361–370 of 407 posts
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Yes! Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Astrophysics For People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson bonus round: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Shoedog by Phil Knight The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani
These are all pseudo, pop-science books. I would recommend reading the works of actual scientists and philosophers directly, or textbooks.
Yes. I have always loved books. I read about 30-40 a year, mostly fiction with a few non-fiction thrown in. Novels are the closest thing I know to a form of magic. A good author can completely encode an entire world full of people on 300 pages of black and white text. And when they do it well, it literally never expires. I read mostly books from the last 50 years but I think the best example of a book as magic is Don…
+1 for Steinbeck being a “true master”. East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath essential.
One American friend of mine once mentioned that Steinbeck is obligatory reading in many American schools but few read Faulkner. Maybe that has something to do with his popularity.
I recently did a book club at work, reading the book Being Wrong. At one point the book shared some research that supported the notion that children largely engage in play as a method of flirting with error and mistake making. Mistakes made in play are easily forgiven and quickly learned from. Adults play progressively less because there are fewer safe areas in which we can regularly err. Whether that line of logic i…
Surprisingly, there idea you describe (haven't read Being Wrong, so only using your comment as a description) is something that occurred to me as a result of reading stuff online. And if that would be a totally novel idea for me, your comment would catch my attention and I would start searching for content published online to either confirm it or not (most likely academic papers)
So to me comments section is like bunch of clues, off which I would research further if it catches my attention.
I wouldn't change this.
Physical book on specific subject matter tend to be very thorough compared to any content I could find online.
Physical books make me pay attention to it. They are right there in front. No blue light emissions, no notifications.
Physical books cost money. You can never sell them for anything near what you paid. I want every dollars worth our of them.
When someone asks me about a subject, if I own books on them I am happy to part with them and pass them along to that person provided they agree to do the same, if asked one day.
OP, please read more books, on any topic. Your mind, stress, creative spark will thank you.
I own about 600 books currently. Ranging from A-Z in terms of subject matter. When I've moved, it has been a huge hassle to box and move and re-shelve them. My wife gets pretty irritated about this. I wouldn't change this. Physical book on specific subject matter tend to be very thorough compared to any content I could find online. Physical books make me pay attention to it. They are right there in front. No blue lig…
I have never had 600 books in my library but couple years ago when moving I simply got rid of every single physical book I owned.
I have not bought a new one since. All my books are electronic and I don't feel like I am losing anything. Of course there is a chance that in 15 years all my backups are gone or nothing can read the several formats I have them in but how likely is that?
And until that is happening, I can carry the hundreds of books in my pocket or search through them easily on my computer when needed. It makes moving so much easier and saves up a lot of space.
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Or alternatively: https://medium.com/@magicsebi/12-books-you-should-read-inste...
Interesting that The Second Sex is included in this list, given that its author believed that women are generally too stupid to choose what's best for them in life. > No woman should be authorized to stay home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. — Simone de Beauvoir
> “ ... women are generally too stupid to choose what’s best for them in life.”
Those are your words, not Simone de Beauvoirs.
I haven’t read “The Second Sex” yet but I have read “The Ethics of Ambiguity” by her.
I would bet a dollar though that Beauvoir considers stupidity an individual human trait generously distributed across all genders.
Here are some other quotes from The Second Sex.
"Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it."
"To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles – desire, possession, love, dream, adventure – worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us – giving, conquering, uniting – will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form."
Yes. I have always loved books. I read about 30-40 a year, mostly fiction with a few non-fiction thrown in. Novels are the closest thing I know to a form of magic. A good author can completely encode an entire world full of people on 300 pages of black and white text. And when they do it well, it literally never expires. I read mostly books from the last 50 years but I think the best example of a book as magic is Don…
> I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list “An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its ‘self-help’ section: ‘For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.’” — Roger Ebert ( https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/larger-than-life-1996 )
The people in the self-help section need something else . Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc. It's a little like, "Have you tried not having a broken leg?" Honestly, you're lucky if the only personal problems you have can be solved by philosophy, literature, history and science. (I ha…
- Scientifically tested methods for behavior change (quitting smoking, alcohol/drug use, changing your diet, etc)
- Information and guidance for medically recognized conditions (major depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, etc)
- Books on interpersonal skills in various contexts (relationships, work, etc). And ones better and more factually-based than “Power Laws”, etc.
- Books meant as support or guides for working through various forms of past trauma or abuse, which have been written by trained professionals with clinical experience (ie psychologists with Phds).
Obviously the quality of the material varies and there is a lot of suspect work. Most is the good books also make clear that they do not replace working with a qualified professional. But everything requires judgement and context in life, not just the self-help section.
And I too am a fan of philosophy.
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Can you (or someone else) recommend me some great books about philosophy, history and science? I feel like I haven't read many books from these sections and I'd like to start doing that. Thank you!
Yes! Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Astrophysics For People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson bonus round: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Shoedog by Phil Knight The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani
They are extremely short and accessible and use plain language. The Dialogues, like any philosophy, have their flaws, but I think they do a great job of teaching a certain way or analyzing an idea.
They were actually written by Plato (Socrates left no written material behind) but are the closest we have to Socrates and Socratic thought.
I personally found a course on the fundamentals of western philosophy super fascinating. Aside from the dialogues the primary sources can be tough going so a class or a reputable-looking reader on each thinker (good used bookstores will have these, or just google and get whatever is most recent and recommended) is recommended. In rough chronological order:
- Socrates - Plato - Descartes (I don’t know much about medieval though and have skipped over it) - Spinoza - Rousseau - Kant (can be dense/boring) - Hegel
The fascinating thing is to read each thinker, absorb their conception of things, and learn what they got _wrong_. And then to read the next thinker and learn what _they_ got wrong!
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The people in the self-help section need something else . Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc. It's a little like, "Have you tried not having a broken leg?" Honestly, you're lucky if the only personal problems you have can be solved by philosophy, literature, history and science. (I ha…
> The people in the self-help section need something else. Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc. Actually it's the inverse. A healthy dose of philosophy, literature, history and science are what people suffering from "depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency" can use to liberat…