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YC's Winter Reading List

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Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#81

Post by mch82 »

ArlenBales wrote: post #49

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 entertainin…

Science fiction & fantasy are good tools to exercise mental creativity and think through scenarios of technical change.

Fantasy is a useful way to explore how technology might work in a world with unlimited resources. For example, Dor the magician in Piers Anthony's Xanth novels is able to talk to inanimate objects. In some ways that fantasy approximates a future state for how we interact with AI enabled objects like Amazon Alexa or Siri.

The USC Worldbuilding Institute (http://worldbuilding.institute/about) has been researching how fiction can serve as a catalyst for engineering, business, and social breakthroughs.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#82

Post by HiroshiSan »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #75

This is my favorite passage from Titan: With a talent for seeing things anew, Rockefeller could study an operation, break it down into component parts, and devise ways to improve it. In many ways, he anticipated the efficiency studies of engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor. Regarding each plant as infinitely perfectible, he created an atmosphere of ceaseless improvement. Paradoxically, the mammoth scale of operations e…

Sounds like Hank Rearden.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#83

Post by stinkytaco »

ythn wrote: post #59
ArlenBales wrote: post #49

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 entertainin…

Name of the Wind is good. Almost too good. The downside of course is that some people fear Rothfuss will never finish the story...

The farther away I get from Name of the Wind, the worse taste it leaves in my mouth. Perhaps it's because it's unfinished and Kvothe's rosy prose and tendency to superlative is not yet explained. Taken on their own, they just seem overwritten to me.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#84

Post by grub5000 »

siavosh wrote: post #74
grub5000 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy by Yanis Varoufakis [1] Have you read "And the Weak Suffer What They Must?"? It's fantastic. Really helped shape my view before the EU Referendum here in the UK.

Not yet, but it's on my list. I've been watching a lot of Yanis' talks on youtube, very compelling perspectives.

Agreed. He's a pretty compelling presenter/speaker. He participated in a discussion on Channel 4 news [1] along with a former Kremlin Advisor that I find highly entertaining.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjqicN8Zug

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#85

Post by metaphorm »

crucini wrote: post #26
overcast wrote: post #21

I guess no book list can ever escape the mediocrity of Neal Stephenson. At least it wasn't Snow Crash this time.

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 opinion on Stephenson:

Cryptonomicon is fun, Baroque Cycle is great, Anathem is his best work (from a literary perspective), and Seveneves is 2/3rds awesome 1/3rd bad scifi pulp.

Snow Crash is how most people first encounter him. It's a warmed over cyberpunk book that repeats a lot of what Gibson did, but is also good.

The Diamond Age is one of the best pieces of speculative fiction written in the last 20 years except that it fails badly to have a coherent story with an ending that makes sense. Which is a shame considering the ideas in the book are so good.

REamde is shit and should never have been published. Dude was playing too much World of Warcraft at the time and decided to write a novel about playing too much World of Warcraft. Bad book. Avoid.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#86

Post by chadcmulligan »

One i'd recommend is The illusion of life - the history of animation in disney, it covers some of the business, the people and the techniques and of course the movies, and it's one of the most beautiful books I own. https://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Life-Disney-Animation/dp/078...

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#87

Post by GFischer »

ArlenBales wrote: post #49

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 entertainin…

I read a LOT of fantasy, including all authors on your list :) .

However, I do get a feel that they're more "escapist" than the books YC readers (and people like Bill Gates) read. Many of the recommendations are more in line with what they're building (people going through similar struggles or role models or understanding the world).

And the engrossing fantasy books can take good chunks of your time (which I guess an YC alumn ought to be devoting to his startup or personal life).

In the same vein, I don't expect most YC alumni to recommend lengthy TV series :)

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#88

Post by siavosh »

grub5000 wrote: post #84
siavosh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not yet, but it's on my list. I've been watching a lot of Yanis' talks on youtube, very compelling perspectives.

Agreed. He's a pretty compelling presenter/speaker. He participated in a discussion on Channel 4 news [1] along with a former Kremlin Advisor that I find highly entertaining. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjqicN8Zug

Have you found any notable economist that critiques his work?

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#89

Post by stinkytaco »

CalChris wrote: post #17

The Grossman translation of DQ is a fine read. I read it in a seminar which is the academic equivalent of a book club. That was awesome. If you get into it, it's a great discussion book. I'd recommend Marryat's Mister Midshipman Easy over Forester's Mister Midshipman Hornblower . Marryat speaks from authority when he speaks of the sea and of naval warfare. Neither Forester nor Patrick O'Brian sailed.

Perhaps Marryat is more authentic than O'Brian or Forester, but he is not as good a writer. Easy lacks the coherent storytelling, character building and -- at least compared to Aubrey/Maturin -- the excellent sense of humor.

Worth a read? Absolutely. Better? I enjoy both better than Marryat, but especially O'Brian.

Re: YC's Winter Reading List

#90

Post by protomyth »

CalChris wrote: post #78
protomyth wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you considered the link I provided a "content-free screed" then I'm not sure what to say. Your example was not a good characterization of the review.

You didn't engage the content of the book. You just said you didn't like it because liberals did. That's content free. The phrase that comes to mind is epistemic closure . https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_closure You will only accept a description of your reality from inside of your reality. Contrast that with the author who actually moved to Louisiana and lived there to find out what they think. Advantage t…

> You didn't engage the content of the book. You just said you didn't like it because liberals did. That's content free.

No, I think its a poor choice when you are trying to tell the story of a people so that you can gain an understanding of them and they don't like or agree with the book, but their opposite number does and sees it as a revelation. Living among the natives to write a book is an old ploy that has been done poorly for a long time, but since I live here full time, clocking hours isn't really part of my argument.

Confirmation bias would be a nice way to put it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

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