Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Short Little Difficult Books

countercraft.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 118 posts

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#21

Post by beams_of_light »

watwut wrote: post #10
paulorlando wrote: post #4

I happened to have been assigned Moby Dick in 9th grade English class. Foolishly put off reading it until the night before the book report was due. Got about 1/3 of the way through and went through life thinking it was boring. Fast forward decades, I'm now reading it for real. It hilarious, it's pause encouraging, I love it! (And I'm still only 1/3 through.)

It is very likely that a book funny to adult you would went over 9th grade you regardless of reading speed.

This is a problem I have yet to see schools tackle. A kid in junior high school has no mental context for the Russian Revolution of 1917, for instance. Having them read Animal Farm is a pointless waste of time.

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#22

Post by marknutter »

I've been slogging through Blood Meridian for the past couple of months, only taking little sips of content here and there, but it finally clicked for me last night and I'm fully engaged with it. And man was it worth the effort. The way he paints scenes with just the right amount of words is pretty amazing. I'd love to see this book adapted onto film.

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#23

Post by robot-wrangler »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #17

If anyone is looking for a reading list, or even just a book-downloading-binge list, I pulled 18 titles off of this one. There are, of course, even more, but if you're doing that then you probably already have the McCarthy and Dick titles. Usually HN loses on any given day, but with a score like that I doubt all the other sites I skim will be able to beat it even together.

Agreed, good list for HN. Especially Calvino, Cormac, and PKD tend to be popular with math nerds. Also if PKD qualifies as difficult enough, maybe Borges can fit here too.

Not fiction or difficult, but I suggest Calvino's "Six Memos for the Next Millennium". It's novella-length lecture series for writers/readers, but I'd say it's really a critical/creative framework that's as relevant for math as it is for myth, or novels, or code.

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#24

Post by lucaslazarus »

paulorlando wrote: post #4

I happened to have been assigned Moby Dick in 9th grade English class. Foolishly put off reading it until the night before the book report was due. Got about 1/3 of the way through and went through life thinking it was boring. Fast forward decades, I'm now reading it for real. It hilarious, it's pause encouraging, I love it! (And I'm still only 1/3 through.)

Honestly, even getting through 1/3 of it in a night is pretty impressive. Certainly took me several weeks freshman year of college.

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#25

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #23
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #17

If anyone is looking for a reading list, or even just a book-downloading-binge list, I pulled 18 titles off of this one. There are, of course, even more, but if you're doing that then you probably already have the McCarthy and Dick titles. Usually HN loses on any given day, but with a score like that I doubt all the other sites I skim will be able to beat it even together.

Agreed, good list for HN. Especially Calvino, Cormac, and PKD tend to be popular with math nerds. Also if PKD qualifies as difficult enough, maybe Borges can fit here too. Not fiction or difficult, but I suggest Calvino's "Six Memos for the Next Millennium". It's novella-length lecture series for writers/readers, but I'd say it's really a critical/creative framework that's as relevant for math as it is for myth, or n…

I've been working off of the Penguin Classics list found on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Penguin_Classics) for the Borges stuff. It's a bit of a slog, and not everything is on libgen (I'd guess about 70% is, at best), but it was a quick (hah!) way to add a few thousand books to my library.

>Not fiction or difficult, but I suggest Calvino's "Six Memos for the Next Millennium".

Thanks for the recommendation. Grabbed it too. Now back to the Fs in my Penguin Classics list...

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#26

Post by 4ndrewl »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #23
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #17

If anyone is looking for a reading list, or even just a book-downloading-binge list, I pulled 18 titles off of this one. There are, of course, even more, but if you're doing that then you probably already have the McCarthy and Dick titles. Usually HN loses on any given day, but with a score like that I doubt all the other sites I skim will be able to beat it even together.

Agreed, good list for HN. Especially Calvino, Cormac, and PKD tend to be popular with math nerds. Also if PKD qualifies as difficult enough, maybe Borges can fit here too. Not fiction or difficult, but I suggest Calvino's "Six Memos for the Next Millennium". It's novella-length lecture series for writers/readers, but I'd say it's really a critical/creative framework that's as relevant for math as it is for myth, or n…

Agreed. I've read about half the books on this list and wouldn't consider them difficult. But I've got some new books to buy now, which is always a good thing.

If you like Ubik, Martian Time Slip might also pass as difficult.

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#27

Post by robot-wrangler »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #14
gonzo41 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is like that. It's best read in the pit of a cold winter.

Great book. And a counter point, Blood Meridian by the same author. Extremely difficult for no reason whatsoever. Terrible book.

> Extremely difficult for no reason whatsoever. Terrible book.

Many people believe this is the mythical "Great American Novel" we've been arguing about and/or anticipating forever. Strong argument for that because it's actually very Hollywood, isn't it? It's an absurdly action-packed cowboy-horror mashup that's full of gratuitous violence and manifest destiny.

I know several people that thought it was "extremely gory for no reason whatsoever" and did not finish for that reason, but none that thought it was difficult. I was surprised TFA mentioned it in that light, because I remember Child of God being more of a slog and BM being a page-turner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Novel

Re: Short Little Difficult Books

#30

Post by dhosek »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #13

> why would you want to suffer and anyone who would read such a book must be pretentious, phony brodernist snob! Ok, this nerd-sniped me. Are we saying this now? Feels like a reference. Found it: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/against-high-brodernism/ WTF? If the term is about superficial depth wouldn't the bros be into like, abridged graphic-novel adaptations of difficult Russian classics, and not actually divi…

>WTF? If the term is about superficial depth wouldn't the bros be into like, abridged graphic-novel adaptations of difficult Russian classics, and not actually diving into genuinely difficult stuff regardless of quality?

—Apes don’t read philosophy!

—Yes they do, Otto, they just don’t understand it!

Post reply on HN