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Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

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Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#341

Post by rayalez »

criddell wrote: post #317
rayalez wrote: post #123

Here are the best books I've read over the last few months: - Lost and Founder - the founder of Moz shares his advice and experience from building a 40M/year company. I found the things he says about building a startup extremely insightful and practically useful. Reading it feels like having a dinner with a friend who shares with you the things he has learned in a very honest, down to earth way. Highly recommend it.…

Do you not read fiction or is it just that you haven't read any good fiction lately?

I rarely read fiction. I'd love to read something great, but I have harder time finding it and getting into it.

Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality is the best fiction I've ever read, and am actually rereading now, so that's one.

I absolutely love everything written by Alexander Wales, The Martian by Andy Weir, and a lot of stuff from /r/rational. Also I think that Atlas Shrugged and everything written by Ayn Rand is brilliant.

I've read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson not so long ago, they were pretty fun, but I wasn't blown away or anything.

Aside from that, I don't know many great ones, so I mostly read non-fiction.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#342

Post by founder_qw »

grinnick wrote: post #131
rayalez wrote: post #123

Here are the best books I've read over the last few months: - Lost and Founder - the founder of Moz shares his advice and experience from building a 40M/year company. I found the things he says about building a startup extremely insightful and practically useful. Reading it feels like having a dinner with a friend who shares with you the things he has learned in a very honest, down to earth way. Highly recommend it.…

Hacking growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Browne? Just want to check I'm buying the right book!

I read Traction and Hacking Growth. Traction is a great book, HG is uninspiring - too repetitive and generally is about setting up growth hacking team in your company with emphasis on "developers are important they should contribute to the growth hacking"

Traction is a really interesting overview of all sorts of channels

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#343

Post by mindcrime »

A few recommedations:

1. Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me

2. More Matrix and Philosophy - William Irwin (ed) - https://www.amazon.com/More-Matrix-Philosophy-Revolutions-Re...

3. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

4. The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow

5. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal - Ayn Rand - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0451147952/ref=sspa_dk_detail_4?ps...

6. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead

7. The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect - Judea Pearl - https://www.amazon.com/Book-Why-Science-Cause-Effect/dp/0465...

8. The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg - https://www.amazon.com/Education-Millionaires-Everything-Col...

9. The Silent Corner, The Whispering Room, and The Crooked Staircase - Dean Koontz - http://www.deankoontz.com/book-series/jane-hawk

10. Godel's Proof - Ernest Nagel & James Newman - https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6dels-Proof-Ernest-Nagel/dp/081...

11. After Dark - Haruki Murakami - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17803.After_Dark

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#344

Post by malyk »

wwweston wrote: post #34
zachruss92 wrote: post #10

For a nonfiction book, The Millionaire Next Door was a game changer for how I though about wealth accumulation. It's the findings of a statistical analysis of the life and habits of millionaires. Deep Work had the similar effects on my work habits as the former did on my finances. If you're looking for a fun fantasy read, Elantris by Brandon Sanderson is one of my all-time favorite standalone novels.

> The Millionaire Next Door was a game changer for how I though about wealth accumulation. It's the findings of a statistical analysis of the life and habits of millionaires. So, it's been a while since I dipped into this book, but my recollection was that I read the summary and intro and thought "this sounds like an analysis which suffers significantly from survivorship bias." Did you find with a close read that was…

It documents a lot of the habits that get "normal" people to millionaire status. Drive "normal" cars for 15 years instead of buying fancy cars every 3 years. Clip coupons and shop wisely (2 for 1s, sales, coupons, etc). Live below your means generally. Save.

Basically the opposite of the SV mantra which is raise a ton of money for a shot at the lottery, live in the nicest apartment you can find/afford, eat out at fancy restaurants most nights, drive a nice audi or bmw, etc.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#345

Post by sah2ed »

markdog12 wrote: post #229
Moncefmd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any good insight on how to improve the quality of said sleep? Or is the amount of sleep the determinant factor of it?

There is, but this is a good summary: https://medlineplus.gov/magazine/issues/summer15/articles/su...

Your link does a good job of highlighting most of the important things needed to fall asleep everyday like clockwork, but is light on the rituals of resolving the anxiety of not falling asleep after lying in bed for 30 mins.

Anyway, thanks for the link.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#346

Post by misiti3780 »

cncrnd wrote: post #302
misiti3780 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i love taleb but i thought skin in the game was the most disappointing of all of this books.

I could never get into Taleb for some reason. Am I the only one who thinks his writing is extremely long winded?

i think you need to start with fooled by randomness, it's shorter and i think it prepares you for the black swan. i thought antifragile and the blank swan were life changing, they're on the short list of books I re-read every year because I think they are so important. He is a huge dick, but as long as you can get over his arrogance, I think he has a lot of great insights.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#347

Post by misiti3780 »

freehunter wrote: post #285
txcwpalpha wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't second the recommendation of Bad Blood enough. I couldn't put it down. Every chapter I thought "surely I've reached the bottom of the rabbit hole now. It CANT get any crazier than this", but then it always did. Aside from being a really enthralling and interesting story about one of SV's darling unicorns, it was also really eye opening into the absurdity of the amount of money that gets thrown around willy-ni…

Does anyone have a recommendation on a good book around the DotCom era? I was too young and too far removed from the tech world at the time to know much about it, and I've had a hard time finding anything that could transport me back to that era. What were the offices like, what was everyone doing, what languages/tooling were they using, what was the feel? There are plenty of books I see recommended that talk about S…

you may enjoy this one: https://www.amazon.com/New-Thing-Silicon-Valley-Story/dp/039...

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#348

Post by satanic_pope »

professorgerm wrote: post #232
dumb2223 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I followed your advice and read chapter 9 of Rationaly from Ai to Zombies. This chapter title is "Expecting Short Inferential Distances", my summary is that if you are using a scientific language and your audience is not used to it then you should explain basic terminology. So from this piece I should estimate content with low density of information.

Yudkowsky is a polarizing writer. Some people love his writing; I do not. There's the occasional nugget of wisdom but I find his style so irritating and pretentious that it's not worth suffering through. Scott Alexander (Slatestarcodex) is related and more readable if verbose, but less focused on that groundwork material of (so-called) rationality.

Thanks for pointing towards Slatestarcodex. Loved it.

Re: Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

#350

Post by mattcaldwell »

msadowski wrote: post #60

Can anyone recommend some book about Africa? I would like to gain some insights about life there, ideally fact based, maybe some history? Doesn't need to be the whole continent as well, would love to start with any particular country. This year I decided to read at least one book a month the ones I found most inspiring were: * Factfulness - how we can misinterpret the data and how most of us have a wrong idea about t…

West With the Night, Beryl Markham's autobiography. Beryl grew up in Africa, became a horse trainer and pilot, and flew solo from Europe to Newfoundland around the time that was highlighted in Out of Africa. Her life was incredibly interesting, she had at least one encounter with Hemingway, and she was a terrific writer.
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