Books to read before I die | Hacker News Reader

Books to read before I die

cooksillustrated.com

56 pointsbookofjoe36 comments

This list and others of its kind have always felt a little off to me. If you read the most famous single book of three different authors I feel like you wouldn’t get too much out of it. I would rather die knowing I read Shakespeare and Faulkner than read Othello and As I lay Dying. This kind of list format takes what should be an organic exploration of other humans who are praised for their writing and turns it into a checklist of disconnected pieces. Maybe you read half a play and hate it, maybe you devour Shakespeare’s entire body of work?

I guess that is also why I dislike a lot of contemporary stuff, the aesthetic life of the artist behind the work is harder and harder to connect with. This all sounds super elitist but it’s hard to discuss books without straying into that territory haha. The breadth of genre is so vast as well, Roald Dahl and Richard Feynman on the same list? It just really lacks a depth of focus to feel like more than ticking boxes.

I list like this can be taken as "books I want to read, amongst all those I end up reading" rather than "the books I must read to the last, before I read any others".

As a hardcore book lover, I have the deepest hatred for all lists of books. They are pretentious wastes of time, usually written to make the author look like an eclectic and well-rounded person and for no other purpose. This is just about my only strong opinion in the world. I would die a thousand deaths on this hill.

Publishing a list of books like this should be in the same category of social bad habits such as name dropping celebrities you have met, or casually mentioning the large amount of money you make per year ($two hundred Kay), or having a PO Box in a rich neighborhood so you can have an address that impresses people.

Ticking boxes is exactly what it is. If I can be a little overdramatic (yes, now is where that starts), it's a betrayal of the very soul of reading.

> As a hardcore book lover, I have the deepest hatred for all lists of books. They are pretentious wastes of time

How do you keep track of the books you want to read?

There are many books I've heard of, and heard people recommend, that I would really like to read. The only way I can keep track of them is by noting them down in lists.

I'd guess that person is talking about published lists of books.

Then I’d say to them, what is wrong with publishing your own list of books to read? Others might get something from it. Or your list of book recommendations?

I think it's totally fair to want to take a sampling of a lot of great authors to try out their work and then maybe follow up on more of their stuff if you find it compelling. True, they might not have the same level of appreciation for the book as if they'd been more familiar with all of their work, but if you try and tell people "you're not going to 'get it' without reading the 17 novels and 8 novellas he wrote before this", then if you're right you're going to just turn people off from trying.

Maybe this is the "plebian" opinion, but I see nothing wrong with wanting a taste of Dahl, Feynman, Homer, and Tolstoy rather than devoting your life to just one. He's reading for pleasure, not writing a dissertation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku should be mandatory reminder for every "list of books to read" list

I definitely relate to this, even if I no longer have a large physical collection of books. I kinda cringe when I see lists like this of recommended reading, and especially dread that a list might be very compelling, because I already have a personal list that I'll never be able to finish before the end of my life.

Me too, the time required for my to-read list is getting longer than my anticipated lifespan. What's the Japanese word for that?

True, but there's a difference between buying books and letting them pile up and just keeping a list. I keep mine on Goodreads now and usually get my books from the library. Also, I sell my books back to the bookstore if I didn't love them.

Kindle, on the other hand, never could get into it though it seems great to avoid Tsundoku.

There's a fine line, though. Even keeping a list may interfere with feelings of clarity and direction if you become swamped by feelings of obligation. I once heard someone refer to Marie Kondo's "Magic of Tidying Up" as a philosophy book, and I think that's true for things like this. If keeping a big list is useful and makes you happy, for sure, go for it. But make sure it doesn't just create feelings of shame or incompleteness.

1 hour YouTube episodes for books.

I'd stop at the 71st just to be on the safe side.

Can't seem to find a publish date, but this list almost certainly has to be a couple years old, considering Christopher Kimball was ousted from Cooks Country/Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen in 2015.

July/August 2014 issue of Cook's Illustrated

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/magazines/188-july-slash-au...

https://www.bookofjoe.com/2014/06/cooks-illustrated-editor-c...

All book links are affiliate links (tag=cpk-72books-20)

The odds of seeing any list of things to do/buy/engage without it being some affiliate promotion are slim

Seems like as good a place to ask as any - is there an adblock list style solution for stripping not just query parameters (and I suppose they're sometimes needed, can't always strip them) but also e.g. /ref=blah paths that some (Amazon for example) use as well?

Why? I actually make a point of going to an affiliate link before buying anything from the big river. Just doing my part to reduce their profits as much as possible. (My current go-to is kottke.org although I wouldn't object if people wanted to go to http://don.dream-in-color.net/books/ instead)

The /ref= isn't from afiliate/referral links, it's just tracking.

I don't think that's actually what's happening with that. ref=nosim is an old thing (no longer necessary) for going to the product page directly. I can't see any tracking that they can do with a URL component that they wouldn't have anyway (e.g., knowing the referrer, IP etc.)

This is the type of title that I considered sensationalized. "Before I die" is a cliche only used to grab attention, because obviously there are no lists of books to read after one dies.

Maybe you’re reading it too literally. To me it just means “I don’t want to die without having read this books”.

I wonder how many different types of bucket lists there are. This is a "to-read" bucket list; I've definitely seen or at least heard other people opine on "to-visit" bucket lists. The more traditional "to-do" bucket list sometimes includes places to visit, but also a more wide-ranging list of activities and experiences.

I wonder what else warrants a full bucket list.

It'd be nice if he explained why he chose to include each book on the list. I think the section where he lists books that he'd like to reread is the most important section.

I love Cormac McCarthy and Blood Meridian is a fine way to get into his work, but it was a hard read for me because of the pacing. NCfOM, The Road or Outer Dark are easier to follow IMO. I hope this comment is considered useful enough to pass the HN guidelines.

Middlemarch is one of my faves - can't believe he couldn't get through it.

Hmm... I have read 9 on the "never read" list and 4 on the "never finished" list. And never heard of most of the rest :)

Somewhere I read he got this list from the America's Test Kitchen team.

Given that this was presumably published when he was still in charge of the business, it would hardly be surprising if a lot of the list were contributed by others.

(Kimball's no longer involved with CI. He left a while back under acrimonious circumstances.)

I've always been split - he seems not nice but the show isn't quite the same without him.

I admit I haven't watched the show for a while. The new podcast (Proof) is much better than the old ATK one though IMO. It also feels as if they've gotten a bit more adventurous with recipes; they always felt rather conservative mid-American under Kimball.

I read Kimball and assumed Ralph Kimball.

diff'rent strokes: never heard of Ralph Kimball ;-)

Xerox PARC alum, main designer of the sequel to the Xerox Alto computer, the Xerox Star, which is the the first modern personal computer (GUI, mouse, Ethernet, print & file servers, etc).

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