Comment by pjmorris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjmorris | Hacker News Reader

I hilariously overestimate the number of books I can get through when I make these lists, but my current list for 2020 is as follows:

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

Book of Proof

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation

Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War (for a friend)

Master and Commander

Educated

Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark

Stretch goal: The Power Broker, as a warm-up for Caro's LBJ series

The Bible (perpetual, I don't get through it every year, but I get through much of it, often)

EDIT: I also hilariously underestimate the number of books I want to read. Here's one more I think is vital for my 2020:

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

Depending on your current habits, starting with Digital Minimalism will help get through the others in one year.

curious whats in that book.

I feel like i already know what i am doing wrong re tech addiction but that i think is psychological issue with me. Not sue what a book can tell me.

I think the same for me. What I've gotten from books r.e. psychological issues are perspective and tools.

Perspective: sometimes a writer puts things in a way that illuminates or alters how I see my situation.

Tools: sometimes a writer has an idea or a scheme that I can put to practical use. The pomodoro timer on my desk has been handy even without adopting every aspect of the method. That came from a blog rather than a book, but same idea (to me.)

The great thing about books is that they not only provide knowledge, but can provide some course of action.

The book is both - an intro of "look how awesome you can be without the tech", a detox plan, and a plan to deliberately reintroduce helpful technology.

I am as guilty as anyone in that I have partly read the book, implemented a few of the suggestions, but haven't fully embraced. I think the holidays will be a great time to finish reading it and start my 30 day declutter.

Yeah, I suspect success with the overall goal may come down to better digital discipline. Starting with commenting on HN threads :)

Have you read my book, Indistractable, @techstrategist? Would love to know what you think of it! I spent 5 years researching and writing a tech positive guide to the deeper psychology of distraction.

Hey Nir, I just finished your book (loaned from the library). I feel like it has a lot of good information, however the people who are most likely to benefit from it are least likely to read it, or read anything at all for that matter.

I'd already implemented most of your recommendations before reading it, and this year I feel like I've finally balanced tech consumption so that it's at a healthy level. It's allowed me to read over 20 books, pursue my hobbies in more depth and spend more time with my kid.

Things that worked for me:

- no tech in the bedroom, I leave my phone in the living room every night. - start a morning routine without tech every day, I meditate, do stretches and a light work out. - i try to read as much as possible in hard copy from the library. 3 week loans push me to finish things. I look forward to getting a notification that one of my reserves has arrived. If the library doesn't have a book it will inter library loan or purchase it for me most of the time. - all phone alerts turned off except for text msg/calls - only use FB messenger light if I'm going to use FB at all - plenty of time to do nothing. I don't think the human machine is meant to be on all the time

I agree with these, although I do still struggle implementing them.

I love that you’ve become Indistractable! Congrats!! What did you think about the section on “how to raise Indistractable kids”?

I think it's good advice for a lot of people. You're a role model for them, if you're always checking your phone your distraction will rub off on them. I try to spend a couple of hours each day with my kid focusing 100% on what we're doing.

I try to follow Derek Sivers advice as much as possible: https://sivers.org/pa

I haven't, and can't say for certain whether or not I've come across it yet.

Downloading the audiobook as I type this.

I hope you enjoy Indistractable! Please let me know what you think of it!

"Designing Data-Intensive Applications" is excellent, but it took me a long time to get through (it really helped that we read it in the book club at work). I am very glad I read it though - there is so much good stuff in it. I wrote a summary of it (mostly so I would learn the contents better): https://henrikwarne.com/2019/07/27/book-review-designing-dat...

The description of Caro's books as "Harry Potter for adults" is accurate. Highly accessible, no preparation necessary

I just wish there were a Kindle edition. Eventually I'l break down and buy it but I do so much of my reading on commutes that I strongly bias towards a digital copy.

Same here. I've heard, and may implement, a suggestion; Buy a paperback copy, rip it into thirds, and carry the third that you're reading. Buy a hardback copy when you're finished. I've got the paperback copy, I'm not sure I've got the nerve.

I can highly recommend the Audible version.

My father had a stroke a couple years ago. Read "The Brain That Changes Itself" to get a feel for what might or might not be possible. Good stuff. Had practical insights for me as well. Definitely bump it up your priority list.

That book is freaky. In a really, really good way. I loved first chapter where the lady who can't balance has her brain rewired to map alternative signals as input into the balancing process.

Also the chapter on pain. Fascinating.

Start with Guns, Germs, and Steel and/or Digital Minimalism ;)

A book to read immediately after Guns Germs and Steel is Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu.

It's also useful to know that Diamond does not have a degree in Geography and many geographers aren't particularly on board with his ideas.

I think of him the same way I do Malcom Gladwell, a good story teller but he does this by cherrypicking anecdotes more than by a robust assessment of reality.

I've gotten to the point where I just suggest people skip Guns, Germs, and Steel entirely. Diamond is a really excellent writer, but he cherry picks his material to support a thesis and ignores all the prior art that shows that people already tried his thesis a century ago and discarded it.

Jump to 'The Power Broker' instead. Now that's an interesting read.

Nice, thanks. Do you have a go to piece of work that lays out where Diamond goes wrong? I've only ever heard it in off hand comments from people in human geography.

I've read a couple of the LBJ books which are really amazing and plan on getting to power broker eventually.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...

Agree on this one. Why Nations Fail is a fabulous book. I recommend reading Guns, Germs, and Steel first if you are going to read both. Highly recommend both.

> It's also useful to know that Diamond does not have a degree in Geography

He has degrees in history and anthropology and has been a professor of geography for decades.

I'm curious what you think of The Narrow Corridor, also by Acemoglu and Robinson. I finished Nations recently, not sure I should jump right to Corridor next?

haven't read it. I generally don't think it's a good strategy to read one author exhaustively though.

Why Nations Fail was incredible. One of the best things I've ever read.

I've heard there is lots of controversy surrounding Guns, Germs, and Steel. The author gets chided in some historian communities on Reddit rather frequently.

I’m on the third of the LBJ series after starting them a couple years ago. While they are long they really are absolutely fascinating and hold my attention far beyond what I would have thought.

I read Seeing Like A State exactly around this time last year, and boy did I enjoy it. It somehow went well while reading Nassim Taleb’s Skin In The Game. One was an application of the other.

May I recommend reading Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life as a practical and pro tech guide for managing tech distraction

I am interested in what others think of Educated. I made it 3/4 of the way through and struggled to get that far. The stories seemed very repetitive.

I absolutely love the power broker - incredibly fascinating and so well researched. I can't praise it enough. You will love it

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems is a really good book.

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