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Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

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Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#251
post #130

* Steve Jobs biography. I couldn't put it down and I'm shocked there aren't more fans on HN For those who liked Malkiel's Random Walk, read: * Ben Graham's Intelligent Investor * Philip Fisher's Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits They counter Malkiel's thesis (yup, he's wrong) and Warren Buffet credits both men for teaching him how to invest. True classics.

Steve Jobs may be a great entrepreneur and innovator (or tweaker, whatever, people can debate this for decade) but not all people care much about his life. Especially when most of it have been exposed for years. I borrowed the book from library and only read a few pages here and there. Returned the book within a week because I have other priorities or other books to read. I think it's good that the "herd" mentality i…

I strongly disagree. I got the biography for christmas this year and finished it in two days.

Having never owned a piece of apple hardware due to its closed nature and being an open source supporter myself, I was quite surprised by the joy I got from reading this book.

The honesty used by Walter Isaacson to describe Jobs was really refreshing and not expected by me at all.

I was able to draw many conclusions from this book. For example I do not think that there is the possibility of using it as a recipe for your own success as an entrepreneur, which might be the reason of why the hn community might be undervaluing this book. It clearly shows that Steve had many unique character traits which made him successful after all. Most of them were negative in my eyes. Actually he often seemed borderline insane. When thinking about the way he treated people, the way he manipulated people, the way he thought that he knew it all and used all of those techniques in order to make those things happen, I realized that those are character traits that lie deep within and cannot easy be emulated, if at all.

As a conclusion I might add that I really respect Steve and his family for allowing such a self critical biography to be published.

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#252
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick -- Fascinating to have some insight into Dick's thinking and attempts to understand his experiences. The book isn't really something to just sit down and read cover to cover, but more to explore and move around in, but if you love Philip K. Dick it's awesome.

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#253
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hate to be involved in a community (academic or otherwise) that mocks what has been widely known to be a reliable source of information. Wikipedia, that is. Opinions on Tim Ferris vary greatly.

Pretty much every university professor I've had is hell-bent on wikipedia's destruction. I've even had professors threaten to fail people for using it as a reference. While wikipedia does have some errors, most of the mistakes seem to come in the form of someone sabotaging a disliked celebrity or organization's page. In light of this, it seems to me that most of the topics a student would be likely to write about for…

Using Wikipedia and using it as a reference are two very different things. I use it as a place to find great references and to get a synopsis on a topic, like an encyclopedia was meant to be used. Having lived in the former USSR and reading a lot of encyclopedias produced by the former USSR, I would never trust an encyclopedia alone, no matter who wrote it, without sources.

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs may be a great entrepreneur and innovator (or tweaker, whatever, people can debate this for decade) but not all people care much about his life. Especially when most of it have been exposed for years. I borrowed the book from library and only read a few pages here and there. Returned the book within a week because I have other priorities or other books to read. I think it's good that the "herd" mentality i…

I strongly disagree. I got the biography for christmas this year and finished it in two days. Having never owned a piece of apple hardware due to its closed nature and being an open source supporter myself, I was quite surprised by the joy I got from reading this book. The honesty used by Walter Isaacson to describe Jobs was really refreshing and not expected by me at all. I was able to draw many conclusions from thi…

What are you disagreeing against?

I find it... weird when someone said something in HN and somebody else has to agree or disagree. It's like a blog post that requires a rebuttal or something.

Some people want to read about Steve Jobs, some don't...

And FYI, I'm not sure if reading a book on X and consider it as a recipe for your business is a good thing anyway. Nobody has replicated 37Signals success so far.

Whatever you thought about Steve, most people probably already knew that from the numerous books, articles, and whatnot written about him. And if this book exposed 10-30% more about him... well.. some people may not bother to know more...

It's not like we all must read the book or something...

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#256
Quite possibly the best book I ever read in my life came out in 2011: The Beginning of Infinity by quantum physicist David Deutsch. http://amzn.to/mSTNCn

It talks about the kinds of ideas that lead to progress in human societies and those that lead to stagnation. I believe Deutsch is, in this book, the first philosopher to actually explain why science works as well as it does. I wish I could do justice to this book in a short review, but instead I can only urge everyone reading this to give it a shot. Read the first chapter, and you'll know you have to read the rest.

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#257
The Emperor of All Maladies - spectacular journey into the history of the disease. Filled with great human stories of discovery, and also taught me a ton about the currently understood biology of cancer.

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#258
1. Founders At Work. Biographical - "Entrepreneurship stories at it's best" 2. Rework. Business-Book - "Think your business different" 3. Into Thin Air. Biographical . "An Everest Expedition Turn Wrong" 4. I Was Blind But Now I see. Biographical. "Leave Your Job, Start Your Business. Make Your Money Work For You, Don't Work For Your Money" 5. Anything You Want. Biographical. "Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what's not working. "

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#259
post #113

Let's see... in no particular order: * Thinking, Fast and Slow: http://amzn.to/sXQGSR - probably makes my list because I just finished it, and as he says "what you see is all there is" - we're biased towards things that come to mind easily. Actually, it is a pretty good book even looking through all the others I've read. * 1491: http://amzn.to/uaR0yf - about the Americas prior to the arrival of "Cristoforo Colombo".…

You should read the analysis regarding Kuran's book in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/28/110228fa_fact_...

Re: Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011

#260
post #10

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World A scary tale about the collapse of the various markets across the globe. I constantly had to keep checking to see if the book was from the fiction section. The stories are so far out there it seemed unreal.

Second this. I'm a huge Michael Lewis fan. If you enjoyed this, I would recommend reading (in the following order): - Liar's Poker . Lewis' account of how the bond market really got huge in the 80's. The book that put him on the map. He was a bond salesman in Solomon Brothers investment bank, a really interesting read with many larger than life characters. An insider account on how companies and financial institution…

Thanks for the recommendations. Those are free to read on my Kindle with amazon prime membership, definitely will be reading them now!
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