Maxwell's book on electromagnetism, it shows his hindsight perspective on interpreting the phenomena. One can look at the papers and works he wrote that led up to it, but they are full of detours and unbalanced attention with small dead ends. When he writes his book he tries to convince the audience of his time in one comprehensive work. What I love especially, is that he is very careful and systematic about his conc…
Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
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Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#92The Count of Monte Cristo
There's also a lot of movie and tv adaptations of this book out there(Alan Badel was probably the best Count) and I really enjoy compering them to the book.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#93Maxwell's book on electromagnetism, it shows his hindsight perspective on interpreting the phenomena. One can look at the papers and works he wrote that led up to it, but they are full of detours and unbalanced attention with small dead ends. When he writes his book he tries to convince the audience of his time in one comprehensive work. What I love especially, is that he is very careful and systematic about his conc…
Which book is this? I believe reading the original masters who came up with the discoveries is the way to understanding. It is said that when the Great Mathematician Gauss was asked as to how he made his discoveries, replied; "By studying the Masters and not their Students". There is something about the process of trial and error, testing various hypothesis', going down dead ends and then doubling back and finally li…
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#94Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#95It's been mentioned before but meditations is great, but I would also like to add "How to live on 24 hours a day" by Arnold Bennett https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274 In fiction Sherlock Holmes and the Three Musketeers is some of my favorites.
Sherlock Holmes and the Three Musketeers I wish that was one book.
> In his poem “Each June I Made a Promise Sober,” Ogden Nash voiced the common cry of those who work in bookstores or libraries or live otherwise surrounded: so many books, so little time! Always the guilt-inducing pile of unread books, eyeing us like neglected pets. He lists some of the classics he hasn’t read—my own list includes, I blush to say, Moby Dick, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, The Faerie Queen, etc. etc. etc. etc.—and concludes:
“So every summer I truly intend / My intellectual sloth to end / And every summer for years and years / I’ve read Sherlock Holmes and The Three Musketeers.”
Sources: https://www.bookbarnniantic.com/single-post/2014/05/24/74-RE...
Nash, Ogden. "Each June I Made a Promise Sober," The New York Times Book Review (June 7, 1953), 1.
Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#96Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#97Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#98Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?
#99Timeless themes written in beautiful prose:
It's out of copyright (first published in 1923, so almost 100 years), someone has put a website together of each theme, here is one on work:
http://www.katsandogz.com/onwork.html
I've probably moved on from this book a little now - but it's still beautiful and sometimes gives much needed perspective.