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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?

#721

Post by tdeck »

tb_technical wrote: post #426
jachee wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cordial or not, I certainly wouldn’t want to be friends with someone sociopathically “testing” me like that. It’s literal anti-social behavior.

No one deserves to be friends with anyone, actually - it's something two people decide mutually. To see it any other way reeks of entitlement.

Folks aren't reacting negatively because they want to be OP's friend, they're reacting negatively because OP makes a practice of lying to people about something inconsequential in order to try to provoke them as a form of test. That's not the way most normal people think about building personal relationships. We don't go around deliberately setting traps for others.

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

#722

Post by jrflowers »

tb_technical wrote: post #691
jrflowers wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stopped clocks and all that. It’s the fundamental point of the entire story. Like it is literally the thesis of the 1000 page book. Guy figures out that there are two tiers of people, good or smart or whatever (John Galt, you) and less good or smart or whatever (me, your childhood friends (???)), and the way to address this is for the Smart Goods to protect themselves from the Dumb Bads through their wily tricks. I…

Yeah as I've said before - don't remember much of the book. But freedom of association isn't exactly a concept the rand lovers have a monopoly over.

So to clarify here, you don’t know what the book is about — but you are confident enough in your knowledge of the Correct Feelings a person should have about it — that you hang the futures of your social interactions on that calculus?

Of course Rand lovers don’t have a monopoly over freedom of association. That said, doing something that looks antisocial and silly from the outside and then responding to the lightest of scrutiny by explaining that you have to isolate yourself in order to protect yourself categorically from anyone that might criticize you (to quote you: “But, really, what really annoys me about what people like you…”) is… a trope. It’s what every Rand protagonist does because she was not a good writer. It is somehow also the sort of thing that people that read and enjoy her books tend to seek to emulate in real life.

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

#723

Post by dyauspitr »

tb_technical wrote: post #676
dyauspitr wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pretty much, yeah. Any controversial political book will do.

Well how far do you want to go? Saying it’s the turner diaries means you’re left with a peer group that are only potentially violent, white supremacists.

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

#724

Post by Rendello »

namlem wrote: post #707
Rendello wrote: post #242

There are 2 books that have fundamentally shifted my thinking: - The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics . This has been covered by CGP Grey and now has a Netflix adaptation, so I figure it lies well within the HN Zeitgeist already. There's a lot to debate in this book, but I fundamentally didn't understand political power before reading it. - Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of…

Dictator's Handbook completely changed how I think about politics. Strongly second that one.

Here's CGP Grey's short version for those who want the broad strokes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

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

#725

Post by feoren »

edanm wrote: post #662
_gabe_ wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reading the mistborn books right now. I was up until 2 in the morning finishing the first book in the trilogy the other night. These books are fantastic!

I'm pretty much required by law to tell you that his other books are also fantastic, and that if you like Mistborn, you should (after completing the trilogy) try The Stormlight Archive. Kidding aside, Sanderson is by far my favorite author, and his fantasy books are honestly some of the greatest books I've ever read. And I read a lot . I highly recommend finishing the Mistborn trilogy, and then reading some more :)

I loved Mistborn, and I heard great things about The Stormlight Archives, but to be honest, I found that they have very different pacing. My biggest gripe with most fantasy books is that you can suddenly realize that you've been reading for 100 pages, and nothing has happened. The Stormlight Archives has that problem in spades. I got about 1/4 into the 2nd book before I suddenly realized absolutely nothing at all had happened since about halfway through the 1st book. It just dragged on way too much for me. Mistborn 1 didn't drag at all; 2 and 3 did a bit but not egregiously.

I've made the argument before that A Song of Ice and Fire doesn't have a particularly high rate of character death. It's just that things actually happen in those books. I think that's why they're so loved: not because they're the best writing, or the best world, or the best characters, but because things happen, every single chapter. Character deaths are high per page, but not high per actual story event that happens. In the Stormlight Archives, it felt like after 1.25 books, each major character had had about 2 major plot events. Way too slow pacing for my taste.

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

#726

Post by nataliste »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #635
tb_technical wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have considered it. I generally don't like people who fly off the handle immediately. I really like your radar analogy

I think you are missing point, not everyone is up for an inquisition at every new meeting. Using this method, people that agree with you might just move on, because they don't feel like probing you. You are turning away people that would agree with you just because they don't want to argue with you. You also haven't given any reason for them to even try'. Or better example: Person 1: I like Atlas Shrugged (secretly d…

I don't see how this isn't the filter still working. A polite end to the conversation and self-selection is just as useful to me as being scolded.

I've used the same test (simply reference Ayn Rand in a non-disparaging context when topical) and it's fantastic what the results are as far as actually finding independent, open, and prosocial people.

There's a narrow band of people that will actually give Rand a fair shot and treat her objectively without also mentioning that they're also in Mensa and into Agorism (the opposite and ironic red flags of slavishness to Objectivism).

With that narrow band of people you can have any conversation and explore any topic because they have their own thoughts! And I'd rather discover who is and isn't a member of that set early on.

In short, not a bug, will not fix.

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

#728

Post by matrix87 »

mikhmha wrote: post #697
matrix87 wrote: post #421

Probably Brothers Karamazov I didn't really understand what it was trying to tell me when I first read it, the ideas just sort of ruminated. I read it when I was either 19 or 20, was completely at odds with who I was then but helped me grow as a person The way that we think about individual agency and self-interest in modern society is at odds with what our emotional needs are. He makes this point in many of his book…

I read it this year. I loved it. I think if I read it a few years earlier it would be totally lost on me. For my self what I found interesting is the depiction of Russia in the 19th century, and the on-going transition from a peasant agrarian society into "modernity" and all the confusion it creates. I am not Russian, yet it all seemed so familiar to me. Why? Because I think this same transition is going on in my eth…

I just remembered, Irvin Weil has a bunch of Dostoevsky lectures for free on YouTube. He provides a lot of good info and speaks really well. A lot of it is biographical and historical context

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

#729

Post by nataliste »

tdeck wrote: post #721
tb_technical wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one deserves to be friends with anyone, actually - it's something two people decide mutually. To see it any other way reeks of entitlement.

Folks aren't reacting negatively because they want to be OP's friend, they're reacting negatively because OP makes a practice of lying to people about something inconsequential in order to try to provoke them as a form of test. That's not the way most normal people think about building personal relationships. We don't go around deliberately setting traps for others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consensus_effect

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

#730

Post by TheFlyingFish »

m463 wrote: post #694
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #362

These threads often end up, with everyone trying to prove they are literary scholars. I prefer junky fantasy books. I'm really too old and cynical to give a damn what y'all think of me. I probably liked David Edding's Belgariad series, along with the Mallorean series, the most. I reread them, regularly, and go through all ten books, in a couple of weeks. They are an easy read. Also, Glen Cook's Black Company books ar…

> I prefer junky fantasy books. Kindle books like that are what fill in the gaps in my free time. One recent fantasy series I liked was The Good Guys/The Bad Guys by Eric Ugland. Somehow kept me turning pages. some others (not fantasy) Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey; Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin; But sometimes there is a lot of dreck to wade through. Been thinking of making a "stop reading and…

The problem with a "kill list" like that is that most of these overused tropes are overused because originally, they worked really well. E.g. if you strictly followed the first item on your list, you'd miss out on the Belgariad, which is really quite good (in my opinion, and that of the GP poster, at least. I'm personally less sold on the Malloreon, it's a bit too much of a retread for my taste.)

That said, I do agree that too many red flags like that and I will put down a book. And some are stronger than others; I'm 100% with you on the harem thing because any book like that is most likely just an excuse for all the sex scenes.

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