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Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#401

Post by Thersites »

Scarblac wrote: post #307
OnionBlender wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it worth the effort? I've picked up snow crash a few times in the past 20 years and found it a hard read. I really want to enjoy it but I find it hard to swallow. I suppose it has been hard because it doesn't take itself seriously. My sci-fi reading history has been: - several William Gibson novels between 1995-2008 - Most of the ender's game series and home coming from 80's to 2008. - Between 2008 and 2018 I read…

You missed Iain M Banks' Culture novels completely, they are hugely entertaining. Just skip the first for now.

Player Of Games is amazing

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#402

Post by Thersites »

fsloth wrote: post #326
vchynarov wrote: post #198

Fiction: "The Lies of Locke Lamora" I found this book because I just finished playing Dishonored 2 and I wanted to read a book with a dystopian steampunk alternative-Victorian vibe. The events take place in a gritty, corrupt city of waterways and canals controlled by different factions. The factions represent either the legitimate nobility or the extensive underground criminal empire. A charismatic leader of a small…

If you dig victorian steampunk I warmly recommend Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.

Seconded, this is one of the best fiction books I have ever read

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#404

Post by pedrolins »

- Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smill - May be a bit dense sometimes in raw data but overall provides an awesome overview of how humanity has used and continues to use energy, from a historical, economical and physical perspective.

- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee - A very well written narrative of medicine's fight against cancer (though the author also goes into detail into other aspects of pre-modern medicine) that really executes on explaining how modern day cancer treatment came to be and what are the probable next steps towards a cure.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#407

Post by carlio »

I didn't do it on purpose, but I read "You look like a thing and I love you"[0] followed by "I, Robot"[1] and that combination was really fun.

The ideas Isaac Asimov put forward in I, Robot (written in the 1940/50s!) juxtaposed with a factual description of the current use of AI and the unusual side effects was really cool.

0: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44286534-you-look-like-a...

1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41804.I_Robot

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#408

Post by pedrolins »

KerryJones wrote: post #262
nerbert wrote: post #15

I read the foundation series by Asimov. Its title of the best sci-fi series of all times isn’t a hyperbole.

I read the first and was incredibly unimpressed. Does it get better? I love the premise, love many other sci-fi authors & series, I thought this was going to be an obviously good one.

I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much enjoyment out of the series (including the 2 sequels after the trilogy) if I hadn't read Asimov's Robot Series. I know that the whole "you don't get it because you haven't read these other books" thing is kind of cliché, but I really do think that the majority of the joy I got from Foundation was because of how it connected with the Robot Series.

But of course, part of the enjoyment should come from the book itself. I'd say that the book does get better as new threats to the Foundation appear, but the premise largely stays the same throughout the trilogy: will the Seldon Plan succeed?

(NOTE) The reading sequence for me went something like: 1. Caves of Steel 2. Naked Sun 3. I, Robot 4. Robots of Dawn 5. Foundation Trilogy

EDIT: remove redundant last paragraph

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#409

Post by atq2119 »

tayo42 wrote: post #342
dagmx wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're entirely too dismissive of other people here, ironic for a thread on "How to change your mind" I've had to calm people down off of bad trips. Unlike what you say, it's something that totally happens with single drugs and non hallucinogenics. Hell you can have a bad trip on alcohol. It's all about the state of mind, and having an altered state of mind can make it much easier to start spiraling. This can…

Quoted post unavailable.

I mostly agree with you, but your argument would be stronger if you didn't just blame everything on "overdoing" it.

My understanding is that psychedelics work by disinhibiting certain self-regulatory mechanisms in the brain. This means a bad trip can come simply from a person's past, e.g. if they have some unprocessed trauma that's usually repressed, the result can easily be ugly.

I agree with you that people who already know themselves well don't need to be afraid. It's the grey area of people who don't know themselves well but perhaps want to know themselves better that can get tricky.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?

#410

Post by leobg »

chx wrote: post #366
leobg wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Else you become founder of Uber?

Uber, on one hand, is exploiting drivers naivety and funnel their money to the investors. If people calculated the amortization of their cars they would see how their real income is far below minimal wage -- there are many blog posts analyzing this. On another hand by creating and valorizing "gig economy" it has become an excellent tool in furthering the rollback of everything organized labor have achieved in a hundr…

Point was that Uber’s co-founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick named Ayn Rand as his favorite author. So I thought of him as an example for someone who has not “growing out of“ Rand’s “objectivism”.

I find it very fitting that is apparently has led him to the kind of one-sided success you are describing. And, if I remember correctly, his ousting from Uber started with him preaching the libertarian gospel to one of his company’s underpaid drivers.

It seems to me that is precisely what the other commentator was trying to say with “growing out of it“. Ayn Rands books are really good and revolutionary and one should read them, perhaps even multiple times. But one probably shouldn’t take them as the final answer to the questions of life.

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