The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan. A beautiful and moving tale of post-boom rural Ireland.
Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
341–350 of 529 posts
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not baffling. The same anti-gay, pro-genocide themes are present throughout most of Card's novels and short stories.
Examples please.
Calling Ender's Game pro-genocide is a riot, but I guess if you didn't read the next 3 novels where Ender is trying to atone for his unwitting participation through an allegory on the book of Mormon, it works. There's Pastwatch which is so pro-genocide that it has a future civilization go back in time to inoculate the Americas against European diseases, and they successfully Westernize their technology just enough to make colonization moot. If I recall correctly in the Alvin Maker series, the main character sympathizes with the Native American population under pressure from alternate-history Colonial America. Let's see, what else...
There's that allegory on the Book of Mormon - the pure allegory, the Homecoming one, meh, might be worth scrutinizing the last bits when they actually get to their little promised land and there's fractious conflict? Betting no one really reads that stuff outside of Utah, though - I certainly can't believe I bothered. (It was a slow summer that year and my standards may have been low.) Anyway, moving on... I skipped most of the horror except for the Sleeping Beauty novel...
Oh! There's also the Songmaster stuff in which - in 1980! - had a homosexual main character who (while ultimately a tragic character) was treated with such human dignity and respect that Card had to fend off scathing criticism from his own church (and others') for doing so.
Orson Scott Card is like Atticus Finch and we're all reading Go Set A Watchman. If all we can find for either of these characters today is hate and loathing and calls to pirate books, what kind of a future are we really setting ourselves up for?
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#343I heard the owl call my name, by Margaret Craven
I get the feeling this is better known in the US/Canada than here in Australia.
I found it during an unstable time of my life and it helped a lot.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not sure how old you are, but when Bush 2 was in power the same comments were made. I'm sure there are some who complained of that, but nobody I know did. There is a categorical difference between merely having a different policy agenda (most Republicans) and outright rejecting basic Constitutional principles (ex. religious equality, free press, no torture). I didn't vote for Romney in 2012, but I certainly didn't…
I'm sure there are some who complained of that, but nobody I know did. Look up "Bush Hitler" and you'll see plenty of images. It's the American national past-time to compare our president to either Hitler or the Antichrist, depending on your persuasion.
As I said, I'm sure that plenty of people did. Fringe groups will always have extreme opinions.
That's different than mainstream news sources and even multiple historians making the comparison. No credible argument could be made for Bush (or any other Republican) being a fascist, but Trump's campaign follows many fascist criteria. Compare the results, to see for yourself that it's obviously a whole different degree:
- http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/trump+hitler/
- http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/bush+hitler/
Or just look at the facts. Bush never campaigned on an explicit central theme of xenophobia and fear of foreigners. Heck, immigration reform was actually one of the stronger aspects of his policy proposals. Yet Trump's most consistent message, by far, is that we need to be afraid of foreigners and minorities—something straight out of the fascist playbook.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#345One, Two, Three... Infinity by George Gamow.
I can't recommend it enough.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#346Douglas Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach
FWIW, I received this book as a gift. It's a fantastic book, but I probably wouldn't give it to someone studying or practicing programming or computer science today. For a high schooler with a budding interest, or for people who like to ponder math, science, philosophy and CS but haven't studied CS directly, it'd be a great gift. For a college or post college CS major, GEB spends so much of its time explaining topics…
GEB is not about learning something that can be covered in class; it is about achieving enlightenment.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#347The Count of Monte Cristo , by Alexander Dumas. I'd read thousands of books, novels, and other literature and never had an answer to "your favorite book?" and thought I just wasn't meant to ever have one... Until I read it. Since then, I've bought copies solely to have on hand to gift to people I actually care about. To drive home the point of just how much I loved this book, I went on to learn French just so I could…
> I went on to learn French just so I could read it in the original print. That is one of my mom's favorite books! Can you please elaborate about the process of getting there/how much practice it took to get you towards the point where you could enjoy The Count of Monte Cristo in its native French? Right now, I am studying Spanish and my reading comprehension in Spanish is low. It is not enough to understand somethin…
I used Harry Potter as my first Spanish book :) I recommend it!
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#348The most: Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. Think I've bought almost a dozen copies over the years. Although that book wasn't really a gift, more a loan I never got back. Others: Lord of the Rings - I gave this to the guard who detained me in Russia. I thought it was the best revenge. The life changing magic of tidying - to my partner. We're both messy. I've read it, she hasn't... neither of us have changed. 1Q84 by…
Make an effort to pirate Ender's Game versus spending money on it; the author is a notorious bigot who uses his money to destroy equal human rights.
If you're interested in reading someone's books without paying for them, I propose there are several decent alternatives:
1. Do the legal thing and go down to the local library, even at some inconvenience to yourself.
2. Drop the smug sense of moral superiority.
3. Stick up for your moral superiority by making a sacrifice by depriving yourself of the pleasure.
It doesn't make a whit of difference in the economy, but it's the right thing to do for your principles. I'll be over here celebrating having a diversity of viewpoints in literature, so git off my lawn.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#349Fiction: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón is beautifully written and I've recommended it to many people. I've gotten lost in Carlos' worlds over and over again, and the cemetery of forgotten books is mesmerizing.
Humor: Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. I've recommended this to many friends who needed a good laugh. I don't remember another book that made me laugh so hard that I dropped the book.
Non-fiction: this one's a tough one because many good books are mentioned already, but two that I really enjoyed and have recommended in the last year are: Boyd by Robert Coram and How the Other Half Banks by Mehrsa Baradaran. Boyd tells the story about a brilliant but petulant air force pilot who rewrote the guidelines of US military aviation. How the Other Half Banks is an eye opening account of how broken our banking system is and the history of how we got to where we are.
Business: again, a lot of good books are mentioned already, but two I've enjoyed are Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg and Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. Both are fascinating books that'll leave you thinking about how to improve your own game.
--Edit--
Bonus: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi is a tremendous piece. It's a short read but a must read!
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#350[deleted]