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YC’s Summer Reading

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Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#141

Post by facepalm »

e12e wrote: post #126
facepalm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pullman is another one for the Christians, I suppose. If you are not religious, it seems unlikely to me that you would enjoy it (I didn't).

I'm an atheist and a big fan of both His Dark Materials and Narnia . Why wouldn't an atheist enjoy religious art? That's millennia of human creativity you're throwing on the fire.

I enjoyed Narnia, but found His Dark Materials unbearable. It's been a while since I read it, though, don't remember the specifics. The soul mate with animal spirit thing just seemed Christian to me - stunned that it is supposed to be an atheist book, as another comment mentioned.

So I am not opposed to religious art. A bit tired of the "chosen one" theme in fantasy, but other than that, I tend to just view it as an expression of human yearning.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#142

Post by facepalm »

schlupp wrote: post #131
facepalm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can recommend more female authors on par with, say, JK Rowling, Fred Vargas, Neil Gaiman or Patrick Rothfuss, I'd be happy to read them. It's hard enough to find good books, worrying about the author's gender is very pointless. Especially since I am not interested in women's issues, which nobody should be obliged to be.

Right, noone should. Except people who decided not to be obnoxious ignorant douchebags.

So do you have any good books to recommend, or not?

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#143

Post by prawn »

mindcrime wrote: post #17
r_smart wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

Haven't read her stuff myself, but a friend was enthusiastically recommending Margaret Atwood the other day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood#Novels

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#144

Post by bcd_ »

ryanSrich wrote: post #139
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.

I shot for 1 book per month last year and got through maybe 9.5. This year I've been more productive and have hit 12 already. Granted some of the reads I've done have been small (like the MIT essential knowledge series).

Would you recommend the MIT essential knowledge series?

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#145

Post by tgb »

sn9 wrote: post #109
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.

If you set a goal of about 50 pages per night, you'd be surprised how much you can read.

How fast do you read that though? I'm like the grand parent post, 50 pages is an onerous commitment, something I'll only get done if I'm really really into a book and have nothing else to do that day, or am stuck on a plane. It'll take me around eight hours of reading to finish a short young adult book, for example.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#146

Post by Animats »

I notice that "The Intelligent Investor", by Benj. Graham, is on the list. This is the light version of his "Securities Analysis", which is all about value investing. It's how Warren Buffett did it in the early years.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#147

Post by Animats »

uola wrote: post #45
cperciva wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Read Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Pikkety. That was originally in French. Anybody associated with money should read this.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#148

Post by Animats »

bolasanibk wrote: post #107
facepalm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can recommend more female authors on par with, say, JK Rowling, Fred Vargas, Neil Gaiman or Patrick Rothfuss, I'd be happy to read them. It's hard enough to find good books, worrying about the author's gender is very pointless. Especially since I am not interested in women's issues, which nobody should be obliged to be.

I would highly recommend Lois McMaster Bujold. She is not hard sci fi though and the sci fi elements mostly act as a setting for the story.

Her Vorkosigan series is hard sci fi.

It helps to read those in order. She makes references to events five books back. You don't have to recognize them, but it helps.

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#149

Post by e12e »

facepalm wrote: post #141
e12e wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an atheist and a big fan of both His Dark Materials and Narnia . Why wouldn't an atheist enjoy religious art? That's millennia of human creativity you're throwing on the fire.

I enjoyed Narnia, but found His Dark Materials unbearable. It's been a while since I read it, though, don't remember the specifics. The soul mate with animal spirit thing just seemed Christian to me - stunned that it is supposed to be an atheist book, as another comment mentioned. So I am not opposed to religious art. A bit tired of the "chosen one" theme in fantasy, but other than that, I tend to just view it as an…

One thing is what the author puts into things, another thing is what the reader gets out of it. Animism and spirits is hardly limited to Christian mythology. I personally thought it was kind of clever and vivid imagery, especially with the mad scientists fuelling their doomsday device by ripping children apart from their souls, much like splitting the atom lead to horrific suffering when used as an engine of war - or much as certain dogma in education seems engineered to squash the imagination of children.

At any rate, I can absolutely accept that the work didn't appeal to some as much as it did me - but I just thought it strange that the reason should be that it was somehow particularly "Christian". Strikes me a bit like ignoring the parallels with the story of Christ and eg. that of Horus/Osiris. I'm not convinced people didn't come up with the stories about virgin birth, magical manipulation of water and so forth without having to hear another version first: the point is more that if you have a character that's born from a virgin, that doesn't have to mean you're trying to invoke an image of Jesus Christ. Although, often, it does mean just that.

Then there's the issue of universality of myth (sacrifice, kindness etc) - and from a certain set of religious views one could probably argue that any "atheist" myth is simply anther way for a deity/deities to make his/her/their will known...

Re: YC’s Summer Reading

#150

Post by dvirsky »

overcast wrote: post #73

I'm really surprised to see Ready Player One on there. It relied way too heavily on the 80's nostalgia, to prop up the shallow story telling. But even that got old, it was like hanging around with someone that talks entirely in movie quotes, while fun at the right times, gets stale fast. You didn't care about the character, because there was nothing for him to really lose.

I liked it actually, but I didn't expect more than a light fun read. It's pop-lit, not a groundbreaking masterpiece, and I didn't find it boring at all.
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