Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
441–450 of 529 posts
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#442I give Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to High School graduates. It's a good book for that time in a person's life.
+1, but gave it to a someone who was quitting his job and about to take on an entirely new career
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#443Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
+1
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#444Nonfiction:Global Brain, Fiction:Robinson Crusoe. A handful of poetry (rumi) and philosophy books over the years too.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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!
Yes! Rereading a (good) book you've already read is an excellent learning technique. (Mine was Dune.) Your foreknowledge provides plenty of context, something which is often lacking in more artificial exercises.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#446I've given Alan Watts The Book to at least five people I thought could use it. Four of them never mentioned it again. I'm marrying the fifth next month.
heh. I tried to get my friends into Jiddu Krishnamurthi but unfortunately people in the west seem to have a pavlovian revulsion to eastern 'guru's from the east nowadays. There seems to be some sort of strange obsession with applying the scientific method to psychological issues. Bunch of my friends started meditating because it is 'scientifically proven' to make them happy, make them rich, make them have good sex or…
I am glad to see somebody mentioning Jiddu Krishnamurti here.
He is the most underrated and forgotten person, mainly due to his own insistence, but he made a tremendous difference to some lives. I've come across his books almost twenty years ago, I haven't read any of his books in years now, but his teachings(insights he shared, because he wouldn't like to be called a teacher ) are so well ingrained that I am reminded of them every day.
Similar to the OP of this thread, I didn't marry a person who said he finds his teachings dry :), I am now happily married to my spouse for twelve years who humbly says it is too difficult to really understand Jiddu.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#447The Dark Side of Camelot, by Seymour Hersh. A very, very interesting treatment of the Kennedys.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#448"Ishmael, An Adventure of Mind and Spirit" by Daniel Quinn. The book that created and destroyed the Turner Tomorrow Foundation Fellowship Award. It will make you examine some of the most profound myths at the center of our civilization and how those myths will determine our destiny, for better or for worse. It's a book that changed the way I think fundamentally. I will never be the same because of it.
Curious about that "created and destroyed" bit. I found this at NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/05/books/judges-in-turner-awa...
I think Quinn's win and the controversy Styron stirred up afterward shut down the award. After all, there were 2500 manuscripts to start with. Quinn's next novel, The Story of B addressed some of the criticism Styron (and others) had. I think it might be even better than Ishmael because of it.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#449The Player of Games , by Iain M. Banks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games
I'm a fan of Iain M. Banks and have gifted this one. It reminds me a lot of Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game.
Re: Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 1. Do the legal thing and go down to the local library, even at some inconvenience to yourself. How the fuck is that any different than my torrenting the epub and reading it on my iPad? The exact same words, read by the exact same person, for the exact same amount of value transferred between the exact same people. Stop it with this meaningless worship of the fiction of intellectual property. PS: Downloading conten…
Stop acting like you have some sort of right to access content that you don't own or have not acquired though methods that the author has authorized.
To answer your question regarding library ... libraries have a limited number of copies (versus the unlimited digital pirated copies) thus still creating a supply a demand market that may have some people decide to simply purchase if there is a long wait list for a popular title.
>PS: Downloading content for which you lack a license is not illegal.
That depends on where you live ... however morally it's wrong no matter where you are.
>Stop it with this meaningless worship of the fiction of intellectual property.
Those who create works have the option of controlling the licensing ... same as with software, hey can open source, close source, public source etc... the point is they have the choice... if you can't respect the decisions of those who license under licenses you don't personally agree with how can you expect anyone to respect works licensed under licenses that you do approve of.