Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

10 pointschistev29 comments

I'm currently reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and I'm enjoying it so far.

40 pages left.

Catastrophe 1914 - Max Hastings : Great book about what triggered WW1, the state of the world at that time. Just a great read in general.

The Seven Military Classics Of Ancient China : Sun Tzu isn't the only military strategist on the block.

Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry: I make sure to study at least one university/high school textbook on any subject that I find interesting.

Also, not reading but watching Professor Jiang Xueqin's lectures [0] has been pivotal towards helping me find new avenues to research and understand geopolitics .

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@PredictiveHistory

You might enjoy Dr Sarah Payne's lectures on YouTube.

Open by Andre Agassi. Intriguing to read on the struggles of a tennis legend which were concealed at the time. He provides great detail and insights. It is a great follow up from 'The inner game of tennis', speaking of how athletes, and anyone else really, can find punching themselves down through negative mindset which if overcome can unlock your true potential.

I'm not much of a tennis fan but I really enjoyed this book. The evolution of training and strategy during his era which is a subtext throughout is really interesting.

The Road is a great book. One of the greatest books ever.

"Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget."

I’ve been reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy lately. It’s a brilliant read—pure fuel for my sci-fi-loving brain.

I put on a list for similar reading experiences. For lighthearted, non-hard sify, i would try Star Diaries by Stanisław Lem.

https://whatto.space/fiction/42/

Invisible Women

If you liked Freakonomics, you will like this. It's not a rant, just one example after another of how we fail to account for half of the population.

I just finished The God of Small Things. The writing is phenomenal, but it was not quite my kind of book, so it took me a bit of effort to finish.

Just finished up the first two Game of Thrones book. Before continuing wanted to check out a couple of other books.

Read Shadow Divers which was really good. Saw it suggested a lot and it did not disappoint.

Now reading The Pearl by Steinbeck and Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor.

The game of thrones books are great. I know this is cliche to say, but the books are better than the show.

The third book is so amazing. I read the books after seeing the show, and maybe that helped me form a mental model of the world and the characters.

Such a shame GRRM likely won't complete it.

I finally started reading The Book of Disquiet, which I have had sitting about for years. Quite surprised by it, has a far greater range than people make it out to have and some amazing humor. It is turning out to be one of the most fascinating books I have read.

Cees de Groot's The Genius Of Lisp https://berksoft.ca/gol/

Giulio Cesare by Alberto Angela. Unfortunately, I didn't pay much attention to my history classes in high school. Want to catch up

Reading Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic by Ilan Pappe. Learning quite a bit on a subject I didn’t know much about.

I started reading the second edition of Designing data-intensive applications. I believe only the digital edition is out right now.

Liked the first edition, but there’s a lot of fluff. These days I have Claude remove the useless passages from stuff I want to read fast. Helps to make flash cards to drill for system design rounds.

oh cool, i didn't know there was a second edition!

I’ve been re-reading a couple of Daniel Suarez’s books (Daemon & Freedom) and enjoying them immensely.

I have read very few SciFi books but Daemon was such a fun read for me. If you have more suggestions on this space, let me know. I don't remember if I read Freedom tbh.. My memory is so bad I could actually just re-read Daemon.

It’s a hot topic right now because of the movie, but Project Hail Mary is one of my all time favourites.

The Murderbot series is excellent, too.

A brief history of intelligence by Max Bennett..I like it so far, I've learned a lot about the brain

I use Claude Opus to rip thru books. It points out the fluff paragraphs so I skip them. Finished stuff I prob never would've touched: Slaughterhouse Five, The Three-Body Problem. I make quick Anki cards from the Opus reading sessions so I don't forget plot bits. I try to get Opus to quiz me on the sections it told me to focus on reading.

I can't tell if you are joking...

They aren't. Lol

All these new accounts are so confusing, two comments all about how great Claude is...

Just finished The Road, would definitely recommend.

Flowers for Algernon

Great book. I read it first in 2022, then re-read it last year and it still held up!

Wrote about it on my blog (don't open until you're done with it!"

https://www.rxjourney.net/list-of-books-i-finished-reading-i...

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