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Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

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Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#161

Post by GregBuchholz »

kelukelugames wrote: post #150
andrea_sdl wrote: post #145

Quiet by Susan Cain, great book about introversion and why we have the "Extrovert Ideal". It's really fascinating to see how introverts have their qualities and how Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - Robert Pirsig: Fantastic book that talks about philosophy in a new way and goes deeper into discovering what's "Quality" and what are the main 2 ways of interacting/reading the world around us. Adam Smith, theor…

Can you help me understand why Quiet is a good read? It's been recommended to me before but it just keeps on getting bumped on the backlog.

(Not the OP). Maybe try the audio book, which is the route I took with "Quiet". It's been over a year since I listened to it, and I can't really recall any great take-away points, other than the generic "listening is important". Think of it more of a pep-talk for people who aren't overly talkative.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#162

Post by ndesaulniers »

I have this weird habit where if I sit and read too much about the same topic, I have trouble retaining all of the information I just read. So, I find I can retain everything better if I read small amounts from multiple books. I sit with a stack of a few books and read chapter out of each. Weird, I know. Here's my current stack:

* The C++ Programming Language, 4th Edition (Bjarne Stroustrup)

* Effective Modern C++: 42 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of C++11 and C++14 (Scott Meyers)

* Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-Down Approach with WebGL (7th Edition) (Edward Angel & Dave Schreiner)

* Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture (David Kushner)

* Neuromancer (William Gibson)

I most recently finished:

* Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn't Want You to Know---and What to Do About Them (Cynthia Shapiro)

* C++ for dinosaurs (Nick Economidis)

I am highly anticipating the final(?) book of the Ender's Game Series by Orson Scott Card titled Shadows Alive.

I just learned about and probably will buy:

* The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker)

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#163

Post by tbjohnston »

Just finished:

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen (as did pdevr) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Leopard

A Guide to the Good Life: the ancient art of Stoic joy by William Irvine - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5617966-a-guide-to-the-g...

Now Reading:

Seneca's Dialogues & Essays - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1933080.Dialogues_and_Es...

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#164

Post by heleph »

pierrec wrote: post #80

Greg Egan renewed my faith in Science Fiction. I just finished reading Diaspora, and I am now a fan. It's an incredibly well thought out extrapolation of the future of the human race, much less phantasmagorical and much more grounded in science than pretty much every other SF I know of, while still going off into mind-bending tangents. I think the most common critique of his work might be about the occasional digress…

I really loved Containment, one where the human race woke up one day to find that the stars had disappeared because the solar system had been placed in a huge container.

I loved how humanity reacted to having their horizons limited, but in an unexpected but potentially reversible way.

Greg Egan's stories always ask really great what-if questions. I think about them long after I read them. I'd actually forgotten that permutation cities was where those interesting ideas about consciousness came from.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#165

Post by tbjohnston »

wsc981 wrote: post #124

I recently read 'The Lean Startup' and 'The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy'. I would recommend both books. I think 'The Lean Startup' is not just a good read for startups in the usual sense; it's also a great advise on how to handle personal projects. With regards to 'The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy' I think the stoic view of life is great and fits well into our western mindset while still being somewhat 'zen' like. I plan to…

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on Marcus Aurelius. I read the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy and moved on to Seneca next.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#169

Post by eldavido »

andrea_sdl wrote: post #145

Quiet by Susan Cain, great book about introversion and why we have the "Extrovert Ideal". It's really fascinating to see how introverts have their qualities and how Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - Robert Pirsig: Fantastic book that talks about philosophy in a new way and goes deeper into discovering what's "Quality" and what are the main 2 ways of interacting/reading the world around us. Adam Smith, theor…

I'm in the middle of "Quiet" right now and have tried to read TMS on and off over the years. I could really go for a reading group on this if you know a few other people who are interested and/or local to SF.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#170

Post by heleph »

I finally got around to reading Logicomix, a graphic novel about the development of mathematical logic around the first half of the 20th century. It's told as the story of Bertrand Russell and has a theme of wanting to understand the world through logic and madness.
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