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.
Ive read it a few times and keep getting to the chapter in the annotated version where the author of the annotations basically says that unless you really want to put the work in stick with index trackers. I then reread bogleheads, and WB's recent shareholder letters and decided i'll stick with that.
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…
Have you heard of the Arthur C. Clarke Award? It's an annual written sci-fi award from the UK, but it's a judged award. People who know lots of sci-fi read all the UK published SF in a year, and pick a winner. You can't win by just appealing to pop geek voting base.
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…
It's pretty clearly atheist, and has been criticised by religious groups for that.
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 an…
> to control thousands of human bodies connected (enslaved?) to them
I think it's quite clear that the human bodies have their original personalities wiped and become nothing more than tools of the original AI.
And the supreme leader is a form of distributed, multi-brained intelligence
Pullman wrote His Dark Materials as the atheist counter to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia IIRC. You might want to reread them if you came away thinking they were pro-Christian.
It's been a long time since I read it, but wasn't it all kind of about souls and soul mates and stuff like that?
Yeah, and an important plotpoint is that a church is trying to get rid of the soulmates because they are part of the original sin. So you should prob turn you view around 180 degrees.
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.
It's fun, but if you want dystopian capitalist world with a parallel vr universe, snow crash has more surprising ideas. (And better writing) Although it's a bit violent and has some... interesting mechanisms (as I was told: it gets weird) Also, the nostalgia comes baked in because it was written in the 90s. Still super relevant though
_Snow Crash_ is good fun, and I really liked the speculative elements. It led me down the path of becoming a Stephenson junky which, coming from someone that tries to avoid reading many big novels by a single author, breaks a bit with my own principles. _Cryptonomicon_ need hardly be mentioned anymore, considering it's repute, but lately I've been reading the "prequel" trilogy consisting of _Quicksilver_, _The Confusion_ and _The System of the World_. It's set in the same literary universe, centering on events in the late 17th and early 18th century, basically tracing the early days of science. They also feature some quite humorous fictionalized versions of real life historical figures. At some point I'm probably going to look into _Anathem_ and _Seveneves_ as well. All that said, Stephenson has a rather particular style which seems to be very polarizing, but I definitely encourage giving him a shot.
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 am working on Neal Stephenson's REAMDE. I say "working on" as opposed to "finishing" since it's more of a side job than a casual read. You don't really make progress, you just sort of periodically put another hundred pages between you and the front cover, without really budging how far down the binding your bookmark is. REAMDE is sort of like if someone looked at the average globe-spanning complicated plot and acti…
Yep. Stephenson takes me a while. I kept track whilst reading _Quicksilver_ and it ended up taking me 50 days, with the baseline being 50 minutes a day on weekdays during my commute, and the odd extra hour every now and then when I had a bit of time to spare.
It's been a long time since I read it, but wasn't it all kind of about souls and soul mates and stuff like that?
Yeah, and an important plotpoint is that a church is trying to get rid of the soulmates because they are part of the original sin. So you should prob turn you view around 180 degrees.
Then probably I didn't get that far while reading, sorry about that.
Still not sure how it can be atheist if it is all about souls, though.
I've not read the book version but "How Buildings Learn" is one of my favorite things ever (a great case-study for looking outside of software for lessons that can apply to well...software). Stewart Brand (of Longnow fame) produced a really lovely 6 part series for BBC in the late 90's and they are on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brandst/videos -- highly recommended (Warning: there is a very loud and obnoxio…
Please let me disagree. It is a beautiful book, but really boring and repetitive. Never finished it. I'll resume it for you all: "Buildings change over time to adapt for their owners livestyle." The really good part is the author bashing renowned architects that build prize winning buildings that leak.
> I'll resume it for you all: "Buildings change over time to adapt for their owners livestyle."
An important concept in the book is "shearing layers" [1]: different parts of a building change at different rates due to differential pressures. E.g. walls change faster than foundations.
Its a few years since I last read it, but fwiw I found the book insightful and not at all boring. Each to their own though.
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…
It's pretty clearly atheist, and has been criticised by religious groups for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Pullman#Perspective_on_...
Maybe I didn't read far enough, didn't think a book about souls could be atheist.