Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 344 posts

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#231

Post by losvedir »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #93
ternaryoperator wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Righteous Mind is brilliant. It gives an excellent framework by which to understand today's events better.

Seems somewhat of an odd tagline "why good people are divided by politics"... All people are divided by politics. Perhaps it's one to give a read though. I swear I'm noticing a systemic failure at a global level of people to recognize they are always-on 24/7 political machines living inside an always-on 24/7 political machine and it's mostly Garbage In, Garbage Out. That's the default mode of operation. Most people a…

The point of the tag line is to humanize people on the other political side from you.

> Curious what the framework the book lays out and what resemblance it bears to my own framework...

I haven't read the book but I assume it follows the framework the author developed (he's a moral psychology academic, I believe) and laid out in a TED talk a while ago (back when they were still good). If you're curious about it, check out the talk on YouTube.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#232

Post by zimpenfish »

p2detar wrote: post #226
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Peterson is that he makes preposterous truth-claims: based on his stylised readings of Western mythology, his understanding of humans as necessarily and essentially hierarchical, and various sub-scientific claims - e.g., about lobsters - that are dressed up as something their not. All in the service of something which is knowingly reactionary, to row back on progressive social moores and the gains of…

> but he is not a reliable intellectual authority. I don't believe he ever claims the opposite. In fact he urges the reader to check his sources. All 220 papers and books he read before producing his work are listed in the endnotes. > He's also just a bit of an oddball. The problem with this type of statements are that now I'll say "No, he isn't an oddball" and this will get us nowhere. Can you understand that?

> "No, he isn't an oddball"

His (alleged[1]) diet alone would paint him thoroughly as "oddball", surely.

[1] I don't for one second believe he eats only beef, salt, and water.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#233

Post by mysterydip »

Fabien Sanglard's Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D (2nd Edition). http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/

It's been a fascinating read of why games had to be made the way they were back then due to the hardware of the day. All kinds of tricks to squeeze performance out of a machine designed for word processing and spreadsheets.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#234

Post by mclightning »

crazygringo wrote: post #61

Michael Pollan: How to Change Your Mind [1] Not just about an utterly fascinating topic (psychadelic drugs), in terms of history (LSD turning from a scientific wonder drug to illegal), his personal experiences, and the neuroscience behind it, but also just extremely well-written -- a real page-turner. A crazy potent combination of science, spirituality (from a skeptic), and narrative. I expect his book will be a sign…

+1 for Why We Sleep

and

The Shallows - What the internet is doing to our brains

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#235

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

henrik_w wrote: post #186
gkamradt wrote: post #19

How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big - Scott Adams (2013) One of my favorite quotes: “I put myself in a position where luck was more likely to happen. I tried a lot of different ventures, stayed optimistic, put in the energy, prepared myself by learning as much as I could, and stayed in the game long enough for luck to find me.” pg - 158 My top ten list for the year: https://www.gregkamradt.com/gregkamr…

I really enjoyed it too. My main takeaways: 1. Use systems, not goals. A system lets you feel good every time you follow it, whereas a goal only makes you feel good when you reach it 2. Combination of skills. If you can be good (say top 20%) in more than one domain, then that combination of skills can be enough to make you very sought after. 3. What all adults should know, like public speaking, psychology, business w…

Regarding #2: Does the book go into any specifics on how exactly you're going to be sought after or at least how to look for the people who needs generalists?

I consider myself a generalist but I never ever see much interest for hiring someone like me. There's always ask for a person who's a focused pro in some niche area AND then possesses a cloud of tangential skills, though.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#236

Post by randomacct3847 »

zimpenfish wrote: post #232
p2detar wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but he is not a reliable intellectual authority. I don't believe he ever claims the opposite. In fact he urges the reader to check his sources. All 220 papers and books he read before producing his work are listed in the endnotes. > He's also just a bit of an oddball. The problem with this type of statements are that now I'll say "No, he isn't an oddball" and this will get us nowhere. Can you understand that?

> "No, he isn't an oddball" His (alleged[1]) diet alone would paint him thoroughly as "oddball", surely. [1] I don't for one second believe he eats only beef, salt, and water.

It isn’t that strange. It’s basically keto, which has become almost mainstream.

For the record, I’ve tried the “zero carb” diet (basically meat) and it’s not that hard once you treat food as purely as something functional like a vitamin rather than a source of pleasure.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#237

Post by crazygringo »

mxschumacher wrote: post #180
crazygringo wrote: post #61

Michael Pollan: How to Change Your Mind [1] Not just about an utterly fascinating topic (psychadelic drugs), in terms of history (LSD turning from a scientific wonder drug to illegal), his personal experiences, and the neuroscience behind it, but also just extremely well-written -- a real page-turner. A crazy potent combination of science, spirituality (from a skeptic), and narrative. I expect his book will be a sign…

the topic of psychedelic drugs is truly fascinating, but I think Pollan's books "How to change your mind" is poor. I read most of it and felt angry and hollow after. I don't recommend a purchase. Here's the review I left on Amazon (2 star): "How tot change your mind" delivers and important core message, but it should have been an article or a podcast episode. Cutting the fluff offers vast room for lossless compressio…

It appears you clearly don't like narrative, and yes -- if you don't like narrative, you won't like this book.

But many (if not most?) people do enjoy narrative -- they enjoy the build-up and suspense of what did Timothy Leary do that was so bad instead of getting straight to it, literary descriptions that paint a picture of a main character visually and personality-wise, and sentences that are natural and conversational (not a science article full of acronyms).

This is why I specifically mentioned the book is a combination of science and narrative -- which comes out of fiction. Born to Run is another classic example.

It's very rare that an author is excellent at clearly explaining science, excellent at writing narrative that hooks you, and also covers a topic that is very timely, widely unknown, and fascinating. That's the kind of triple-threat combination that makes it a best book for me.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#238

Post by drieddust »

windexh8er wrote: post #172

After skimming the great recommendations in the comments one I didn't see mentioned is: "Dream Teams" [1]. Just recently finished the audio book, narrated by the author Shane Snow. Was a very engaging book overall. One I read last year that was one of my favorites is "What Doesn't Kill Us" [2] by Scott Carney. I went and did a week long Wim Hof class after reading it and the book was a great preread that gave me pers…

How was the class? What were your takeaways?

His mind control methods seems similar to Buddhist monks. But monks spend a life time mastering their brains. How he is able to teach it so quickly?

Re: Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?

#239

Post by crazygringo »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #115
weisser wrote: post #114

I read over 40 nonfiction books this year. Here are some favorites. Life-changing: Why We Sleep Page-turner: How to Change Your Mind Most useful: The Consolations of Philosophy On startups: Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age Random but amazing: Shadow Divers (true story about deep sea diving - think Into Thin Air)

How fast and often do you read?

Not the parent, but that's less than 1 book a week, which I often do.

If your average non-fiction book takes you ~12 hrs to read, that 3 nights of 4 hours of reading. In other words, if reading is a main hobby it's totally doable. (Also if you have an hour commute to/from work on the subway or train, that's 10 hrs/wk right there, or... 40 books a year.)

Also, I personally find that non-fiction is much faster to read than fiction -- in fiction, you want to savor and appreciate each sentence as it paints a world you don't know. In non-fiction, there tends to be a "lot you already know" when reading that you can read quickly, especially when you read multiple books on similar topics. (E.g. reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment for the nth time, or an explanation of the Prisoner's Dilemma.)

Post reply on HN