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Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

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Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#171

Post by audantin »

themadturk wrote: post #144

The Soul Of A New Machine, by Tracy Kidder - The history of computing fascinates me, and this is one of my favorite books on the topic. Hackers, by Steven Levy - Again, computing history, and especially relevant to me because I started personal computing in the mid-80s and like reading about the stuff I missed. Levy is always fun to read. There are a lot of good books on the microcomputer revolution, this one is just…

Also: On Writing Well by Zinsser. Re-skimming the first few chapters always pulls me in and my writing immediately improves.

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#172

Post by dotsam »

loveparade wrote: post #156
dotsam wrote: post #36

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. Has an exceptionally high density of good ideas. The first time I read it, I didn't love it and only engaged with it superficially. But gradually I began thinking about it more and came back to it, and I read it with more attention. After re-reading it several times I think it is one of the deepest and most important books I have ever read. It has changed how I see the worl…

I read that book and didn't take away anything from it. It left no impression. Maybe it should give it another try. Can you explain why you think it is so good?

Here are some things that I think about often from that book.

* Problems are inevitable, but problems are soluble

* All evils are the result of insufficient knowledge

* Knowledge being the result of trial and error, and there being no such thing as certain knowledge.

* The idea of 'wealth' being the set of all physical transformations you can bring about.

* The thing that distinguishes people from non-general intelligences is the ability to create an endless stream of explanatory knowledge; that is, to have unbounded creativity.

* People are universal explainers; anything that can be understood, we can understand

* If something is permitted by the laws of physics, then the only thing that can prevent it from being technologically possible is not knowing how

* How commitment to knowledge growth entails a commitment to particular moral values (tolerance, openness to being wrong, valuing the truth); objective morality

I love how the ideas support each other and have such tremendous reach (morality, politics, epistemolgy, computing). And it is written very cleanly and lucidly, which perhaps makes it easy to read quickly and miss how dense and deep the ideas actually are.

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#173

Post by harryquach »

greenhearth wrote: post #162
mrozbarry wrote: post #124

The Bible. Even if you don't care for it's spiritual implications, there is a rich history that is used by archaeologists, and many face-value lessons of cause and effect, and even recommendations on how to manage a business and employees. The beautiful non-spiritual message is that humans don't change, but we can still learn from histories mistakes.

It says "nonfiction"

Haha, was going to post this exact comment

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#174

Post by dang »

rasulkireev wrote: post #157

- Antifragile - Masters of Doom - Atomic Habits - How to Read a Book - Books by Austin Kleon I'm sure i'll remember more, but these were the ones that popped into my head. I'm trying to switch it up a little and start reading older books and get hooked so that I'm can reread those.

Sorry for the offtopicness:

I can't reply to the emails you've been sending because the replies keep bouncing. Can you try emailing hn@ycombinator.com from a different address?

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#175

Post by austin-cheney »

* On Liberty - John Stuart Mills

* 6 Meditations - Rene Descartes

I find it strange when people recommend censorship and somehow equate that to advancing democratic norms. Most recently I saw such perverted absurdities here on HN when Israelis users were justifying the expulsion of unfriendly news media. I cannot help but go back to Mills.

Re: Ask HN: What nonfiction books do you keep rereading?

#179

Post by igloopan »

nishparadox wrote: post #176

Every year, I come back to "On The Shortness of Life" by Seneca to ground myself to the fact that life keeps on happening and I have to remind myself that life is long enough if I think about it...

The historical context behind why that was written is also quite interesting (supposedly to let his father-in-law save face when retiring early).
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