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Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#321

Post by jdonaldson »

pc86 wrote: post #183
cactacea wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. I don't want anything to do with people that "test" others like this. You cannot do so without making assumptions about intent.

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, yes you probably don't want to go through life "testing" people in this way as I'm sure there are some unintended consequences of doing so and you probably end up with kind of a boring circle of people around you. On the other hand, I would never want to be friends with someone who thinks someone is an idiot because they liked a particular book. "You liked this thing I don't lik…

One must imagine Atlas shrugging.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#322

Post by billbrown »

grecy wrote: post #214
tb_technical wrote: post #142

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

> The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged I didn't read it until I was well into my 30s, but I very much enjoyed it. Not the best I've ever read, but I have read it a few times now. I don't agree with a lot of it, and I can't relate to some of the characters personally, I just think it is extremely well written. The characters and their motivations are very well laid out, and we get to go on a journey with th…

Congratulations on your independence. May I recommend her other novel The Fountainhead, which is about the war between individualism and collectivism within a person?

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#323

Post by standardUser »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #279
standardUser wrote: post #275

Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking I find a lot of my successes are driven by building powerful and convincing narratives about my own life and circumstances. Unfortunately, the anti-smoking messaging that comes form every website, doctor and other resource all parrots the same tired arguments I had been hearing since the 90's. My earnest efforts to find new perspectives hit the same wall of propaganda every time.…

Is there a book like this for ice cream and sugary desserts?

He later wrote multiple books on weight loss. Search for "allen carr lose weight" and you will find several. I don't know if his other books are held in as high regard as his quit smoking book. This one seems especially relevant: "Allen Carr's Good Sugar, Bad Sugar"

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#324

Post by twoodfin »

slothtrop wrote: post #156
jjcm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a very polarizing book. I for one thought it was among the worst I've read, but know plenty who have said it's one of their favorites. It's certainly not a traditional novel.

I bounced off of it expecting to enjoy it because I read lots of Pynchon.

Did you make it past the opening Stephen-centered chapters? I bounced off “Proteus” for years, but as soon as I managed to struggle on to “Calypso” and the mind & habits of Mr. Leopold Bloom I was off to the races.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#325

Post by dempedempe »

Everybody has already mentioned most of the best books I've read, so I'll mention one that I haven't seen on this thread yet - The Little Schemer.

Unless you're actively working through a bunch of problems/examples, reading most books is a form of passive learning. That is, you are simply being told information. The Little Schemer is the only book I know of that is written almost entirely in the form of increasingly intricate questions to the reader (active learning). There are maybe about two dozen or so statements ("Laws" as the author calls them). Everything else is a question in an extended Socratic dialogue aimed at refining the reader's knowledge of Lisp, how computation arises from recursion, computation in general, and lambda calculus culminating in the y-combinator.

The Little Schemer is the most unique, most fun, most educational (in the sense that it _forces_ you to work your way through it) book that I've read. Moreover, it's a great way to grasp computation in a more abstract sense.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#327

Post by tb_technical »

lordnacho wrote: post #170
tb_technical wrote: post #142

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

Have you considered that someone who hears Atlas Shrugged is your favourite book might react similarly? I'd be polite, but note you down as either an immature thinker or someone who likes to provoke. With a little more prodding, possibly also one of those people who has to be right about everything, and this is their hill. I guess I'm on passive radar and you are on active.

I have considered it. I generally don't like people who fly off the handle immediately.

I really like your radar analogy

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#328

Post by znpy »

bitcoin_anon wrote: post #167
cactacea wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." "huh, ok" > Really, I'm just looking for people who won't jump down my throat on a faux pas. I think you're dismissing the people such as myself that would note you as an idiot without comment and move on wanting nothing to do with you. Edit: tests and trick questions with people you just met is an ineffective way to navigate the world…

You just failed the test.

I wanted to post something similar.

It's crazy how many people essentially jumped at their throat with obnoxious comments and even outright ridiculing the poster (see the "checkers/chess" comment as an example).

Quite literally the author explained the whole reasoning and they still "failed the test".

I haven't even read atlas shrugged but I guess at this point I'm curious to read it and possibly adopt a similar strategy: it's clearly working way better than intended.

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