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

What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

ask.metafilter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 316 posts

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#81

Post by mwetzler »

keiferski wrote: post #2

It gets suggested all the time, but How to Win Friends and Influence People is my answer. No other single book will help you out more in life.

Seconding "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Took me a while to read it because the title was a big turn-off, but it's not as manipulative as it sounds. The audio book is great if you commute to work. Sometimes I would listen to a chapter on the way to work and then apply the lesson that very same day. Amazing. It will change the way you think about your interactions with other people.

Another book I love, in a similar category, is "Crucial Conversations". Very useful for improving your communication skills in work and personal life.

Also, "Strengths Finder 2.0". It will tell you what superpowers you already have.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#82

Post by [deleted] »

mwetzler wrote: post #81
keiferski wrote: post #2

It gets suggested all the time, but How to Win Friends and Influence People is my answer. No other single book will help you out more in life.

Seconding "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Took me a while to read it because the title was a big turn-off, but it's not as manipulative as it sounds. The audio book is great if you commute to work. Sometimes I would listen to a chapter on the way to work and then apply the lesson that very same day. Amazing. It will change the way you think about your interactions with other people. Another book I love, in…

[deleted]

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#83

Post by FireBeyond »

crntaylor wrote: post #19

The book that has changed my life the most, so far, has been The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. In 2010 I started a job that was far, far ahead of my skillset. I'd written fewer than 10,000 lines of code in my life, and I was completely ill-prepared for the work I was supposed to be doing. I picked up SICP about a month or two into that job. Fast forward a year, and I felt t…

"A year since then and I've picked up half a dozen new languages"

Definitely not an attack or a skeptic, indeed, it may play into your assessment of the worth of the book...

But 12 months, 6 languages - how well do you feel you've mastered any/all of those?

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#84

Post by str0ng »

Sweet Sorrow: Love, Loss and Attachment In Human Life

Quoting directly from Amazon: "In this volume the author proposes that it is the interplay of love and loss that lies at the epicentre of the human story. Support for this proposal is taken from neuroscience, art and psychoanalysis. It will also introduce the reader to important ideas and findings from Attachment Theory. An exploration of the relationship between love and loss can lead us to some understanding of the meaning of our lives. It shows how love and loss are inextricably bound at the centre of human experience, and form the essential dynamic of the human struggle.

This book will appeal to sophisticated lay readers, in addition to various categories of student and professional audiences. It will be of interest to psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, philosophers, neuroscientists and sociologists. Readers with a background mainly in the arts and humanities will find it appealing because of its linkages and use of poetry, song and visual art to elucidate and illustrate the major propositions of the book."

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#85

Post by gcr »

FireBeyond wrote: post #83
crntaylor wrote: post #19

The book that has changed my life the most, so far, has been The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. In 2010 I started a job that was far, far ahead of my skillset. I'd written fewer than 10,000 lines of code in my life, and I was completely ill-prepared for the work I was supposed to be doing. I picked up SICP about a month or two into that job. Fast forward a year, and I felt t…

"A year since then and I've picked up half a dozen new languages" Definitely not an attack or a skeptic, indeed, it may play into your assessment of the worth of the book... But 12 months, 6 languages - how well do you feel you've mastered any/all of those?

This book won't make you into a wizard like the one you see on the cover. What it will do is open your eyes.

I mean, it teaches scheme for Pete's sake. Playing Devil's advocate here, who honestly uses that in pratcital everyday systems? Nobody reads the book and immediately goes "Wow! Now that I learned Scheme, which is totally the best language, I'll use my Scheme powers to create the coolest software in the world!"

The reason why this book is so cherished is because it treats scheme as a building block for implementing the most interesting ideas and patterns from systems you use every day.

Rusty on recursion? That's chapter one. You'll be thinking with recursion and will understand most of its implications by the first few dozen pages.

Think you know about OO? Build your own object-orientation system in Chapter 2. Yes, on top of scheme.

Write your own programming language (well, implement eval anyway) in a few short pages in Chapter 4. (The result is about thirty lines).

How do Von Neuman register machines work? If you don't already know, you'll be writing a simple compiler in Chapter 5.

This up-close-and-personal whirlwind tour of these important CS concepts was very enlightening to me when I read it. This book isn't about how to learn languages; rather, it's about working with ideas: why abstractions are important, how to reason with them, and how to implement them using whatever bare tools you've got.

(Schemers: before commenting, realize that i wasn't poking fun at our favorite language; rather, i'm merely asserting that scheme isn't the point of the book)

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#86

Post by gcr »

AlexMuir wrote: post #8

Funny how a chain of thought goes: 1. I read a few titles and thought "Hmm, I'll go and buy a few of these on Amazon." 2. Then I thought: "I already have some of these books that I never read, I could gift them to others." 3. Perhaps I could set up some sort of book exchange where HN users can share books. 4. It would barely be worth the hassle and cost of postage. 5. Couldn't we share digital copies and avoid the po…

Most books used to cost a maximum of $2.99.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#87

Post by gcr »

mtgx wrote: post #23

Innovator's Dilemma gave me the "super-power" of identifying what kind of businesses will succeed or fail in the tech industry, much earlier than most people (or even big companies' CEO's). I think others who have read it and understood it will feel the same way. I'd also recommend his sequel Innovator's Solution, which also has a few different and good insights in it. Blue Ocean Strategy is also pretty similar to th…

I was required to read Blue Ocean Strategy for class. Definitely an eye-opening read.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#88

Post by fredoliveira »

adam74 wrote: post #33
crntaylor wrote: post #19

The book that has changed my life the most, so far, has been The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. In 2010 I started a job that was far, far ahead of my skillset. I'd written fewer than 10,000 lines of code in my life, and I was completely ill-prepared for the work I was supposed to be doing. I picked up SICP about a month or two into that job. Fast forward a year, and I felt t…

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

A kindle-ready version:

https://github.com/twcamper/sicp-kindle

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#89

Post by rquantz »

dade_ wrote: post #12

Wow, two recommendations for Starting Strength on HN in one week. I have already taken started incorporating the advice at the gym and it seems barbells might be my friend after all. The Easy Way to Stop Smoking worked for me 7 years ago and I can't recommend it enough. I'll never forget scanning the table of contents and flipping to chapter 21, it sold me on the book. I've started Drawing on the right Side of the Br…

I've really gone down the rabbit hole with barbell lifting in the past year. Yes, read starting strength, and also practical programming for strength training (rip's other big book). Read Fit, which Kilgore contributed to, and then find some good blogs (I recommend 70sbig).

Barbell lifting can be the nerdiest way to work out.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#90

Post by fferen »

biscarch wrote: post #80
tikhonj wrote: post #72

I would nominate some book on abstract mathematics. The superpower is knowing that advanced math is not completely impossible to follow. After a while, the superpower becomes actually knowing some advanced math. I won't say it's easy, but nothing fun really is. In short: math is not scary! It also really changes how you think and view the world. Lately I've been having some fun with universal algebra, but I think any…

Any suggestions on what books? I've been looking to go further with mathematics.

I'll take this opportunity to once again plug Strang's excellent linear algebra series [1] with associated textbook [2]. Also right now I'm working through some Cornell lecture notes [3] (that read a lot like a textbook) on manifolds and differential forms. It's meant for college sophomores and juniors who have taken linear algebra and vector calculus, though it provides a very good calculus supplement in the appendix. For me, it's perfect: the tone is informal enough to provide motivation to continue, but the definitions and proofs are fairly rigorous. It's about the only self-study math text that I think I might finish.

Hope this helps, not sure if it's over/under your level.

[1]: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-...

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0980232716/ref=nosim/...

[3]: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~sjamaar/papers/manifold.pdf

Post reply on HN