Any recommendations on investment books?
YC’s Summer Reading
41–50 of 188 posts
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#42I'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 really enjoyed it myself. It was a big nostalgia fest. I wonder -- are you significantly older or younger than the audience that would've spent time enjoying these games?
I'm right dead center in the middle of the targeted age group and was extremely into arcade games at the time, but everything I've seen about "Ready Player One" makes it sound pandering at best.
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#43I'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 thought it was entertaining but also wouldn't recommend it unless I think someone would enjoy the nostalgic bits.
One newer sci-fi trilogy I would highly recommend is The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. The writing is a bit different but if you get over that the ideas are really novel and the story is epic and gripping. The Dark Forest (Book 2), in particular is one of my favorite sci-fi stories of all time. My Chinese coworkers all raved about the triology and for good reason. Note: the first and second book are out but the third's English translation is coming this fall (I am eagerly awaiting it).
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#44Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#45Nice, 2 out of 20 authors are women. Nothing like a balanced reading experience.
And every single one of the authors speaks English! Talk about unbalanced! Seriously, they're just recommending a bunch of books which they think are interesting, insightful, and in many cases relevant to what they do. There is a large bias in the publishing industry in terms of what subjects men and women write about; YC has their hands full trying to bring more gender equity to technology without trying to fix the…
"And every single one of the authors speaks English! Talk about unbalanced!"
You're right though. Summer reading especially, since you normally have less workload, is a great time to explore other cultures. Most of these books seem to be of the popular kind.
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Here's a recommendation for some female authored sci-fi at least: The "Newsflesh Trilogy" by Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire). I'm not usually into zombie fiction, but this was a great series. Not your typical zombie fare... more like a political / conspiracy thriller where zombies are just part of the trappings of the story, not the focus of the story. Hard to explain, but worth reading.
I really enjoyed "Children of God" and the sequel "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell. Great sci-fi.
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#47Just finished "Ready Player One" yesterday. Fun read! Would recommend.
Spielberg is directing an RP1 movie, slated to come out in 2018! Hopefully they knock it out of the park and its a great inspiration for the VR industry.
It'll just be another threadbare cultural touchstone to kowtow at in order to win mainstream "geek cred".
Snowcrash is what shaped the future.
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#48The Magicians is a lovely book; I actually interviewed Grossman when the first one came out, in 2010: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/10/14/an-interview-with-lev-gro.... If you like it, try Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy too.
Leviathan Wakes disappoints: its plot and political economy are interesting but on a sentence-by-sentence level one wishes for more. If you haven't read it yet try Peter Watts, Blindsight.
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#49Just 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.
It depends on the book. For fiction, I usually finish it that night (I'm bad ay delayed gratification).
Non-fiction isn't quite as addictive usually and a week is about average. I usually carry it everywhere and use any free time >1min for reading (i. e. standing in line.
Re: YC’s Summer Reading
#50Any recommendations on investment books?
The Black Swan