Cannot recommend Piranesi by Susanna Clarke enough. A lovely read and could be devoured in an entire day if you're willing and able.
Great biographical article:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/susanna-clarke...
Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
491–500 of 532 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#492The Wandering Inn [1], Stories of an alternate world somehow connected to a certain innkeeper of the said inn. Features extensive world building, character building, Lots of fleshed out characters, contains humour as well as serious stuff, has dragons, fae, aliens, time travel, hiveminds, automatons, cute pets, cosmic horrors, history lessons, magic, alchemy and steampunk engineering. It's a bit longish and not finis…
> It's a bit longish You don't say.
Ok it's a bit longer, only a little bit.
See for yourself https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderingInn/comments/wil9pi/word_c...
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would try the original book on people pleasing: "No more Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Robert Glover. The title may sound lousy but is a very logical book. The author is a PhD in his 60s and he coined the concept. You can start by listening some podcasts where he was a guest. He's genuine and a great communicator. Definitely underrated.
Huh, I searched and his brand seems to be about talking to the "nice guys" who are all like "Why do women always pick jocks and not the nice guys like me?" Which is not a stereotype that I associate with compulsive people-pleasing, exactly... Compulsive self-pitying and limerence, more like.
I upvoted because you just taught me a new word (Limerence)...
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#494The Goal. It's a book from the 1980's about operational management. In particular, it focuses on physical manufacturing. It's in the form of a fictitious personal tale. A plant manager struggles to save his plant from closure, and his marriage from falling apart. The lesson is about lean management. My main takeaway is the realization that when we try to optimize something, we focus on how to do something more effici…
I really enjoyed that book and how it attempts to simplify the nature of common supply chain constraints. You probably know this already, but if not: Eli Goldratt (the guy that wrote that book) wrote an equally brilliant academic paper on the same subject - I think the title was ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’. Just passing it on in the event you’re looking for a good follow-up read.
Yes!
The paper is in the appendix of the book.
Where the book is a story and does not mention Lean Management, Toyota, and Taiichi Ohno, "Standing on the shoulders of giants" is a clear description of TPS (Toyota Production System).
It's awesome how the two varied styles of writing describe the same "thing". Where the "thing" is "how to operate efficiently".
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#4951. Program = Proof by Samuel Mimram
Math foundation of programming. Church–Rosser theorem, Curry–Howard correspondence, intuitionistic logic, theorem proving with dependent types, etc.
2. Rust Atomics and Locks: Low-Level Concurrency in Practice by Mara Bos
Great introduction even for non-Rust programmers.
3. Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails by N. Taleb et al.
I've just started to read it, but looks promising (lot of mathematical statistics).
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great recommendation! The book is mainly credited with introducing the Theory of Constraints [1], which asserts that any manageable system's throughput is limited by exactly one bottleneck. He goes on to encourage us to instantiate operating (and thinking) processes whereby we repeatedly discover and mitigate this bottleneck as each mitigation may result in a migration of the constraint. The main observation is that…
I tried to read The Goal and bounced off due in part to the aforementioned writing style, which seemed super trite and straw-mannish. Does the fact that you keep re-reading the books suggests that you haven't found a better way to re-approach that material?
For me, the writing style is hard to get past and just isn't executed well when compared with high quality literature.
Despite the relatively naive execution, the underlying themes are powerful. I think the narrative approach is what makes it possible to revisit repeatedly and pattern match across widely varying contexts.
We're story telling creatures and a smarter, more academic recitation of a set of facts and observations probably wouldn't have held up as well.
I also agree that it doesn't appear to stand against even small amounts of critical argument while it unfolds, but the central position is so powerful, it's worth suspending disbelief for a bit, enjoy the story and then start taking it apart after it's complete.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author's boasting is something I can imagine bothering some people! He definetly has a big mouth and the book beeing an american style writing doesn't help either. (especially at the end the book transforms to the longest advertisement in history for his own company). But if you can look past that there were a lot of practical take away in the book, at least for me. The largest was how should I think about negoti…
> learning disability I mean, maybe. I read a lot of books and just found this one not very actionable.
Just realized I replied to the wrong comment and can no longer delete it, sorry about that.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#498Somewhat (by a few decades) behind the times here, but I finally found a set of Robert Caro's Years of Lyndon Johnson books at a 2nd-hand shop earlier this year. What a ride. I know it's a famous series, but I'm outside the US and so only recently became aware of its existence, and also therefore went in mostly blind as to the subject (I knew very little of LBJ prior). Am partway through the 2nd book now, with the co…
Just started Master of the Senate. Caro's books have reignited my love of reading. Cannot recommend his books enough for anyone interested in how power in organizations or government is culled and cultivated. His books read like thrillers, but are exhaustively researched and sourced. Sony Pictures recently released a movie covering Caro and his recently passed editor, Robert Gottlieb, relationship and process: https:…
Thanks, was unaware of the movie!
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#499Kind of off-path from my regular reading, but I recently got absorbed into the planted aquarium world. This book was such a great way to get acquainted with the ecology and methods required, though once you do it... It's extremely obvious that it works, and why it works: Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise https://www.amazon.ca/Ecology-Planted-Aquarium-Practical-Sci... Having a…
Also highly recommended to anyone who wants to nerd out on ecology: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20151002 , which among other things lead to the ban on DDT in agriculture in the US. Still relevant, and beautifully written.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#500The 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…
This book also inspired Harari to write Sapiens.