Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 532 posts

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

#421

Post by Jemaclus »

loxias wrote: post #158

"This is how you lose the time war". It's by two authors. Light read. I bought it because it was inexpensive and I the title was a "me-shaped" hook. :) I chuckled after a few pages, after about 1/3rd I couldn't put it down, or read it fast enough. Challenging, as it started to rain during my walk to work (as evidenced by the dozen wrinkly pages towards the end). The next day as I read, I was pacing around my apartmen…

The funniest story about TIHYLTTW is the story if Bigolas Dickolas on Twitter, who hyped up the book and it went viral years after it was released. Here's a blog post on Tor.com about it: https://www.tor.com/2023/05/11/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time...

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

#423

Post by cjohnson318 »

_yb2s wrote: post #410
cjohnson318 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The men's rights stuff tells them they've been sold a lie/raw deal by society... I think that's it in a nutshell. Selling a narrative of undeserved victimhood is very powerful. I think a lot of men stop at convenient victimhood and do not follow through and to learn how to be resilient, reliable, and genuinely put others' interests ahead of their own. If you're being a "nice guy" just to get something, then you're…

Yes, a key part of No more Mr. Nice Guy is that "Nice Guys" operate on "Covert Contracts." They do things for other people with the (unstated/secret) expectation of something specific in return, especially, e.g. being nice or giving gifts and compliments to women, and expecting romantic interest, friendship, loyalty, etc. in return- and they get upset and act out when they don't get what they expected, which isn't re…

> I do take issue with your idea to "put others' interests ahead of their own."

I don't believe that putting "others first at the expense of yourself, and then silently expect[ing] other people to somehow take care of your interests for you" is actually "put[ting] others' interests ahead of [your] own". That's still self interest, it just utilizes the Covert Contracts you mentioned.

I think good leadership is self sacrifice. Being able to adjust or set aside your expectations without resentment will not help you win a war or run a country, but it will help your marriage, friendships, and children. Once I learned to adjust my expectations for people, I let go of a lot of bitterness and I was able to focus energy elsewhere. This is more of a personal outlook for me--I'm not arguing with you, I just wanted to clarify my position.

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

#424

Post by randcraw »

JoeDaDude wrote: post #232

Embracing Defeat by John Dower. The history of Japan's defeat in World War II is well known, but less known is how Japan transformed from a quasi-theocratic military dictatorship to the liberal democracy it is today. This book looks at the events, both cultural and political, that were occurring during the American occupation and how the Japanese adjusted to their defeat and created a new vision of the Japanese natio…

I own this and keep forgetting to read it -- a fascinating look into the reinvention of a nation's priorities from a warlord- and caste- driven monarchy to... whatever modern Japan is now.

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

#425

Post by hacknewslogin »

lewisflude wrote: post #182

Ultralearning by Scott H. Young https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/ > Combining stories of dramatic ultralearning feats with the detailed science on how to learn anything effectively, ULTRALEARNING will transform how you work, live and learn. It made me realise that for most of my life, the things I was doing to try and learn new skills, techniques or technologies was actually more akin to entertainment t…

Would this be useful to someone that's not neurotypical?

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

#426

Post by marojejian »

shanusmagnus wrote: post #319
paulusthe wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, sapiens was generally hated by academic anthropologists but Dawn of everything is generally hated by everyone else. Graeber was always expressly advocating for one specific (anarchist) viewpoint in his work, and that book suffers mightily for it. Don't take anything in that book as true, because I've read lots of academics losing their minds over how much he glossed over or just ignored contrary…

I'm not the author, but obligatory "not sure why this is being down-voted." I've been wondering about Graeber for a while, since his work seems suspiciously close to "messages certain people desperately want to hear" and I have strong priors against those accounts, regardless of which "side" they come from. Would love to hear perspective on this. The book would be a serious investment.

below is a review I wrote of the book. despite my criticism, I'm glad I read it. But for a lot of people the ROI won't be good.

" I rated this one star, but understand the context, that I am very sympathetic to both the mission and perspective of the authors. I wanted to love this, and want them to be right. In general their key points are interesting ones to consider. The modern state is not inevitable. Past people were as smart and creative as we are, and likely experimented with a vastly greater range of societies than we are familiar with. We could learn a lot from them, and should consider trying more experiments ourselves. As they assert, few others are attempting to broadly reconsider recent evidence in the way they do.

But despite that, there is so much wrong with their execution. They started with their conclusion, and fit everything to that. Despite being massively long, the book is very short on actual evidence. It is very long on speculation, horrible logic, and frustrating repetition.

My suggestion is to gain exposure to the ideas, by reading few solid reviews of it. Then just keep those ideas in mind, and follow other more specific evidence cases, by more responsible scholars.

this episode of Tides of History podcast has some good coverage: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-the-state/id12... "

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

#427

Post by gbjw »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #140

Just finished The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, a tremendously accomplished music producer. It's a beautifully written guide to artistic work, but also a manual for a mindful life. Savor every page packed with insight, subtlety and poetic aphorisms. Also recommend The Dawn of Everything by Graeber & Wengrow, previously cited on this page. Next will be The Matter with Things by Iain McGilchrist. The two…

Curious what you think of McGilchrist's new doorstoppers! I discovered Master and his Emissary a while ago and got through much of it but with a steadily declining enthusiasm. At first its breadth was exciting, but eventually became exhausting. Ever since, I've watched countless interviews with Iain and it seems he's been repeating the same few insights over and over again. Relationships are primary, left / right ways of 'attending' to the world, the left brain perspective destroying societies, etc. I do wonder if The Matter with Things presents something fundamentally new...

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

#429

Post by nineplay »

lysecret wrote: post #374

Brothers Karamazov: An absolutely fantastic demonstration of family dynamics (from a purely male perspective). The Idiot: What happens to a close to perfect person in an imperfect world. What I loved about this book, it doesn't go the obvious route (e.g. oh he is too nice and gets exploited, it's subtle) Why you should read: Both books give an interesting inside of "russian" mentality (which I think is very important…

I'm a woman and I didn't either book particularly masculine nor did I feel like the women came off badly. The main female character in The Idiot was fantastic. I consider Dostoevsky one of the best writers in terms of understanding women. I'll resist the urge to quote.

It could be that the POVs are more universal than you think.

Have you read Crime and Punishment? There's a scene in there that I can hardly believe a man wrote.

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

#430

Post by vanderZwan »

ryneandal wrote: post #381
vanderZwan wrote: post #296

I've been slowly going through Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry , by Norman J. Wildberger. Wildberger is a mathematician, and a finitist. This means that he doesn't believe in infinity in the modern mathematical sense (I'm sure he won't dispute that the integers are unbound, for example). Which means he does not believe that Real numbers are properly defined either, or that limits are r…

Highly recommend his History of Mathematics lectures on YouTube, if you are interested in that sort of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW8Cy6WrO94&list=PL55C7C8378...

Yes, his YT channel is lovely - that's how I originally discovered him actually! That's why I decided to give his book a try, despite having a title that evokes worries it's a "Sacred Geometry" type of thing. Luckily it isn't like that at all.
Post reply on HN