It’s not a book, but I accidentally stumbled on the subreddit r/hfy - enormously satisfying and funny. Honestly, no one is more surprised than me about how much I am enjoying it…
Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
471–480 of 532 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#472The Wandering Inn [1], Stories of an alternate world somehow connected to a certain innkeeper of the said inn. Features extensive world building, character building, Lots of fleshed out characters, contains humour as well as serious stuff, has dragons, fae, aliens, time travel, hiveminds, automatons, cute pets, cosmic horrors, history lessons, magic, alchemy and steampunk engineering. It's a bit longish and not finis…
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#473Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control (1992) by Allan Mallinger The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (1985) by Michael E. Gerber
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity (2023) by Peter Attia
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021) by Oliver Burkeman
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#474Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
I enjoyed most of book 1, then it suddenly went "slapstick" with the alien engineers at the end. That really turned me off to the rest of the series. However, for those who have read books 2 and beyond, does the writing return to serious and deep or does a slapstick element remain?
Book 2 was my fav. Book 3 was fine but was kinda like RTJ to ESB.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#476The Goal. It's a book from the 1980's about operational management. In particular, it focuses on physical manufacturing. It's in the form of a fictitious personal tale. A plant manager struggles to save his plant from closure, and his marriage from falling apart. The lesson is about lean management. My main takeaway is the realization that when we try to optimize something, we focus on how to do something more effici…
You probably know this already, but if not: Eli Goldratt (the guy that wrote that book) wrote an equally brilliant academic paper on the same subject - I think the title was ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’. Just passing it on in the event you’re looking for a good follow-up read.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#477Invisible China by Scott Rozelle. The book focuses on rural China and it's challenges. The gist of the book is that countries generally move from low to middle income by doing cheap labor. The move from middle to high income requires a educated workforce. If you don't have enough educated workers across the board you fall into the middle income trap where you have large structural unemployment and get high crime. Thi…
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#478https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717356/the-creative...
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#479Computer Networking: a Top Down approach by James Kurose and Keith Ross. Computer Networking - a Top Down approach is a technical book, but oh boy what an awesome read it is. I've just recently obtained a BSc degree in Computer Science, and the course curriculum didn't paid much attention to computer networks. We mostly studied cryptography algos, but not really looked into networks protocols and such. This book is h…
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#480The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed. Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement…
I like this suggestion and it made me think that maybe books should be read in pairs: both on the same topic but with opposing/contradictory views.
Peacemaker has references to the laying on of hands and other religious hoo-haw, but just ignore that and read it for the interesting historical document that it is.