Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#51

Post by CaRDiaK » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

kidintech wrote: post #23

My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN: General ==== - Master & Margarita (w reader's guide) - Why we sleep - The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion - The wisdom of insecurity - The denial of death - The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it) - The dubliners - The devils (Dostoyevski) - The name of the rose - Enten-Oller (Kierkegaa…

My fiancée is an avid reader of fiction and canonical literature, she averages around 40 books a year. I was looking for something interesting to get her one Birthday for a change and was recommended "The Master & Margarita" by some folks on reddit. She loved it. It's a very strange book apparently but it steered her into some other Russian authors since.

I've read "Why we sleep" on your list—I average about 20 non fiction a year. It made me think about my own sleeping habits, although I believe there is a blog post out there that claims there is little scientific evidence to back up some of the medical claims made in the book, I still found it beneficial and thought provoking. The history and theory around sleep and it's role in human evolution I found particularly interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#52

Post by kidintech » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

inertiatic wrote: post #44

kidintech wrote: post #23

My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN: General ==== - Master & Margarita (w reader's guide) - Why we sleep - The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion - The wisdom of insecurity - The denial of death - The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it) - The dubliners - The devils (Dostoyevski) - The name of the rose - Enten-Oller (Kierkegaa…

Interesting list, commenting to have a look again later. I'm already reading the name of the rose after giving up half-way a few years ago.

how are you finding it?

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#53

Post by nandreev » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #37

nandreev wrote: post #28

The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas (A. Grigas) We (Y. Zamyatin) The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper (C. Petzold) Endurance (A. Lansing) Economics: The User's Guide (H. Chang) Oblomov (I. Goncharov)

I love “We”, one of my favorite work of science fiction! Crazy to think that has been written in 1921.

I've heard it's a must-read for sci-fi lovers so I'm excited for that one!

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#54

Post by kidintech » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

sshine wrote: post #48

kidintech wrote: post #23

My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN: General ==== - Master & Margarita (w reader's guide) - Why we sleep - The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion - The wisdom of insecurity - The denial of death - The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it) - The dubliners - The devils (Dostoyevski) - The name of the rose - Enten-Oller (Kierkegaa…

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of overlap in my have-read/wants-to-read: Master and Margarita: Very recommendable. Three body problem: Got bored. Enten-Eller: Delightful. Basic economics (Sowell): Very recommendable. How an economy grows and why it crashes: Childish and grossly simplifying. I read this one while taking a year's of economics on top of my CS. My impression is that some economists ha…

Thanks for the feedback too!

Since you seem to have similar taste (or people you respect?), what other books/authors have you enjoyed/would recommend? I am a big fan of Hesse, despite his works being very unrelated to anything on my list.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#55

Post by 0kl » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #30

For me: - On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche - Simulcra and Simulations, Jean Baudrillard - The Ruling Class, Gaetano Mosca - Finish off the Enchiridion and Shobogenzo For work: - Envisioning Information, Edward Tufte - Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When I studied Nietzsche it was more or less “Read Zarathustra, then read all the ‘Viking Portable Nietzsche’ then read all of the ‘Basic Writings of Nietzche’” all translates by Hollingdale or, preferably, Kauffman.

Among the jewels you’ll find in such a reading are things like the seed of Nietzsche’s thought being placed, imo, in The Birth of Tragedy, with the line:

> It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified

Other Nietzsche related recommendations: Pre-Nietzsche: Plato, Schopenhauer Post-Nietzsche: Camus - maybe?

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#56

Post by eric_cc » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

bemmu wrote: post #43

To start the year off, my casual just-before-sleep reading will be "Ender's Shadow", which is a story that isn't a prequel or a sequel to "Ender's Game", but a story parallel to it. "What We Cannot Know", which is an exploration of all the topics that we might never be able to know, such as how to predict the weather, is the universe infinite etc. "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly…

> because it's dauntingly long and I'm feeling masochistic.

it's only 544 pages?

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#57

Post by inertiatic » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

kidintech wrote: post #52

inertiatic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting list, commenting to have a look again later. I'm already reading the name of the rose after giving up half-way a few years ago.

how are you finding it?

I'm not very well educated in the fields of history and philosophy so I constantly have to google for references to people or concepts I've only heard of before.

It's much more rewarding this way than how I went through half of the book in the past ignoring a lot of things I was ignorant of, but it's a way slower process.

It's an experience I'm thoroughly enjoying, but some of the characters described seem to me like they couldn't be real people, but this might just be that my way of thinking as someone living now clashes so heavily with how actual monks in the 14th century thought about the world. I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt on this for now, as, again, I'm very ignorant on this topic and he was an actual academic in the broader field we're discussing.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#58

Post by petey283 » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

bemmu wrote: post #43

To start the year off, my casual just-before-sleep reading will be "Ender's Shadow", which is a story that isn't a prequel or a sequel to "Ender's Game", but a story parallel to it. "What We Cannot Know", which is an exploration of all the topics that we might never be able to know, such as how to predict the weather, is the universe infinite etc. "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly…

Ender's Shadow is a great series. It complements the original story so, so well.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#59

Post by apress » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

Before the next wave of Internet-from-space companies fly by, I'm going to delve in to the last great bubble. John Bloom's "Eccentric Orbits," mainly about the life and death and rebirth of Iridium–but also covering all of that company's even less successful peers–came out in 2016, but somehow I missed it until now. Lots of awards.

Re: Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

#60

Post by psv1 » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

bemmu wrote: post #43

To start the year off, my casual just-before-sleep reading will be "Ender's Shadow", which is a story that isn't a prequel or a sequel to "Ender's Game", but a story parallel to it. "What We Cannot Know", which is an exploration of all the topics that we might never be able to know, such as how to predict the weather, is the universe infinite etc. "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly…

> "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly long and I'm feeling masochistic.

The length on its own isn't that big of a problem. But if you want a simple idea which can be explained thoroughly in a couple of pages to be stretched out for hundreds pages in the most unbearably condescending and arrogant tone that you can imagine... then Antifragile will fit in great with your masochistic inclinations.