The Selfish Gene; Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
451–460 of 980 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#452Nonfiction: Thinking, Fast & Slow Fiction: Project Hail Mary
Project Hail Mary is amazing, but personally I think it is just one step below The Martian. Both incredible books, though. I've read the Martian three times.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#453Fiction: The little prince
Non fiction: Maus
ie. the best and worst that humans can be.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. Not OP. But I would say the filter is working. If you would treat somebody like an idiot for liking a book you don’t like, I indeed, would want you filtered out of my circle of friends.
It’s not just liking a book, as if they named some cliche young adult novel. It’s the magnum opus of the author’s philosophy as a novel. They’re dismissing them for the philosophical views they’re celebrating. It’s the other end of the spectrum from disliking someone because their favorite book is The Grapes of Wrath or A Brave New World. I actually agree with the values expressed in those books, and I can also under…
I can like a book without agreeing with it.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#455"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.
Exactly. I agree with OP. I don't think Atlas Shrugged is the best book around.
But by using a negative to judge the response of the other people, the other people could just as easily be judging him.
Now both parties are looking down on each other. When really they agree.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
Canticle for Leibowitz was pretty good. Regardless of political opinions, that monologue in the middle of Atlas Shrugged is some quite poor writing. TBH if someone said their Atlas Shrugged was their favorite book, I would assume they were making some sort of political statement, which seems like a bit of an intrusion on what otherwise ought to be a fun chat about books. I was a teenager when I read her books, and th…
The best part of the monologue is in-universe, it supposedly takes 3 hours, but everyone on YouTube takes 4-5 hours, which means John Galt was speaking at 1.5x speed. Honestly Ayn Rand's sexual politics are more interesting than her economic politics. The books are mostly about masculinity and its definition. The ideal men in her books are immutable flawless beings, and the (good) women learn to define themselves by…
Like I said, it was a million years ago, and I was a teenager so I didn’t really engage with the material as deeply as you seem to have. But I vaguely recall Roark being the main viewpoint character in the Fountainhead, while Dagny was in Atlas, right?
I think that is one thing I enjoyed about the Fountainhead, it felt a little more grounded because, even though the main character is this egoist superman guy, we at least are with him as he’s having a bad time.
I just remember Gault being this rumor hiding off in the wilderness or whatever, then he shows up with his sci-fi engine, drops pages and pages of dialogue, and… wins? I forget how it ends for him, tbh.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#457I read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and I loved both of them, can recommend.
Seveneves is an amazing book, just make sure you skip the last part.
If you are into history I can recommend The last days of the Incas by Kim MaqQuarrie, it's just an insanely interesting description on how the Incas was conquered, it feels like you're there man.
If you like evolutionary biology/phsycology then check out The Red Queen - Sex and the evolution of human Nature by Matt Ridley.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#458I read /Cannery Row/ once a year, and have for over ten years. I am a Steinbeck fan, and this is my favorite of his, but I'm not sure if I keep doing it because it's really the best or if I just enjoy judging my own changes in outlook against a standard unit of literature. I suspect it's the latter but it's a short book and I recommend anyone read it at least once.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#459Henry George’s Progress & Poverty conducted what can only be described as a coup on my worldview, and I am not alone in that experience. It is an incredible argument that will just utterly transform how you understand a walk down the street. If you’ve been seeing references to the Land Value Tax (LVT) here on HN, this is the book that originated the concept. Like most conceptual breakthroughs, it didn’t emerge solely…
An economic thinker that can garner praise from democratic socialists like Einstein to neoliberal ghouls like Milton Friedman has to have something going for it.
It's transformed my worldview as well, if nothing else by underlining that free markets and capitalism are not the same thing at all.
Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
#460The best books I read last year were the "Three Body Problem" books by Cixin Liu. It's a science fiction series about aliens, space travel and the universe and they're easily the best books I've read in a while. I genuinely can't remember the last time I got that absorbed in a series. I'd read until the early hours of the morning and sometimes just sit at the edge of my bed for like 20 minutes just contemplating the…
The coolest thing about them is that he solved the Fermi Paradox, I definitely buy his explanation.