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Comment by hardik | Hacker News Reader

I love reading; to the point that I avoid buying books when I am in middle of any important projects, just get too obsessive about it. In fact I remm as a teenager I used to have "reading marathons", would finish entire book in one go sitting on my window for 12-15 hours. I used to be a fiction guy and only recently have started to heavily dabble into non-fic also.

At the moment I am reading The Black Swan by Nasim Nicholas Taleb. In the fiction category I last read Haruka Murakami's (hope I spelled it right) After Dark.

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Is the black swan worth reading? The first couple pages were fairly interesting in b&n

I have completed 2/3rd of the book and so far have found the content quite interesting. It does give a new perspective to think about. Though not a big fan of NNT's smart-alec style of writing; but then again, it is his book. :)

Absolutely. Some people have trouble with the style, I found it amusing. If you're willing to accept its message, it's definitely a book that can change your approach to life.

Also, anything by Murakami is worth reading.

So I bailed out of Swan. I got about 150-200 pages in and it seemed like he was saying the same thing over and over again, as if it got more profound with re-telling.

I must have missed something. To me the premise seems like something you could communicate and grasp in like 5 minutes or so.

I find Black Swan and its ilk perfect audio-book material. Not important or complicated enough that I care if I miss some details in one pass, but with enough ideas in them to merit passive attention while doing something else requiring my eyesight.

Black Swan is definitely worth reading. It is somewhat repetitive and you may find it dull if you don't have a taste for philosophy, but I think it's an extremely important book -- its an overview of the cutting edge of human thinking and illustrates the mistakes of past thinkers that continue to trouble us.

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