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I had asked a question[0] regarding books a few months ago which ended up in the following list[1]. From those so far I have read the following: - Elon Musk: Inventing the Future - Ashlee Vance Totally worth to get insight into the Elon. Kinda changes the superhero/good guy image everyone has but you end up with more respect for him whatsoever. - Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman Awesome book presenting modern…
- Statistics Done Wrong by Alex Reinhart. Plenty of gotchas with real world examples from academia. Well written and easy to read.
- The Circle by Dave Eggers. This one was scary. About imaginary corporation (a blend of Facebook and Google and Amazon) and probably not too distant future. If you liked Black Mirrors, you will love this.
- Brave New World by Huxley, Aldous. Classic novel with interesting thoughts about engineered society, where every human is assigned class, purpose in the society and feature at birth.
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Bilton, Nick. Read this book in a weekend, really well written and well researched about the inception of Twitter.
- Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Tetlock, Philip E. A study on people with above average ability to forecast feature events (mostly geo-political). Talks about measuring predictions and improving them.
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Brilliant book about overlooking rare events which have dramatic consequences because 'it's unlikely to happen'.
Genghis Khan https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93426.Genghis_Khan_and_t...
Mistakes were made (but not by me) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/522525.Mistakes_Were_Mad...
Sapiens - a brief history of humankind https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens
A little history of the world https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61505.A_Little_History_o...
That last one I just finished and look forward to re-reading real soon. It's written by a German and from a European point of view.
A few other good ones but not top of my list of recommendations:
The church of fear - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17201748-the-church-of-f...
A brief history of time - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3869.A_Brief_History_of_...
Looks who's back - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17289087-look-who-s-back
- Introductory Statistics with R by Dalgaard, Peter. A solid introduction to stats, don't be scared by R bit in the title - it contains plenty of maths/theory so that knowledge is widely applicable. Brilliant introductory for everyone who wants to do something stats related. It's amazing how much can be done with no fancy deep learning algorithms, just plain simple stats. - Statistics Done Wrong by Alex Reinhart. Ple…
- Introductory Statistics with R by Dalgaard, Peter. A solid introduction to stats, don't be scared by R bit in the title - it contains plenty of maths/theory so that knowledge is widely applicable. Brilliant introductory for everyone who wants to do something stats related. It's amazing how much can be done with no fancy deep learning algorithms, just plain simple stats. - Statistics Done Wrong by Alex Reinhart. Ple…
Regarding the first one (Introductory Statistics) what would you say the pre-requisites are? I'm not much of a mathematician, in fact I might even need to brush up on high school math by now, but I've thought about statistics for a while now. Is it approachable or would I have to study up to college level?
It is written as a textbook for graduate biology students to help with their research, so it doesn't assume much mathematical knowledge. It also contains exercises (with answers) at the end of each chapter, really helps to consolidate the newly acquired knowledge.
Deep work by Cal Newport, great book on how to develop intense focus to be creative/get more done. Highly recommended. Race Against The Machine - a concise and informative discussion of the impact of technology on employment, income distribution and macro economics. Highly recommended as well.
Read them one after the other, first Deep Work and then Flow. IF you are going to read both then I would recommend that order. Reading Flow first, then Deep Work doesn't have much to offer.
Those books actually re-fueled my love of programming.
Of all the books I've read, this one resonated with me the most. It discusses the process of art making, both the personal process of finding your work and learning how to get better, as well as the issues with being judged through your work. If you treat your projects/code more like art than science, I think this book will be an enjoyable and provoking read.
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat ~ Oliver Sacks, 1985. This book contains tales of some of the Sacks's patients. A very interesting read. [1]
- The Mind's Eye ~ Oliver Sacks, 2010. [2]
- Spy Catcher (Autobiography of a MI5 agent) ~ Peter Wright, 1987. [3]
- Applied Cryptography ~ Bruce Schneier, 1994. Approachable and succinate language of this book makes it easier to understand. [4]
[1] http://www.amazon.in/Man-Who-Mistook-his-Wife/dp/0330523627
[2] http://www.amazon.in/Minds-Eye-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0330508903/
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Catcher-Autobiography-Intelligenc...
[4] http://www.amazon.in/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorith...
Deep work by Cal Newport, great book on how to develop intense focus to be creative/get more done. Highly recommended. Race Against The Machine - a concise and informative discussion of the impact of technology on employment, income distribution and macro economics. Highly recommended as well.
Deep Work sure is a great book, but I would recommend people with interest in the material just to go directly to Flow by Mihály Csikszentmihalyi. Read them one after the other, first Deep Work and then Flow. IF you are going to read both then I would recommend that order. Reading Flow first, then Deep Work doesn't have much to offer. Those books actually re-fueled my love of programming.
It is even, for a part, totally self contradictory, where he claims that journalists can switch to deep work for 10 minutes at time. Because journalists are super humans not suffering from context switch where the coders are suffering from context switch if they do that.
So, this one is not on my recommended list.