Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#91

Post by pricees » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:30 PM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #81

- Twelve Years a Slave - Writing High-Performance .Net - The Joy of Cojure - Systems Performance - The Linux Programming Interface - The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System - Building Microservices Wow, I'm glad this topic came up; the pile-up is bigger than I realised. It's apparent that I finish novels faster than technical books :| I really need to buckle down and finish these off..

This looks, regrettably, similar to my own bookshelf. Look up "Tsundoku" -- it is what we suffer from. I now have a "Field Notes" planner that here I plan out what tech book I need to finish for the month, before I move on to fiction or other tech books.

The LPI is June-July.

Good luck, my friend.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#92

Post by bshimmin » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:30 PM UTC

I've been reading Pynchon's Against The Day for the better part of a decade now. I'm hoping to finish it within the next three or four years.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#93

Post by pmcpinto » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

khingebjerg wrote: post #90

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. Review in The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast...

That is one of the best books I've read in 2014.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#94

Post by awalGarg » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

I am somewhat new to programming (<1.5yr, age 17). Recently read the book Seven Languages in Seven Weeks. It was a very sweet read. Have read some HP books and skimmed through rest (1, 2 and 6 were my favorite reads). I will give some more time to read books soon though :)

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#95

Post by 2mur » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

prezjordan wrote: post #19

Started Flatland on the train yesterday - lots of fun so far. I'm looking for more Sci-fi if HN can recommend anything! I've been reading a lot of historical non-fiction over the years, but recently finished Snow Crash and the Diamond Age. Love the genre, but don't know much about it.

Anathem and Cryptonomicon are both must-reads by Stephenson too.

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#96

Post by pmcpinto » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:33 PM UTC

thingamarobert wrote: post #63

Maybe you'd like to follow that up with "The Art of War", by Niccolo Machiavelli? :) I'm in the middle of Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir". The next one in line is "Thinking, Fast and Slow", by Daniel Kahneman. I'm really looking forward to that one!

I've started The Prince of Niccolo Machiavelli, but I wasn't in the best mood for that kind of book :) I have to try that one again

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#97

Post by ajones » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

Being Geek by Michael Lopp

Rands does a great job at giving a broad range of career advice for software engineers. I also recommend his blog: http://randsinrepose.com/

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#98

Post by walterbell » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

lostphilosopher wrote: post #75

I'm a huge believer in going back to primary texts, and understanding where ideas came from. If you've liked a book, read the books it references (repeat). I also feel like book recommendations often oversample recent writings, which are probably great, but it's easy to forget about the generations of books that have come before that may be just as relevant today (The Mythical Man Month is a ready example). I approac…

Your list of primary sources ends at 2001 :)

No classics beyond that date?

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#99

Post by ryanSrich » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:36 PM UTC

Currently I'm trudging through GEB[1]. Last month I read:

- The Dip (super short read and has a few good points but overall I didn't really like it)[2]

- Going Clear (great book, terrible formatting, but a great book)[3]

- The Martian (short read, very entertaining and well researched)[4]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

2. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Clear

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_%28Weir_novel%29

Re: Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?

#100

Post by RobotCaleb » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 3:38 PM UTC

Stoo wrote: post #69

Recently read: Blindsight (Peter Watts) - Hard sci-fi with themes of perception and identity. Ancillary Justice (Anne Leckie) - More of a murder / mystery sci-fi with themes of gender. Reading: Green Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson) - Hard sci-fi covering the terraforming of Mars. Very political, takes a broad scope.

+1 for Blindsight. I recently read through the sequel and all of the Behemoth series. So great.