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Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

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

#111

Post by Pandabob »

chance_state wrote: post #85
Pandabob wrote: post #81

My plan is to read about the french revolution and as such I was thinking about reading the books recommended by Five Books[1]: 1. Ancien Regime and the Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville 2. Interpreting the French Revolution by François Furet 3. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama 4. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution by R. R. Palmer 5. New Regime: Transform…

That's a great list. What made you interested in the subject?

A couple of years ago a friend mentioned a now infamous quote by the Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai, who, when asked by Henry Kissinger what he thought about the French Revolution, said that it's "too early to tell"[1]. Apparently he was referring to the revolutions of 1968, but the quote has taken a life of its own to kind of describe the magnitude of the actual french revolution.

Anyway, it's been 15 years since I first really learned about the revolution in high school and after hearing the quote I've been skimming the wikipedia page every now and then and it just seems like one of the most fascinating events in the history of the western world.

In the span of 30 years:

  - The french kill their king

  - They're the first monarchy to convert into a republic

  - Most of the early leaders of the revolution die, apparently because they're so brutal

  - The whole thing ends with Napoleon becoming emperor and conquering half of Europe.
Also at the same time the industrial revolution is going on. I think that for someone who's living in 2020 it's hard to put into context the magnitude of the changes for the people at the time. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

[1]: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019182...

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

pjmorris wrote: post #98

I hilariously overestimate the number of books I can get through when I make these lists, but my current list for 2020 is as follows: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution Book of Proof Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems Seeing Like a State: How Certa…

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by beaconstudios »

0kl wrote: post #93
beaconstudios wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the back end of Zarathustra at the moment, hence moving onto something a bit stronger. I tend to flick between different books by any given author in order to assimilate their ideas, so I might add Birth of Tragedy at the same time - thank for the recommendation. I'd like to get through all of Nietzsche's key writing in the next couple of years. I've thought about reading Schopenhauer as I understand he's a gr…

I heavily recommend the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Republic, and Phaedrus (in particular) - it’s said all of philosophy is a footnote on Plato until Nietzsche. I think only a summary of Schopenhauer (like a penguin selection or something) is all that’s needed - he moves past Schopenhauer pretty quickly. I enjoyed Camus due to it being an attempt to move beyond Nietzsche and offer something more digestible, but I neve…

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll add Plato's works to my list. I tried to get into Republic when I was a bit younger but couldn't digest it at the time, but I wasn't very familiar with philosophy (or reading dry books in general) at the time so it would be worth another go round.

I'm roughly familiar with Camus' ideas as presented in the Myth of Sisyphus, and I like the idea that one can make the fight against suffering the source of meaning - it resonates with my understanding of the role of dukkha in the four noble truths in Buddhism. I personally use a mix of Zen Buddhism and stoicism, which seems very similar to you.

The main mental models I use day-to-day are those derived from systems theory, and I believe that patterns of emergence and recursion described by systems theory are the underlying mechanism that brings about abstract properties. I believe I have a copy of "The Human Use of Human Beings" by Norbert Wiener on the way for Christmas, which is meant to be a great book on the topic of cybernetics which is essentially a sub-category of systems theory.

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

#116

Post by ronyfadel »

douglaswlance wrote: post #99
ronyfadel wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you’re diving head first into web development? Or taking it to the next level? Careful not to burn yourself out, that is a long list of technical books, that have nothing to do with the books you’ve read and enjoyed in the past that are from other genres.

Long story short, I am an entrepreneur who sold a company and am transitioning into maximizing my engineering knowledge before diving back into entrepreneurship. I've spent a considerable amount of time studying top performers and learned how to manage stress levels effectively. I do exercise, meditation, yoga, stretching, forest bathing, mindfulness, journaling, and other activities that battle against burnout. I am…

Kudos to you and best of luck :) I’m an engineer by trade, but I’ve quit my job recently to start my own thing, and moving into web dev (my experience is in native dev), so I both share your concerns and your reading list!

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

#117

Post by utopian3 »

keiferski wrote: post #64

I'm planning on going through the entire Harvard Classics. At 51 volumes, it works out pretty nicely to read one volume per week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics

Those volumes seem very dense for reading, digesting, and understanding in a single week. Unless you read & learn very fast, how do you plan to do this?

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

#118

Post by ronyfadel »

gen220 wrote: post #105
ronyfadel wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone tell me why Master and Margarita is a masterpiece? I’ve read it this year and it was a slow read, of basically (possibly) the author’s dreams or long mescaline trip.

It’s mostly a masterpiece because of when and where it was written, and who it was written about. If you’re lacking the context of the author and the times (most people are), it can take a long, hard time to appreciate. Specifically, it’s written for a Soviet audience at a time when the censor was hard to get past. So the only way you could publish controversial thoughts or critiques about society was to couch it in…

I see. In hindsight, it makes much more sense now, thank you!

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

#120

Post by cryoshon »

melenaboija wrote: post #14

"Between the world and me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates "A people's history of the United States" by Howard Zinn

be sure to take the people's history with a grain of salt...

there's factual information in there, but a lot of it is a bit exaggerated and from a very... shall we say, not-rigorous perspective, even if you largely believe in the thrust of what's being said and the facts aren't really up for dispute.

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