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Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

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Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#361

Post by JackMorgan »

Some recent books that really enriched my life:

- "Ace: What asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex" by Angela Chen. Really helped me understand my ace friends better.

- "Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving" by Pete Walker. Helped me recover from a lot of trauma that was causing me duress

- "The Wizard and the Prophet" by Charles C. Mann. Helped me recover from anxiety disorder caused by climate change.

- "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey. As a former competitive gamer, this really helped me step back from competition and just enjoy the game.

- "Neurotribes" by Steve Silberman. Great book about the history of autism. Extremely sad but hopeful book.

- "Different Loving" by Brame, Jacobs, and Brame. A fascinating look back in time to the kink world of the 90s.

For fun I recently read and enjoyed: Foundation, Project Hail Mary (who's cutting onions in here), Going Postal, God Emperor of Dune, and Heart of Darkness.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#362

Post by criddell »

shanusmagnus wrote: post #309
haswell wrote: post #290

Why we sleep . This book motivated me to change my sleep habits after decades of being a night owl. I’m starting to love early mornings, and I feel so much better. This was a hard change. How to do nothing . About resisting the attention economy and reorienting one’s relationship with technology and the environment. A very thought provoking and timely read, especially while I’m on sabbatical. Flow . Explores the psyc…

Obligatory critique about Why We Sleep, in case you haven't seen it. https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

In fairness, you should probably also link Walker's response to Guzey and others.

Some of the criticism he rebuts and some he accepts and says he will deal with it in a future version of the book.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#364

Post by criddell »

impendia wrote: post #326
haswell wrote: post #290

Why we sleep . This book motivated me to change my sleep habits after decades of being a night owl. I’m starting to love early mornings, and I feel so much better. This was a hard change. How to do nothing . About resisting the attention economy and reorienting one’s relationship with technology and the environment. A very thought provoking and timely read, especially while I’m on sabbatical. Flow . Explores the psyc…

Caveat: I would not recommend Why We Sleep for anyone suffering from insomnia. When I was dealing with sleep issues I tried reading it, hoping I'd learn something useful. But the book just kept hammering home how badly it screws you if you're not getting enough sleep. As I was trying all the recommended steps (good sleep hygiene, CBT, exercise, did an overnight sleep study, etc.) with only modest results, this basica…

Walker agrees with you! He has said[1] he's going to add a cautionary note at the beginning of the book in a future version to warn people of the risk.

[1]: https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-...

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#366

Post by elteto »

JackMorgan wrote: post #361

Some recent books that really enriched my life: - "Ace: What asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex" by Angela Chen. Really helped me understand my ace friends better. - "Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving" by Pete Walker. Helped me recover from a lot of trauma that was causing me duress - "The Wizard and the Prophet" by Charles C. Mann. Helped me recover from anxiety disorder caused b…

The Martian was a fun, hard science fiction book, but I never really liked its characters. They were too silly and one-dimensional.

But Project Hail Mary is a lovely story. And the twist half way through! Such a wonderful, happy reading.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#367

Post by lumb63 »

prepend wrote: post #235
lumb63 wrote: post #198

The Power of Habit has been fascinating to me. It has helped me to understand how I operate and also how others operate. It is amazing how much of our behavior is dictated by processes far beneath our conscious mind.

I just finished it and don’t regret it, but I feel like it could have been a pamphlet as most of the book seemed like padding to me. I mean I admire Rosa Parks but it seems like a lot of time spent saying that Rosa Parks habits made the difference in that civil rights milestone. Same for the examples of people convicted or acquitted of their crimes based on habits. Aside from reinforcing what I already knew that habi…

This was my experience as well. I found the first few chapters, which discuss the neurology and fundamentals, to be very interesting. The part that extended beyond individual-level habits started to lose me.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#368

Post by elteto »

rcme wrote: post #297
jahsome wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting theory. If I tell you I read Jurassic Park, does that that mean I'm a brontosaurus?

Presumably you’re not reading Jurassic Park as a self-help book, but if you are, then yes, you’re probably a dinosaur.

Not much to add to this thread, except to congratulate you both on such funny little quips.

Top of the morning to both of you!

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#369

Post by mbb70 »

The City & the City by China Meiville.

Meiville normally write weird fiction with a heavy handed communist slant e.g. mutant railroad workers revolt against their capitalist masters and escape by laying and digging up tracks as fast as the train moves, they form a collective and live happily ever after.

The City & the City is his style, but constrained to the structure of a noir mystery novel. Classic gritty cop, loose cannon partner, dead woman, many suspects, second victim, big gunfight, climatic unmasking etc.

The set pieces Meiville is forced to work with results in an incredibly creative and enjoyable ride.

Note: this is not fantasy, it is a noir written by a fantasy writer. Many disappointed readers resulted from this misconception.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#370

Post by SoftTalker »

isaacfrond wrote: post #272
bambax wrote: post #101

The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed. Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement…

I'd like to add Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Borrowed from wikipedia: The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate pr…

Thomas Sowell makes similar arguments on why most of Africa has stayed poor, it's mainly due to geography and environment that is not conducive to economic activity.
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