Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
211–220 of 434 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#212Finally got around to reading The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.
It was on my list for the past like, twenty years, and after reading it I really wish I would have read it back then.
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#213Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina, because it made me a better father; Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, because it taught me of the importance of something that I’d occasionally dismiss as a nuisance; Pain Free and Pain Free at Your PC by Pete Egoscue, because it completely changed the way I understood posture, pain, and how repetition influences my body; and Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, because it…
Great suggestions. Your post reads like the first part of Meditations by Aurelius.
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#214- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Great overview of how we got here and how our shared 'delusions' keep us where where we are).
- Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Great interviews by incredibly successful start up founders. Lesson 1: determination was the number one predictor of start up success. Lesson 2: most of the founders had no idea on how huge some of the companies would become nor the huge amounts of revenue their ideas would generate. Their number one focus was always grounded in solving a problem or delivering something great; everything else was secondary.)
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Great crime story. It shows how small things can make a big difference. A seemingly inconsequential and small prison event where a man spreads a rumor about a family having lots of wealth in their household leads to a series of robberies which nightmares are made of. Completely true story and incredibly well written by Mr. Capote. It convinced me that life is ruled by chaos. Small things and seemingly small events play a vital role in determining its outcome).
- The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook (Amazing book showing that a lot of personality disorders stem from childhood trauma / experiences).
- Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Great overall book on UI design which definitely had an effect on how I approach designing user interfaces).
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Great thoughts from a great mind).
- How to Develop Superpower Memory by Harry Loraine (Great advice on how to drastically improve your memory using your visual cortex – as well as a great general overview of the methodology current world memory champions use to remember large volumes of information).
- Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger (Worldly wisdom from one of the world’s greatest investors).
- The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan (Great thoughts and advice from Carl Sagan. The last chapter had a profound effect on the way I think of the US constitution).
- The Things They Carried (Great novel about the hell of war, as well as incredible prose writing).
- Mindfulness in Plain English (Great book about mindfulness meditation).
- My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson (Great teachings and stories from the grand master of hypnosis).
- How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease (Great book with great advice on healthy eating).
- Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (It taught me how incredibly important exercise is when it comes to brain development / general health. If you could bottle its effects in a pill form, people would pay hundreds of dollars to unlock the incredible stuff it delivers).
- A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form (Great overview of what’s wrong with the current state of mathematics and the way that its taught. I completely agree with with the sentiment and the message).
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#215Since 2007, I've taken detailed notes on every book I've read, then posted them on my site with my top recommendations up top: https://sivers.org/book My top recommendations here for the Hacker News crowd - with a nudge for the under-rated, are: The Time Paradox - by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd https://sivers.org/book/TimeParadox Profound idea that everyone has a primary time focus: either Future-focused, Present-f…
Thanks for sharing Derek
I regularly use your book list for inspiration on what to read next
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love all these books except the four hour work week. I do not believe Tim understand what it takes for a person in low income class to be successful.
In defense of self-help books; you latch to the one that finds you. The 4-hour workweek provided me a useful foil to Gladwell’s “10,000” hours. It might take 10k to master, but you sure as hell can move fast if you get to 80% in 10 hours.
Great article in Forbes about 4 - hour work week.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelschein/2019/01/17/tim-fe...
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#217Introduction to Calculus Textbook, during 1st college year. Mindblown. True enlightment. I got from it what I was looking for when researching religions and philosophy as a teenager.
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#218Not much fiction in here:
* Ender's game
* Children of time
* Kingkiller Chronicle (series)
* Skyward
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#219Nonfiction/history: Afghanistan, a Cultural and Political History
https://www.amazon.com/Afghanistan-Cultural-Political-Prince...
The author is one of the leading American scholars on Afghanistan and provides fascinating and pertinent insight into the history of Afghanistan. Highly recommend if you want to understand how and why Afghanistan came to exist as it does today, and to gain insight and respect for its people, culture, their struggles, and the geopolitical significance of Afghanistan.
Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?
#220From a few angles:
* I read the Bible out of curiosity and ended up joining a church, so that's pretty consequential.
* Moby Dick and Journey to the West were probably the most sheer enjoyment I got out of books
* Learning C# 3.0 by Jesse Liberty is extremely dated at this point, and was dated even when I read it, but was the first book that made me "get" many basic OO concepts and taught me a language I've gotten a lot of professional mileage out of
* Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual and Sedewick/Wayne's Algorithms. Most people do algorithms in school. I learned about it while I was already writing programs for money all day, which means it deeply impacted the way I think about my work.
* Discrete Math with Applications by Epp -- I didn't read it all the way through but gave me the foundations to actually understand what the hell the books in the last bullet were talking about
* Battle Cry of Freedom by MacPherson was the first really meaty historical book I read. Turns out I like those a lot.
So many more but this seems like a reasonable place to stop for this discussion.