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YC’s Summer Reading

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Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#31

Post by elevensies »

Yhippa wrote: post #12

Just curious, what's everybody's pace around here? It took me about a month to casually get through "Ready Player One" (great book BTW), and that was for a book club. It seems like a lot of the people I respect get through about a book a week. Either they're lying or have such good focus to avoid distractions other than books. Maybe I could put down the HN for a bit.

Right now I am averaging 1 to 2 books per week (because I'm only working part time this summer), working full time it would be more like 0.5 to 1 per week.

I find for something with a narrative structure, in a normal book format, I expect to spend about 1 minute per page -- very approximately.

For example, I bought "Night Train To Lisbon" at 2AM last Saturday night to read as I was falling asleep, and I finished it around 2AM last Sunday. At 470 pages, ~ 8 hours of reading, not that different than a normal work day worth of "effort" on Sunday.

For me, the most important thing is finding books that interest me -- that is why I would decide to spend an evening reading instead of other solo downtime like watching tv or a movie, or gaming.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#32

Post by Jun8 »

+1 for The Beginning of Infinity, awesome book that really gets to the heart of scientific thinking and process.

On a different note, I am just finishing up Snowflower and the Secret Fan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Flower_and_the_Secret_Fan). Not only a well written story about the life story of two Chinese women around the turn of the century but also taught me some interesting customs about women's lives in pre-Revolution China, e.g. being lao tongs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotong).

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#33

Post by amrangaye »

r_smart wrote: post #11
schlupp wrote: post #7

Nice, 2 out of 20 authors are women. Nothing like a balanced reading experience.

I feel like your comment would be more useful if you were to raise your concern (which you did) and suggest some books written by women you think warrant inclusion on the list. Otherwise you're just complaining.

The Imperial Radch books are a great read as well. They take place in a future in which intelligent space ships are able to control thousands of human bodies connected (enslaved?) to them, experiencing everything these bodies experience at once - the action is great, but it also explores the philosophical implications of this, in a society in which a supreme leader thousands of years old rules over all these ships and all the planets where humans live. There is absolutely no privacy - space stations attached to each colony know everything any of their inhabitants are doing, feeling, even thinking.

This summary doesn't really do it justice - the first book in the series is at https://www.amazon.com/Ancillary-Justice-Imperial-Radch-Leck.... Oh and written by a woman too ;)

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#34

Post by msutherl »

So glad "Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees" is here – one of my favorite books and the reason I became an artist ... and then stopped being an artist.

One of my most referenced parts of the book describes an entire year Irwin spent in Ibiza (IIRC) alone and not speaking to anyone in his late 20s. The insight he gathered that year really determined the rest of the career and enabled him to step outside of the zeitgeist of the time (abstract expressionism) into something totally different.

If you're in LA, you can see a garden he designed at the Getty Center. If you're in New York, you can visit DIA Beacon, which he also designed (or non-designed really). And if you ever get a chance to see his artwork, I highly recommend it.

Such restraint, such slowness.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#36

Post by emmett »

ztravis wrote: post #14

I'm consistently surprised to hear people saying positive things about "Ready Player One" - to me it was one of the most hackneyed and silly books I've read in a long time. My review at the time of reading (originally for private consumption only): Terrible modern sci-fi about easter egg MMO quest for game creator’s fortune. Childish plot/dialog, cliches everywhere (e.g. ‘L337 Hax0r Warezhouse’), absolutely atrocious…

I love scifi, and but I totally agree. I thought Ready Player One was terrible. My only explanation is that it's a huge nostalgia rush for a certain set of Gen X readers.

I really liked Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store, but I think for the same sort of nostalgic reasons as people love Ready Player One.

To each their own though...

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#37

Post by emmett »

wfoweoi wrote: post #2

> While my experience doesn’t always jibe with the ideas in the book Care to elaborate, @emmett?

I don't think my anecdotal evidence is particularly stronger than the author's. My point is just to take it all with the knowledge that what worked at google in an experiment there won't necessarily work for you in the same way. The world is complex and these things are contingent.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#39

Post by patio11 »

ztravis wrote: post #14

I'm consistently surprised to hear people saying positive things about "Ready Player One" - to me it was one of the most hackneyed and silly books I've read in a long time. My review at the time of reading (originally for private consumption only): Terrible modern sci-fi about easter egg MMO quest for game creator’s fortune. Childish plot/dialog, cliches everywhere (e.g. ‘L337 Hax0r Warezhouse’), absolutely atrocious…

It's an interesting contrast with The Martian: both are geek porn, but one says "Geeks are awesome because they might have a high-school level understanding of science which would be improbably useful if they were stranded alone on Mars." and the other says "Geeks are awesome because knowing the script to War Games demonstrates moral fiber." and believes it. (The character who established the challenges believing this is not problematic. The book believing it, heart and soul, is a knock on the book.)
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