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Comment by epgui | Hacker News Reader

Textbooks.

Everyone hates them for some reason, but then again I don't know anyone who uses them the way they were designed to be used. From economics to biology or mathematics or political science, they're a great way to develop frameworks for thinking about entire bodies of knowledge. People spend years of their lives creating them, and I can consume this knowledge for only 50-200$? Sign me up any time.

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Textbooks are great for quickly acquiring tree-level knowledge (i.e. the basics or the canon of the field).

There's one downside however -- college textbooks are incentivized to be comprehensive and hence they will often cover chapters on topics that don't matter or ought to be given less weight in the larger scheme of things. If you are uninitiated in a particular subject, you will be hard pressed to discern what's important and what's not. Many textbooks also tend to cover textbook theory which are useful for understanding the subject matter but not useful in the real world (e.g. the determinant method for solving linear systems of equations is almost never used in the real world)

Textbook authors are also incentivized to add chapters every couple of years so that new editions can be published. Sometimes those new chapters are important, sometimes they are not.

Textbooks are a starting point but they generally should not be read end-to-end. A better way to read them is the guidance of an instructor or a (online?) community of practitioners that can tell you what to pay attention to and what chapters to skip.

My (rather strongly held) view is that most things in textbooks tend to be much more useful than people think, and I actually rather love reading textbooks cover to cover, in the order it's presented, preface and all.

If lacking assistance, you can get guidance on which parts of your books are worth reading by googling for college course syllabi.

It's because most are very dry and poorly written. There are some real gems out there though. So maybe we can list some here?

Here's some of my favorites:

- Statistical Rethinking : Richard McElreath (also great Twitter and online lectures)

- Introduction to Quantum Mechanics: Griffiths (anything he writes is good)

- Classical Dynamics of Particles and System : Stephen Thornton

One to add, which entirely shaped the trajectory of my career, would be The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill.

I was convinced that I wanted to go into aerospace, mechanical, or software engineering before I read this book. They all made logical sense, within their layer of abstraction, compared to electronics which seemed closer to a dark-art. Granted I still sometimes see it that way, but with much less fear. No-one I knew could concisely explain how electronics worked to me (outside of some very rudimentary explanations), so this book felt like I was reading occult material.

I devoured it cover-to-cover in the space of a few of months, completed every exercise, and either simulated or built all the circuits that I thought to be interesting or useful. I still have a shelf full of stripboard circuits from that time that I still reference for projects. The local dump workers knew me by name, as I was there every weekend to scavenge old toasters and microwaves and gut them for parts. To this day it's still some of the most fulfilling engineering work I think I've ever done, and my personal edition is now dog-eared like a good Christians' bible.

+1 to Horowitz & Hill. Get the lab manual thing too!

+1 for Griffiths.

His Electromagnetism book was also really good.

What is this thing called Science? : Chalmers

The problem I have with this is that textbooks can be quite difficult to read in that they are often large A4-size pages with many images.

This makes them practically impossible to read on an e-reader and even reading on a tablet isn't ideal. Meanwhile the physical copies can often be large and unwieldy.

If there was an easy way to sit and read them in bed, on the bus etc. like there is with normal books and my Kindle then I'm sure I'd read a great many more.

Textbooks are meant to be read sitting at a desk, with a notebook and pen on the side. You are supposed to summarize the information in written form and answer the end of chapter questions.

Reading on the bus gets you barely any mileage out of the textbook - you are better off reading a popular book on the subject.

Though this is horrific to me, if it's convenience that you're after you could always take a box cutter to the textbooks, cut them into chapters, and maybe have them spiral-bound.

Alternatively, you could see if there exists a loose-leaf copy of your textbook.

In the 90s/ 00s I'd xerox one chapter at a time (only pages with actual content) and put the pages in a binder or spiral bound format for easy luggability. The iPad is good enough for me now.

I find many of the modern textbooks loaded with colorful boxes on the sides to be quite a distraction. If the goal was to help you learn, they should have optimized for focus.

As obvious as it seems now that you say it, I think what you say makes sense.

I find it hard to read some textbooks, especially older ones. If I'm missing a core concept or key piece of background, it's difficult or impossible to even know what the gaps are that need to be filled in my knowledge, and the book assumes prior knowledge.

They cost far less than that if you buy international editions off eBay. Same content for less money, even new.

(And if you want to know why they sell the same books for less money to different markets, pick up Principles of Economics by Mankiw)

What’s your favorite textbooks? How do you discover which ones to buy? Is there a space online where people are talking about this?

This list from LessWrong is ok: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-t...

Is this website/thread still watched and update? I have some thoughts and recommendations for that list.

Ask yourself, "what would batman want to learn," and learn that.

That's how I ended up with Practical Homicide Investigation Tactics, Procedures, and Forensic Techniques. It's amazing.

University requirements can be useful gor this (the book list for specific studies). Goodreads is another one.

Are some universities better than others for this? Do you have any favorite universities that you follow?

I think your best bet would be to compare the curricula and syllabi of different universities and see which books are the most commonly recommended.

You could just look at Ivy League universities, or maybe the top N universities for undergraduates in field X.

I try to look at a mix of universities. The top couple in a field, some state schools (that aren't the top couple), and some schools that are more practically oriented. This way you'll get exposure from more theoretical to more applied. Even if the same textbooks are used across these institutions there may be a difference in emphasis and assignments.

One can start from the least rigorous and work up to the more rigorous courses. Even some of the top schools may have honors and non-honors versions of courses.

I checked MIT‘s curriculum for Math books (logic in particular) and I got 2 or 3 that looked interesting. I thought if it more like browsing things that look interesting (checking on goodreads) more than a systematic approach.

I spend a lot of time sniffing them out.

One thing I'll do once in a while is visit a university bookstore to get a sense of what's being used in classrooms. I ended up with a lot of my law textbooks like that. In law, I've really loved:

- Canadian Administrative Law (Guy Régimbald): https://store.lexisnexis.ca/en/categories/shop-by-jurisdicti...

- Tort Law (Horsey & Rackley): https://www.amazon.ca/Tort-Law-Kirsty-Horsey-dp-019886776X/d...

- Handbook of Canadian Higher Education Law (Shanahan, Nilso & Broshko): https://www.amazon.ca/Handbook-Canadian-Higher-Education-Law...

I've been on a maths, stats and ML/AI binge in the last year, and so far my top picks are:

- Calculus (Stewart): https://www.amazon.ca/Calculus-James-Stewart/dp/1337624187/

- Linear Algebra Done Right (Sheldon Axler): https://www.amazon.ca/Linear-Algebra-Right-Undergraduate-Mat...

- An Illustrative Guide to Multivariable and Vector Calculus (Miklavcic): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/3030334589/

- Probability: A Graduate Course (Allan Gut): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1461447070/

- Statistical Rethinking (McElreath): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/036713991X/

- An Introduction to Statistical Learning (James, Witten, Hastie & Tibshirani): https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Statistical-Learning-Appl...

- Regression and Other Stories (Gelman, Hill & Vehtari): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1107676517/

- Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models (Gelman & Hill): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/052168689X/

- Statistical and Data Analysis for Financial Engineering (Ruppert & Matteson): https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1493926136/

- Reinforcement Learning (Sutton & Barto): https://www.amazon.ca/Reinforcement-Learning-Introduction-Ri...

- Deep Learning (Godfellow, Bengio & Courville): https://www.amazon.ca/Deep-Learning-Ian-Goodfellow/dp/026203...

- Networks (Mark Newman): https://www.amazon.ca/Networks-Mark-Newman/dp/0198805098/

I have a ton of textbooks in my wishlist that seem noteworthy and interesting, but that I haven't gotten the chance to read yet: no promises, but you might find something in there https://www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/1FWW046Q3RWWM

My area of expertise is biochemistry, life science, immunology, cell bio... So if anyone wants good recommendations in these topics I have plenty! :)

Do you have any recommendations on a good primer for biochem? It is a topic I’m interested in and I would like something that sets me up to dig into everything from viruses to cancer to life extension.

Absolutely, I have quite a few I'd recommend. If you tell me more about your background and what you're looking for, I can refine my recommendations further.

Either way, the first thing you have to know is that it's a huge huge field, and you won't find any single book that introduces you well to every subtopic (it's just impossible), and the amount of background/support knowledge you need in order to be able to fully and critically appreciate even basic research papers is pretty enormous.

General biochem and cell bio:

- https://www.amazon.com/Biochemistry-Reginald-H-Garrett/dp/13...

- https://www.amazon.ca/Molecular-Cell-Biology-Harvey-Lodish-d...

- https://www.amazon.ca/Lehninger-Principles-Biochemistry-Davi...

Biotech:

- https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biotechnology-Principles-Ap...

Cell signaling:

- https://www.amazon.com/Cell-Signaling-Wendell-Lim/dp/0815342...

Immunology:

- https://www.amazon.ca/Janeways-Immunobiology-Paperback-Versi...

- https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Inflammation-Charles-Ser...

Microbiology:

- https://www.amazon.com/Jawetz-Melnick-Adelbergs-Medical-Micr...

- https://www.amazon.com/Microbiology-Laboratory-Fundamentals-...

Embryology:

- https://www.amazon.com/Developmental-Biology-Michael-J-F-Bar...

Haematology:

- https://www.amazon.com/Hematology-Clinical-Practice-Fifth-Me...

Genetics and bioinformatics:

- I actually have never found a great textbook, please let me know if you know of any.

Anatomy & physiology (leaning more towards human & medical):

- https://www.amazon.ca/Human-Anatomy-Physiology-Elaine-Marieb...

- https://www.amazon.ca/Guyton-Hall-Textbook-Medical-Physiolog...

- https://www.amazon.ca/Medical-Physiology-Walter-Boron-PhD-dp...

Basic/general medicine (don't shoot me I'm trying to keep the list short and general):

- https://www.amazon.ca/Robbins-Cotran-Pathologic-Basis-Diseas...

- https://www.amazon.ca/Cecil-Essentials-Medicine-Edward-FIDSA...

- https://www.amazon.ca/Harrisons-Principles-Internal-Medicine...

Neuroanatomy (deserves a mention, one of my all time favs):

- https://www.amazon.ca/Neuroanatomy-through-Clinical-Cases-Bl...

USMLE step 1 prep materials are surprisingly good outlines, but not great for an introduction on their own:

- https://www.amazon.ca/First-USMLE-Step-Thirty-first/dp/12604...

Cancer:

- I don't know of any good textbooks on the subject, but once you have some of the fundamentals of biochem under your belt, start reading the papers referenced here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hallmarks_of_Cancer

This is awesome, thank you!

+1 to Axler (linear algebra) and Newman (networks)

Oh, and for science news, I get mine from journals, eg:

- https://www.nature.com/

- https://www.science.org/

Hate paying the typical exorbitant prices for them but I like reading them.

What has been your favorite recently?

You didn't ask me, but piggybacking anyway. Some of these I've been going back to for years starting back in my PhD, working through some ideas as I have time. Some I have recently been learning new things from.

Approximately in that order below:

Too many stat mech books, but honestly favorite is this old one. If you want a real challenge try to read to the OG Gibbs. Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics

Lectures On Phase Transitions And The Renormalization Group

Probability Theory: The Logic of Science

Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms

Information, Physics, and Computation

Elements of Information Theory

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

The Nature of Computation

Principles of Cyber-Physical Systems

Introduction to Embedded Systems, Second Edition: A Cyber-Physical Systems Approach

Data-Driven Science and Engineering: Machine Learning, Dynamical Systems, and Control

An Invitation to Applied Category Theory: Seven Sketches in Compositionality

BTW, feel free to ask for recommendations in physics, especially stat mech, simulation/computation, condensed matter theory

I also liked slatestarcodex a lot, but I think he has a new website now after journalism drama. He was some sort of psych professor if I recall. Just overall good, honest open reading + discussion. Sometimes political, sometimes not. I always point people to this motte and bailey article as I find it's a litmus test to see they find him too much. --https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bri...

If you're into science, you might like Quanta Magazine. I don't think there's any science journalism that will ever not bother me, but this one tries really hard. I happen to know that Jennifer Oullete in particular puts a lot of hard work into her articles

More recently, I've really enjoyed:

- Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives (John C. Hull): https://www.amazon.ca/Options-Futures-Other-Derivatives-10th...

- Financial Accounting Theory (Scott & O'Brien): https://www.amazon.ca/Financial-Accounting-Theory-8th-Editio...

- Networks (Mark Newman): https://www.amazon.ca/Networks-Mark-Newman/dp/0198805098/

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