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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?

#161

Post by madhadron »

dmos62 wrote: post #151

I've begun reading The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, his first novel. It's left a very good impression so far. It's a fourteenth century murder mystery, set in a monastery, where the mystery is mostly an excuse for exploring the historical and cultural contexts, which are very interesting. Wikipedia has a nice summary: "an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, a…

I have resorted to his phrase "what is good for an old monk may not be so for a young novice" from that book about Emacs over the years. The quote above will not be exact since I was reading it in Italian.

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

#162

Post by habnds »

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…

Anatomy of a revolution is a good one to frame the French rev in the context of the other revolutions of that time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/648063.The_Anatomy_of_Re...

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

#163

Post by [deleted] »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #132
douglaswlance wrote: post #73

My top priority books: Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan Design Patterns - Gang of Four Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl…

> Principles - Ray Dalio I'm confused by the praise for this book. I couldn't finish it. No real insight or anything technical, just fluff (Dreams + Reality + Determination = Success!). I'm with Josh Wolfe [1]; I think Bridgewater is going to be exposed as one of the random, large hedge funds that got lucky for a spell, but is not any better than an index fund, ex-fees. https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1082470723…

[deleted]

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

#164

Post by dominotw »

techstrategist wrote: post #106
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…

Depending on your current habits, starting with Digital Minimalism will help get through the others in one year.

curious whats in that book.

I feel like i already know what i am doing wrong re tech addiction but that i think is psychological issue with me. Not sue what a book can tell me.

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

#165

Post by madhadron »

habnds wrote: post #155
yboris wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start with Guns, Germs, and Steel and/or Digital Minimalism ;)

A book to read immediately after Guns Germs and Steel is Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu. It's also useful to know that Diamond does not have a degree in Geography and many geographers aren't particularly on board with his ideas. I think of him the same way I do Malcom Gladwell, a good story teller but he does this by cherrypicking anecdotes more than by a robust assessment of reality.

I've gotten to the point where I just suggest people skip Guns, Germs, and Steel entirely. Diamond is a really excellent writer, but he cherry picks his material to support a thesis and ignores all the prior art that shows that people already tried his thesis a century ago and discarded it.

Jump to 'The Power Broker' instead. Now that's an interesting read.

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

#167

Post by jriot »

I've curated my 2020 list over the last few months, eventually splitting it in two; 2021 has been started, but below is my 2020 list.

Brave New World

Catcher in the Rye (3rd read)

Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

War and Peace

Catch-22

Stranger in a Strange Lan

The Hobbit (3rd read)

The Illiad

The Odessey

Walden

Leisure, The Basis of Culture

The Seven Storey Mountain

Confessions

The City of God

Ways of Life St Augustine

Catechism of the Catholic Church

These Truths

Battle Cry of Freedom

The Complete Guide to Fly Fishing

The Lure and Lore of Trout Fishing

The Duck Huntingest Gentlemen

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

#168

Post by madhadron »

chucky_z wrote: post #137
lghh wrote: post #126

Leisure Stuff: Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga Of Oklahoma City, It's Chaotic Founding... by Sam Anderson Midnight In Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham Dune by Frank Herbert The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (tried it this year and stopped, want to give it another go) Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just finished Exhalation and I think it's great) An Ursula K. Le Guin novel, have not picked one out yet A…

For Ursula, I would strongly suggest Left Hand of Darkness. Try to read it without looking into it too much.

Or go dip into her novellas. There's a collected edition out now ('The Found and the Lost'). I think my favorite stuff of hers is in there. Or, if you just want fun, 'Changing Planes' is a delightful romp inspired by the misery of sitting in airports.

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

#169

Post by madhadron »

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…

Master and Margarita is one of my "level 0" books (the small shelf of books that get dumped in the suitcase when I uproot and change continents). It bears rereading over the years.

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

#170

Post by madhadron »

inertiatic wrote: post #57
kidintech wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> some of the characters described seem to me like they couldn't be real people

Could you elaborate? I'd like to hear what you find dissonant.

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