Ask YC: What is/are your favorite book(s)?
What is everyone reading these days besides web stuff? It would be great to put together a list specific to the HN community. Fee free to include non-programming books.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=85840
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=56618
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156137
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45082
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41532
There are also many threads regarding books on specific topics(machine learning, parenting(as hackers), AI, etc.). You can check http://searchyc.com/ to find them.
_Made to Stick_, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, about what makes some ideas memorable and others forgettable. Urban legends, for example, propagate quickly on a vast scale despite having no marketing budget.
_Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times_, by Morris Kline. Did you know that Gauss proved, in a section of his doctoral thesis, that partial-fraction decomposition can always yield real coefficients?
I actually own 0 programming books and a bunch of books on business and entrepreneurship. As my good friend @dangrover says - sometimes the books are crap, but they motivate you to build stuff. And some of them might be great.
:)
My favorite non-fiction books are books about consciousness studies and related issues. Favorites include Hofsteder's I Am A Strage Loop and David Chalmers The Conscious Mind. Oliver Sacks Musicaphilia is another recent favorite.