Rational Male, you will not understand it anyway
Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
271–280 of 365 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#272The best two books for engineers are 1) “How to win friends and influence people” 2) “Never split the difference” The first one will teach you how to work with people. The second will teach you how to negotiate salaries, raises, and promotions among other things. I don’t recommend many technical books because engineers can find all of that on the internet and are much more at risk of being bad at people stuff.
"How to win friends and influence people" contains so much self-repetition that it should be easily compressible to four pages, no doubt many people on the Internet have done that. Read one of those instead.
This reminds me of a communication professor I had. He claimed that, over time, professors have the ability to explain something simple in 5 minutes or 2 hours.
I think the point is, there's many ways to make a point. Communication is hard. Reading a four page overview of a book is not the same experience as reading the actual book. Neither is reading a four page overview written by somebody else.
I also didn't like Carnegie book for the same reason you mentioned, but I wouldn't dismiss it for that reason
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#273Mini-Habit by Stephen Guise. "A mini habit is basically a much smaller version of a new habit you want to form. 100 push-ups daily is minified into one push-up daily. Writing 3,000 words daily becomes writing 50 words daily. Thinking positively all the time becomes thinking two positive thoughts per day. Living an entrepreneurial lifestyle becomes thinking of two ideas per day (among other entrepreneurial things). Th…
This idea sounds like “tiny habits”, elaborated in the book by BJ Fogg? Have you read both? If so which would you recommend?
There's also atomic habits.
It seems authors were in search of the smallest habit possible. Probably smaller = easier for readers searching for shortcuts to build willpower
Can't wait for subatomic habits!!
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#274Since someone’s done Hofstadter — Italo Calvino Le Città Invisibili or Invisible Cities. It’s a novel about complexity and civilisation and the difficulty and intangibility of memories, history and storytelling. It’s told in a series of 55 miniatures, each about a city that reveals some aspect of human experience. It’s like nothing else and utterly brilliant.
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#275Maybe not for all but, Bhagavad Gita: As it is. Do not read the explanation which are biased to god and religion. But you can definitely read the stanzas. The idea that we are actor whose duty is to act is a powerful concept, especially when you are feeling low. The book also has some egoistic stuff like "I am god, obey me." But once you filter some of these, you see bigger picture.
Is there a particular version you'd recommend? I tried an online one a long time ago, yet found it hard to read and gave up.
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn’t say it was an easy read. For good or for bad - those books require efforts. But once you dig to at least 1% of the stories and ideas - you save weeks skipping tons of shallow books out there.
Reading something unenjoyable just for the sake of not having to read something else that you might enjoy doesn’t sound like a particularly compelling reason to read the first book. Besides, if all you’re trying to do is compress lessons in story writing then you’re better off skipping the Bible and picking up a collection of kids stories - particularly for ages 6 and below because those will often also follow the sa…
I don’t enjoy a book that has nothing new to say to this world, just a waste of paper/bytes.
Thanks to the bible, i can focus on and admire the rest 1% of truly worthwhile books.
In other words it makes me better prepared as a reader, as I did my homework
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#277Anna Karenina would be my recommendation. I had a lower oppinion on novels in general before reading this, but Tolstoy is just phenomenal with his characters.
It made me realize how great books should help improve your empathy towards others, and being more understanding to behaviour you'd normally just vilify.
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#278Medicine Stories by Aurora Morales. Refuses to accept the narrative of the colonizers, oppressors, slavers, winners of wars, and rewrites it, calling things and events by their real names. Pulls the veil of lies and delusions. Gives voice to the people who survived and endured. Exposes the methodologies of propaganda and oppression and offers roadmaps of healing from the normalized violence of poverty, racism, coloni…
> calling things and events by their real names
How are the real names determined?
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Religious myself. Agree that having a modern translation can make a great difference in readability. I've read parts of the King James translation, and the language makes it a though read. Personally I enjoy this translation: https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/ I read it in Dutch, but it's available in multiple languages.
You are right KJV isn't easy understandable ... the NWT is easy to read
NWT also contains small changes to accommodate the Russellites' belief system.
I don't even speak English natively and can read KJV. I guess it just isn't more difficult than reading in foreign language in general.
Update: Samuel Johnson's dictionary helps with word definitions from 18th century. Noah Webster's dictionary is good too.
Re: Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
#280I’m vulnerable to recency bias. The books that my recent life has pivoted on are Die Wise and Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson. Both books are journeys that bedevil any effort to summarize. I highly recommend listening to the author read them as audiobooks - the words move too quickly on the page, and the author is kindling a modern spoken tradition. The early going to Die Wise was difficult, but my mind gave way to curiosity and they stole my heart and mind away from the rat race.