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Comment by roastbeest | Hacker News Reader

Only 1 female author :,(

Great point - but while you're breaking down the list to non-relevant characteristics of the authors, can we get a list of their:

- nationalities - skin color - sexual preference - left handed/ right handed

I can't make a politically motivated decision without these

As a PoC, I could also question how many of the authors are a PoC. But I won't because I care a lot more about the content itself.

If you don't mind clarifying, what is a PoC? Haven't heard the term.

Person of Color.

OT but I hate this kind of language. First, "white" is not a color? And much more importantly, so-called "white" people are not white at all. They call themselves white because some racist wingnut in the past designated the color traditionally associated with purity and light with his own race, thereby making it the benchmark and relegating all other people to off-colored aberrations. For example, I am of East Asian ancestry and thus naturally whiter than most Europeans, yet shall call myself "yellow" (or "PoC")!? If anything, it seems to me that blondes should be designated yellow. I could go on ranting but will stop here. Person "of color"... superficially PC bullshit that actually accepts the language of racial superiority and reinforces Eurocentrism. It couldn't be more wrong.

Really OT: From a political, civil rights, egalitarianism, etc. point of view I'd say I'm very much aligned with groups that push this kind of stuff. But I can't support it because this is what you push when you're more concerned with feelings than results. "Winning" is more important than anything else when it comes to equality and eradicating prejudice. I wish we were more focused on objectives than pushing terms like this or trying to crucify every film director on twitter.

Jer Thorp[1] is a creative artist/developer/researcher which made a point of only reading female authors this year. I'm excited for his list, which I hope he'll be publishing soon.

[1] https://twitter.com/blprnt

I think if you're going to raise that particular argument responsibly, you're obligated to cite some women authors you read this year that you think we should read.

You know, I generally agree with your sentiment, but the OP wrote the comment without casting aspersions and without blaming anyone.

It was a bit terse, I agree, but it is a legitimately noteworthy fact that so few female authors are on the list. Noteworthy if you think it's because YC is biased, noteworthy if you think it's because so few female authors wrote meaningful books this year, noteworthy if you think it's because female authors aren't publicized as much.

(It could also, of course, just be a random thing that happened this year, but I still think OP had a right to point this out).

It's definitely not that there are too few female authors. There are lots of female authors, and they're well publicized.

Rather, I think the issue is that with just a few exceptions, this is exactly the book list you'd expect from a cohort of 25-35 year old startup founders --- batteries, Elon Musk, data science, the energy industry, The Martian (really?), and business history. These are topics with, let's just say, a particular demographic concentration.

I physically winced when I saw the Wodehouse recommendation.

Some possible recommendations, if we're going to stick with "relevant to HN readers":

* Annie Jacobson's DARPA book, The Pentagon's Brain

* the Brene Brown book on mentally overcoming adversity, which might complement Nonviolent Communication (and might also be a more humane recommendation than David Brooks)

* Between You And Me (more writing books, please! Also maybe Mary Karr's book on memoirs, though I haven't read it and am not a Karr fan)

> There are lots of female authors, and they're well publicized [...] this is exactly the book list you'd expect from a cohort of 25-35 year old startup founders

If you look at any 'best books of the year' lists though, most of them are written by men, even though most people in the publishing industry are women.

I suspect it's partly because if you look at the gender gap in reading preferences, women tend to read and write more books in winner-take-all areas. E.g. if you want to learn something about foreign policy then you might need one specific book out of the thousands that get written each year, but if you want to read a novel about relationships then there's not much reason to go beyond the best couple dozen of the year.

Yeah, I was looking at the authors: Steve, Philip and Dan, David, John, Daniel, Elon, Marshall, Matt, John, P.G., ...

Wait a second, Cheryl, what's she doing here? Oh that was Jessica's choice.

And we now return you to your regularly-schedule programming: Neal, Andy, Charles, Yuval, Andrew ...

It's a shame you got so heavily downvoted. You make a reasonable point, and not in a flame-baiting way.

It's not really productive though unless you name some that you think should have been included on the list.

That said I've been enjoying this book a lot, and two of the three authors are female:

http://www.amazon.com/Participatory-Culture-Networked-Era-Co...

I'd say it's just one piece of a larger body of literature on these issues rather than the definitive work that stands on its own, but it's also the kind of thing where when you look at the list of authors and the subject matter then the burden of proof is on you to justify not reading it.

Wait what about Ashlee Vance? Wait never mind that's a man too

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