all due respect, what are 99 percent of people gaining from a book on, say, convex optimization? Yes, these are great choices if you're looking to become an expert on, say, physics. But not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be." Convex Optimization for physicists??? Whaaaat? OK, consider Game Theory, Machine Learning, Operations Research. All have practical value and all require optimization. In fact, Machine Learning is mostly applied optimization theory. The Simplex algorithm is used all the time, in the most various industries. Yet once again, the need to know a bit of optimization theory is made evident. Physicists don't really require the kind of optimization on Boyd's book. Unless one is an experimental physicist and needs to analyze data sets. Theoretical physicists usually work with infinite-dimensional optimization, i.e., variational analysis. I entirely agree that not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be... but picking Convex Optimization as an example was a poor choice. The list is my personal list. It's a personal thing, and as such, it is non-transmissible. I am not trying to preach. I couldn't care less if the masses read junk...
  - michael_nielsen 17y ago
absconditus 17y ago
While I agree with your opinion of the submitted list, I feel your list is a bit unbalanced. Why only math, science and economics? A few random suggestions: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095/ http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712... Building a Bridge to the 18th Century by Neil Postman http://www.amazon.com/Building-Bridge-18th-Century-Improve/dp/0375701273/ http://www.amazon.com/Building-Bridge-18th-Century-Improve/d...
jimbokun 17y ago
MacKay's side by side table comparing his book with Harry Potter made me laugh out loud just now: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/Potter.html http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/Potter.html He makes a pretty good case that his is the better textbook.
- TriinT 17y ago
  For an academic, MacKay seems to have a great sense of humor :)
mediaman 17y ago
In Derek's defense, several of the books he listed do have specific, harder knowledge, such as "Predictably Irrational" (written for the lay person, but cites many high quality studies), "Stumbling on Happiness" (same, covers much good research), "The Innovator's Solution", which contains a lot of high quality thought about how industries change, Bernstein's "The Four Pillars of Investing" (again, backed by good financial theory), and "Fooled by Randomness" (less original than it proclaims, but its fundamental perspective of the outcome of chaotic processes is useful for people not familiar with stats). Yes, there are fluff books in there (Gladwell, Godin, etc) but you seem to be dismissing a lot of quality work just because you feel everyone should be reading hard theoretical material. However, I do agree that it's easy to read only books such as those on Sivers' list and ignore those on your list, which is a mistake. A mix is healthy.
- billswift 17y ago
  "Innovator's Solution" is okay, but Christensen's first one "The Innovator's Dilemma" was better. Also Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds" provides a better survey of the field than any of the more technical books I've read.
  - mediaman 17y ago
    Thanks for the pointer -- I hadn't read Dilemma yet, thinking it contained much the same as the later Solution, but you've given me reason to read it. I enjoyed Surowiecki as well.
rsheridan6 17y ago
>Only exception is Livingston's F@W So you've read (even a review of) every single one of these books?
stinkytaco 17y ago
Both the OPs list and your list, and everyone else’s list for that matter seem, for lack of a better term, white collar. What about books not for the academic but for the eminently practical? Books on gardening, needlecraft, cooking or auto mechanics, for example? Do people who work with their hands not like to learn? Or do they just not hang out at HN?
- TriinT 17y ago
  For each, his own. I like working with my hands. Personally, I am into carpentry. It's relaxing and I like to see stuff being build. It just happens that carpentry is learned by doing (especially from someone who knows more), not by reading. Science and Math is fun. Building stuff is also fun. I see no contradiction...
  - stinkytaco 17y ago
    Certainly there are carpenters out there who like to read (I'm a librarian and connect people with materials on their hobbies often), but perhaps gardening is a better example. Much more suited to study about planting, pest control, etc. I am certainly a gardener who reads extensively on the subject. My observation is more directed at the fact that, as a group, "learning" seems to involve math, science and, to a lesser extent, philosophy, economics or psychology. It does not involve "trades" or "crafts". But perhaps it is as you say and those topics just are not interesting to read about.
    - TriinT 17y ago
      My reading list is biased towards the "why". Funny that I left out the "how" and only noticed it now. I have read a bit on carpentry, but like I said before arts & crafts can be learned from someone who knows more, in a sort of master and apprentice relationship. This is fun because learning carpentry can then be a social experience as well. It provides a good balance to, say, Math or Theoretical Physics, which require endless hours of reading and solitude.
Alex3917 17y ago
That's interesting, because I liked a bunch on the original list but I'd probably consider most of the books you listed to be junk. To me this looks like the kind of list you'd put together if you wanted to look intelligent, but weren't actually intellectually curious. The only common thread among the books you've listed is that they're all hard to understand, but the questions most of them answer are rather banal.
- TriinT 17y ago
  My good sir, if you do think Feynman, Knuth, Cover, Isidori, etc are junk, then you are a monster. What you have just said is equivalent to saying that van Gogh's works are just boring blobs of paint, or that Lord Byron didn't know how to write. These books are the finest examples of condensed knowledge mankind has ever been able to produce. Sure, they are VERY hard to read, but 1000s and 1000s of years of accumulated scientific and intellectual progress should not be easy to absorb. These books are enough for a lifetime of reading. My list of books will still be relevant in 1000 years, while the OP's reading list will be worthless in less than a 100 years. Deep knowledge does not get stale. Don't you see the common thread among the books I have listed? Here it is: they are all "bibles" in their respective fields.
  - Alex3917 17y ago
    "My list of books will still be relevant in 1000 years, while the OP's reading list will be worthless in less than a 100 years. Deep knowledge does not get stale. Don't you see the common thread among the books I have listed? Here it is: they are all "bibles" in their respective fields." I guess to me the worth-readingness of a book comes from the quality of the questions it asks rather than from the finishedness of the answers. If you actually spent a lifetime reading those books I don't think you'd really get any closer to understanding the core of the human experience.
    - TriinT 17y ago
      "If you actually spent a lifetime reading those books I don't think you'd really get any closer to understanding the core of the human experience." True. But I might understand Nature herself. I would like to have a solid grasp of the basics of Physics, Chemistry and Math before I get to 40. Human experience is better understood through literature and art. It's not "deep knowledge" because it's too personal (as opposed to universal), but that does not mean it does not lead to deep thinking.
edb 17y ago
Ah, blow me (and I say that in the friendliest way possible :). I'm of the personal (key word) opinion that Vonnegut NEEDS to be on anybody's learning list. The point, however, is that people who love to learn need nothing more than a heightened sense of curiosity, not some bullshit reading list that attempts to validate how smart they are.
- TriinT 17y ago
  I read Vonnegut, too. I don't think I have learned anything "deep" from his books, but I love them nonetheless. Art is art. Science is science. Both are needed.
  - kaens 17y ago
    Vonnegut is light reading that leads to deep thinking. Doesn't teach anything deep, but can put your mental gears in motion quite well.
GHFigs 17y ago
IMHO You're not being humble, you're being arrogant. Did you not notice that the list was overwhelmingly about business and marketing? Did it not occur to you that it was targeted at people other than you? Was it really humble of you to dismiss all but one of them as "junk" and "BS" without considering that context?
- TriinT 17y ago
  Business and marketing are learned by doing. I have never heard of Jobs reading marketing books. Godin, Gladwell, etc are for the sheep. I remember reading that Jurvetson read poetry and philosophy books instead of business books. Draw your own conclusions. My list is personal. I don't claim it's for everyone. It's what interests me, period. It's the stuff worth learning. There are other great books I could include there, from Byron to Vonnegut, but literature is not deep knowledge, it's art.
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    How does any of that justify branding a whole stack of books that someone else finds interesting as "junk" and "BS", for "those who need self-help", and now "for the sheep"? I'm not talking about the quality of your selections here, or the submitter's, I'm talking about the exceptionally obtuse way you have chosen to express your opinion.
    - TriinT 17y ago
      The list was supposed to be for "those who love to learn". Well, if it's learning one cares about, then anything that is not deep knowledge is suspicious. Truth be told, the OP did not sell his reading list as one for "those who love to learn". A book that can be read during a flight cannot be deep. OK, I agree that my choice of words was not the most fortunate, and that "BS" and "junk" were distasteful... but on the other hand, compared to the monumental works of Feynman and Vladimir Arnold (the kind of books that take years and years to grasp), I can't help thinking that the OP's list pales by comparison. There are books of this time, and there are books of all time. Just like Homer and Marcus Aurelius or Euclid, some great thinkers' words shall be cherished for centuries and centuries to come. As for me, I am a mere mortal. I am not of the caliber required to write such great books, but I would be very happy if I could live long enough to read all the great books I want to read. Life's too short to read bad books.

by TriinT 17y ago

phugoid 17y ago

Couldn't agree more. Thermodynamics by Enrico Fermi is a little jewel.

TriinT 17y ago
I didn't know Fermi's book. Thanks for the suggestion :)

CodeMage 17y ago

This seems to be a trend in our society. Hard knowledge is too often considered secondary to "metaknowledge": motivation, time management, self-help (like Billy Connolly said, it's not self-help if someone else wrote the book to help you, it's just help). Or maybe this was just a ploy by OP to squeeze some money out of that Amazon Associates Program ;)

aswanson 17y ago
I don't think the OP is in need of money, at least the few coins you get from Amazon programs: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/10/derek-sivers-go.html http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/10/derek-sivers-go.html

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

xenophanes 17y ago

I'd add Conjectures and Refutations (Karl Popper) The Fabric of Reality (David Deutsch) Also Feynman has some shorter/easier but serious physics books that some might prefer: QED and The Character of Physical Law. And his computation lectures book is good.

Confusion 17y ago
Don't read Popper without also reading 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' by Thomas Kuhn and 'Against Method' by Paul Feyerabend. Those critiques of Popper put his philosophy in a much clearer light. Both contain extremely pertinent historical facts about the Galilean, Newtonian and Einsteinian revolutions.
- zzzmarcus 17y ago
  I just finished The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and I have to agree, it's excellent on its own and it gives context to Popper. I haven't read Against Method yet, but it looks fascinating.
  - Rafe 17y ago
    Kuhn scored a hit because he provided the first major challenge to positivism/empiricism/logical empiricism that people in the US noticed. However the question has to be asked, what was really new, true and what actually represented a criticism of Popper?
    - zzzmarcus 17y ago
      I don't know enough about the field to know how much of Kuhn's research was truly new, but the book is meritorious solely because it gained such widespread recognition both in and out of the scientific community. The previous challenges to Popper's falsifiability (if there were any) failed to launch.
      - xenophanes 17y ago

menloparkbum 17y ago

It's interesting that he read all the books on his list (he has notes about each one) and was still a success. Most of the people I know who have reading lists like this are a personal and professional mess. On the other hand, I've never met any rich person with a reading list like yours, but quite a few of my professors had bookshelves like that. Whether or not they actually read any of those books I'll never know. I know I've never gotten through more than about 50 pages of The Art of Computer Programming.

eugenejen 17y ago
My first boss (who was pretty good in forth hacking) told me not to spend too much time to read Knuth's books. He said those books are great, but people who read them tends to not able to write great programs. He advised me to try to finish some stuffs that works and learn from it. I thought he was joking. but later I know any one can learn a lot when doing a significant project of his/her own! In reality. Knuth had to learn to program computers by himself then because few was programming computers then, he can only rely on his own mind, logic and experiment to write better programs and later he tried to summarize what he had learned in "textbook" and deliver them to us, and we know most of time, it takes more text to say it clear than do it. Of course Knuth is not ignorant of fundamental stuffs. But probably the only way to gain knowledge in any unknown territory is to explore them directly. It maybe dangerous but it is the only way.
- holygoat 17y ago
  I like to think of them as a reference book collection. Reading them cover to cover is probably not a good investment of time.
ambition 17y ago
I am intensely curious about your point. Is it that you think reading is a not-terribly-productive use of effort, or do you take issue with the specific books? If it's the latter, which books do you recommend?
Confusion 17y ago
Most of the people I know who have reading lists like this are a personal and professional mess. Yes, but they read those books, because they are a mess. They aren't a mess because of reading those books... I hope.

arthurk 17y ago

I would also add "Don't Make Me Think" to the non-junk list. Great book about web usability.

zzzmarcus 17y ago

Aside from Founders at Work, how many of the others that you're calling BS and junk have you read?

TriinT 17y ago
Actually, I have read a bunch of them. They're good airport reads. I can't read Feynman during a flight with the babies crying and the roar of the engines, but I can read Godin, Taleb, etc for entertainment. Those books teach nothing deep, but I never said they didn't have entertaining value. Fluffy, non-nutritious, yet entertaining...

anigbrowl 17y ago

A great list for the hardcore scientist or mathematician, but I'm not sure about the value of (say) Convex Optimization for a wider audience :) I find the Economist book reviews (or if you're pressed for time, their end-of-year roundup) a great balance of accessibility and intellectual depth.

TriinT 17y ago
I agree. It is my personal list, and I make no claims that the list is suitable to other people, let alone to a wider audience. However, I believe that not all of these books are for the hardcore mathematician / scientist. For example, I think everyone would benefit from reading Fudenberg & Tirole's book on Game Theory, which allows one to understand strategic interactions (which are abundant in Economics and Public and Foreign Policy, for instance). Moreover, the Simplex algorithm is used by many people who don't know how the algorithm works or why. A couple of chapters of Convex Optimization would be educational.

xiaoma 17y ago

I agree with you about several of those books, but The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less - by Barry Schwartz, was excellent. His work at Swarthmore was far from "junk". Here's a link to his TED talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_par...

Elepsis 17y ago

With all due respect, what are 99 percent of people gaining from a book on, say, convex optimization? Yes, these are great choices if you're looking to become an expert on, say, physics. But not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be. The point of the books on that list is that they are applicable to _many_ situations. You're not going to get oodles of "hard knowledge" from them, and I think people who go into them with that expectation are setting themselves up for disappointment. Rather, they present some anecdotes -- some interesting, and some not -- and say "Okay, now think about these, and see if any of them can affect the way you do things." If you read a business book and don't bother to do the thinking/applying afterwards, you are, indeed, wasting your time. The books on your list are ones that you go through, finish (though honestly, if you're just reading those books cover to cover and enjoying yourself, you're a better person than me... I'd use them as a reference at best) and can say "okay, I've learned something." The books on the original article's list are ones where once you've finished the book, you've only started learning.

TriinT 17y ago
"With all due respect, what are 99 percent of people gaining from a book on, say, convex optimization? Yes, these are great choices if you're looking to become an expert on, say, physics. But not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be." Convex Optimization for physicists??? Whaaaat? OK, consider Game Theory, Machine Learning, Operations Research. All have practical value and all require optimization. In fact, Machine Learning is mostly applied optimization theory. The Simplex algorithm is used all the time, in the most various industries. Yet once again, the need to know a bit of optimization theory is made evident. Physicists don't really require the kind of optimization on Boyd's book. Unless one is an experimental physicist and needs to analyze data sets. Theoretical physicists usually work with infinite-dimensional optimization, i.e., variational analysis. I entirely agree that not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be... but picking Convex Optimization as an example was a poor choice. The list is my personal list. It's a personal thing, and as such, it is non-transmissible. I am not trying to preach. I couldn't care less if the masses read junk...
- michael_nielsen 17y ago

absconditus 17y ago

While I agree with your opinion of the submitted list, I feel your list is a bit unbalanced. Why only math, science and economics? A few random suggestions: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095/ http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712... Building a Bridge to the 18th Century by Neil Postman http://www.amazon.com/Building-Bridge-18th-Century-Improve/dp/0375701273/ http://www.amazon.com/Building-Bridge-18th-Century-Improve/d...

jimbokun 17y ago

MacKay's side by side table comparing his book with Harry Potter made me laugh out loud just now: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/Potter.html http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/Potter.html He makes a pretty good case that his is the better textbook.

TriinT 17y ago
For an academic, MacKay seems to have a great sense of humor :)

mediaman 17y ago

In Derek's defense, several of the books he listed do have specific, harder knowledge, such as "Predictably Irrational" (written for the lay person, but cites many high quality studies), "Stumbling on Happiness" (same, covers much good research), "The Innovator's Solution", which contains a lot of high quality thought about how industries change, Bernstein's "The Four Pillars of Investing" (again, backed by good financial theory), and "Fooled by Randomness" (less original than it proclaims, but its fundamental perspective of the outcome of chaotic processes is useful for people not familiar with stats). Yes, there are fluff books in there (Gladwell, Godin, etc) but you seem to be dismissing a lot of quality work just because you feel everyone should be reading hard theoretical material. However, I do agree that it's easy to read only books such as those on Sivers' list and ignore those on your list, which is a mistake. A mix is healthy.

billswift 17y ago
"Innovator's Solution" is okay, but Christensen's first one "The Innovator's Dilemma" was better. Also Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds" provides a better survey of the field than any of the more technical books I've read.
- mediaman 17y ago
  Thanks for the pointer -- I hadn't read Dilemma yet, thinking it contained much the same as the later Solution, but you've given me reason to read it. I enjoyed Surowiecki as well.

rsheridan6 17y ago

>Only exception is Livingston's F@W So you've read (even a review of) every single one of these books?

stinkytaco 17y ago

Both the OPs list and your list, and everyone else’s list for that matter seem, for lack of a better term, white collar. What about books not for the academic but for the eminently practical? Books on gardening, needlecraft, cooking or auto mechanics, for example? Do people who work with their hands not like to learn? Or do they just not hang out at HN?

TriinT 17y ago
For each, his own. I like working with my hands. Personally, I am into carpentry. It's relaxing and I like to see stuff being build. It just happens that carpentry is learned by doing (especially from someone who knows more), not by reading. Science and Math is fun. Building stuff is also fun. I see no contradiction...
- stinkytaco 17y ago
  Certainly there are carpenters out there who like to read (I'm a librarian and connect people with materials on their hobbies often), but perhaps gardening is a better example. Much more suited to study about planting, pest control, etc. I am certainly a gardener who reads extensively on the subject. My observation is more directed at the fact that, as a group, "learning" seems to involve math, science and, to a lesser extent, philosophy, economics or psychology. It does not involve "trades" or "crafts". But perhaps it is as you say and those topics just are not interesting to read about.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    My reading list is biased towards the "why". Funny that I left out the "how" and only noticed it now. I have read a bit on carpentry, but like I said before arts & crafts can be learned from someone who knows more, in a sort of master and apprentice relationship. This is fun because learning carpentry can then be a social experience as well. It provides a good balance to, say, Math or Theoretical Physics, which require endless hours of reading and solitude.

Alex3917 17y ago

That's interesting, because I liked a bunch on the original list but I'd probably consider most of the books you listed to be junk. To me this looks like the kind of list you'd put together if you wanted to look intelligent, but weren't actually intellectually curious. The only common thread among the books you've listed is that they're all hard to understand, but the questions most of them answer are rather banal.

TriinT 17y ago
My good sir, if you do think Feynman, Knuth, Cover, Isidori, etc are junk, then you are a monster. What you have just said is equivalent to saying that van Gogh's works are just boring blobs of paint, or that Lord Byron didn't know how to write. These books are the finest examples of condensed knowledge mankind has ever been able to produce. Sure, they are VERY hard to read, but 1000s and 1000s of years of accumulated scientific and intellectual progress should not be easy to absorb. These books are enough for a lifetime of reading. My list of books will still be relevant in 1000 years, while the OP's reading list will be worthless in less than a 100 years. Deep knowledge does not get stale. Don't you see the common thread among the books I have listed? Here it is: they are all "bibles" in their respective fields.
- Alex3917 17y ago
  "My list of books will still be relevant in 1000 years, while the OP's reading list will be worthless in less than a 100 years. Deep knowledge does not get stale. Don't you see the common thread among the books I have listed? Here it is: they are all "bibles" in their respective fields." I guess to me the worth-readingness of a book comes from the quality of the questions it asks rather than from the finishedness of the answers. If you actually spent a lifetime reading those books I don't think you'd really get any closer to understanding the core of the human experience.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    "If you actually spent a lifetime reading those books I don't think you'd really get any closer to understanding the core of the human experience." True. But I might understand Nature herself. I would like to have a solid grasp of the basics of Physics, Chemistry and Math before I get to 40. Human experience is better understood through literature and art. It's not "deep knowledge" because it's too personal (as opposed to universal), but that does not mean it does not lead to deep thinking.

edb 17y ago

Ah, blow me (and I say that in the friendliest way possible :). I'm of the personal (key word) opinion that Vonnegut NEEDS to be on anybody's learning list. The point, however, is that people who love to learn need nothing more than a heightened sense of curiosity, not some bullshit reading list that attempts to validate how smart they are.

TriinT 17y ago
I read Vonnegut, too. I don't think I have learned anything "deep" from his books, but I love them nonetheless. Art is art. Science is science. Both are needed.
- kaens 17y ago
  Vonnegut is light reading that leads to deep thinking. Doesn't teach anything deep, but can put your mental gears in motion quite well.

GHFigs 17y ago

IMHO You're not being humble, you're being arrogant. Did you not notice that the list was overwhelmingly about business and marketing? Did it not occur to you that it was targeted at people other than you? Was it really humble of you to dismiss all but one of them as "junk" and "BS" without considering that context?

TriinT 17y ago
Business and marketing are learned by doing. I have never heard of Jobs reading marketing books. Godin, Gladwell, etc are for the sheep. I remember reading that Jurvetson read poetry and philosophy books instead of business books. Draw your own conclusions. My list is personal. I don't claim it's for everyone. It's what interests me, period. It's the stuff worth learning. There are other great books I could include there, from Byron to Vonnegut, but literature is not deep knowledge, it's art.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  How does any of that justify branding a whole stack of books that someone else finds interesting as "junk" and "BS", for "those who need self-help", and now "for the sheep"? I'm not talking about the quality of your selections here, or the submitter's, I'm talking about the exceptionally obtuse way you have chosen to express your opinion.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    The list was supposed to be for "those who love to learn". Well, if it's learning one cares about, then anything that is not deep knowledge is suspicious. Truth be told, the OP did not sell his reading list as one for "those who love to learn". A book that can be read during a flight cannot be deep. OK, I agree that my choice of words was not the most fortunate, and that "BS" and "junk" were distasteful... but on the other hand, compared to the monumental works of Feynman and Vladimir Arnold (the kind of books that take years and years to grasp), I can't help thinking that the OP's list pales by comparison. There are books of this time, and there are books of all time. Just like Homer and Marcus Aurelius or Euclid, some great thinkers' words shall be cherished for centuries and centuries to come. As for me, I am a mere mortal. I am not of the caliber required to write such great books, but I would be very happy if I could live long enough to read all the great books I want to read. Life's too short to read bad books.