Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?

[gozzoo]

It become somewhat a tradition for YC to publish a reading list for the vacations months. This hasn't happen for a while. I have discovered some very intersting books there apreciate suggestions from similarly minded people.

I recently stumbuled upon this list [1] and the selection seems quite good. I read _The Oracle Year_ which I liked a lot.

My question for the community here is: Have you read somthing interesting recently?

[1] https://geekdad.com/2018/06/5-reasons-to-read-5-great-books-june-2018-edition/

[stochastic_monk]

As for me —-

0: Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths

Anyone interested in information theory, intelligence (artificial or otherwise), many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, metafiction, the nature of art, or even probabilistic sequence modeling should read Borges’ short stories. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.

1: Hero With A Thousand Faces

A classic book collating world mythologies and psychoanalytical thought to investigate an individual’s core struggle for meaning and purpose. I find that it has informed my appreciation of literature, film, music. More importantly, it helped me understand how I want to live my life and from whence I now choose to derive my personal senses of direction and meaning.

2: Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies

An obtuse, rambling, depressing novel without a sense of momentum or even plot. The narrator or narrators are unreliable, prone to aporetics, and capricious. Beyond its stark exterior, the prose is, at times, achingly beautiful, the narrator is relatable in his uncertainty and frailty, and the dual struggle for meaning and accepting the absolute absence thereof is invigorating. It’s book two of a trilogy, but these postmodern novels are enjoyable on their own, and the rare, tenuous grasp on plot or direction makes reading them in sequence seem to be more a suggestion on how to experience them than a strict ordering.

I’ve also been reading The Double (Dostoevsky), but I haven’t progressed far enough to make an informed recommendation.

[toomanybeersies]

I'm going to do something a bit different from everyone else and suggest some poetry.

1) Songs of Innocence and of Experience from William Blake.

2) The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

3) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I've started to enjoy reading poetry again. The education system managed to extinguish any love I had for poetry. It's been a bit over half a decade since I was in school, and I've started to enjoy reading poetry again.

Turns out it's possible to just read a poem and enjoy it without having to go through line by line and word by word analysing the thing to death.

I actually prefer poetry to long form text right now. I don't have the time or attention span to sit down and read a whole book, but poems are like a shot of literature. I've been enjoying reading sci-fi short stories for the same reason.

[therealdrag0]

Many years ago I collected short stories I enjoyed in an Evernote list. Here it is if you want some inspiration. :)

Asimov, Isaac - "Nightfall"

Asimov, Isaac - "The Last Question"

Barthelme, Donald - "Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby"

Beckett, Samuel - "That Time"

Bisson, Terry - They're Made Out of Meat

Boyle, T. C. - The Hit Man

Carver, Raymond - Little Things

Chekhov, Anton - "The Bet"

Dick, Philip K - "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" Gibson, William - Dogfight ("...he had nobody to tell it to. Nobody at all.")

Hemingway, Ernest - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Hemingway, Ernest - Hills Like White Elephants

Makkai, Rebecca - "The Briefcase"

Bradbury, Ray - "The Veldt"

Saroyan, William - "Seventy Thousand Assyrians"

[stochastic_monk]

Excellent choice with Blake, and of course, there’s nothing quite like Reading Gaol. The latter is some of the best written word art ever created.

I would point others to Robert Browning’s Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came. It’s a late romantic poem about the time after Camelot’s glory has faded and all hopes have been dashed by man’s weakness and the inexorable hunger of time. A fitting poem for those of us who live in an age whose greatest promises lay unfulfilled. These were not the robots we were promised.*

*Tagline stolen from a truly stellar Op-Ed from last year available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/opinion/sunday/household-...

[KodiakLabs]

The podcast 'In Our Time' by the BBC did an hour long discussion on William Blake's poems:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07gh4pg

[steve_gh]

If you want a poetry anthology, can I recommend "Other Men's Flowers" by Lord Wavell - poetry that he momorized that saw him through WW1 and WW2. You won't like everything, but there is lots of good stuff in it.

[baruchel]

Reading your comment suddenly made me remember about the "Voyage to India" by Gonçalo M. Tavares; maybe you would enjoy this recent book written in verses. Unfortunately I couldn't find any link to some good review online

[rayalez]

Here are the best books I've read over the last few months:

- Lost and Founder - the founder of Moz shares his advice and experience from building a 40M/year company. I found the things he says about building a startup extremely insightful and practically useful. Reading it feels like having a dinner with a friend who shares with you the things he has learned in a very honest, down to earth way. Highly recommend it.

- Rationality from AI to Zombies - probably the most influential book I've read in my life, profoundly changed the way I think. It's a collection of LessWrong essays on science and rationality. (recently they've released an an audio version by the way).

- "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and "Our Mathematical Universe" - two general popular science books I'm enjoying a lot. Haven't finished reading them yet, but so far they're brilliant(and very easy to understand, authors do an amazing job explaining complicated things in a simple, accessible way).

- Hacking Growth - an AMAZING book on "growth hacking". It provides a framework for marketing a startup, gives a ton of practical advice and specific tactics. It breaks down step by step how startups and big tech companies grow their products. Most of the books I've read on the subject were bullshit, but this one is absolutely fantastic, can't recommend it enough.

Other great books I should mention: This Idea is Brilliant, Actionable Gamification, The Design of Everyday Things, The Master Algorithm (great overview of machine learning techniqes), Springfield Confidential (fun behind the scenes from one of the writers on Simpsons), Homo Deus(from the author of Sapiens).

[oxymoron]

I recommend ”A short history of nearly everything” to everyone, regardless of background. It covers a range of scientific fields and their history. My favorite part is his description of biological taxonomy. I also rememver enjoying his chapter on the history of plate tectonics.

”Our mathematical universe” is a fun and interesting book, but probably more of interest to someone with an explicit interest in physics. I enjoyed the first few chapters the most, but still feel a bit skeptical about his level 4 multiverse.

[atipmt]

"Rationality from AI to Zombies" - I loved that book! It took me quite a bit to read it all, even though it is written in a colloquial style (might be due to length or me just wanting to digest what I've just read). Changed my perspective on quite a lot too, mainly how to approach information that causes cognitive dissonance. I wanted to read some of it again for some time, so I thank you for pointing out that there is an audio version now!

[ohmatt]

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" is an amazing book. Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors, and even though the book can get a little slow at times (for me, at least) in some of the later chapters, his wit and writing style still make it entertaining.

If you haven't read A Walk in the Woods, or In a Sunburned Country by him, I highly recommend those as well.

[dumb2223]

I followed your advice and read chapter 9 of Rationaly from Ai to Zombies. This chapter title is "Expecting Short Inferential Distances", my summary is that if you are using a scientific language and your audience is not used to it then you should explain basic terminology. So from this piece I should estimate content with low density of information.

[criddell]

Do you not read fiction or is it just that you haven't read any good fiction lately?

[grinnick]

Hacking growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Browne?

Just want to check I'm buying the right book!

[saryant]

1) Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor

Everything from the tulip craze to the dotcom boom.

2) If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? by Alan Alda

Alan Alda of MASH fame teaches you how to build more empathy and improve your communication skills.

3) Bad Blood by James Carreyou

Theranos. Enough said.

4) Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Steve Coll

I think of this as the last book in Coll's unofficial trilogy on Afghanistan. First up was Ghost Wars, a history of American involvement in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion up to 2001. Second is his biography on the Bin Laden family. Last year he released Directorate S, a chronicle of American and Pakistani involvement post-9/11 primarily told through the lens of the Pakistani intelligence directorate tasked with influencing Afghanistan.

Coll has interviews with everyone from in-country CIA agents and foot soldiers who were on the ground all the way up to defense secretaries and military leaders, from both sides. An in-depth examination of what went wrong and why we're still stuck there.

5) Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads by Paul Theroux.

The greatest travel writer of the last half-century finally turns his attention homeward: the American Deep South. Four road trips over four seasons. He published an article in Smithsonian Magazine hitting the highlights: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/soul-south-180951861/

[txcwpalpha]

I can't second the recommendation of Bad Blood enough. I couldn't put it down. Every chapter I thought "surely I've reached the bottom of the rabbit hole now. It CANT get any crazier than this", but then it always did.

Aside from being a really enthralling and interesting story about one of SV's darling unicorns, it was also really eye opening into the absurdity of the amount of money that gets thrown around willy-nilly in SV, and how the bandwagon/FOMO effect just makes it worse. I won't say anything more because it's better to just read the book, but this is one of those stories that is almost endlessly fascinating.

[arethuza]

The Steve Coll book is pretty disturbing - e.g. the CIA hints on "How to spot a terrorist" including things like "Keeps insisting on their innocence when tortured", "Keeps asking for to see a lawyer or a doctor" etc.

[cncrnd]

Bad Blood is crazy stuff. Stayed up reading it last night after seeing the recs here.

Not sure what I learned other than people are carried away easily, but it was very entertaining.

[killaken2000]

+1 for bad blood as well. I don't think I've read a book faster. Every chapter was more unbelievable that the next.

[paraschopra]

- The Origin of Wealth. Fantastic book on the new field of complexity / evolutionary economics

- The Language Instinct. How mind creates language.

- The Elephant in the Brain. I’ve posted notes here https://invertedpassion.com/notes-from-the-elephant-in-the-b...

- Existential Cafe. History of existential thought. Excellent book.

- 12 rules of life. Highly opiniated but well argued book on how to live life

- Skin in the game by Nasim Taleb.

- Daemon. The sci-fi book that anticipated what rouge blockchain like programs can do. Again, highly recommended

[adamnemecek]

There are two books called origin of wealth by the same author. "Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics" and "The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society". Which one did you mean?

[Dowwie]

Daemon was a good story and so was another by him, "Kill Decision", which is about autonomous killing drone warfare.

[m-i-l]

> The sci-fi book that anticipated what rouge blockchain like programs can do.

It would have to be a fantasy book to truly go rogue - if it was sci-fi it would get bogged down in network congestion or high transaction fees, or consume all of the planet's energy production, before it could do much damage.

[mvleming]

Check out the Unfolding of Language if you're interest in the Language Instinct. Also Elephant in the Room made me think of the Master and his Emissary, very interesting book, check that one out too.

[sone3d]

For your like on language check:

Surfaces and Essences by Douglas Hofstadter & Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff

[misiti3780]

i love taleb but i thought skin in the game was the most disappointing of all of this books.

[pbnjay]

For sci-fi recs: I recently read The Three-body Problem by Cixin Liu (a trilogy) and thought it was really good.

Also just started another sci-fi trilogy with A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge which has some really fun and interesting (if hand-wavy) ideas about deep space physics.

[jackthetab]

"Tailspin" by Steven Brill. It talks about how the recruiters for the Ivy League decided to admit people based on merit instead of connections, creating a de facto meritocracy and how this meritocracy has changed the USA in the past 50 years.

A friend gave me the book. I was skeptical of the premise. By the third chapter (the 70's, basically) I was like "I remember that!" "Yes, he was in all the newspapers!" "Yes, that was 'the greatest financial disaster since the Great Depression'!" (I've lived through three of those, btw.)

Interesting premise, good scholarship (he traces Citizen's United back to the college paper written to impress a college prof by a fellow who ended up clerking for SCOTUS judge who was the swing vote for Citizen's United (Kennedy?)).

Interesting read. I know it sounds like a grandiose conspiracy theory but he has actual facts (that I experienced growing up) to back him up.

[a-saleh]

Before I started a new job I had myself read: 1. So good they can't ignore you 2. Deep work 3. Mythical man-month 4. Power of habit

Now I am reading Tools of titans by Tim Ferris. I never thought I would get into the genre of self-improvement books, but it seems I like these :-) Even though I am conscious about the fact, that I am applying maybe 10% of the books advice :P

Another thing I am reading is Math from three to seven [1], mostly because I would like to discuss math with my 4yo daughter one day, preferably sooner rather than later, because I find math discussions immensely fun :-D Maybe I will even start a math-circle :-)

[1] http://www.msri.org/people/staff/levy/files/MCL/Zvonkin.pdf

[fredley]

I found 59 Seconds: Think a little, change a lot by Richard Wiseman to be a good contribution to the genre, if you're looking for more.

[guiambros]

"Why We Sleep", by Matthew Walker. One of the best books I've read in a while.

I've commented before [1][2]; but pasting here: the author presents a vast amount of scientific evidence amount pretty much every corner of why we sleep, from its evolutionary roots thousands of years ago, to the importance of dreams and REM sleep for your memory, reasons and impact of insomnia, to what happens in the neurochemistry in your brain when you drink coffee, alcohol or sleep pills, and much, much more.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17381235

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446932

[sadema]

[1] We Are Legion We Are Bob (Bobiverse 1-3) - Just finished this trilogy and really enjoyed it! It's well paced, has a very likable protagonist and has a nice sprinkling of programming/CS humor.

[2] Guns, Germs and Steel - Can't believe I waited so long to check this off my list. Very thorough and well written argument about how geography and environment shaped the modern world.

[3] Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion - Scientific and philosophical reasoning for why the self is an illusion. Covers a lot of ground without getting too heavy: Buddhism, mediation, neuroscience, religion, and more.

[carrollgt91]

I'll second Waking Up - I've been interested in mindfulness meditation for years, and this book is what finally helped frame it in a way that went down nicely for me.

I sometimes enjoy the podcast by the same name as well, though the conversations are more hit or miss.

[jboynyc]

I recently read The Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, and will continue reading her stuff over the summer for sure. It's really great. (HN discussion about her obituary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16218439)

The other day I started Pictures of a Gone City, a book about the Bay Area by critical geographer Richard Walker. It was recently discussed here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17473141). I'm only about fifty pages in, but I can tell this is going to be worthwhile.

I'm also still finishing Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. It's a very compelling account of the crises and pressures confronting today's young adults (among which I can still, just barely, count myself).

Other books I've got lined up for the summer:

• The Boy Kings: A Journey Into the Heart of the Social Network, by Kate Losse. This memoir by an early Facebook employee came out a few years ago, and I finally want to read it.

• Social Creature, by Tara Isabella Burton. Recently published novel that's been getting rave reviews. It's been described as "a literary novel about social media."

• Surveys, by Natasha Stagg. A novel about microcelebrity/instafame that came out in 2016.

PS: LitHub runs a "Rotten Tomatoes for Book Reviews" site at https://bookmarks.reviews/ that I'm finding to be a useful resource to discover new books coming out. That's how I found out about the Burton and Stagg books.

[zachruss92]

For a nonfiction book, The Millionaire Next Door was a game changer for how I though about wealth accumulation. It's the findings of a statistical analysis of the life and habits of millionaires.

Deep Work had the similar effects on my work habits as the former did on my finances.

If you're looking for a fun fantasy read, Elantris by Brandon Sanderson is one of my all-time favorite standalone novels.

[jetrink]

> It's the findings of a statistical analysis of the life and habits of millionaires.

I have not read The Millionaire Next Door, but that seems fraught. Does it avoid survivorship bias? E.g. Playing the lottery is a 'habit' common to all lottery winners, but it's also common to all lottery losers, of whom there are many more. If you only studied the winners though, the lottery might start to look like a wise investment. Maybe the habits common to millionaires are counterproductive for the average person and only helpful to the lucky few.

[hlfshell]

I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, but find that Mistborn is a better entry point for people these days - though it (and the Cosmere) are among my own personal my all-time favorite fantasy books, so perhaps I'm biased in that.

[wwweston]

> The Millionaire Next Door was a game changer for how I though about wealth accumulation. It's the findings of a statistical analysis of the life and habits of millionaires.

So, it's been a while since I dipped into this book, but my recollection was that I read the summary and intro and thought "this sounds like an analysis which suffers significantly from survivorship bias." Did you find with a close read that was/wasn't a problem with the picture it presented?

(Not that I think that the advice I skimmed over was bad, certainly, I don't like to buy depreciating assets like cars on credit, and more people could likely benefit from budgeting investing conscientiously.)

[justinzollars]

The China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Posture in the Post-American Era

> Liu describes the 21st century relations between the United States and China as a “Marathon contest” in which the “Beijing Plan will replace the Washington Consensus” so that China would become a “Champion nation”. This is a question of who will rule the world in the 21st century. The implications are institutions and ideas we fundamentally value as Westerners: Our Democratic rules-based world order, Human Rights and The United Nations could become uprooted.

The China Dream may scare you.

Liu provides an interesting alternative perspective on American History, The American psyche and American strategic misconceptions. He also unwittingly reveals deep insecurities with respect to single party rule and global perceptions of China.

This was an amazing strategic read and has opened my eyes to a new perspective.

[arthurk]

Sapiens/Homo Deus - History of Humankind. Also goes into topics of how money came to be and evolved over time. Homo Deus is the follow up book by the same author which focuses on humanity’s future.

Shoe Dog - Nike founder Phil Knight shares the story of the company’s early days.

Chasing the Scream - History and impact of drug criminalisation (War on Drugs). The author describes the War on Drugs (mostly in US but also describes other countries like Portugal where the policies on drugs are different)

[nindalf]

I loved Sapiens. It has a couple of ideas that help explain so much of our world - really powerful ideas. Once you know them they seem so obvious and you feel like you should have thought of that yourself. For example, (spoilers for human history ahead), our civilations are based on agriculture and very few hunter gatherers remain. But that doesn't mean that people consciously chose one over the other. It's just that for various reasons, agriculture is a more "viral" idea that spread more efficiently than the alternative. Ditto with monotheistic vs polytheistic religions.

Homo Deus... less so. It rehashes a lot of Sapiens and I found it a bit of a drag. The introduction is worth reading though. He recounts all the progress we've made as a species, which would surprise people who think our world is growing worse by the day.

Chasing the Scream was amazing. Nothing more to be said.

The book I learned the most from was probably The Dictator's Handbook. Again, a very simple idea - how can we predict a politician/leader's behaviour based on a simple assumption - they will try their best to stay employed. The authors manage to explain almost all of how politics works based on this one single idea. If you're one of those people who likes to try-before-they-buy, here's a trailer of the book - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

[misiti3780]

all of these are great, i second chasing the scream, i loved that book

[srom]

1) Adults in the room - Yanis Varoufakis (2017)

must read for anyone leaving in, or interested in the politics of the European Union; the book is a political memoir of Varoufakis' fight against the EU institutions during his 6 months as finance minister of Greece in early 2015.

The people of Greece had elected the syriza government to put an end to the incredibly harsh austerity they've been through during the past 5 years. But the Greek government had agreed to, and was bounded by the terms of the two bailout programs from the Eurozone & the IMF. Faced with a dilemma, democracies must compromise. But Democracy has no place in the Eurozone, as Wolfgang Shäuble, former finance minister of Germany, puts it very clearly during his first meeting with Varoufakis: "Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy".

Three years after the events recounted, this book is still very much relevant, and anyone wanting to understand EU politics ought to read it.

--

2) And the Weak Suffer What They Must? - Yanis Varoufakis (2016)

Companion book to the first one, it explained how the Eurozone crisis came to be by recounting its history from the end of the second world war to today. A key book to understand the institutions of the European Union, whether or not you agree with Varoufakis' economic theories. I highly recommend it, as it is very well written, in plain english, with no economic background required.

[ashton314]

_Anathem_ by Neil Stevenson. Science Fiction. Takes place in a universe very much like ours. The most noticeable difference is the culture: intellectuals live inside monastery-like sanctuaries, while religious people live outside. The story is written from the point of view of one of the intellectuals. Very rich world building. The book also explores (high-level, slightly fictitious in some parts) some fascinating areas of quantum mechanics, topology, communication, diplomacy, and Zen.

[freehunter]

Wow that link to GeekDad is absolutely toxic. When you visit, it shows a banner that begs for you to turn off your ad blocker promising that they don't have malicious or distracting ads... then in the fine print below that, it says "okay I know we currently have a lot of malicious ads, but that's out of our control, we promise!"

Seriously, that's why people use ad blockers. If you're running content on your site that you have no control over, stop doing that. If you're serving malicious ads, at the very least turn off the banner that tells people you're not serving malicious ads.

[ryanSrich]

Books finished in June:

"How to Change Your Mind" by Michael Pollan. A fascinating look into the world and science of psychedelic drugs.

"Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke. One of, if not Clarke's best. It's short for a sci-fi book and almost impossible not to like.

"The Hydrogen Sonata" By Iain M. Banks. It certainly wasn't my favorite culture entry, but it's worth a read none the less. If you haven't read the others in the series I wouldn't suggest starting with it.

"Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It took me a bit to get into this book, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. If you're into long timelines and human existential crisis this is your book.

As far as July goes, I'm digging into "Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes and "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes.

[Cyphase]

Here's Jeff Atwood's 'Recommended Reading for Developers': https://blog.codinghorror.com/recommended-reading-for-develo...

From the header:

> This list was last updated in March 2015.

> Why are updates to my reading list so rare? Because computers change a lot in 10 years, but people don't.

> To make better software, you need to understand how people work, and that is what the books I recommend tend to focus on.

[galeforcewinds]

William Gibson's Neuromancer continues to hold up well both for adults and teens. Worth a read or re-read.

Travel books can be a good fit for the summer, and Keri Smith's Wander Society is a fun pick.

I also like to make a random pick or two that I'd never normally choose for myself. My next random pick may be off this thread...

Z