Ask HN: Who is reading? (December 2020) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Who is reading? (December 2020)

16 pointsWhoIsReading19 comments

What books, posts or papers have you read this month that HN should know about?

Much of the world is entering holiday season, what books are you gifting?

I am currently reading Unix - A history and a Memoir by Brian Kernigham. I disliked the first couple of pages (describing Bell Labs), but after that it has been gold. The people behind Unix were great, intelligent and most important funny as hell. You live the pranks they did to each other, specially Peter's face everywhere.

The Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Kohr: A book arguing Kohl’s theory of smallness, that size is the most important factor in human systems. Kohr argues that the size of political systems (nation states) is the source of most of their problems, and that smaller is better. He argues that we should reject the “aggrandizement of states” and pursue “the breakdown of nations.” A fascinating read, and once I saw the issue with size I can’t unsee it.

World Atlas of Coffee by James Hoffman: A fun book on the history of coffee around the world, the tree, the bean, the cup, everything. A good book for coffee lovers. James also has a great YouTube channel all about coffee.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.

To be honest I'm halfway through the book and a bit disappointed. I expected a lot while reading all the reviews on Amazon and even here on HN.

The book is good and give some few insights, but I'm still waiting for an "aha" moment or "wow this is something I didn't know".

I don't want to go into details to not spoil it for everyone who wants to read it, but it seem like an average book about startups so far.

I may be wrong and the other half of the book is more interesting.

You may find this more interesting [0]

[0]: https://meetingdelleidee.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/cs183-s...

I don't know if HN should know about it, but I have started trying to broaden my reading beyond the "Western Canon". Right now I am working on whatever works of Junichiro Tanizaki(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%27ichir%C5%8D_Tanizaki) I can find. My favourite so far was "Some Prefer Nettles" which aside from the puppetry bits seemed like a narrator who could have lived in our time. It felt very modern overall.

Just finished Brautigan's Confederate General from Big Sur. Brautigan is as fun as Vonnegut. But more poetic, of the (US) West, and undoubtedly too drunk to sell Saab's.

I recently finished The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll. It was a fascinating look at old school hacking and the internet in the 1980s. Well worth a read.

Good thread! I suspect Jonathan Lethem's The Arrest and Ernest Cline's Ready Player Two will be stuffing many a stocking this season ;)

Stories of your life and others by Ted Chiang. It’s meh. Don’t mean it as a dig at the author, but I think the sci-fi stories lose their value over time, maybe I was just too late to the party.

Nobody else asks for books, so I'm not gifting any. I asked for Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Neilsen. I'm currently reading Defensive Tactics by Christensen.

"Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche" by Carl Jung

I am finally about to finish Thinking Fast and Slow. It is a great book, but very dense, I can handle max. 2 chapters/day

It's one of the books that I retained absolutely nothing from. Before reading it I had a general pop-culture idea of cognitive biases and behavioral science. After reaing the book - the exact same general feeling with no additional knowledge or insight acquired.

Fantastic book! But yes, Incredibly dense, but easy to read. Feels like 5 years of research is packed into each chapter (which I suppose is true).

But so worth it. I think about a concept from that book at least every week.

I am reading "The evolution of scientific knowledge from certainty to uncertainty", not well known, but it is very good.

Cynical Theories is great if you want to understand the influence of portmodernism and origins of "Social Justice"

A History of the Crusades by Steven Runcimen.

American Kingpin - Nick Bilton: I assume a good chunk of HN knows about this one or has heard of it. I'm only about half way through and I'm not a huge fan of the writing but I do think it's interesting how many parallels one can draw between a black market drug site and a commonplace Silicon Valley startup. A fun read but not as technical as I'd hoped.

The Law - Frederic Bastiat: A short pamphlet first written after the French Revolution. From what I can tell it's a good intro to libertarian thought. Reading it because I've found myself more interested in politics and seem to gravitate towards libertarianism more than other political philosophies.

Talking to GOATS - Jim Gray

Moneyland

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