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What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

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Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#161

Post by walterbell »

rndn wrote: post #100
seanlinehan wrote: post #33

I would definitely recommend How to Win Friends and Influence People as an addition to the list. I'd say that learning how to deal with people and communicate ideas effectively is at least as important as learning how to think. This is also a book I recommend reading, re-reading, and then re-reading again for people of all ages. Edit: I'd also probably recommend Innumeracy[0] which is a fun book about dealing with nu…

Here is a summary of HtWFaIP that I stumbled upon the other day: http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-friends.htm...

The 13-week Dale Carnegie Course is orders of magnitude more valuable than the DC book, I wonder if anyone has adapted it for kids.

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#162

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

sanderjd wrote: post #135
doctorpangloss wrote: post #53

I wish when I was 14 I was exposed to more contemporary literature, instead of great classics. And I have no regrets about missing out on math books—most of my friends went to math camp for that kind of knowledge. I'd recommend David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; Junot Diaz's This is How You Lose Her; The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis; Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. I wis…

On the other hand, don't neglect the classics because you think they're played out. I think someone influential made a snide comment to me when I was young about how overrated and irrelevant Dickens and Shakespeare are, so I didn't read them until after college, at which point I discovered how misguided I had been. But yes, definitely, there is great literature from the 90s, 00s, and 10s that young people are often n…

I think they're overrated - for teens. I know why we inflict them on kids, but they're hard to appreciate until you're an adult.

I know a super-smart fourteen year old. He tells me The Hunger Games and Harry Potter are the best books he's read.

When I was in my teens I was reading:

Herman Hesse Thomas Mann John Barth (which shows how old I am...) John Irving John Updike Doris Lessing A lot of SF, classic/mainstream and otherwise Literal piles of electronic and computer hobby mags OMNI magazine Articles in Encyclopedia Britannica about tensor analysis and simultaneity which I totally failed to understand A buy-weekly-and-keep popular subscription encyclopedia I talked my parents into getting for me.

Of those, OMNI made the biggest impression because it hit an art/science/futurism sweet spot that I haven't seen copied since. (Mondo 2000 was on a different moon of the same planet. Wired is a very poor imitation.)

The buy-weekly encyclopedia was unexpectedly useful too, because it covered things like art history and politics I'd never have thought about otherwise.

I think 14 is as much about curiosity, creativity and emotions as raw intellect. So if you're just creating a reading list about stuff to think about in a clever way, you're going to be missing a lot of potential for more rounded development.

I'd think about experiences as well as books. Go to sports. Go to an opera. Go to art galleries. Go see bands. Travel and have adventures. Go to a political debate. Go see some classical Greek tragedy or comedy. Couch surf with strangers and take the kid along. Go hiking a long way from the Internet. Teach some survival skills.

If the 14 yo doesn't want to have the fam along, offer free tickets and travel for them and friends. (Not so much for the travel...)

And so on. Leave the compiler theory books for later.

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#164

Post by robobro »

pacaro wrote: post #131
jarin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you care what other people think? is a great book, but I'd recommend starting with Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman first.

I'd vote against[1] ‘Surely you're joking’ - while Feynman was undoubtably a genius, he's not a great role model for a 14 year old [1] “vote” in the context of the list of books, not in the context of this comment on HN

It may help him open his eyes more and appreciate ways of living that don't fall in line with the common American view. You can be a great genius and still a weirdo!

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#165

Post by afarrell »

qznc wrote: post #116
afarrell wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read stories. Start with short stories and blog posts. Also audiobooks are great for when you are walking around. Take walks where you talk to yourself or a friend about those stories and thereby think about them more clearly via the same mechanism that makes rubber-duck debugging a good way to solve technical problems. This YouTube series is a good start to how to think about stories: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?…

I think you give too much credit to stories. I fully agree with listening to people. You need to respect them first, though. Every human being tries to live a good life. The filthy beggar on the street, the greedy wall street trader, the corrupt cop, the geeky programmer. I listed stereotypes. If you get to know people, you learn how they are not stereotypes. It does not matter if you travel around the world or aroun…

My post definitely does. Too often we pattern-match against stories we already know and don't examine where reality deviates. But I don't know how to counteract that besides other countervailing or attached stories.

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#166

Post by afarrell »

angersock wrote: post #158
NhanH wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 25 and I have no understanding of human, sexuality, rich people, old people etc... How do I catch up?

Go outside and talk to humans, old people, rich people, and get laid. No reading necessary.

> get laid

That's a bad goal to direct you to anything useful. Trying really hard to just plain get laid is a self defeating quest because you'll probably creep people out in the process and make them not trust you enough to share their experiences (much less their sexuality) with you.

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#167

Post by jacquesm »

pacaro wrote: post #131
jarin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you care what other people think? is a great book, but I'd recommend starting with Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman first.

I'd vote against[1] ‘Surely you're joking’ - while Feynman was undoubtably a genius, he's not a great role model for a 14 year old [1] “vote” in the context of the list of books, not in the context of this comment on HN

Feynman is one of the best role models for a 14 year old. Maybe you object to some of his life choices but as far as I'm concerned the world would be a much better place with 'more Feynman' in it. It's all relative, look at the various alternative role models available.

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#169

Post by karmacondon »

If I could talk to my 14 year old self, I wouldn't recommend any particular books.

I would say, "Don't stress and worry so much about school or your grades, because absolutely none of that is going to matter in 10 years. Learn how to make things. Start now, and never stop. Learn how to use technology to the fullest, both software and hardware. Learn how to write, speak and communicate ideas as effectively as possible. Learn how to hack people and understand how social structures work. Take that seriously. Most importantly, don't let anyone change who you are. Choose a path and follow it doggedly."

Ironically, some of the best advice I've seen came from a book: "Who you will be in five years is determined by who you meet today and what you read today" [0]. But a 14 year old doesn't need to read a whole book to gain that particular pearl of wisdom, or many of the others. I read a lot now, several of the books mentioned on this thread and many others. But that's because I'm old, and it's too late for me. If I could talk to my 14 year old self, or any 14 year old, I would tell them that there is significantly more to life than what can be learned in a book.

[0] The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp

Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?

#170

Post by [deleted] »

seanlinehan wrote: post #33

I would definitely recommend How to Win Friends and Influence People as an addition to the list. I'd say that learning how to deal with people and communicate ideas effectively is at least as important as learning how to think. This is also a book I recommend reading, re-reading, and then re-reading again for people of all ages. Edit: I'd also probably recommend Innumeracy[0] which is a fun book about dealing with nu…

[deleted]
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