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Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

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Re: Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

#21

Post by slgeorge »

cryoshon wrote: post #7

I'm not going to list all 42, but here are the highlights: How to Read a Book (Adler) World Order (Kissinger) Der Grundrisse (Marx) The Grand Chessboard (Brzezinski) Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky) Gulag Archipelago (Solhenitzyn) On War (Clausewitz) The Hidden Persuaders (Packard) Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (Dennett) The Strategy of Desire (Dichter) Skills acquired: intentional syntopical reading, p…

Cryoshon - what's "Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (Dennett)" like, I picked it up in a bookshop the other day as it was in the 'recommended' but the title really put me off (too markety) - is it any good?

Re: Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

#22

Post by klez »

Not in order

1 - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)

2 - The Trial (Franz Kafka)

3 - Beyond the door (Philip K Dick - short story)

4 - The eyes have it (Philip K Dick - short story)

5 - Seven brief lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli)

6 - I have no mouth, and I must scream (Herlan Ellison - short story)

7 - The art of simplicity (Dominique Loreau)

8 - On anarchism (Noam Chomsky)

9 - The difference engine (William Gibson, Bruce Sterling)

10 - Utopia (Thomas More)

11 - Sophie's world (Jostein Gaarder)

12 - Rete padrona (Federico Rampini - essays about the 'dark side' of the corporate web)

13 - The art of discarding (Nagisa Tatsumi)

14 - Symposium (Plato)

And a couple of very short philosophy booklets by Zizek (about the Matrix) and Baudrillard (about 'cyberphilosophy')

Re: Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

#23

Post by josefdlange »

I've read, at the behest of my spouse, The Hobbit and the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings. As someone who was never really "into" the whole world Tolkien had created, I must say I was won over by the end. Who wouldn't want to be a hobbit? At least, a hobbit who is not Frodo.

Every year or two I give a light reading to Andy Hertzfeld's compilation "Revolution in the Valley", which is a print edition of many (and probably some extras) of the stories available on www.folklore.org

I am also midway through "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (Robert M. Pirsig) and I must recommend it. It's got a lot of philosophy in it that I think is both accessible and transcendent all at once. It's actively changing my world view.

In terms of skills acquired, I don't typically read for that purpose. I learn skills primarily by active work, not passive ingestion of information.

Re: Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

#27

Post by Lordarminius »

klez wrote: post #22

Not in order 1 - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) 2 - The Trial (Franz Kafka) 3 - Beyond the door (Philip K Dick - short story) 4 - The eyes have it (Philip K Dick - short story) 5 - Seven brief lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) 6 - I have no mouth, and I must scream (Herlan Ellison - short story) 7 - The art of simplicity (Dominique Loreau) 8 - On anarchism (Noam Chomsky) 9 - The difference engine (William Gibson, Bruc…

> Sophie's world (Jostein Gaarder)

A mindbender. I have fond memories of that book.

Re: Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

#28

Post by jdmoreira »

sohkamyung wrote: post #18
escapologybb wrote: post #4

I have just finished the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov, I can't believe it took me so long to get round to reading such classic sci-fi. Definitely recommended.

By "Foundation Trilogy" you mean the original 'Foundation' stories as gathered in the first three books ("Foundation", "Foundation and Empire" and "Second Foundation")?

I think that's what he means

Re: Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

#29

Post by jdmoreira »

"Present Shock" by Douglas Rushkoff

"Super Forecasting" by Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner

"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins

"The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control" by Walter Mischel

"Precision: Statistical and Mathematical Methods in Horse Racing" by C X Wong

"Functional Swift" by Chris Eidhof, Florian Kugler, and Wouter Swierstra

__ DIDN'T FINISH __

"Thinking in Forth" by Leo Brodie

"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" by Philip K. Dick

__ QUEUED FOR READING __

"Porcelain" by Moby

"Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari

Re: Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?

#30

Post by x1798DE »

kevindeasis wrote: post #12
cryoshon wrote: post #7

I'm not going to list all 42, but here are the highlights: How to Read a Book (Adler) World Order (Kissinger) Der Grundrisse (Marx) The Grand Chessboard (Brzezinski) Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky) Gulag Archipelago (Solhenitzyn) On War (Clausewitz) The Hidden Persuaders (Packard) Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (Dennett) The Strategy of Desire (Dichter) Skills acquired: intentional syntopical reading, p…

Do you often read blog posts? I think the only way I would manage to read 42 books in 6 months is if I stopped reading blog posts and programming resources. I'd like to know how you've manage to read 42 books

Not OP but I "read" about 150+ books each year (90 so far this year) and usually more than half of those are audiobooks that I listen to at high speed (2.5x-3x) while doing other things. The others I usually read at the gym. I don't often read blogs, but if I did I doubt they'd interfere with the audiobook fraction, anyway.
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