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Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#551

Post by jechasteen »

I want to answer this question as if you asked which book had the biggest impact on me, that I remember with the most fondness, the one I wish I could forget so I could experience again from zero.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Long and sometimes tedious, as his books can be, but the characters are so memorable. Bobby Shaftoe is one of my all-time favorites. The book takes place on two timelines, involving two generations of characters, that have interesting parallels. The audio book narrator does a great job, if you're into audiobooks.

Runner-up would be Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. His best, IMO.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#552

Post by oarla »

tb_technical wrote: post #142

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

How much one likes Atlas Shrugged may depend on age as well. When I read it at age of 20, it was the best book I had ever read and almost a Bible for me. At 25, it had some great points that were worth adopting. At 30, it was mostly a fantasy, but entertaining. At 38, it is just not worth the time.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#553

Post by dyauspitr »

tb_technical wrote: post #142

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

So you’re using a book as a political filtering mechanism. I don’t see how that particular book has any relevance to this discussion then. You might as well just switch it out with “The Turner Diaries” or something similar.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#554

Post by yreg »

cambaceres wrote: post #460
joshdavham wrote: post #446

The best books I read last year were the "Three Body Problem" books by Cixin Liu. It's a science fiction series about aliens, space travel and the universe and they're easily the best books I've read in a while. I genuinely can't remember the last time I got that absorbed in a series. I'd read until the early hours of the morning and sometimes just sit at the edge of my bed for like 20 minutes just contemplating the…

The coolest thing about them is that he solved the Fermi Paradox, I definitely buy his explanation.

The dark forest was one of the most popular Fermi solutions long before Liu's books, people just didn't refer to it by that name. Take a look at Fermi paradox Wikipedia article revision history.

I don't think Dark Forest is a good explanation, though. If you were one of the first space-faring civs and meant to avoid competition by striking younger civs preemptively, you could spread von Neumann probes all over the galaxy and either keep new civs at some technology level cap or destroy all the planets right away.

Also, there is no stealth in space, so you can just send a relativistic kill missile to any worlds where civs pop up, without having to step foot outside of your home system.

Isaac Arthur has made many videos I like on these topics, but admittedly they are pretty long. E.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlhHE2VA1ic

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#555

Post by tb_technical »

aanet wrote: post #501
tb_technical wrote: post #142

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

> _Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace._ This made me chuckle wryly... :) In a previous life, I might have been on who got along very well -- at least intellectually -- with those who loved Atlas Shrugged and swore by it as the bible of their lives. Now, with some age and wisdom, it…

I'm glad you had a laugh. That's what I was going for - and normally how the interaction in question plays out.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#556

Post by vilunov »

tmtvl wrote: post #18

' Bashō, dichter zonder dak ' with the subtitle ' Haiku en poëtische reisverhalen ' by professor Willy Vande Walle, a Belgian Japanologist. It's a translation of Basho's travel diaries with a lot of contextual information, kind of like Martin Gardner's ' The Annotated Alice ', if you've read that one. It's an amazing intellectual tour de force by one of the foremost experts in his field, and it helps that the origina…

> how awful of a language Dutch is to learn

Curious, why do you think so? As a Russian I found Dutch to be much easier to learn than Japanese, and English knowledge helps. The largest problem by far is Dutch speakers falling back to English almost always.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#557

Post by aanet »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #135
djkivi wrote: post #14

Godel Escher Bach is the best book I've read. Very interesting topics and the sheer creativity of the writing is amazing.

NGL, GEB was a slog. There is a free MIT course that covers it, and I'm glad I made use of that. "I Am a Strange Loop" by the same guy covers the same concepts, albeit without the whimsey or color.

What is the MIT course that covers this book? Many thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#558

Post by Workaccount2 »

el_memorioso wrote: post #296
tb_technical wrote: post #142

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

What happens later in the relationship when you reveal you lied about your favorite book as some weird social vetting process? It seems the insincerity would turn a lot of people off.

As someone who also hates extreme non-nuanced views, and seeks people who are thoughtful and emotionally level, I don't think I would be put off at all.

In fact I'd guess that if you really did talk with tb for a while, you would probably pick up that Ayn Rand is not a fit for the beliefs they convey.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#559

Post by jerjerjer »

lolinder wrote: post #499
cactacea wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is a bit of a misunderstanding of where I'm coming from here. Their assumption is that there is a limited subset of reasons why someone would not engage on this specific topic. I pointed out another that they may not have considered since this requires an assumption of intent that is unwarranted and in my opinion, unwise to make.

What they're looking for: > I know they can either tolerate ideas they hate Your explanation: > would note you as an idiot without comment and move on Maybe I'm also misunderstanding what you're trying to communicate, but it sure sounds to me like your motivations are exactly what they're trying to filter out of their life.

There's a difference in reaction I think. Two people can hear "I love Atlas shrugged" from a new acquaintance and one would start arguing that it's a bad book and anyone who likes it is dumb, etc. Another would say OK, but will think that the speaker is dumb.

Basically there's no way to find if someone would "tolerate ideas they hate" or not if they refuse to engage with the idea altogether. The second guy in my example looks like he would tolerate these ideas but he won't.

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