Ask HN: Read any good books lately?
Niall Ferguson's the Ascent of Money and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. The former is extremely informative, the later is a work of art.
Another approach would be to read it as published. That's something like 18 parts in as many months.
I also finished book 10 of the Malazan series.
Imagine Dan Carlin (Hardcore History podcast) and Quentin Tarantino took both the red pill and the blue pill that Morpheus offered Neo and ground both the pills together, snorted it, shook hands and agreed to create something better than Game of Thrones. I imagine they would have come up with something almost as good as the Malazan series.
You’ll have to power through the first book (Gardens of the Moon). It is notoriously difficult - I recommend following up each chapter with commentary on Tor’s Gardens of the Moon reread. I will also guarantee that the way book 1 ends will not make sense. But keep reading - the payoff is waiting as early as the end of book 2. And again at the end of book 3. And again all through books 4 and 5. And it’ll stay that good till the end.
I thought they were pretty good, but I'm enjoying GoT more.
It held my attention all the way through and I am now starting the sequel.
It's basically a gripping thriller set in Silicon Valley. The story focuses on what went on within the company since its inception. It's completely mind boggling how and why it all happened.
Read this back in January. 10/10
Haven't completed it yet, so far I am finding it good.
It introduced me to Zen meditation, which I started practicing a few days ago and find useful.
On the fiction side, I'm on my third Discworld book and loving them (Men At Arms).
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman | book on human rationality and irrationality
- An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield
Fiction:
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality | Petunia married a professor, and Harry grew up reading science and science fiction. http://www.hpmor.com/
- Off to Be the Wizard (Magic 2.0 Book 1) by Scott Meyer | Reality is defined in a text file, making the protagonist a wizard when he discovers it while hacking a company.
- The Magicians (series) by Lev Grossman
See also:
https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...
https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...
It's one of those lessons that you feel you know but get a much better understanding of when reading about it in-depth.
Same as "How to win friends and influence people"
"Why is Red Bull so popular, though everyone—everyone!—hates the taste? Humans are, in a word, irrational, basing decisions as much on subtle external signals (that little blue can) as on objective qualities (flavor, price, quality). The surrounding world, meanwhile, is irreducibly complex and random. This means future success can’t be projected on any accounting spreadsheet. To strike gold, you must master the dark art and curious science of conjuring irresistible ideas: alchemy."
"The Sandman: Kindly Ones" and "The Sandman: Wake", masterpieces from the master writer Neil Gaimann.
Reading "Never Split the Difference" which is about the art of negotiation and has been an enlightening read as of now. It argues negotiation isn't rational but is an affective exercise and I couldn't agree more.
His thesis statement is that scientific and social progress is now largely in the hands of AI and that those best able to utilize those technologies to augment their decisions, and everyone else will suffer.
I think he overestimates AI in the short term, but in the long term, I don't see how he's wrong. I've started to study AI again (having worked in an AI lab 20 years ago).
From Wikipeida:
Cowen forecasts that modern economies are delaminating into two groups: a small minority of highly educated people who are capable of working collaboratively with automated systems will become a wealthy aristocracy; the vast majority will earn little or nothing, surviving on low-priced goods created by the first group, living in shantytowns working with highly automated production systems.
This is a fantastic book with several lessons my teams learned either by failing. The parts on how so many issues tend to be blocked threads, how you accidentally DDOS yourself, or how scaling/capacity management has failures even when you follow all the textbook, sound patterns... it takes many of my personal experiences and some failures I haven’t had (but will) and provides such a fresh perspective.
https://www.amazon.com/Release-Design-Deploy-Production-Read...
Currently reading Northern Lights, the first of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. My first time reading it, great so far.
This is a chef’s journey in the same general category of Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” (2000) or Bill Buford’s “Heat” (2007).
Before I had my current fabulous career, I was an out of work marketing / web designer and needed to make money. The latter two books were my ‘mentors’ for dealing with working in professional kitchens without any experience.
I recommend all three for their insights into the world of professional chefs and food hospitality. And, of course, they all make you hungry. Haha
All through school I never had much of an interest in biology or genetics. I think if I’d read this earlier it may have changed my mind.
Planning on reading the Blind Watchmaker at some point.
Spurred on by reading the former I thought I’d listen to A Brief History of Time. Wow that is a whole different kettle of fish. I had to stop because I realized it wasn’t the right format (Audiobook), for me at least.
PS Does anybody use Goodreads anymore?
The reason I liked these is that I found the dogged determination of the respective captains in the face of adversity (especially in The Terror) inspirational.
I got the book, tried the audio-book and even tried watching the movie, I couldn't get myself past the first half of the book or the movie.
It just seems (to me) so childish and incoherent, am I missing somthing?
Different type of people like different things :) no need to feel bad about it.
p.s I would use word playful instead of childish.
It’s cool to read children’s literature as an adult. Less cool if you think it’s literature’s final form.
Currently reading "never split the difference".
Does anyone have other hacking related books with story telling like in this book?
Finally got around to reading it, I was amazed at how modern it felt for a book written in 1850.
It's one of my favourite books too. I dip into it a few times a year reading specific chapters, I find it incredibly evocative.
Nice mix of personal narrative and history, and the visuals were wonderful.
It's about the authors investigation to uncover her family's role during Nazi rule, to hopefully absolve her sense of inherited guilt and to discover her "heimat" - a German word used to describe where you come from.
The author presents the story through a mix of handwritten letters, old pictures, and drawings, weaved together into a very creative scrapbook style.
Something I really enjoyed were the cultural and historical sections that started each chapter. I was able to learn something new that was separate from the narrative, yet still keep my mind in the story world.
One of those parts I found interesting was on how important bread is to Germans...so much as to file their recipes for recognition by UNESCO! I had no idea.
Not to say that was the best part. The story itself was very good.