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Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

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Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

#71

Post by efferifick »

mckoss wrote: post #35
Adam_O wrote: post #25

Here are 3 that I particularly liked in the last few years: The Information, James Gleick A Universe from Nothing, Lawrence Krauss Abundance, Peter Diamandis

I was surprised to see a recommdation for The Information. Gleick seems the epitome of a rambling author who says almost nothing. I made it through Chaos, but could not get through Feynman or The Information. This kind of InfoJunk is what the OP is trying to avoid, I think.

I disagree. The Information has a broad scope, so there is a lot of content but none of which I found to be InfoJunk. I thought it was very interesting and just kept on reading.

Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

#72

Post by riemannzeta »

Great question. Reminds me of what Samuel Johnson had to say about Paradise Lost ("great, but nobody ever wished it was longer")

My $0.02:

Andy Groves - High Output Management fits your bill

Most Seneca

Robert Frost poems (but maybe S/N is TOO high for comfortable consumption here)

Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

#73

Post by __Joker »

WA wrote: post #58
__Joker wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While no doubt Guns, Germs, and Steel is a good work, I will be hesitant to subscribe to ideas it presents, carte blanche. Please see this reddit discussion[1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/wha...

I'm sure I find books to read in this "Ask HN" but your comment is exactly what's the issue with it. So the OP asks for high signal to noise ratio. There comes a recommendation, and then I read some good discussion on Reddit on how the book is actually kind of wrong. This begs the question: What's "high signal to noise" anyways? Someone who has read 10 books on a subject will find barely anything new. One who just st…

I kind of agree with you "high signal to noise" take. It is highly subjective. Most of the times, going with populistic choice seems to be way forward. Unfortunately we have very short time. Personally very liberal estimation of my reading prowess, I don't think I will read more than another 500 books in my life time.

My emphasis with my comment is to read books, ideas with healthy dose of skepticism, rather than worshipping it as gospel.

Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

#74

Post by jackfoxy »

rndn wrote: post #69
Bud wrote: post #31

Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter.

If you consider extravagance as noise, this book will have a terrible SNR. (I think it's nonetheless worth reading. It's basically an introduction to the theory of computation with fables and plenty of illustrating examples by Escher and Bach (both of which have unknowingly used important concepts from computation in their works). It is definitely much easier to read after having attended to a theory of computation I…

We have access to so much great work on the topic of computation today thanks to the internet, and especially because of work in computer languages and research over the last 20 years, but GEB was published in 1979. At the time it was ground-breaking, making work that really only a handful of people knew about and were interested in accessible to many.

Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

#76

Post by myproductlaunch »

"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini

Pretty much a must-read for anyone interested in sales, marketing, or "persuasion". However, even if you're not in that line of work it will blow you away. Lots of good examples and not a lot of fluff (despite what you might think just based on the title).

Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

#77

Post by efuquen »

cjf4 wrote: post #19

I think if you're really looking to get a sense of how the world works, the best stuff to read are journalistic accounts and histories. Just pick a subject your interested in, do a bit of googling on well regarded accounts of that subject, than go to town. The reason I think these are more valuable than the pop psychology/business airport books is they don't operate under the pretense that the world's great truths ca…

I've also been reading The Battle Cry of Freedom and it's been amazing. The analysis and insights the author can pack into every single page is just incredible. And all those political, social, and historical insights have just as much applicability today. It really has been essential reading for understanding the major fault lines that have defined American life, and continue to do so in major ways.

Re: Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?

#78

Post by officemonkey »

danso wrote: post #24

The best book I've read in the last 5 years is David Simon's, "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets"...if you've watched The Wire, half of its material is derived from this real life account of being embedded in Baltimore's homicide unit: https://books.google.com/books/about/Homicide.html?id=N8LS0b... All of Atul Gawande's books, notably: The Checklist Manifesto [1]: http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manif…

I came here to say "Checklist Manifesto!"
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