Accelerando - Charles Stross. Has the fast speed feel of "the flow" coding throughout half the book. Really good for keeping motivated.
Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
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Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#162It's hard to name only two. I'll choose two that deserve to be more famous than they are, in my opinion.
Helen DeWitt's _The Last Samurai_ (no relation to the Tom Cruise movie) is the best novel I've read in years, a brilliant tale of an absurdly precocious childhood, with several more rich tales of their own value nested inside. Anyone who finds curiosity and love of knowledge one of their defining qualities should read this book.
Vikram Seth's _The Golden Gate_ is a smart, funny and moving novel set in the Silicon Valley of the early 80ies. Astonishingly, it's written in verse, in the rhyme scheme of the classic Russian masterpiece _Eugene Onegin_ by Pushkin, which Seth read in translation and loved so much he decided to write a modern American novel in verse. His execution of this unorthodox idea is terrific.
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#163Gregory Maguire: "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West"
The other would be this 8088 chip reference book I had. I loved that book. Had all the instructions with timings etc etc Blue cover but I forget the exact name.
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#164Dostoevsky, The Double Keith Johnstone, Impro
interesting, I did improv with a group and then bought Johnstone's book, and couldn't stand it. I think because it was turning something I had been 'trained' to do instinctively into rules and analysis.
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#165These books are both ones I read as a kid and hold in lifelong regard as a result:
The Fellowship of the Ring - long before the movies were a glint in Peter Jackson's eye, this was my introduction to fantasy, a genre I adore.
The Way Things Work - I still remember the frabjous day when I understood how an internal combustion engine worked.
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#166fiction: time enough for love - robert heinlein
non-fiction: on power - bertrand de jouvenel
both are treatsies on the human condition.
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#167The unbearable lightness of being - Milan Kundera
Candide - Voltaire
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#168The Story of Civilization; 11 volumes of pure joy. Will and Ariel Durant will make you fall in love with mankind. The most humanist take on history I have read. I read them over 6 years and I still live under the Durants' spell. Exquisite and delightful read. Muqadimat Ibn Khaldun. History, Sociology, Political Science, Scientific Empiricism, Theology, Superstition, Gossip, Leadership, Trivia .. it's everything. It f…
you should probably try guns germs and steel by jared diamond, it also is a different way to look at history and how and why it has spanned the way it has over different geographies.
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#169Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (first part of the Gormenghast trilogy), because of the wonderful flowing prose.
The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, because once I truly understood the full text of aphorism 125 (The Madman, with the famous line 'God is dead'), I felt liberated. It's an extremely powerful aphorism and 'God is dead' is a poor summary.
Re: Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.
#1701984 and A Brave New World