Nature of Order Volumes 1-4, Christoper Alexander. I would add more but I think these volumes will keep you busy for awhile ;)
Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
271–280 of 280 posts
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#272"The Silk Roads: A New History of the World" By Peter Frankopan. This book tackles essentially all of human history, tying together the world's major cultural shifts with the socioeconomic forces that brought them to pass. For readers who have implicitly come to believe that the center of the world has always been Western Europe (I had), this book will greatly shift your perspective (Eastward). I've never learned so…
I would strongly recommend people read both GTD and The life changing magic of tidying up by Marie kondo and, and this is the important bit, draw parallels between them. This is a pedagogical technique that takes knowledge out of the domain of specificity and into general applicability. In this case, it will help point you to the general move David Allen and Marie kondo are trying to point at and allow you to apply i…
Which one of the both would you recommend starting with?
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#273the hard thing about hard things(Ben Horowitz): This book is mostly recommended for managers but I found it very useful to adjust my estimations about life. Also, you will learn about silicon valley history and it's dynamics. The fifth discipline (Peter Senge): This book is one of the systems thinking references and it helped me to learn more about hidden dynamics in the world around me. I truly wish I've read this w…
Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline is great. Related, I would also recommend "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows and "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Jerry Weinberg.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#274How to See Color and Paint It -- It taught me how to see color and paint it. Also how to use a palette knife which makes my paintings very different and fun. Remembrance of Things Past -- I'm still reading this, as it's a massive stream of consciousness book, but I wish I'd started it when I was younger so that I'd be done with it by now. It's just so weird to read it and experience the writing that I enjoy it for si…
> How to See Color and Paint It
Ordered a copy, thanks!
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#275• “On Liberty” (John Stuart Mill) for political enlightenment and an impeccable defence of [classical!] liberalism. It's packed with simple but enormously powerful ideas that are also timeless, thus applicable today and to so many aspects of life.
• “Don Quixote” (Cervantes): unanimously considered the best work of fiction in the Spanish-speaking world… and on many lists, even #1 of world literature, ever (!). Often overlooked (at least in Spain) by young folks as it is long, the language is archaic, and its themes appear quaint and silly today at first sight. But there's a reason it has been praised for centuries. It's funny and tender. Themes are also modern, and Cervantes' style is playful and innovative, making use of devices such as meta-references, alternative pasts, removal of the fourth wall, etc. I'm not sure how much non-native audiences can enjoy translations, though.
• “The Lord of the Rings” (Tolkien) for the original epic and touching fantasy. (I know many people devour it in their teens, or in their early youth… But I read it as an adult; quite late. Mainly because it seemed to be the only “difficult” book that many of my friends bothered to read, and that predisposed me negatively towards it. Also, my family hadn't read it, and there was no copy of it in our house.)
• “Brief History of Time” (Stephen Hawking): mind-boggling introduction to (astro-)physics, modern cosmogony, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#276• “On Liberty” (John Stuart Mill) for political enlightenment and an impeccable defence of [classical!] liberalism. It's packed with simple but enormously powerful ideas that are also timeless, thus applicable today and to so many aspects of life. • “Don Quixote” (Cervantes): unanimously considered the best work of fiction in the Spanish-speaking world… and on many lists, even #1 of world literature, ever (!). Often…
Oh, and don't waste your time with “How to Win Friends and Influence People”; it is definitely overrated! The whole book would fit in a sheet of paper if you took out unscientific anecdotes, redundancy, and obvious instances of common sense...
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#277"The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman. Technically this book is about how humans interact with things, but actually it covers a lot more topics that one can think: how humans act, err, how they make descisions, how memory works, what are the responsibilities of conscious/subconscious. Also you'll start to dislike doors, kitchen stoves and their disigners)
My wife told me that this book turned me into a design snob and she constantly pokes fun at me for it. One time, there was a pull handle for a door that needs to be pushed, and i went on a rant about how that is terrible design, and why wouldn't they design it this way, etc. (very similar to the arguments he uses in the book. ) so lately every time she sees something that she knows i think should be designed differen…
I went on this rant on a day last weekend.
Nerdy by endearing is how she put it once I was done.
At least we have the high ground when they stumble over a stair with an offset height.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get up around 4:30. Work isn't until 8:30.
Oh wow. May I ask how long do you sleep every night? I tried to have a morning routine more than once, but the trade-offs where two big to keep it going. Two things stand out for me: - It works only in the summer. The absence of natural light at 4.30 in the morning is a big no-no for me. I can't get productive on artificial lights only. Sounds weird, I know. - Social life goes to hell. I live in a big city. Keeping u…
It doesn't sound weird, sounds human.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Biological_cl...
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
This book is my favorite non-fiction book. It is hard to reduce it back to what it is about, but it is filled with very useful insight into how the mind works. The metaphor of the rider and the elephant finally let me explain differences between what I consciously decided and what I actually did.
It's a metaphor he also puts to good use in his later book, the Righteous Mind. It's useful to seeing through your own righteousness and recognizing patterns in others. I enjoyed that one too, but it didn't have the same life impact as the Happiness Hypothesis.
I'd also recommend 'The Righteous Mind' as a solid basis for understanding political thinking.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#280The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. You hear 'ancient wisdom' on how to lead the good life all the time. These ancient aphorisms came from a time before the scientific method and the idea of testing your hypotheses. Tradition has acted a sort of pre-conscious filter on the advice we get, so we can expect it to hold some value. But now, we can do better. Haidt is a psychologist who read a large collection of t…
Definitely the best pop-psych/self-help book I've read.