Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#241

Post by Japhy_Ryder » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

holografix wrote: post #205

I can’t recommend “Into thin air” by John Krakauer enough. A true story written with naked emotion by someone who experienced the life altering disaster on Everest. It’s all too relevant right now with another recent calamity on Everest. An excerpt from the opening words: “The Everest climb had rocked my life to its core, and it became desperately important for me to record the events in complete detail, unconstraine…

He does have an incredible writing style ("voice"). Compelling read, admittedly I only finished half - thanks for the reminder.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#242

Post by smsm42 » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #60

Blindsight by Peter Watts Very strong hard sci-fi with mind-bending approach to the question of conscience. And vampires (not the Twilight kind, the scary kind). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48484.Blindsight Fair warning: it's kinda pessimistic on the future of humankind. If you like it, proceed to Echopraxia. More hard sci-fi, more vampires, even worse news for humankind.

s/conscience/consciousness/ though conscience is mentioned too...

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#243

Post by british_india » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

"Cadillac Desert" by Craig Reisner.

Story of fresh water. Utterly fascinating. Set me off on an odyssey reading other books on the crisis of fresh water supplies around the earth.

"Time Enough For Love" by Robert Heinlein.

Story of a man who lives 2000 years. Changed my life and what I focus on.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#244

Post by psychometry » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

lawlorino wrote: post #143

sho wrote: post #57

I mainly read SF to relax (biased towards hard space opera) and have accumulated a "best of the best" list of my own: Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey (TV show The Expanse is loosely based on this, but IMO doesn't even come close) Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds Three Body Problem (all 3 books) - Liu Cixin Consider Phlebas - Iain M. Banks (your gateway drug into the Culture universe) Genuinely wish I could ex…

> Three Body Problem (all 3 books) - Liu Cixin These are great and helped me re-discover my love of sci-fi from when I was a kid, they are often recommended in these HN book threads. I just ordered the other 3 books that you mentioned so thanks for the recommendations!

TBP is probably the worst sci-fi book I've ever read. It's hard to say how much one should blame Cixin vs. the translator regarding the inept, wooden dialogue, but we can certainly blame Cixin for terrible character development and absurd plot points.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#245

Post by kapep » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

rdeboo wrote: post #146

jefim wrote: post #13

My to-go favorite for relaxed summer evenings is "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov. It is a literature masterpiece that magically adjusts to my current inner state. It can be both easy reading when I'm tired and just want to unwind, and thought provoking when I'm ready to be thoughtful. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/117833.The_Master_and_Ma...

I started reading "The Master and Margarita" this year after seeing this title pop up on HN so often. I could not finish it, I found it rather boring. I'm curious, am I the only one? What does everyone find so great about this book?

I also read it because it was mentioned on HN and I think it is boring too. Everything that is happening seems quite random and not very interesting. I feel either something got lost in translation or I lack some knowledge about Russian culture and don't get most references, even though I enjoyed a few other Russian classics. Otherwise I'm couldn't explain why it seems so popular here. It really doesn't help that the German translation which I read seems really theatrical and has really contrived dialog.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#246

Post by lordgrenville » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

jolmg wrote: post #230

Random book with no justification: Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume 1 by Will Durant It's in the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.61276/page/n15 The Story of Civilization is an 11-volume set of books[1], by the way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization

I got through the entire set on audiobook. It's a fantastic history of Western civilisation. We might accent some things slightly differently nowadays, but overall it's held up really well.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#247

Post by huevosabio » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

bshimmin wrote: post #53

War and Peace by Tolstoy (I like the Volokhonsky and Pevear translation, though I first read a different one that I also liked and now can't remember). If you read it casually, it'll take you most of the summer; if you race through it, you might be done in a few weeks. It's funny, it's tragic, it's moving, it's educational.

Strongly second this. However, it starts very slow, so, if you do read it, make sure to force yourself through the first handful of chapters.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#248

Post by huevosabio » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

I _really_ liked the series of A Song of Ice and Fire (the books on which Game of Thrones is based). Martin does a great job at building a fantasy world while keeping humans true to their human nature. The combination of morally ambiguous characters that follow their own motivations with the fog-of-war (in the sense of making decisions with incomplete information) sets the motion for a really intriguing plot.

In addition, although not a book, I would strongly recommend the podcast Hardcore History. In particular, the series on WWI (Blueprint for Armageddon) is the best audio content I've ever heard, and it is long enough to be considered an audio book (~23 hours of content broken into 6 chapters).

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#249

Post by anderspitman » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

pimmen wrote: post #203

doomlaser wrote: post #28

Patrick Collison, co-founder of Stripe, keeps a cool reading list with tons of books, color coded by the impact they had on him. He's clearly a voracious reader on a wide range of topics. I happened to find it yesterday and found tons of books and authors to add to my Amazon wishlists: https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf If you're interested in games / startup stories, I have to recommend Masters of Doom, about the…

Masters of Doom had a much bigger impact on me then I thought it would. Can really recommend it!

One of very few books I've read twice and intend to read again in the future.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?

#250

Post by yangikan » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

gbuk2013 wrote: post #142

Inner Engineering by Sadhguru. For me it was an unexpectedly transformational when I read it 6 months ago. Unlike the stoicism books that teach you to condition yourself to be unaffected by external events, this is a method for taking charge of what goes on inside the body and (in my case) in the mind and emotions. As an aside, if you haven’t tried audiobooks, I would recommend trying. I find that after a while day o…

Not to take away anything from your experience. Obviously Sadhguru and his teachings worked for you.

To me Sadhguru comes across as a person who made a good living for himself by telling others what they want to hear. As a person of science, I can't tolerate his 'scientific' theories which are downright wrong. This is person who said he can figure out if a food is spoiled by looking at the direction of rotation of a rudhraksha necklace held above it!

You can find more examples here: https://scroll.in/article/927625/opinion-the-disturbing-irra...