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YC's Winter Reading List

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Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#41

Post by protomyth »

anigbrowl wrote: post #32
protomyth wrote: post #20

My disagreement with the placement of "Strangers in Their Own Land" is basically that it really is well loved by Mother Jones[1], NYT[2], etc. but not at all liked by the people it claims to report on[3]. I guess if you hold liberal beliefs and want some reinforcement, then its a good book, but I would think you probably want to read books by people who actually are the people being talked about. 1) http://www.mother…

not at all liked by the people it claims to report on That's rich considering the popularity of conservatives books with titles like 'Liberalism is a mental disease' and 'Liberal fascism.' How about Victoria (2014) by William S. Lind? There's a good conservative author for you. I would recommend everyone interested in politics to become familiar with his ideas.

I commenting on one book anigbrowl and not at all about the naming of others. It is a pretty common practice on political and business books of all stripes to go for the most provocative title.

In fact, I am commenting on the contents, not the title.

I have not read Victoria (2014) by William S. Lind, so I have no comment on that.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#42

Post by TillE »

redthrowaway wrote: post #30
crucini wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you recommend an alternative?

Hillbilly Elegy is excellent and touches on some of the points, but really just read conservatives. We're not exactly shy about what we don't like about modern liberalism. Go peruse the pages of National Review or Commentary Magazine.

Didn't both of those publications vigorously oppose Trump?

The "conservative intellectual" niche may be the most politically irrelevant group in the country.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#43

Post by overcast »

ashark wrote: post #38
overcast wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first experience with Stephenson was Snow Crash, and it was an abomination. I tried Cryptonomicon next, and while slightly more coherent, it was the end of the line for me and this guy. Stephenson likes to write like he's smarter than he really is, plots that are literally everywhere, and characters I really don't care about. Let's not forget the third person present tense writing style. Regarding Gibson, I only r…

If you didn't care for Cryptonomicon , you're probably right to stop. I've read four of his novels and that's the only one that didn't fit the pattern of [promising first 1/3], [2/3 section is bad but I'm holding on that it'll go somewhere], [3/3 goes off the rails entirely, no payoff for suffering through the middle third]. Cryptonomicon was consistently OK , at least. The Diamond Age was the most frustrating of the…

Your pattern is commonly stated when describing Stephenson novels. I don't even know what to think of Snow Crash. It reminded me of someone just jotting down everything in their head while sitting at a coffee shop, and then sending it to the printing press.

Thanks for the future warning.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#44

Post by crucini »

overcast wrote: post #29
crucini wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think he's eternally mediocre, or is his recent stuff worse? Is all scifi mediocre? Is the problem that Stephenson "crossed over" and got more mainstream credibility? Is Gibson also mediocre?

My first experience with Stephenson was Snow Crash, and it was an abomination. I tried Cryptonomicon next, and while slightly more coherent, it was the end of the line for me and this guy. Stephenson likes to write like he's smarter than he really is, plots that are literally everywhere, and characters I really don't care about. Let's not forget the third person present tense writing style. Regarding Gibson, I only r…

OK. I find Neuromancer and Snow Crash pretty similar, as raw, high energy cyberpunk books with no attempt at respectability. Gibson was artier and a better writer (in the narrow sense of prose stylist.) It's kind of hard to picture someone liking one and disliking the other.

Now I could see liking those early books and disliking the later output of both authors; they became wordier, softer, more pretentious - while keeping a lot of merit.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#45

Post by VLM »

ska wrote: post #23
tomcam wrote: post #5

In case you're wondering about how we knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, sexist, racist, homophobic conservatives really think, "Strangers in their own land" is not a good representation. Anything by bestselling authors such as Mark Steyn Dinesh D'Souza, Mark Levin, or Ann Coulter would be a much closer approximation. Reading "Strangers in their own land" would be like one of those people writing a book about why Hil…

NB: if your purpose is understanding such a messy thing as a human social group then reading about how they present themselves as thinking isn't really more or less informative than reading about how they are inferred from the outside to think. You'd need both views and some understanding of how they act (regardless of rhetoric) to get started.

There's also a major problem in that both D and R parties are going thru a turmoil period and some sub-groups are being ejected while others are entrenching and the relationships are a bit fluid. I'm not sure studying an opponent's caricature of a subgroup from the 80s or 90s is of much use in the 10s. This would apply to both parties.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#46

Post by raisspen »

protomyth wrote: post #20

My disagreement with the placement of "Strangers in Their Own Land" is basically that it really is well loved by Mother Jones[1], NYT[2], etc. but not at all liked by the people it claims to report on[3]. I guess if you hold liberal beliefs and want some reinforcement, then its a good book, but I would think you probably want to read books by people who actually are the people being talked about. 1) http://www.mother…

I have to agree that it isn't the quintessential book to understanding the right. It starts off with good intentions, but she misses a few things, most likely as a result of not being able to escape her bias. I found the following review something to keep in mind if you do read the book. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2016/09/30/book-revie...

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#47

Post by redthrowaway »

TillE wrote: post #42
redthrowaway wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hillbilly Elegy is excellent and touches on some of the points, but really just read conservatives. We're not exactly shy about what we don't like about modern liberalism. Go peruse the pages of National Review or Commentary Magazine.

Didn't both of those publications vigorously oppose Trump? The "conservative intellectual" niche may be the most politically irrelevant group in the country.

>Didn't both of those publications vigorously oppose Trump?

Yes.

>The "conservative intellectual" niche may be the most politically irrelevant group in the country.

Trump won the Presidency, not the Movement. The rest of the GOP, though shell-shocked, has not suddenly ditched conservatism and embraced Trumpism. The vast majority of the GOP members of the House and Senate, and those in state governments, are conservative, not Trumpist.

Conservatives, not just Republicans, have far more power in the US right now than at any point in recent memory.

And thankfully, the Founding Fathers, sharp blokes that they were, crafted a system of checks and balances. I suspect we'll hear fewer cries of "obstruction!" when Congress blocks President Trump's policies than we did for Obama's.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#48

Post by rl3 »

> Creativity, Inc.

“Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter, on how they built a culture of openness, honesty, self-reflection, and risk-taking that protects new ideas and creativity instead of squashing them.” –Aaron Epstein

I wonder if it comes with any helpful pointers on how to execute long-term, systematic wage-fixing[0] schemes.

The top one-star review[1] on Amazon sums it up nicely.

[0] http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/ed-catmull-on-wage-...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0812993012/R1CW8GBYEH3UQ...

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#49

Post by ArlenBales »

One genre that is always missing from HNer's and YC's recommendations is Fantasy.

It feels like most people here read books to acquire knowledge and philosophy to apply to real life.

Most fantasy books are read for entertainment and imagination. There's no hidden message to parse and put toward your next start-up project. That doesn't mean Fantasy books are a waste of time though if they're engrossing and entertaining. That's why I read them.

Some fantasy recommendations:

The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch

The First Law series, by Joe Abercrombie (especially the standalone books #4, #5 and #6)

The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#50

Post by heymijo »

ThomPete wrote: post #35

Creativity INC is one of the best books I have ever read on creativity and I have read a lot to know how much most of them really suck. It has the added bonus of providing an alternative biography of Steve Jobs which in itself is interesting. It's much more than a story about Pixar. It's a great insight into some of the very problems you deal with as you build and try to maintain a culture. I can't recommend it enoug…

Creativity, Inc. is also one of the best books on management.

I say this with reverence for the work of Peter Drucker and W. Edwards Deming.

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