291–300 of 396 posts
Sapiens/Homo Deus - History of Humankind. Also goes into topics of how money came to be and evolved over time. Homo Deus is the follow up book by the same author which focuses on humanity’s future. Shoe Dog - Nike founder Phil Knight shares the story of the company’s early days. Chasing the Scream - History and impact of drug criminalisation (War on Drugs). The author describes the War on Drugs (mostly in US but also…
I feel like I am an official promoter for this book on HN but I most certainly am not. The book, Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is one of the most interesting books I had read. I read many books after that but nothing left me with same sense of joy and knowledge and hope. Please consider taking a look at the book. It is amazing.
2. Bad Blood - Just started it and it reads like John Grisham
3. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaur - Narrative about dinosaurs, I’m excited
4. Cork Dork - Great book about wine and Sommeliers
5. Waterloo: The History of Four Days - Everyone talks about Napolean’s defeat, but I honestly know nothing about it.
"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace.
Great read on consumerism, escapism, and the funny things that people seem to do on cruise ships.
Also just started keeping a public kanban board of my book backlog and wondering if others do something similar? I'd be curious to know how others organize their book lists and peaking through to find new things to read. https://github.com/davidsantoso/books/projects/1
Not quite a book but definitely a long essay. "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace. Great read on consumerism, escapism, and the funny things that people seem to do on cruise ships. Also just started keeping a public kanban board of my book backlog and wondering if others do something similar? I'd be curious to know how others organize their book lists and peaking through to find new t…
I have a sort of meta-question, Specifically about non-fiction work: if one gets the central idea contained in the book (say, from a blog or Podcasts or YouTube video of author explaining the ideas) - Is it still useful to read the entire book? If a book is fundamentally about “ideas” — aren’t there more efficient ways available today (that were not pre-internet) to learn those ideas more quickly? As an example: Ther…
I think this depends how you value your time, and how you feel about reading. I personally feel that the point of reading is not simply about understanding the fundamental ideas those books are about. More important is to do something you enjoy, and if you don't enjoy reading that much, going with the more efficient way is most likely the better way to go.
2: High Performance Browser Networking. Really explained a lot of modern networking. I was already familiar with the basics of the OSI stack, but this explained a lot of newer ideas, optimizations, and HTTP2. Really comprehensive guide to how the internet works.
3: The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein): A history of how the CIA has shot down democratic regimes to enforce small-government-free-market policy in developing countries when these policies are rejected in polls. Explains a lot of the crises in Latin America and Russia.
'Malazan: Book of the Fallen' by Steven Erikson (that is actually 10 huge books). I've only read 2 books and a half so far and it is brilliant! I'm not a big fan of fantasy books (prefer hard sci-fi), but Malazan just blew my mind. One of the best things I've ever read. Not an easy read though, be prepared!
I tried reading the 1st one of the series (Gardens of the Moon) not once but twice. Both times I was quickly bored and did not make it past page 50. The book (at least in its first pages) is filled with boring descriptions and uninteresting events. I've heard good things about it (along with that it won't be an easy read as you say) however I don't want to torture myself reading boring stuff for like 1000 pages until…
1. Measure What Matters - John Doers book about OKR’s is awesome, best business book since Lean Startup 2. Bad Blood - Just started it and it reads like John Grisham 3. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaur - Narrative about dinosaurs, I’m excited 4. Cork Dork - Great book about wine and Sommeliers 5. Waterloo: The History of Four Days - Everyone talks about Napolean’s defeat, but I honestly know nothing about it.
In addition, the book is one content chapter, followed by a few success stories chapters written by founders themselves. These chapters are written in a very uninspired tone (almost as if they wanted to write something and get it done for JD, not because they wanted to share their story) and barely inspire you or bring in any new insights over the meatier content chapters.
This is not a criticism of the OKR system — arguably it's one of the best goal setting systems out there. But does it need a whole book to understand? I think not. It just seems to be a vastly missed opportunity to me. John Doerr is pretty much a legend in the valley, and maybe my expectations were sky high hoping for a book on the same level as High Output Management or Hard Things About Hard Things.
[1]: https://library.gv.com/how-google-sets-goals-okrs-a1f69b0b72...