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The Best Books I Read in 2015

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Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#71

Post by Joeri »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #56
Negitivefrags wrote: post #7

I'm always sad that lists like this from tech people never contain any fiction. I have often seen the sentiment that everything you read should have some kind of educational value or it's just a waste of time. Does Bill Gates not read fiction? Perhaps he understands that he would be looked down on if he were to include some in his list.

I feel like I can get my fix of fiction via TV and movies which is probably close to one hundred hours per month, perhaps more. More fiction is not what I need right now. I suspect most people's media consumption follows mine. Books are great for learning while TV/movies are great for storytelling. Yes, I understand the benefits of the novel, but its value proposition for me from a time perspective is very poor, espe…

Movies are for short stories, but they remain superficial. I like reading fiction because it takes me on a journey through a world. It's always a bit sad when a great book ends, because it means saying goodbye to a world. Trying to read a good book faster is like trying to receive a backrub faster, it makes no sense. The whole point of a book is going slow.

I used to read a lot of non-fiction but mostly stopped when i realised a year down the line i retained very little, and i wasn't actually enjoying the read.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#72

Post by davidw »

tlrobinson wrote: post #63
davidw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with affiliate links if you're a regular user of this site: we're capitalists here. I make sure to include them if I link to a book, because I could use the money more than Jeff Bezos. Of course, I don't link to stuff just for the sake of linking to it, but only do so if I would have anyway. I think it's pretty clear whether someone is a spammer or not. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hullo seems t…

Perhaps, but taking a famous person's list of books and reposting it with affiliate links and no disclaimer is definitely crossing the line in my book.

Don't think I might have upvoted it, but it does represent a minor convenience.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#73

Post by jbuss »

maaaats wrote: post #39
jbuss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Goodreads top books list is just a popularity contest. People vote for the books they recognize.

And that is bad why? At least for me, it's a bigger chance that I would enjoy a book from that list than from a list made by some professional critic.

It's not necessarily bad, but "best" books should be judged on rating, not recognition. With this rating system a book with 1000 reviews rated at 3.5 stars would score higher than a book with 500 reviews rated at 4.5 stars.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#74

Post by ar-jan »

wodenokoto wrote: post #50
ar-jan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Here's a Radio Yerevan take on Brooks' writings, from Language Log: > Question to Language Log: Is it correct that if you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing, while if you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim? > Answer: In principle, yes. But…

I don't know anything about this guy or what he advocates, but what was David Brooks message or point in his apparently mostly made-up comparison between American and Chinese students observation habits?

I haven't read much of his writings, but recurring themes are "youth today" (e.g. people used to be more humble than they are today), or how western culture is doomed.

He seems to be very careless with how he handles the facts from studies he references.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#75

Post by molsongolden »

ThrowayAccount wrote: post #69

I was once berated for posting a blog article on how to build a multitude of data structures, in 3 different programming languages. The reason for this was because "This is hacker news, and this article is first year computing science stuff." - Yet Bill gates reads a book about Richard Nixon, and suddenly it is the top item on here, even though it is in no way related to anything technical. I'm out, this place is mos…

It might be that people see this headline and are interested in returning later to skim the book list and all of the other lists linked here in the comments.

Upvoting Bill's book list might not mean they like his list, think it belongs at the top of HN, or that they even read the blog post. The top-of-front-page ranking could just be the result of a large number of readers upvoting in order to have the discussion show up in their "saved stories".

edit: A "save story" button that is independent of the voting/ranking mechanism might actually change the front page significantly.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#76

Post by [deleted] »

nostromo wrote: post #49
ar-jan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Here's a Radio Yerevan take on Brooks' writings, from Language Log: > Question to Language Log: Is it correct that if you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing, while if you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim? > Answer: In principle, yes. But…

That's a pretty lame critique. It seems they're purposefully reading the wrong study, since there is another study that focuses on Chinese students and backs up Brooks' article. http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1995-... http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/x/nxy906/COMPS/CLT/cul... (full text)

[deleted]

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#77

Post by ar-jan »

nostromo wrote: post #68
ar-jan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The critique is of how Brooks handles reporting facts in general. The joke I quoted is based on a specific example Brooks gave, which is traced to its original source (Brooks mentioned one of the authors, Nisbett - see http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=478 ). I linked to the other page because it contains links to about a dozen other posts looking into Brooks' writing. There might be other evidence supporting h…

Read the column. He's very obviously talking about multiple studies. The Nisbett study was about farm animals, not fish. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html > When the psychologist Richard Nisbett showed Americans individual pictures of a chicken, a cow and hay and asked the subjects to pick out the two that go together, the Americans would usually pick out the chicken and the cow.

I meant that Nisbett's name was mentioned in the column (regarding the farm animals, yes), and that this allowed the study with underwater scenes to be found, namely http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11708567.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#78

Post by extesy »

legohead wrote: post #65

If you like fantasy, there are three series you need to read: The Blade Itself (3 books) The Kingkiller Chronicle (waiting on third and final book) The Stormlight Archive (waiting on third and final book)

The Blade Itself (3 books)

There are 3 more books which read like sequels (same world, same heroes).

The Kingkiller Chronicle (waiting on third and final book)

We've been waiting for years and still no information if this book is even in the works

The Stormlight Archive (waiting on third and final book)

Ten books are planned in the series. See wikipedia for reference.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#79

Post by mturmon »

maaaats wrote: post #39
jbuss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Goodreads top books list is just a popularity contest. People vote for the books they recognize.

And that is bad why? At least for me, it's a bigger chance that I would enjoy a book from that list than from a list made by some professional critic.

Speaking for music best-of lists, as compiled from votes of critics: I've found these lists are not very helpful in finding music I actually care about. It's frustrating, because there seems to be so much utility there.

I've explained it like this: To get on the list, something has to be considered at-least-good by a lot of people, and this tends to reward (1) herd mentality; (2) lowest-common-denominator. The list selects against anything in any niche, even when it's excellent.

As I look back through music that has meant a lot to me, there is just not much overlap with best-of lists.

Note: I'm talking about critics-vote, pooled, best-of lists. Single-critic best-of lists don't average out niche tastes and, for the right critic-listener match, can be very helpful indeed.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#80

Post by r00fus »

jacalata wrote: post #53
r00fus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that Amazon acquired Goodreads in 2013. The integration makes the Amazon "best of" more likely to be aligned with Goodreads.

Do you have any evidence of that, or are you just saying 'of course Amazon must have done something'? I use goodreads and haven't noticed any changes that would cause that.

I have - mainly for Audible - I've noticed some commenters noting how there's only interest in a given book (in this case, the Arawn Cycle) because Audible did a sale on the series.

Why did Amazon purchase Goodreads?

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