Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read? • Hacker News Board

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

#861

Post by pjmorris » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 1:20 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #749

bobetomi wrote: post #373

Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins. He goes into so much detail about training to become an astronaut, his first spaceflight, training and planning for the Apollo missions, and talks about so many of the details and complexities of spaceflight that I had no idea about before. For example, in the early space walks, they didn't consider how difficult it is to use simple tools in microgravity and without a surface to…

> keeping himself still while turning a wrench Sounds like trying to take lug nuts off a tire you've jacked off the ground. but in space the whole car is off the ground...

And so are you and the jack!+

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

#862

Post by wrsh07 » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 1:23 PM UTC

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…

It's been a while since I read the belgariad and I don't think I ever picked up the mallorean. Thanks for reminding me about those books!

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

#863

Post by pjmorris » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 1:29 PM UTC

gjkood wrote: post #512

The best non-fiction book I have ever read is 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb'[1] by Richard Rhodes. Fantastic early history of the people that eventually comprise the Manhattan Project. I feel any person who is interested in physics should read the book. It is mindblowing the scale of the facilities that they had to build to generate a very small amount of the fissile material needed. Strangely enough, I started on (…

I scrolled to find this and add my vote. 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' is a daunting read, but it does a great job of tackling the physics, politics, project management, the difficulties, triumphs, and consequences of the bomb. I feel like reading it is part of what is necessary to understanding the 20th century.

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

#864

Post by schnitzelstoat » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 1:30 PM UTC

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…

The Elenium trilogy by Eddings is good as well.

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

#865

Post by nataliste » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 1:30 PM UTC

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #849

nataliste wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sho…

So you want to also turn away the people that dismiss Ayn Rand too harshly? So turn away the people really super into Ayn Rand, and also the people that dismiss her to quickly? Kind of weeding out the Left and Right? That is a narrow band. I've seen some pretty smart people that react very negatively to Ayn Rand. Sometimes just as a reaction to the fan-boys of Rand that miss-interpret her and have made such a thin ph…

It's not filtering out the left and right specifically, but it is filtering out the people that have succumbed to stereotypy as their default heuristic and forget that a conversation is between two humans, not simply a consumerist/anti-consumerist call-and-response.

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

#866

Post by ColonelBlimp » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 1:31 PM UTC

The best book I've ever read isn't the best book I've read but one that connects me with a particular moment: The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov.

It was the start of summer school holidays back in the late 1980s, in my teenage years. I went to my local library and, because I didn't know what I wanted to read, I decided to pick one book blindly from the fiction section. I didn't know what book I had borrowed until I got home. I had never heard about Bulgakov or that particular novel. I had no easy way to know who that writer was or if the book was good or not. I was tempted to return it. But I didn't.

I read the book over several weeks of a particularly boring (and lonely) summer. I enjoyed reading it although I didn't love it. Looking back, I suppose that book gave me something I needed in a completely random way.

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

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

#867

Post by adultSwim » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

imjonse wrote: post #299

For fiction no idea, really hard to come up with a criterion and that is great actually. For non-fiction, by far the one that had the most novelty factor and effect of my worldview probably Chomsky - Understanding Power. Not 100% because it's almost a tie with Manufacturing Consent - this one being much darker.

+1 for Understanding Power. It taught me how to apply my research skills to things that matter, as well as how to read the news.

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

#868

Post by mindcrime » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 2:46 PM UTC

aloisdg wrote: post #415

malthaus wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a better strategy would be a follow-up question on how it changed their life i'm with the parent commenter here as i find your response very much telling on how you evaluate things and frankly, more idiotic than someone's life being changed, even by the "intended" interpretation of the book e.g. would you say that everyone who liked / was influenced by reading "mein kampf" is a nazi?

yes pretty much or at least a wanna be one. Who start reading "mein kampf" beside scholar anyway?

Who start reading "mein kampf" beside scholar anyway?

I haven't actually started it yet, but I have a copy on my shelf waiting. Along with Das Kapital, Mao's "Little Red Book", etc.

Why? Especially given that I'm closer to a Randian than anything else (I really did like Atlas Shrugged although it's not my favorite book). Well, I feel like if you're going to reject a belief system, or feel somewhat at-odds with followers of a given system of thought or whatever, it's best to have some familiarity with that system of thought. It's just a matter of intellectual honesty.

I mean, looking back over the years here on HN and the various discussions that pop up around Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand. You can tell that a LOT of the people criticizing Rand and Atlas Shrugged have never read the book (or probably any of her other works) and are attacking straw-men.

I refrain from (most) attacks on Marx (and the specifics of what Hitler, Mao, etc had to say) because I don't have the deep familiarity with their material. OTOH, I have no problem saying I have enough general familiarity to mostly reject the thinking of those folks in a sort of abstract sense. The point being, one may read a work that you disagree with (or expect to disagree with) just so you can have an intellectually honest conversation about it, or a deeper conversation that goes beyond a superficial familiarity.

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

#869

Post by mindcrime » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 2:47 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #548

aloisdg wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes pretty much or at least a wanna be one. Who start reading "mein kampf" beside scholar anyway?

I read books that have contrary opinions to mine so I can understand their ideological underpinnings and mistakes. People who only read things they agree with means they're blind to the problems with it, and fold like wet cardboard when they try to argue it.

Yes, exactly.

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

#870

Post by mindcrime » Tue, Oct 08, 2024, 2:49 PM UTC

EFreethought wrote: post #186

pc86 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, yes you probably don't want to go through life "testing" people in this way as I'm sure there are some unintended consequences of doing so and you probably end up with kind of a boring circle of people around you. On the other hand, I would never want to be friends with someone who thinks someone is an idiot because they liked a particular book. "You liked this thing I don't lik…

I am guessing you have never met someone who actually did like "Atlas Shrugged". The fact is, some people deserve harsh judgement. Including people who lie to someone and think they are morally superior for doing so.

I liked Atlas Shrugged, but consider The Fountainhead a better work.