Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?
The books you mention can be of any genre and from any discipline of life. The important criteria is that they were helpful to you in whatever way you think.
Opens your eyes to a wide array of fallacies that govern our daily life (unknown unknowns, "experts" explaining past events as obvious in retrospect, the news, predictions, survivorship bias, confirmation bias, iatrogenics and a lot, lot more) — almost to a fault, i.e. if you take it too far, you'll see these fallacies everywhere and things like stories of success/failure, biographies (or history in general) etc. will no longer make the same impression.
Picked up Antifragile and Fooled By Randomness over time just to see if the hype is worth it, but none of the books honestly bowled me over or presented anything enlightening or explored ideas not explored in a better manner elsewhere. I feel like Taleb falls into the same fallacy he preaches about in his books to a large extent. But then again, given his popularity, maybe it's just my opinion.
I have the same feeling. Don't get me wrong, I really respect Taleb and his insights. But I skipped a large part of Black Swan because some parts are more literature than insights.
That said, no pain, no gain. The higher bar creates a sense of dedication for the reader. A 5k and a marathon are both "just running", but it's the latter better sharpens the sword, so to speak.
5 minute summaries are also forgotten in the same amount of time.
Note that the books are adapted from a free podcast of the same name, hence perhaps why they feel so comparatively approachable. As a podcast, however, I didn't find it easy listening in the usual contexts and states of mind that you would be listening to podcasts.
I had previously tried reading Anthony Kenney's a new history of Western Philosophy, but it didn't seem to me to contextualize each philosopher against their forebears as well as Adamson. This made each discussion seen isolated and made it more difficult to empathize how each philosopher grew to have the ideas they had, and why they are so interesting, since one ends up compelled to compare against our current far more sophisticated milleu.
Now, why I find these books so rewarding; they elucidate how we have come to have the frameworks through which we perceive the world, and also provide contrasts to them.
Adamson contextualizes the atomists (who content that there are indivisible particles) as a reaction against Zeno and his paradox, which seems very plausible.
On the other hand, before he discusses how the atomists might be reacting to their forebears, Russell says
> The atomists, unlike Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause"
But what use is comparing the atomists against the later thinkers? Russell seems to have an interest in showing the superiority of a mechanistic view of the world.
> The atomists asked the mechanistic question, and gave a mechanistic answer. Their successors, until the Renaissance, were more interested in the teleological question, and thus led science up a blind alley.
> In regard to both questions alike, there is a limitation which is often ignored, both in popular thought and in philosophy. Neither question can be asked intelligibly about reality as a whole (including God), but only about parts of it. As regards the teleological explanation, it usually arrives, before long, at a Creator, or at least an Artificer, whose purposes are realized in the course of nature. But if a man is so obstinately teleological as to continue to ask what purpose is served by the Creator, it becomes obvious that his question is impious. It is, moreover, unmeaning, since, to make it significant, we should have to suppose the Creator created by some super-Creator whose purposes He served. The conception of purpose, therefore, is only applicable within reality, not to reality as a whole.
So you can see how Russell has as part of his aim trying to share his own views and judge these earlier thinkers with some hindsight. On the other hand, Adamson is primarily trying to interpret these authors and speculate and relate how they might have arrived at the conclusions they might have arrived at. I've not read Adamson beyond the Classical Philosophy volume, so I hope that the quality remains just as good.
The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem - It shed light on me in regards to microelectronics, swarm intelligence. Nothing ever eased my learning curve more for genetic algorithms like this short novel! It is also a good read in general. It also taught me that the difference in scientific vs force vs emotional approach to unknown. Would recommend as a springboard from a day-to-day acitivities.
Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky - a Soviet sf classic, I've read it 3x already. It tells a story about a closed zone where 'aliens' left their artifcats, and how that changed people around them.
Ender's Game - I don't think there is an explanation needed. It is a total classic. It helps a lot to understand outsiders, not just aliens but a humans too.
All of the above are either hard or soft sf.
Indeed, it did -- it also spawned the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." game series, which really nails down the derelict industrial soviet aesthetic.
Of Card's novels, the Shadow Saga, is a pretty good read thou. I've enjoyed it more than the Ender's one. It is set in the same universe, and focuses on Bean - another child from the Battle School. It drifts towards political fiction.
1. The Morning of the Magicians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morning_of_the_Magicians)
This book, although many (most?) of its claims are disproved really had an impact on me since it showed me that there could be _a lot_ more in the world than meets the eye. Everything around us and in history is filled with mysteries, unanswered questions. You could find interesting things everywhere. I would say the content is not the important part, but it instills the curiosity to dig deeper.
2. Memories, Dreams, Reflections (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories,_Dreams,_Reflections)
A semi-autobiography of Carl Jung. It made me realise how "meta-programmable" humans are. How much of how we think can be though upon, itself. How we can introspect on our thoughs ... with our thoughts. Basically, made me in awe of conscious beings.
3. Ficciones (Fictions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones)
This is classic from Jorge Luis Borges. It showed me at the time "experimental" literature. How can one can push story-telling to another level, like many other art forms have done.
- The Stupidity Paradox. Ever feel the world works in a "stupid" way? That your organization keeps promoting stupid ideas? Read this book and get into the roots of functional stupidity. It's a bit repetitive, but extremely insightful book.
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. The book I most recommend for any software professional.
But if you're not, I'd recommend resources targeting more popular and lower friction languages than scheme such as JavaScript.
I've read it after 5 years of professional experience and it was a very good read.
I guess everyone has a different way of approaching this.
Also I didn’t mean it in an overly demeaning fashion, I unironically find a lot of leetcode problems cooler than they are getting credit for.
Chapter 4, on interpreters and alternative languages, is where in many readers' estimation the real payoff lies. Scheme itself is constructed in a very elegant way from few primitives. My Programming Languages course did an ML interpreter in Standard ML, but I found SICP's scheme interpreter more satisfying and more enlightening - especially when you see how an impossibly small "toy" implementation easily sustains all the modern conveniences, complexities, and artifice described in the previous three chapters. Then the next two sections were totally new to me: I had heard passing mention of logic programming and nondeterministic programming on HN, but never seen them in college or in practice. It's really impressive how elegant certain solutions can be under those paradigms.
Leetcode is an entirely different track and aesthetic on computer science, obsessed with doing things optimally, efficiently. SICP is the polar opposite of that: it tries to make things nice, organized, clean, elegant, intuitive. Even trivial optimizations are left on the floor, like I'm at the end of chapter 4 and we've been using linked lists in place of maps and vectors the whole time.
Depending on what you're doing, you need some of both. But some programmers are temperamentally more interested in the "ugly but optimal" track, and enjoy SICP less.
1. The Body Keeps the Score;
2. CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving;
3. Whole Again.
From my notes:
"This is a non-fiction work translated from the original Polish. It is not a light work: it encompasses Lem’s complex and intricate musings and theories on technology, nature, genetics, cosmology, philosophy, biology, information theory, ecology, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, robots, programming, identity (cloning), human nature and how these all relate to mankind’s possible future or lack thereof. He discusses the likely shape of galactic civilizations as well as the possible composition or origins of its components, where their intelligence comes from, where it would likely develop, where it wouldn’t, why science fiction is lazy and, above all, he keeps the discussion rigorously supported by data, even when he seems to be engaging in the most whimsical flights of fancy."
"It is not an easy read, but it is legitimately a work of staggering genius. You don’t have to agree with him on everything, but you can’t argue with his method, with his intellectual rigor and devotion to the scientific method to reduce the ineffability of who we are and where we’re headed."
Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation.
Surprisingly readable and insightful, even if you don't buy his metaphysics. Einstein had Schopenhauer's portrait on his wall and considered him a genius.
* Poetry
John Milton - Paradise Lost
Powerful and beautiful writing.
* Fiction
Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel. Funny and a real feast of words (the translation is a work of art in itself)
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain. Haunting and moving
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Dangerous Liaisons. Scandalous, gripping.
Ivan Turgenev - First Love. A masterclass in writing. Short, sensitive and exquisitely told.
Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time. Exceptionally rich and a beautiful study of love. Reading it is like living another life.
PG Wodehouse - the Jeeves series. Hilarious, perfectly frivolous, light and sunny
* Non-fiction
Stuart Russell - Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control. Potential bad outcomes from AI and what we might be able to do about them
Noam Chomsky - Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. How public discourse is shaped and controlled
Karl Popper - The Open Society and its Enemies. How to work against totalitarianism
Actually just ordered this about a week ago. Read a couple articles about him and got the impression that he shares a lot with early Christianity (and also Buddhism)
> Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time. Exceptionally rich and a beautiful study of love. Reading it is like living another life.
Haven't read the Proust but I'd say the same for War and Peace
Schopenhauer revered the Upanishads (foundational Hindu texts), and was one of the first thinkers in the West to share key aspects of Indian philosophy.
He was very critical of Christianity, and was a staunch atheist.
Bryan Magee's 'The Philosophy of Schopenhauer' is an excellent companion to The World as Will and Representation and well worth reading.
I've had this on my shelf waiting to be read for quite some time. I suddenly get the sense that it's more timely and topical than ever. Will probably start it soon.
The Incerto Series by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: where to start...I started reading this series over a decade ago and I still think about it weekly. It can be very dense to get through as I took a lot of notes. But I think it's worth the trouble. One of my favorite chapters is via negativa. This is the concept that it is easier to know what NOT to do than what should be done. Many interested ideas flow out from that when it comes to personal health, public policy, and morality.
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: this book opened up my eyes to a host of mental biases. It's similar to some of Taleb's work but IMO easier to read. My favorite chapter surrounded the idea of the self as your memory vs your experience. Thought experiment: if you could take your dream vacation at no expense but would have no memories or photos/videos of the trip would you do it?
No. The photos and videos are not interesting, but .. no memories? Further, I am unlikely to take it if I also have to be alone. Experiences are, for me, to be shared because shared experiences are the coin that connect us to others.
I would assume that at least during my dream vacation, my dream vacation would make me really happy. So 'really happy' beats 'average self' for any amount of time, even if I don't have memories afterwards.
If I could snap my fingers and appear 7 days in the future, my body having experienced a vacation but my mind having no recollection what did I really gain? And at what cost?
I've read a few other of the popular programmer books eg Clean Code, Refactoring, the Pragmatic Programmer, Working Effectively With Legacy Code, and I didn't get much value from any of them. They're not bad, it's just that they didn't teach me much that I hadn't already picked up on the job, and I didn't feel like a book was the best way to learn their lessons as opposed to just picking up what you need to know from Google, colleagues, etc, over the years as you gain experience.
The stories have actually much to teach one. It was the first place where the power of reasoning starting from a set of data-points was laid out in such a intelligent way. It taught you the importance of thinking in a logical manner. Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired by his professor Joseph Bell from Edinburgh Medical University who used to deduce people's occupations just from observing key physical characteristics. The main idea is to identify the key data-points from the mass of irrelevant data and then draw inferences using logical chain reasoning. If people actually practiced this mode of thinking then the World would be a far better place i.e. understand inferential statistical thinking, less scams etc.
As a followup you should also read Edgar Allan Poe's four short stories; three of them featuring Auguste Dupin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Auguste_Dupin) and another named "The Gold Bug". They were an inspiration to Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of Sherlock Holmes and he mentions this in "A Study in Scarlet".
It opened up my mind to a whole new reality which was hidden in plain sight.
It was written by a graphics engineer who worked on the Android team, so it has some of that insider technical feel to it. Chet writes that he tried to make it accessible to the layperson too.
One interesting thing is how Android was formed from the remnants of teams from Danger, Palm/Be, and WebTV/Microsoft, who all had their own ideas on how to do these devices the right way (and what not to do). Also the project was not done slowly and carefully, but was a mad dash to get something out before something like iPhone completely took over the market. Some of the coding specialists they needed probably could not have passed Google's interview bar at the time, so Android was kind of a company within the company, which could bypass Google's interview bar in some cases.
I am an Android programmer so the book was especially interesting to me. It started out as a Javascript demo of an operating system for digital cameras in 2003. Android became an operating system that is actively being used by three billion mobile devices by 2022. So it as an interesting story of exponential growth, in the not too distant past.
Just like learning the math theorem is practically worthless without doing the exercises (at least to me), I'll advise to just do something in the domain you want to be elevated in. Of course this doesn't apply to things you can't hope to do: for example History's lessons; Invading another country all alone is quite resource-consuming.
Having your outputs to show the outside world is quite gratifying! You're not a pure function.
Self Help:
* Craft your own time management system (and write and sell a book about it)
* Create a blog in which you ponder about life
* Try to gracefully start a conversation with random people. You never know what you can learn
* Begin a new sport, like climbing
Tech:
* Write a silly website in Typescript + React, or WebGL
* Craft a new small language of your own
* Do an HTML parser in APL
* Port a concurrent library to Zig
* Like pg says, identify things you think are the future and do things with them
Misc:
* Try to decipher a latin text just from how the words resemble the words you know
Basically just give some ressource to that weird side project idea that keeps popping up in your head.
Do the mistakes first, and only then learn the theory of what can work. And iterate back and forth between exercises and theory. Let the exercises guide what you want to learn. It'll help you deal with failures and lack of results and might even give you the freedom of being weird.
It's probably different for fiction, but I've just recently started to get into that.
- Behave, by Robert Sapolsky. Here's[1] my mini review from the past. I've also picked up various other fascinating books from Behave.
- Seneca's all of 124 letters. A good English translation is key here. Get the edition published Chicago University; translated by Anthony Long and Margaret Graver. (Related: I wrote about high quality translations by top scholars of Stoic works here[2].)
What, then, is there to prevent your believing this strength of mind to belong to the wise man, when you can see the same thing existing in others, though not from the same cause?—for what physician is angry with a crazy patient? who takes to heart the curses of a fever-stricken one who is denied cold water? The wise man retains in his dealings with all men this same habit of mind which the physician adopts in dealing with his patients, whose parts of shame he does not scorn to handle should they need treatment, nor yet to look at their solid and liquid evacuations, nor to endure their reproaches when frenzied by disease.
Just as the hardness of some stones is impervious to steel, and adamant can neither be cut, broken, or ground, but blunts all instruments used upon it; just as some things cannot be destroyed by fire, but when encircled by flame still retain their hardness and shape; just as some tall projecting cliffs break the waves of the sea, and though lashed by them through many centuries, yet show no traces of their rage; even so the mind of the wise man is firm, and gathers so much strength, that it is as safe from injury...
If we accept with an undisturbed and tranquil mind that greatest terror of all, beyond which the angry laws and the most cruel masters have nothing to threaten us with, in which fortune’s dominion is contained—if we know that death is not an evil, and therefore is not an injury either, we shall much more easily endure the other things, such as losses, pains, disgraces, changes of abode, bereavements, and partings, which do not overwhelm the wise man even if they all befall him at once, much less does he grieve at them when they assail him separately.
I love the other essay that he wrote to Serenus, "On the tranquility of the mind". I shared a quote (and a translation) here[1] in the past.
Two fiction:
War and Peace: There's just has so much life in this book. The things you read, they age with you over time. I wish I could read it in the original
Ulysses: I don't know why I like this book tbh. There's a lot of "fluff" to it, but the parts that are good are so exceptionally good you will need to come back to them. I started reading the Wake a year ago and took a break bc busy. I still think about it though: he writes about culture like it's this drunken, surreal, fever dream. It's like you read it and wonder if this is how things actually are
It's about nature, how we're wired to think the wild landscapes we grew up with were pristine, how it's truly evolved through history in response to humans' presence and it's hard to really pinpoint a baseline, and how much wildlife and plant life has vanished so far in the last two hundred years (from whatever fuzzy baseline we can arrive at).
Earlier this year, I read Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows and on almost every page I was taking notes! A huge eye-opener and felt like a missing link across sciences and social sciences. Also extremely readable and engaging.
I also found Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life" completely recalibrated my thinking about the passage of time and how I spend the time allotted me.
Software engineering practices:
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications
- Site Reliability Engineering
- Software Engineering at Google
- Designing Event-Driven Systems
- The Data-Centric Revolution
- Code Complete
- Data Management at Scale
Self-help:
- So Good They Can't Ignore You
- Deep Work
- A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science
- Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- Ultralerning
Misc:
- The book of proverbs in the Bible
- The rest of the Bible
- On Intelligence
It's a collection of books called the Biblical Canon and has been written by many authors, over the vast period of times for nearly 2000 years. Further, it contains many genres and verses with plenty of parables; So think of it more as a compiled library.
If you would like to read it on your own, I recommend selecting a translation that is easier to understand.
My favorite one is of course the Word on Fire Bible [1], though it's not a full Bible yet, the Gospels, Acts, letters and Revelation are already included and other volumes are coming; that should be enough to get you started at least.
Good luck!
[1] https://www.wordonfire.org/bible/
P.S Anyone is welcome to read it regardless of their spiritual outlook. Same goes for attending Mass or accessing various Church services and programs.
The Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver. I already knew I liked certain kinds of poetry, but never really understood why. This book breaks down metrical poetry and explains how it works.
The Rules for the Direction of the Mind by Descartes, aka the regulae.
The entire Aubrey-Maturin series starting with Master and Commander. Exquisite writing, funny, interesting, deep characters and chock full of interesting philosophy and life observations. These books are my happy place: like most fans of the series I have read them all 5 times, which I have never done with another series.
It's the transcript of a commencement speech he gave. It's really short.
I revisit it because it reminds me that everything is a matter of what you choose to think about. It's about realize that your thoughts are illusions and not becoming a slave to them.
I work for FAANG, so I struggle with reality on a daily basis.
- The Daily Stoic. A collection of snippets from stoic philosophers, tied with examples from modern living, it was a good and lightweight introduction to philosophy.
I personally find that beyond a point ( my point of course), it's worthless reading most books, the theme repeats and it then is a waste of time unless it's either entertainment or you if have a short memory.
Sapients was absolutely mind blowing and before it’s time. Many ideas in that book still resonate through the zeitgeist. Still worth reading.
- New Grub Street, George Gissing, 1891
- Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1867
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813
- Candide, Voltaire, 1759
2. The Selfish Gene
3. Podcast: Kings of Kings
https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings...
Each one of these were worth every minute of read/listen.
Edit to add: The world around us feels like it was created as we see it today. But these books and the podcast, combined, show us how we got here, where we are today. Wars, long periods of peace, pandemics, evolution, human adaptability, luck, there are so many things that brought us where we are today. It's not a given, and we can lose it all and be pushed back to stone age, or further back, if we take our current progress for granted.
Both the book and the author have been criticized, rightly in my opinion, the former for elevating the theories of a very specific and ideological branch of anthropology to facts, and the latter for being a grifter who does not know much about anthropology.
But we suppose the group who would fall for this kind of strategy is the exact audience the author was going for.
Republic - Plato
Laws - Cicero
National System of Political Economy - Friedrich List
Man and Technics - Oswald Spengler
The Bible
Stanford Western Culture class had Book of Genesis and New Testaments as part of required reading [0].
[0] https://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/stanfordtoday/ed/9705/970...
The political philosophy underpinning the stories in Genesis (much older than the Torah), is very different from that of the Babylon era when the Pentateuch was compiled. The Second Temple Era is very different from both of these. The historical context, and the political content of Christianity in Christ's era (or in the era of the early Gospels) is yet again different, and the context of the later, Pauline Christian books yet again another thing. Modern (post-Lutheran) scholarship sees each of these eras as a development or a refinement moving towards a better fulfilment of God's word, however the contemporary view was that many of these developments were revolutionary, iconoclastic, or heretical.
The Bible is undoubtedly an extremely rich historical document. However, the work of understanding its meaning and its legacy on some modern cultural and ethnic groups is not straightforward. Someone who reads widely through the Bible from the Pentateuch to the New Testament and believes to discern a single unifying philosophical theme or a coherent message to humanity either has not really understood most of it, or is schizophrenic. (Note that reading the Book of Genesis and the New Testament is a very different thing to reading the entire Bible. Many people who think they are able to comment on 'The Bible' really only know the Gospels + Genesis + Exodus, or some other subset such as the Gideon 'Bible'.)
Of course, 'Western Civilization' is somewhat synonymous with a culture that takes the Bible seriously and attributes a sort of mystical energy to it, while not necessarily honouring the stated precepts of Christianity (or Judaism). This makes the fact that the Bible is widely read and referred to something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, sometimes combined with jingoistic innuendo that people without a Christian-inspired culture are not capable of democracy, or tolerance or creative thought, or some other shiboleth of 'Western Civilization'.
There are much less obscure texts, roughly contemporary with the Bible, which discuss humanistic values such as might be associated with 'Western Civilization'. Some of these have been treated as holy by various religious groups including Early Christians, or as of a quasi-religious importance in the organization of society and its institutions. Many of these were widely read throughout the Christian era and are much easier to see as having influenced 'Enlightenment' and 'Modern Secular' values. For example, Plato's Republic. Any suggestion that the Bible is more important than that or similar works to gain "an understanding of the process of how Western Civilization is formed as it is today" just seems to me to be a hangover from Christian apologetics and bigotry.
tl;dr Placing an importance on the Bible because it's a founding text of 'equality of all man and inherent dignity of human' is no different than condemning it as a founding text of the transatlantic slave trade, or of Nazism.
I am not arguing that one should not read biblical texts. Just that the recommendation to read 'The Bible' is really a recommendation to read the central texts of Judaism, the central texts of Christianity plus hundreds of pages of not particularly edifying and largely irrelevant historical and spiritual marginalia, which were collected into a specific text known as 'The Bible' for fairly arbitrary reasons.
If the OP had said to read 'Genesis, Psalms and the Acts of the Apostles' it would have made some kind of sense to me. But dsr3's use of the fact that the Stanford course includes Genesis and the NT as support of the recommendation to read 'The Bible' is just sophistry.
Saying 'you should read every single thing Aristotle wrote, the important philosophy along with the archaic geometry and the incorrect biology' is on the face of it quite a lot less silly then saying 'you should read The Bible'.
But I would still argue that The Bible (or to be more specific in this context, Genesis and NT. I will continue to use The Bible as a term for the sake of brevity.), have significant contribution to the contemporary ideas in Western Civilization. Or at least, the thoughts that is derived from it. [1] argues that the Western idea of identity is born out of Luther and [2-3] has an extensive chronology about how The Bible influences Western thinking. For starter, directly quoting from [3], "The Greco-Romans despised the feeble, the poor, the sick, and the disabled; Christianity glorified the weak, the downtrodden, and the untouchable; and does that all the way to the top of the pecking order". I think Nietzsche also share the same sentiment about how the ideas started in The Bible caused the West to become 'weaker' compared to the original, dominant Greco-Romans values.
[1-3], and of course Nietzche, are secular source that does not rely on the claim that The Bible is divinely inspired. I also would not claim that The Bible itself is not influenced by outside thinking, especially Greek philosophy. [2] directly writes that in the Paul labors, there is a fusion between Jewish morality and Greek philosophy. As a matter of fact, these external influences is probably why the NT canon is so successful.
I also have to note that I do not claim that The Bible is 'the' contributor to the current thinking in the West, my main arguments is that it is 'a major contributor' to the current Western thought, without diminishing other texts. For bad and good, The Bible is indeed a major contributor. Diminishing the influence and contribution of The Bible to the current Western discourses seems like a forced attempt to understate the contribution of the Christianity.
And re: "jingoistic innuendo that people without a Christian-inspired culture are not capable of democracy". This is a different question for another day, and to discuss about that claim etc is outside of my circle of (semi) competence.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Identity-Demand-Dignity-Politics-Rese... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Remade-... [3] https://medium.com/incerto/on-christianity-b7fecde866ec
[2] and [3] are about the impact of Christianity on the modern world. I have never argued that this is not significant. My point is that reading the Bible is a terrible way to learn about this.
Firstly, most of the Bible is not about Christianity at all, since it was written before the birth of Christ. Secondly, large parts of it are not about anything interesting at all. Thirdly, most of the parts that are about Christianity, are not particularly useful for someone seeking to understand Christian ideas or culture.
[1] is about the ideas of Luther. Again, these are certainly important. Do you think that it was necessary for Max Weber to read the Bible in order to write the key sociological text on European Protestantism? For that matter, do you think that Francis Fukuyama had to read it in order to write that book? What about Nietzsche? If they didn't need to read the Bible in order to reason about the ideas and the mythos of Christianity, why should we?
The logical step from "Christianity (and/or Judaism) have profoundly influenced us, and should be examined and understood", to "one should read the Bible" is completely flawed, and only made because of the lingering Christian superstition that doing so is 'good for one' or leads to some nebulous form of well-being.
Have an upvote!
Can you draw some broader pictures here for the relatively uninformed how you would get a broadly humanistic view from, e.g., The Republic? If that's too broad an ask, could you draw a line from Plato (and others) to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Is something you're meant to read through out your life, not in one sitting.
>then what what what?
Meant by whom? The original authors of the Torah? The various prophets and Kings? The original authors of the New Testament? The Jewish scholars who compiled the Tanakh? The Christian scholars who combined the Septuagint and the New Testament into a single work? Pope Innocent I who ratified the choice of Gospels?
It's not a question of who decided that, but because it's a complex book. And that is also true to pretty much every other religious book in the world, where believers reach to their respective holy texts on a regular basis to study them and have a deeper understanding of their faith.
Your final sentence is simply not true. Many religions have central texts which are short, unified in style and content, written over one person's lifetime, and intended to be completely read and understood by followers with limited time and educational resources. For example, the Qu'ran.
I can appreciate why people might say this, but modern translations are not that hard, and large parts are narrative and relatively straightforward. Probably a bit of an explainer is helpful, just like any other major work of literature.
As to whether OP would find it worthwhile reading, that obviously depends. But as others point out it is the most important book in shaping Western civilization as we know it...so there is probably some value.
On that subject Luc Ferry's Brief History of Thought has perspectives on several major thought streams. I don't know how accessible it is, but when I read it a few years ago, I found it reasonable, and I don't know much about philosophy.
This does not invalidate what the GP said: [paraphrasing] that the Bible is difficult to understand and mostly of questionable value to a modern reader.
If that's too challenging (he does talk very fast, and there's a lot to take in), an even easier route to follow is Nicky Gumbel's Bible In One Year [1].
Of course, they both come from a believer's perspective - one Catholic, the other evangelical protestant - but after following them you will get a good idea of what adherents claim the Bible is about (i.e. the people for whom it was written) and then you are in a much better position to make sense of any archaeological/literary-analysis approaches to deconstructing it. Also, a visit to any art-history gallery will take on so much more depth because you will understand the stories behind pictures that depict Biblical themes.
Finally a book that approaches climate change from an engineering perspective and focuses on possible, constructive solutions.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell will ruin fiction for you, from the classic myth up to modern storytelling.
2. The Crisis of the Modern World by Rene Guenon
3. Islam and the Destiny of Man by Gai Eaton
IMO these books are critical reading in a post-modern world to make any sense of life.
Always makes me think that as a species how we come to peace with and normalize extraordinary events.
The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
Both offer a fictitious and simplistic introduction to eastern philosophy. Growing up as an atheist in Western Europe, I never realized just how deep the influence of religion on our culture, traditions and history was. These books gave me a playful look at Buddhism and Taoism, right when I needed it. Shifted my entire worldview.
Here is the start - https://brajeshwar.com/books/
Man in search of meaning
Atlas shrugged: too long winded, but popped my progressive reality buble.
Return to religion: made me see how most of our problems(depression, anxiety, meaninglessness) are caused by our lack of transcendental
Recently the bible, Marc, Genesis. But I saw the Peterson biblical lecture before, without that I would have not appreciated for sure.
I see all around me that the progressives are captured by ideologies, most cannot see clearly because their religious shaped hole almost always get filled with the ideology du jour. They tend to live meaningless lives, don’t have kids or very few, their couples are brittle, they run after money, travel, pleasures and then find out that it doesn’t give sustainable happiness.
My take is that our mind is religious even if you don’t want it to be, kind of our operating system. Better put something tested and reliable (with a few updates) than rewrite from scratch and fall in the same traps than everyone before.
As a person who hadn't finished a book in years, hadn't felt excited by a book, this reminded me of what it felt like to not be able to put a book down. It is non-fiction but written as a narrative. It was a good mix of history, economics, politics and business. I cannot recommend it enough.
It actually helped us understand the startup scenario in developing countries.
A World At Arms - A Global History of World War II by Gerhard L. Weinberg
I found it to be a shot of modern history that gave me surprisingly good context for many of current events. I really started to see world at different perspective . The author tries his best to avoid having a bias.
1. Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone
2. The Teenage Liberation Handbook
3. The Win Without Pitching Manifesto
I read a lot of fiction across many genres, but my long-time favourite is Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
To avoid evil there is nothing more important than understanding how highly intelligent and likeable people end up perpetuating it. This book is a stunningly well written exploration of that.
"Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too, Those smaller faults, half converts to the right." “ https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-first-series/circles...
To those who mentioned Marcus Aurelius's meditations, I recommend the reading of "Zen mind beginner's mind". Along the same lines of somewhat spiritual books, "Siddartha" is a classic and also Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet".
Very different: for my personal history, reading "Goedel, Escher, Bach" when I was 18 deeply affected my vision of things. Other science books I loved: "the unfolding of language" (historical linguistics) and "the world within the world" (physics and philosophy of physics).
For something much more recent, that changed my view of the contemporary world, I recommend "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling. It's about understanding "poor" countries in their variety and in a less stereotyped way, but especially about understanding that living conditions across the world, essentially without exception, have massively improved over the last century. I feel Rosling's is only part of the story, though, and "Sapiens" (mentioned by others below) tells parts of the other half.
I also like poetry, and in the rare occasions I am in the right frame of mind and focus to read poetry, it feels like a powerful meditation or prayer.
If you want to "expand" your vision of things, one thing I tried to do, and loved, is reading as much as possible books from other cultures, for example postcolonial literature. I particularly liked Chinua Achebe's "things fall apart". Somewhat related, "the moon and the bonfires" was deeply moving to me, the life of a man in agricultural Italy after ww2. The reason why I put these together is that they do something extraordinary: we are used to descriptions of africans during the colonization process, or of poor Italians after the war, but we are not very used to them being full three-dimensional characters, people like us, and stepping in their shoes.
Finally I enjoy travel books, for similar reasons. Among my favourites is "the road to Oxiana", written in the 1930s, and full of british humour. Also, Rory Stewart (british politician, diplomat and academic) walked Afghanistan in 2002 and told the story in "The places in between". Very, very helpful for understanding Afghanistan beyond the news.
I could go on forever!
It's a fantasy series that doesn't shy away from topics such as Mental Health, and all of the characters are extremely well written.
Then to fulfil the curiosity I would often read lot of blogs, articles on same topic. If I still feel that I am still not satisfied then I pick book on the topic.
I usually read around 20 books in an year and all are shortlisted [1] as per the above method. Last 3 books that I have read
- Code Breakers (I found the mRNA vaccine and gene editing fascinating) - How the world really works (To really understand that if the green future is really possible) - Natural Language Processing in Action (To understand how text models like GPT-3 really works
[1] - https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23156763-anmol-saini?s...
This book originally was for therapists, but later it got very popular and simplified for the common reader. I think it helps better than anything if you want to grow your soft skills. Because it does not have some generic advice on common life scenarios. It dives deep into the root cause of many issues any conscious living being will have. I find the mirror it holds to your face very healing for a lot of issues.
It changed how I look at the world, and our place in it. The sequels are equally as good and I've read them all many times.
These books helped me to realize that many insecurities I had where "common" in Software Engineering field. The last one is especially good if you're looking for improve your relations with people.
Before that I never really thought deeply about economics, but afterwards, it's almost like you have a deeper sense of predictions on cause-and-effect... there will always be second and third order effects (and higher harmonics so to speak).
2. The Satanic Verses by Rushdie.
(It felt like these two books have something in common.)
I don’t know where we are going but I know exactly how to get there
- Seven Languages in Seven Weeks
Career changing for me.
Fiction: Jurassic Park by M Crichton. Just for the world build up and writing
Non-Fiction: The Machinery of Life by David Goodsell. I fell in love with biology again after reading this book. The wonderful illustrations make the book come alive.
2. CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (Peter Walker);
3. Whole Again (Jackson McKenzie);
4. The Complete Robot (Isaac Asimov);
5. Outliers: The Science of Success (Malcolm Gladwell);
6. The Compound Effect (Darren Hardy).
It shows how politics works, and how there's no difference between democrats and dictators. Very interesting.
"The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.
Don't let the title fool you. Its insights aren't limited to art. And very readable.
(The title may sound gimmicky, but it's actually very relatable in general.)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
It know better understand the importance of testing ideas before investing time and money.
* East of Eden - John Steinbeck
* How to Avoid a Climate Disaster - Bill Gates
- Lewis Dartnell The Knowledge: This book made me realize the fragility of modern technology and how it is funded on chemical industry, shipping, oil, and the exploitation of natural resources.
- Peter P. Wakker Prospect Theory: This is not an easy reading but it contains one of the few understandable and detailed explanations of rank-dependent utility theory and why early probability-weighing approaches were incorrect; a must read for anyone interested in rational decision making.
- Vöcking, Alt, et. al Taschenbuch der Algorithmen: This marvelous Springer book unfortunately only seems to be available in German; it's not at all what the title suggests, but rather a book that brings the fun back to programming, like an 80s hobby programming book; various contributors lay out their favorite algorithms and techniques in short, easy to read chapters. It's like Christmas for programmers.
- Rosen Handbook of Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics (Indian Edition): believe it or not, this handbook has helped me a lot with my work in philosophy; it's also the almost ideal handbook style, extremely concise but also very understandable. Of course, I didn't "read" this book but using it for reference was definitely worth it.
- Scott Programming Language Pragmatics: Anybody interested in creating a programming language should read this, preferably the latest edition (I don't know if it's still updated, though); I'm convinced that even though it mostly covers "generation 4" languages and earlier, if more language designers read this book, new programming languages would be better; not that anybody needs new programming languages, Common Lisp and Ada are perfectly fine.
- Jean-Claude Ellena Atlas of Perfumed Botany: Although it sounds a bit pretentious at times like the perfume market is in general (it's 90% marketing of emotions, 10% about the scent), this is a really nice and passionate book about perfumery with beautiful illustrations, written by one of the most renowned contemporary perfumers. It's also surprisingly cheap and by MIT Press.
- Duff / Gormly First Aid and Wilderness Medicine: This is perhaps the best first aid book out there. Of course, it doesn't replace a practical course but it's a great reference and generally good reading if you're interested in the topic.
There was another book I read as a child in German, translated from English. It fascinated me and was the main reason why I got interested in AI and ultimately studied philosophy and linguistics. It was about the Schank/Riesbeck group or some similar symbolic AI research at the time (during the 70s or early 80s) and mentioned meetings where members of the group watched Mork from Ork and analyzed Mork's misunderstandings. If anybody has an idea which book that was, please let me know!
Thanks for the tip! Since I'm currently trying to improve both my German and my understanding of algorithmic principles, this looks like a fun book to work through.
Insightful and relate-able in a lot of ways.
For the mind:
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg - A great book on how to communcate more effectively with others.
Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman -He is the only psychologist ever to recieve the Nobel Prize if I remember correctly. This book scientifically digests human biases and errors and how they influence our every day lives and decision making. Sometimes it a bit too technical for my taste and I like mostly the first part. (its not an easy read) I rarely had so many Aha-moments.
A random walk down on wall street - For investing your income in stocks. What to do and what no to do. Simple, with facts.
Sapiens by Harari -Interesting, I remember it was a great read and fun read. Connecting a lot of dots :)
On programming:
Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann - I am failry a junior web dev, so any material that is clear and explains well is a great source of information and inspiration. This is such a book.
Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron - Teaches CS from the basics, which for me is a great source since I don't have a CS degree. I complement it with other materials from the internet (such as Harvard's CS50) for learning the fundamentals paralell working in my daily web dev job. Its a long book, so It will take a couple of months, years to go thorugh, but definitely worth the effort.
Fictions I love, without much introduction: Lord of the Rings Dune (first book) Game of thrones books For me JRRs storytelling is outstanding, the books are better than the serires IMO.
Spiritual Books:
(I am not a religous person by any means and I do not follow traditions) Spirituality for me means a deeper connection with the universe. If I really want to dig deeper than everyday work-life stuff I listen/read these books. Usually when there is a great emotional upheaval in my life or when I feel my daily distractions failed on me.
Power of now by Eckhart Tolle - This book gives me the occasional goosebumps, a great summary of all spiritual teachings (before becoming religions) in a really simple way. If you are interested in such, I highly recommend it.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - I see it mentioned here already, no intro needed.
Letters by Seneca - This book is a proof for me that the essential human experience, the core of what makes us human does not change over time. Seneca was a great stoic thinker, who is very relatable by anyone even today (and probably will be for many millenia)
Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Suzuki Roshi - All true spiritual teaching have the same source, but all are expressed differently. This is a great, simple powerful book to read if you lean towards buddhism.
A Course in Miracles (no official author) -Now this is a heavy read. It has a textbook with daily practices also. This is definitely not a book for everyone.
This one seems to have gotten caught up a bit in psych's reproducibility crisis - e.g. https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...
Coming Apart - this book described the coming separation of the US into two “classes” long before it was widely talked about. Today most talk about it as a political divide. This book tackles it as a divide between knowledge workers and the rest. A controversial take that adds much needed food for thought to the conversation. If you’ve lived poor and you’ve also lived in a place like Palo Alto, you’ll be astounded by how readily you can point and say, “that’s me”. Lots of fascinating statistics.
Bowling Alone - a great book about the collapse of US social life. Dense, lots of statistics, but a clear picture is laid out of increasing isolation and alienation. Read it alongside something like Consumer’s Republic to understand how so much of this stems from the selfishness and individuality encouraged by consumerism in post-war America.
Triumph of the City - an excellent take that can be used as food for thought when people are talking about how dirty cities are. In truth, the author argues, they are our greenest “invention” ever. Lots of good evidence. Imagine collecting the trash if every human lived on their own acre of land. The sewage, the energy usage. Cities are incredibly efficient and clean.
The Man Who Solved The Market - everyone interested in finance needs to read this and it’s precursor More Money Than God. The Bogleheads and their index fund ilk are often correct when they say “money managers all lose to an index after fees”. Beating the market is nigh on impossible for all but a few. Most of those few work at Renaissance Technologies. Their Medallion Fund has made 36% after fees every single year since 1989. The fund does its best in market crash years. Closed to outside investors. A story of mathematicians essentially building models that can predict the future reliably. Utterly fascinating, the most successful money printer ever built. As a bonus, we learn that Jim Simons originally controlled this printer and spent the money helping US math teachers. He then ceded control to Robert Mercer, who used the printer’s output to fund Cambridge Analytica, Steve Bannon, Trump, etc.
The Snowball - a biography of Warren Buffet that tells an incredible story. The story is one of total obsession. Of a human who literally started from a few dollars, learned about some principles like compounding at age 6, and applied the exact same principles every day for the rest of his life with very little deviation. The craziest part of this story is how every 10 years, he’s surrounded by people saying “times have changed, you’re missing out”. Then those people get blown up by whatever black swan, and Warren’s snowball just grows and grows. He didn’t become a billionaire till he was in his 50’s but the snowball is still growing and he’s one of the richest people alive.
Something Deeply Hidden - Sean Carroll
The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth - Paul Hoffman
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan - Robert Kanigel
Lost in Math - Sabine Hossenfelder
The First Three Minutes - Steven Weinberg
Hyperspace - Michio Kaku
Not Even Wrong - Peter Woit
The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin
About Time - Paul Davies
Time Reborn - Lee Smolin
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
The Hidden Reality - Brian Greene
The Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene
Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe - Jim Baggott
The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets - Graham Farmelo
Three Roads To Quantum Gravity - Lee Smolin
Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos - Seth Lloyd
Higgs - The invention and discovery of the 'God Particle' - Jim Baggott
Analogy Making As Perception - Melanie Mitchell
Society of Mind - Marvin Minsky
Engineering General Intelligence, Part 1 - Ben Goertzel
Engineering General Intelligence, Part 2 - Ben Goertzel
The AGI Revolution - Ben Goertzel
Hackers & Painters by our very own Paul "pg" Graham
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Steven Levy
The Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder
Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - Katie Hafner & John Markoff
Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology - Steven Levy
Ghost In The Wires - Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Deception - Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Intrusion - Kevin Mitnick
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
It's Not About The Bike - Lance Armstrong
Ultramarathon Man - Dean Karnazes
Charles Proteus Steinmetz: The Electrical Wizard of Schenectady - Robert Bly
Report From Engine Co 82 - Dennis Smith
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! - Al Ries and Jack Trout
Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries and Laura Ries
Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition - Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
Marketing High Technology - William H. Davidow
Marketing Warfare - Al Ries
The Discipline of Market Leaders - Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore
How to Measure Anything - Douglas Hubbard
Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
As for me, I can't really say that any single book was worth it in the sense - if I didn't read it, would I have been in the worse position or would I have missed some crucial and/or unique (only in that book) knowledge? Probably not.
PS: just not to sound entirely negative, I can recommend two ideas.
Idea 1: there are marks in Wikipedia, which denote especially good articles. And there is a meta page with a list of top10, top100, top1000 and so on pages. I made myself a personal project to read eventually through top1000 articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles
Idea 2: find a good in-depth history channel on youtube or a streaming service, explaining in-depth certain historic evens and the whole timeline. I wager a lot of things will turn out not quite as you may have remembered or imagined. It teaches a lot about social conflicts, wars, money etc. I can recommend a series of streams but they are in Russian. Don't have an English equivalent at the moment.