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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?

#271

Post by andreilys »

deesep wrote: post #236
andreilys wrote: post #160

Well here are the books I’m currently reading (physical, kindle, and audible). I bounce around a lot. Sometimes it takes me a week to finish a book, other times I take a few months. Sometimes I never finish. But these are the ones I have some progress on so far: 1. Faust by goethe 2. I am That 3. Book of why 4. The gift by hafiz 5. Simulacra and simulation 6. Candide by Voltaire 7. Meeting the shadow: the hidden powe…

I am That by Sri Nisargadatta is a great book.

I read the intro and really liked it. Unfortunately it's been a month since I picked it up, got distracted by a few other books haha.

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

#272

Post by crimsonalucard »

jamestimmins wrote: post #270
crimsonalucard wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skip design patterns, I think it locks developers into a sort of religious loyalty towards OOP abstractions. When you understand the pattern it describes you get a sort of catharsis for discovering a new interesting thing. In reality, any of these patterns are just bad despite the cleverness. Modern programming is heading in a different direction already so it'd be better to move forward without it.

Could you summarize the different direction that you see things moving?

Less OOP.

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

#273

Post by therealdrag0 »

sbolt wrote: post #216
yboris wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start with Guns, Germs and Steel ;)

I've had this book recommended to me so many times, I might try and tackle it over the Christmas break.

I found it less interesting than I anticipated, but I think it was because we watched the PBS documentary in HS. So if you're short on time, then you could try that, it seemed to cover all the key bits :)

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

#274

Post by iamjk »

haileris wrote: post #254

I feel like I'm way behind on fundamentals so mostly textbooks. I'm focused on CS, maths, and finance mainly, not sure I'll achieve this in a year, kind of my perpetual read this within 10 years list. I'm also interested in literature but prefer reading to enrich my knowledge and skills as opposed to reading for leisure : Maths: James Stewart's Precalculus Spivak's Calculus How to Solve It Godel, Escher, Bach: An Ete…

> Computer Systems: A Programmer's Persepctive

Can vouch for this one. Provides a great overview of systems through the lens of algorithms they are built on.

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

#275

Post by gdoptimizer »

pgeezy wrote: post #89
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…

Each of the books in the three body trilogy started a bit slow for me, but the payoff was worth it. Opens up into a pageturner about 1/3 of the way in.

I second that. A few years ago, I began reading the first book of the trilogy after lunch to kill time, and got so bored and nearly gave up nearly 1/3 ~ 1/2. And then suddenly the idea became clear. I couldn't put it down and skip the dinner to finished it.

And the second and third books got even better. Especially the third one was mind-blowing beyond description at that time for me. I was sad when I finished them all because I didn't know when I would have a similar experience on another book/series.

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

#276

Post by 0kl »

beaconstudios wrote: post #114
0kl wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 suffer…

That does sound very similar. I know that in my interpretation Camus is one of the possible outcomes of Nietzsche's thoughts, and that his thoughts afford for many... I think that is something that resonated with me - that _my_ philosophy does not need to be yours, but that we can still find some common ground to survive with one another.

Do you have good recommendations for Zen Buddhism and systems theories?

I have touched on both, but never got deep enough to know what are the main works I should be working off of.

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

#277

Post by 0kl »

criddell wrote: post #104
bloudermilk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff just published a blog post that appears to be a summary of the book, which you might find interesting. https://nesslabs.com/how-to-read-a-book

Thanks for the link! Have you read the book? Is the article you linked to a decent summary of the book?

It is a very good summary; matches a lot of my own notes on it. One thing to note though...

> Adler’s main point in the first section of his work about how to read a book is that it’s best to gain knowledge straight from the source. Instead of going through a teacher sharing the main points of a book, he considered it better to read the book yourself. He called this concept “original communication”—the idea that information coming directly from those who first discovered an idea is the best way of gaining an understanding.

Also worth checking out is Adler's "How to Mark a Book" : http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/mark_a_book.htm

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

#278

Post by 0kl »

criddell wrote: post #72
0kl wrote: post #42

I plan to reread a couple core works for myself. Of that list the ones that I’d recommend for others are: Aurelius (trans. Martin Hammond) Fear and Trembling Man’s Search for Meaning Tolstoy’s Confessions Kundera’s The Art of the Novel After doing a thorough reading of “How to Read a Book” I decided to try rereading a few books to pull more out of them. I can’t recommend “How to Read a Book” enough - despite its anac…

How to Read a Book has been on my list for the longest time. I might have to finally give it a go. Is the book very dense? I think one of the reasons I've held off is because I have a suspicion that it could probably be distilled down to the length of a magazine article... I read a decent amount and enjoy it, but I feel in the end I don't get much from it. The time doesn't feel well spent. FWIW, I try to alternate fi…

Read though the first section thoroughly (I recommend attempting all the strategies presented in it on the book itself), and then skim through the "how to read this type of book" section - it's really not necessary and much less enjoyable of a read IMO.

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

#279

Post by phxql »

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…

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems is a really good book.

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

#280

Post by james_s_tayler »

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.

Why Nations Fail was incredible. One of the best things I've ever read.
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