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Mind-expanding books

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Re: Mind-expanding books

#12
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on an Asimov binge right now. Just finished Foundation and Earth . So I jumped to the scifi section of the list and saw Ready Player One on there. I found that book mildly entertaining, but not a work of great literature, and certainly not mind expanding. I agree with your sentiment about the importance of knowing the reviewer. I think using general popularity as a gauge is a good way to get the worst recommendat…

> I think using general popularity as a gauge is a good way to get the worst recommendations. Do you know a better way to get good recommendations? I am genuinely interested.

Talk about books with people you admire. My best reads came from recommendations by mentors, managers and friends. A quick message on LinkedIn is often enough to get a solid recommendation. Generally it seems people like being asked for that kind of advice.

Re: Mind-expanding books

#13
post #8

I’m not convinced of the utility of lists like this, or the multitude of other Awesome JavaScript Yeahhhh!!! lists. As one of the issues in the GitHub repository suggest, it seems all that is needed for a book to be considered “mind expanding” here is for it to have a Goodreads and/or Amazon rating higher than 4. But what does that prove? There are people who rate Netflix’s Red Notice 10/10. Relative to those people,…

I once asked a bunch of my colleagues if they ever used one of these awesome lists and their answer was no. I asked the same group if they bookmarked, stared, or shared an awesome list before, and more than half of them said yes. Whatever that means.

It’s the developer equivalent of inane and/or factually incorrect chain emails from older relatives

Re: Mind-expanding books

#17
It would be a help if the author of the list gave any indication of why each of these books is worth reading.

As it stands it looks like a list of the sort of worthy books that folk will think well of you for having read.

Re: Mind-expanding books

#18
post #7

Here's a problem I have with books... Say, I want to increase my productivity. Then I found a number of books, each takes time to do and each sells THE way to increase productivity. Long story short... Weeks later I'm still busy reading books, while got more confused. My approach is to just understand principles, and skip these kinds of books

Seems like you are using books as they are intended. You do not need to be orthodox to the idea that is represented by such books just be inspired by them. This is especially true for maths, but also books like the Bible were you can not read the book and then know Christianity, you need the principles .

Re: Mind-expanding books

#20

>Patrick rothfuss before lord of the rings This has to be bait

Patrick Rothfuss ruined other fantasy novels for me. Seriously, I usually now stop after 2-3 hours in because it is just bad in comparison. I know that there are some that do not like his books. For me those are the best fantasy books I have ever read. It is not even close. Like he is so much better that I can not even compare it to anything else.
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