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Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

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Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#201

Post by ballooney »

SirLJ wrote: post #39

I wish as a kid I had access to the following: "More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite" https://www.amazon.com/More-Money-Than-God-Relations/dp/0143... Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews With Top Traders https://www.amazon.com/Market-Wizards-Updated-Interviews-Tra... The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders https://www.amazon.com/New-Market-Wizards-Conversations-Amer..…

I've noticed (as a non american) that every single book I see in american airport book shops (at least the sort of business/self-help ones which seem to constitute 95% of american airport book shops) follow this exact title style: $PITHY_PHRASE: $MEANDERING_SUBTITLE_THAT_IS_A_BIT_TOO_LONG

It's very unimaginative.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#203

Post by feignix »

Fiction:

1. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes because it's so beautifully written and made me experience a flood of emotions.

2. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Again, a very touching, charming book about a little kid's world(universe?) view, told through his adventures.

Non-fiction:

1. The subtle art of not giving a F*ck - Mark Manson Opened my eyes to what I was possibly doing wrong with my life.

2. Radical Acceptance - Tara Brach Still currently reading it, but I wish I'd found it earlier.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#204

Post by cocoablazing »

gkya wrote: post #199
xaedes wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a passage (Revelation 8) that could very well describe a nature catastrophe instead of godly will. Also other stuff like Job 26:10 ("He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.") which describes day/night boundary on earth quite well. That made me think. What if there is other stuff that could actually be related to secular events and knowledge. And so I star…

Myth is science. It's how people transferred knowledge from generation to generation, and it's always based on observations of the world. Thing is though, in the ancient times they didn't have the access we started to have in the last centuries into the structure of things, so all they could do was to interpret that which they saw and that which they learned through earlier myths. Dismissing religion and myths as fai…

Myth is certainly not science. Transmission of belief occurs through myths, not knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#205

Post by y4mi »

gkya wrote: post #199
xaedes wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a passage (Revelation 8) that could very well describe a nature catastrophe instead of godly will. Also other stuff like Job 26:10 ("He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.") which describes day/night boundary on earth quite well. That made me think. What if there is other stuff that could actually be related to secular events and knowledge. And so I star…

Myth is science. It's how people transferred knowledge from generation to generation, and it's always based on observations of the world. Thing is though, in the ancient times they didn't have the access we started to have in the last centuries into the structure of things, so all they could do was to interpret that which they saw and that which they learned through earlier myths. Dismissing religion and myths as fai…

eh, i sure as hell will dismiss a 8-bit processor for general computing nowadays though, despite it being state of the art not that long ago.

just because something had value before doesnt mean it still does.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#206

Post by balladeer »

Anna Karenina, A Suitable Boy, and the like. Excellent books but after college it's been difficult to start and keep at them in a acceptable period of time given the time (or lack of it) is an issue now. I also wanted to read Ulysses. I am stuck around the ~20% of Dostoyevsky's Idiot since a long time. Off late I've had better success with shortner ones.

For me the reason is simple - it's just the daunting number of pages and it is a shame that I have not read/finished these books.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#207

Post by antoaravinth »

gkya wrote: post #158
tiborsaas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how people can read it, for me it's a pain to read more than a page. >the bible is required reading for comprehending many the references and various rhetorical modes I'm sure there are modern book about rhetorics

The English bibles are just unreadable, with all those archaisms. I have a New World Translation that a JW gave me and it seems more pleasant to read, but many say there are problems with opinionated translations. Mine is a CEI Bible, a modern translation in Italian. Tho if you're not into it, it'll be boring nevertheless. I was referring to the contents of rhetorical modes (allegories, metaphors, etc.), not their de…

I felt the same. But if you want to understand the whole bible I would recommend The Bible Project : https://m.youtube.com/user/jointhebibleproject

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#208

Post by xaedes »

cocoablazing wrote: post #204
gkya wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myth is science. It's how people transferred knowledge from generation to generation, and it's always based on observations of the world. Thing is though, in the ancient times they didn't have the access we started to have in the last centuries into the structure of things, so all they could do was to interpret that which they saw and that which they learned through earlier myths. Dismissing religion and myths as fai…

Myth is certainly not science. Transmission of belief occurs through myths, not knowledge.

And belief is not necessarily orthogonal to knowledge. You can belief in something and it can still be knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#209

Post by xaedes »

y4mi wrote: post #205
gkya wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myth is science. It's how people transferred knowledge from generation to generation, and it's always based on observations of the world. Thing is though, in the ancient times they didn't have the access we started to have in the last centuries into the structure of things, so all they could do was to interpret that which they saw and that which they learned through earlier myths. Dismissing religion and myths as fai…

eh, i sure as hell will dismiss a 8-bit processor for general computing nowadays though, despite it being state of the art not that long ago. just because something had value before doesnt mean it still does.

Neither does it mean that it has no value anymore.

Taking your example "8-bit processors": it still has value. Even if it is only for learning purposes.

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