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Comment by filiwickers | Hacker News Reader

If you struggle to get diverse voices inside your field, maybe you should read from diverse voices outside your field. I understand it is hard and I also gravitate towards comfortable reading, usually meaning from people that look like me. This is the problem. Start being accountable to yourself about it.

2 of 19 the books in the list are by female authors (both recommended by women). Looking for some good books from women? Check out these:

Nonfiction:

* Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach

* The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs

* Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis

* Rising Strong, Brené Brown

* Cleopatra, Stacy Shiff

* The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

Fiction:

* Anything by Ursula Le Guin

* Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie

* Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer

* Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine

... so many more

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...Or they just asked a number of people to recommend a favored book, and this is the list that they got.

Why does everything have to be about diversity?

Perhaps because virtue signalling has never been more popular?

In an industry where we all earn well, have similar qualities of life, similar careers, etc. virtue signalling (often wherever possible) appears to have become the perceived fertile soil for differentiating yourself, and "elevating" yourself.

I think it's more a sign of the times.

I mean, when the President broadcasts to the world that transgender people can no longer serve in the U.S. armed forces, it only deepens the systemic bias. Why is it then selfish to showcase that they are able to write good books too?

Because diversity of thought is important. You're missing a lot if you only read books by people with similar views and experiences. For example, if you're a white man and you ask all your white male friends for book recommendations, you're going to end up with a pretty homogeneous list.

Boy, you sure don't think highly of my friends.

Diversity of THOUGHT is important, but how is that directly correlated to skin color?

People with different skin color have vastly different life experiences which leads to diversity of thought.

And why would the people making this list have to provide that diversity? Either they want to on their own, without anyone telling them, or the reader of the list can go looking for it themselves. Note, I'm in favor of all kinds of diversity, but I disagree when people start telling other (groups of) people what they should do.

Ancillary Justice is an excellent book, and the choice to make the main character not really understand gender and use female pronouns for everyone really makes it obvious how much we normally assume people to be male in the absence of other info.

Not by a female author, but on the topic of diversity, another one I'd recommend is Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee. The author is a queer trans man. This book and Ancillary Justice are the 2 best books I read in 2016.

I can second the Ninefox Gambit. It's a strange science fantasy (like Star Wars) which revolves around using mathematics and calendars to drive exotic machinery and technology.

I'll be honest, I found Ancillary Justice a little boring since the characters aren't very complex. It's interesting in that it's from an A.I.'s perspective involving many simultaneous inputs (multiple sensors, people, etc).

Also, I have to give the obligatory fiction recommendation for Red Rising. That trilogy is like the roman empire in space, but the characters are what really make it.

For pretty _amazing_ sci fi that I just stumbled on, NK Jemisin is amazing. Her Broken Earth series is not only tremendously gripping, original, and epic in scope, but it also does a fantastic job of portraying a world with predominantly non-white characters without being on the nose or ham-handed about it.

(incidentally, when I picked up the book I had no idea what race or gender the author was, I was just looking for Hugo Award winners)

I adore NK Jemisin so much, the awards are all so deserved! It was particularly nice that she won the Hugo in the midst of all the drama, too.

Another author I want to throw out there, is Liu Cixin - his novel The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo for Best Novel the year prior. Not a woman, but scifi from a vastly different cultural/racial angle than a lot of us are accustomed to, I would imagine.

Loved Three-Body Problem!

+1 on the Ancillary trilogy. Will check out the rest of your list.

Another one I really liked: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt. Very interesting writing style (it's not about Japan).

I couldn't get through "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". There's probably one or two semi-interesting points I took away from the part I got through, but something about the way it was written made it way too difficult for me to get through, far more difficult than was worth it in my opinion.

Agreed on all points. There are too many to list, but I'm currently reading Arundhati Roy's "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" and would recommend it to everyone.

Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman if you are interested in WWI.

So, I have nothing against what you've listed here, this is great stuff. What I find interesting for me personally is that it never once crosses my mind who the author is or what their skin color is or anything like that when I'm looking at a book. I just have no idea (and perhaps no interest really, unless it's something I'm REALLY into).

Anyway, it's cool that you're listing these. I'm particularly interested in The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs.

Me either, and that's exactly the issue. Look at any top books list and it is mostly white males. Either men have an easier time getting published or men are inherently better writers. I believe the former is the case. By seeking out female writers and other diverse voices we can start to tip the balance.

Historically, men were the only ones that had the opportunity to write, so any books from older centuries are going to be by men. But that doesn't have to be the case now.

ps. Love Jane Jacobs! After you read that, if you are interested, you may want to check out The Power Broker to see the other side. It is one of my top nonfiction books. (warning, white male author ;)).

Isn't the content of the book more important than the author? Jane Austen and Frederick Douglass are widely read because of what they wrote, not their gender or race. Most ancient authors were male, but not many would fit the modern profile of racial privilege.

No, the content between the covers is essentially irrelevant in the mind of the OP.

They're asking us to judge a book strictly by its cover, and to reject it should it not meet their strict criteria of having not been written by a white person or most especially not a white man.

It is 2017, after all.

„...I BELIEVE the former is the case...“

There is no point to your argument if it is just a hunch.

I was being facetious.

Women are better writers.

I agree on The Power Broker; it is kind of amazing and changed my view of New York City. To summarize, Robert Moses leveraged a parks commission position to reshape New York City how he wanted it: from bridges and expressways and urban renewal to the Lincoln Center and United Nations buildings. The first key point is how to leverage a minor position into dictatorial power. The second key point is that New York City didn't just end up how it is; many of its good and bad characteristics (including many racial issues) are because Robert Moses made it that way. However, I can't really recommend reading the book since it is very, very long - longer than Infinite Jest.

And yes, Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" is definitely a must-read if you're interested in urban areas.

Why do we have to have balance?

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