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Summer Reading List

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Re: Summer Reading List

#171

Post by iiv »

harigov wrote: post #112
iiv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask how fast your read? (words or characters/minute)

It used to be a huge concern for me as well. I realized that the more I read, the faster I read. So if you are worried about reading speed, don't. Just read, and it will get better. With no extra effort from me, my reading speed increased by at least 50% since I started reading books seriously.

I'm not really worried about how fast I am, I'm just curious how fast I am in comparison with others. (I am fast enough for my needs)

Re: Summer Reading List

#172

Post by davidw »

petra wrote: post #86
capocannoniere wrote: post #41

Am I the only one who would actually prefer these Amazon links to be affiliate links? Affiliate links make me feel like I'm paying back the curator(s) for the awesome recommendations I'm thankful for. However minor that might be. Do people feel like recommendations would be biased if the links were affiliate links?

Why does everything has to revolve around money ? What's wrong with showing some appreciation and sharing some knowledge when your turn comes ?

Well, in this case if you were going to share anyway, why not send some of that money to somewhere other than Jeff Bezos' pockets, be it yourself or a charity?

Re: Summer Reading List

#173

Post by GuiA »

orthoganol wrote: post #67

Sapiens is a very preachy, low-on-citations work... the Goodreads reviews are interestingly divided ("Dude it changed my whole world!" to "This is not a serious work."), but the early sections on pre historical humans are still interesting to read, and seemed mostly correct from what I remember from my college anthropology class.

Any recommendations for a book about the same subject matter, but more on the academic side?

Re: Summer Reading List

#174

Post by weeksie »

silencio wrote: post #169
weeksie wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For pretty _amazing_ sci fi that I just stumbled on, NK Jemisin is amazing. Her Broken Earth series is not only tremendously gripping, original, and epic in scope, but it also does a fantastic job of portraying a world with predominantly non-white characters without being on the nose or ham-handed about it. (incidentally, when I picked up the book I had no idea what race or gender the author was, I was just looking f…

I adore NK Jemisin so much, the awards are all so deserved! It was particularly nice that she won the Hugo in the midst of all the drama, too. Another author I want to throw out there, is Liu Cixin - his novel The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo for Best Novel the year prior. Not a woman, but scifi from a vastly different cultural/racial angle than a lot of us are accustomed to, I would imagine.

Loved Three-Body Problem!

Re: Summer Reading List

#175

Post by ioddly »

ashark wrote: post #153
dsplittgerber wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in your argument to why fiction is not time "wasted"! Would you mind discussing? I have thought about this a lot and personally only read non-fiction, but am always interested in other viewpoints.

Do you consider time experiencing any art to be wasted? I find it to: enhance empathy; expose me to new ideas and perspectives (both of background and state of mind); improve my writing; allow me to experience the beautiful and the sublime, which I'd count as among the least-wasteful uses of time; act as a kind of therapy by letting me see that my struggles both great and mundane are, without exception, not only my o…

> Granted few or none of these things may result if we're talking about trash fiction, which isn't better than any other time-waster one may choose (TV, say—though both are fine if one's goal is simply entertainment).

I think there's an argument for reading as entertainment, regardless of quality, as a form of non-productive entertainment that is less harmful than other forms of entertainment. I've taken to switching off my devices at night and just reading books (fiction and non-fiction) before bed.

I would say my attention span has benefited greatly from this, as has my sleep (from not staring into blue lights late into the night).

Of course reading fiction isn't the only activity that this could apply to. Just the one we happen to be talking about.

Re: Summer Reading List

#176

Post by malandrew »

> I believe the former is the case.

I'm just curious why you hold that belief? I don't have an opinion either way, but I'm curious if that is an informed belief.

I agree that it was a problem even more recently than a century ago. It was probably a problem as recently as 10 years ago. However, in 2017, it's not hard to be published. You can even self-publish.

Unless the topic is related to the author's identity (i.e. it's about gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.), I don't see why someone should care about the identity of an author.

Take "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" on your list. Why does the gender of the author matter for such a topic? Books are written by individuals not demographics.

This is a genuine question and not an attempt to troll. I don't understand why gender or any other identity needs to be a concern aspects where it is orthogonal/unrelated.

Re: Summer Reading List

#177

Post by Mz »

malandrew wrote: post #176

> I believe the former is the case. I'm just curious why you hold that belief? I don't have an opinion either way, but I'm curious if that is an informed belief. I agree that it was a problem even more recently than a century ago. It was probably a problem as recently as 10 years ago. However, in 2017, it's not hard to be published. You can even self-publish. Unless the topic is related to the author's identity (i.e.…

http://jezebel.com/homme-de-plume-what-i-learned-sending-my-...

I have posted it twice to HN, and it was essentially ignored, but it provides good evidence that women writers have a much harder time getting published simply because they are female.

Re: Summer Reading List

#178

Post by to_bpr »

engi_nerd wrote: post #168
filiwickers wrote: post #137

If you struggle to get diverse voices inside your field, maybe you should read from diverse voices outside your field. I understand it is hard and I also gravitate towards comfortable reading, usually meaning from people that look like me. This is the problem. Start being accountable to yourself about it. 2 of 19 the books in the list are by female authors (both recommended by women). Looking for some good books from…

...Or they just asked a number of people to recommend a favored book, and this is the list that they got. Why does everything have to be about diversity?

Perhaps because virtue signalling has never been more popular?

In an industry where we all earn well, have similar qualities of life, similar careers, etc. virtue signalling (often wherever possible) appears to have become the perceived fertile soil for differentiating yourself, and "elevating" yourself.

Re: Summer Reading List

#179

Post by eridius »

filiwickers wrote: post #137

If you struggle to get diverse voices inside your field, maybe you should read from diverse voices outside your field. I understand it is hard and I also gravitate towards comfortable reading, usually meaning from people that look like me. This is the problem. Start being accountable to yourself about it. 2 of 19 the books in the list are by female authors (both recommended by women). Looking for some good books from…

Ancillary Justice is an excellent book, and the choice to make the main character not really understand gender and use female pronouns for everyone really makes it obvious how much we normally assume people to be male in the absence of other info.

Not by a female author, but on the topic of diversity, another one I'd recommend is Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee. The author is a queer trans man. This book and Ancillary Justice are the 2 best books I read in 2016.

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