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Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

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Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#71

Post by jkmcf »

This past week I started Ursula Le Guin's "Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume--Rocannon's World; Planet of Exile; City of Illusions"

These are her earliest, published novels. The introduction is a bit odd as the author hasn't read much le Guin including her most popular, award winning books other than The Wizard of Earthsea.

I'm not much of a critical reader, but these definitely do not have the philosophical depth (or I don't have the philosophical depth to pic up on it) of The Dispossessed and friends, but they are interesting and well written.

https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Exile-Illusion-Rocannons-Illus...

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#72

Post by jkmcf »

jascination wrote: post #42

For whatever reason I've suddenly gotten deep into murder mystery books. In the last 3 weeks I've read a bunch of Agatha Christie classics: - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - And then there were none - Evil under the sun All brilliant in their own right but the first is a masterpiece. Don't google any of these because spoilers come up, but I've had a lot more fun and been a lot more active reading than I have in years.…

Similar here! My grandparents had quite a few AC books as well as a subscription to Agatha Christie's Mysteries (IIRC the name).

I started reading her works to my daughter because she loves mysteries.

Quite a few stories are available for free at Guttenberg and, of course, Libby.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#73

Post by sarang23592 »

I am halfway into The Crossing By Cormac Mcarthy and it is a fantastic read till now. The section between the priest and the heretic has me going again and again and thinking a lot about it. I am looking forward to the rest of the book. After this the next in queue is The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky and I am pretty excited for that as well.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#74

Post by snapplebobapple »

edanm wrote: post #66
snapplebobapple wrote: post #62

Just Finished Greg Egan's Orthogonal Trilogy (it was very interesting if you like hard science fiction but want to spice it up with a universe that operates under different fundamental laws) Am about half way through "The constitution of Liberty" by Friedrich A. Hayek (it's got a lot of correct in it but is way too preachy/needed a better editor to cut down on some of the repetition. It's nowhere near as bad as somet…

I love Egan, and have planned to read more of his books. Haven't read this trilogy yet but definitely going on my list.

I haven't run into any others quite like him where the physics is hard enough that i dont get some of it, yet the stoeytell(ng is also decent enoigh i can connect with the charcters

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#75

Post by andher »

abbadadda wrote: post #7

I started listening to "The Unicorn Project" on audiobook. It is not as good as "The Phoenix Project" audiobook, but it does a decent job of describing problems from the software engineer's perspective. The problem is I need a version of these books from Sarah Molton/Steve Master's point of view (a novel about being a product manager or CEO?) to better understand what motivates that side of the org. I have been mired…

I read The Phoenix Project a while back and really liked it, have been intending to pick up the The Unicorn Project for some time now. Did you think just the audiobook wasn't better or in general it wasn't as good as The Phoenix Project?

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#76

Post by andher »

Swalden123 wrote: post #26

I’ve been working through the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, reading Stillness is the Key and Siddhartha. The SICP might take me a year.

I started SICP last year but haven't gotten anywhere close to completing, mostly because of competing priorities.

Siddhartha is great book, I read it years back and it sparked my interest in other works of Herman Hesse.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#77

Post by andher »

vidyesh wrote: post #6

The Remembrance of Earth's Past has been on my list for some time now. Will you be finishing that trilogy? Actively reading: - Mistborn : Final Empire (~90% finished ding ) - 3rd novella in The Murderbot Diaries - Dive into Design Patterns - Fullstack D3 and Data Viz Passively reading: - The Design of everyday things (I don't think I will ever finish this book) - Bhagavad-Gita as it is - LOTR (mostly a re-read)

Yup, I intend to finish it. I've heard The Dark Forest may be the best in the series, so looking forward to the next one.

How are the Murderbot books? I've been intending to pick them up

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#78

Post by andher »

Verath wrote: post #2

I'm currently reading Nation by Terry Pratchett. I have previously read all of the Discworld novels and thoroughly enjoyed them. Then last year I read the Terry Pratchett biography (also worth a read, IMO!), where it is mentioned that Terry himself thought Nation was probably his best book. Had to give it a read after that! So far it's pretty good, but I do miss the characters from the Discworld universe to be honest…

I haven't read Nation but I till now Guards! Guards! Guards! has been my favorite. Its been a while since I read Discworld, will have to pick up nation

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#79

Post by ctrw »

n2dasun wrote: post #68
ctrw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first three chapters will take you a year. The next two will take you longer. I always find it odd that no one talks about the lisp book where you write a hardware simulation of a computer to run the compiler you also wrote on.

Is that htdp.org?

No that's sicp chapter 4 and 5.

Again I have no idea why no one talks about those. They are the most mind bending parts of the book.

Re: Ask HN: What are you reading Feb 2024

#80

Post by edanm »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #74
edanm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Egan, and have planned to read more of his books. Haven't read this trilogy yet but definitely going on my list.

I haven't run into any others quite like him where the physics is hard enough that i dont get some of it, yet the stoeytell(ng is also decent enoigh i can connect with the charcters

Well not every author has helped develop actual mathematical proofs. :)
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