

Ask HN: What are you reading right now? - sun123

I am currently reading<p>The Code (By Charles Petzold )<p>Brain Rules (John Medina)
======
steve8918
Steve Jobs - I have to admit, it is not at all what I expected. I thought it
would be a gushing tribute, but instead he comes across as a complete asshole-
tyrant (so far... I'm about halfway thru the book) and his success was almost
_in spite_ of himself. He was dead wrong almost as much, if not more, than he
was right (at least until he rejoined Apple, which is where I'm at right now).
Not a glowing biography in the least, which is shocking but I guess
refreshing.

------
unalone
_Rules of Ascension_ by David B Coe. A book I picked out of a library shelf
one day because it sounded intriguing, and it is – it's the first volume in an
epic about political machinations across several fantasy continents, and about
a race war between two species, one of which is basically human, one of which
is a frailer, magic-wielding species. I'm a sucker for political complexity,
and I love that fantasy lets authors invent hypothetical scenarios for me to
delve into.

I just wish the book's marketers would have respected it a bit more. The cover
is of a long-haired man with an earring and a sword walking away from a
burning castle, and it makes me feel a little bit cheesy carrying it around. I
dislike smart books with deceptively stupid covers about as much as I dislike
stupid books with deceptively smart covers.

------
irahul
Feynman lectures on physics - vol 1

If at some point you found Physics wonderful, and then lost it when everything
became calculations, I wholeheartedly recommend this book, and the other
volumes once you are done with it.

Feynman has an engaging conversation style, and when you are immersed in the
book, you literally feel the wonders of the universe. You go through Newton's
motion and gravitation laws, and then using simple numerical methods, he plots
you the orbital path around the sun of a given planet.

It does has derivations, but it doesn't let derivation take over the idea it's
discussing. And some derivations and deductions will be enlightening when you
already know something about something - for e.g for the first time in my
life, I saw why the observed velocity won't exceed speed of light.

Even for the ideas I know, Feynman's explanation either add something, or make
me thing "Holy Shit I didn't think of it that way." While discussing Newton's
laws, he mentions this whole set of laws depends on a coordinate system - but
we really can't say all experiments are to be performed at place x - but you
know what, these laws are independent of the axis you choose, and here is how.

You are left thinking, hell, I kinda knew it but didn't approach it that way.

Then he will tell you a system moving with constant velocity in a straight
line will observe the exact same laws of physics, and here is why, which is
just an extension of the previous axis transform.

Even if you don't like Physics, give this book a try. Most likely you will
understand universe better when you are through.

~~~
unalone
If somebody hypothetically knows nothing of Feynman or physicals, would this
be a good starting point? Or would you suggest this book as a follow-up to
something simpler and more immediately engaging?

~~~
irahul
You don't have to know anything about Feynman or Physics. The book assumes a
basic knowledge of Mathematics and Science, and that's all you need to
understand it.

But be warned - this isn't an easy book, and you can't skim through it. This
is an extremely dense book; it builds on what it already has told you, which
makes sense because "Observe, Reason, Experiment" is how you do science. To
reason/deduce, you need to have a base and then you take it from there. When
it introduces concepts that can't be deduced, it tells you that. Also, it
clearly says analysis/logic alone isn't a killall - sometimes you just go the
numerical method road(which is somehow similar to brute-force algorithm most
of the times), and it gives you results which analysis alone can't.

I am reading it a very slow pace, because the book is packed with information
with no superfluous content, and many a times I have to stop to think about
what it's telling me.

I would recommend you read the first chapter "Atoms in motion" first. Well, I
already knew everything is made of atoms(duh), but still, it presented things
to me in a very engaging way.

Some gists to give you a preview:

Everything is made of atoms; water is made of molecules which are atoms in a
bond; molecules are held together by mutual attraction; molecules always
jiggle; the jiggle is represented as heat; you heat water - you increase the
jiggling; increased jiggling loosens the mutual molecular attraction and some
molecules escape, and you get steam.

And molecules which escape are the ones which are jiggling badly; because the
ones which aren't jiggling hard won't be breaking the mutual attraction; and
when high energy molecules escaped, the net energy of the system is lower.

Oh, and now you know why you feel cold when your sweat evaporates.

------
davidw
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How
We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths :
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004GHN26W?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004GHN26W?ie=UTF8&tag=dedasys-20&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B004GHN26W&redirect=true&ref_=kinw_myk_ro_title)

Thinking, Fast and Slow :
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00555X8OA?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00555X8OA?ie=UTF8&tag=dedasys-20&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B00555X8OA&redirect=true&ref_=kinw_myk_ro_title)

Here's my Kindle @ Amazon link - does it work if you're you and... well, not
me? [https://kindle.amazon.com/profile/David-N--
Welton/208047#rec...](https://kindle.amazon.com/profile/David-N--
Welton/208047#recentActivity)

It shows what I've been reading lately, notes, etc...

Speaking of which, something that aggregated Kindle reading patterns of HN
readers is something I would _love_ to see as an application. How cool would
that be? Popular books, notes, etc...

------
lpolovets
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Michael Lewis recently wrote an article about Kahneman and the book, and the
discussion of that on HN really piqued my interest.
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3219240>)

------
Sukotto
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

I hesitated to start. Partly because I found the original Harry Potter kind of
boring/frustrating. And partly because it's fanfiction, a sort of writing I do
not normally enjoy.

I'm most of the way through the 1200 pages and find it pretty enjoyable.

Harry's portrayal seems pretty uneven (swinging between "scientist/genius in
an irrational world" and "arrogant prick demigod").

I like Drako's additional depth far better than Rowling's one dimensional
jerk.

Find it here: <http://www.elsewhere.org/rationality/> (after the first few
chapters I switched to the pdf version.. link on the right of that page)

------
dirkdeman
The electric Kool-Aid acid test by Tom Wolfe. In a way I feel sorry that we
don't have these kind of counter-cultural, non-conformist movements anymore. A
hipster just isn't the same as a hippie... Reading this book has been an
experience, although I'm not sure what exactly. I guess I'm just "on the bus"!

~~~
rbrcurtis
hipster is the new scenester, there is no comparison to a hippie. There are
still a lot of counter-culture types out there, I consider myself one of them.
I think we're just a lot less in your face and loud than what you're thinking
of which is in some ways rather unfortunate. The modern day hippie is focused
on real local food, reducing waste, anti-consumerism, labor issues, etc. Look
at everything that's been going down in Madison, WI to see lots of examples.

------
gvb
Hacker Ne

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x4ea43cbc in memcpy ()
from /lib/libc.so.6

------
jamesrcole
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan
Heath

[http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-
Others/dp/140...](http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-
Others/dp/1400064287)

\- quite good so far (1/2 way through)

A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster

[http://www.amazon.com/Room-View-Bantam-
Classics/dp/055321323...](http://www.amazon.com/Room-View-Bantam-
Classics/dp/0553213237)

\- not sure what I think of it yet (about 1/2 way through). Found some of the
writing a bit opaque, where I'm not sure what he's trying to say.

------
bumbledraven
_The Beginning of Infinity_ by David Deutsch. A wide-ranging inquiry into the
kinds of ideas that lead to human progress and those that don't. In the top
five on the list of "best books I've ever read".

------
ekm2
An introduction to Probability by William Feller Code(By Charles Petzold)
Feynman Lectures Vol1 Artificial Intelligence,A Modern Approach By Norvig
Blink By Malcolm Gladwell. Concurrently.

------
waterlesscloud
The Road To Reality - Roger Penrose. Slowly, step by step.

Neuromancer - William Gibson. 6th or 7th time through. Coming to it now after
having read Delany's Nova, and the influence is clear.

Little Heroes - Norman Spinrad. All that's good about Spinrad and all that's
bad. He does write well about Hollywood.

History Of Film- David Parkinson. A short survey text, sort of a review for
me.

------
possibilistic
Physical Chemistry by Levine. It has given me an amazing theoretical and
quantitative grasp for thermodynamics, aqueous systems, etc. It's incredibly
easy to understand if you've had general chemistry and diff eq. It's my best
textbook this semester.

It gets into quantum and statistical mechanics, but I haven't made it that far
yet.

------
wyclif
Version Control by Example ~ Eric Sink

------
joshbaptiste
The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook

[http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-
Han...](http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-
Handbook/dp/1593272200/)

------
jronkone
Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows

Early Retirement Extreme - Jacob Lund Fisker

------
Newky
Steve Jobs Biography - Walter Isaacson

I'm surprised at how good a read this is, it is anything but a hero worship
style book. Its long for a biography but Steve's life is a very interesting
one, and am yet to be bored with it.

------
cleverjake
The Art of Intrusion - Kevin Mitnick [http://www.amazon.com/Art-Intrusion-
Exploits-Intruders-Decei...](http://www.amazon.com/Art-Intrusion-Exploits-
Intruders-Deceivers/dp/0764569597)

------
flomincucci
Currently reading Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger. Interesting concepts :)

------
amorphous
Cryptonomicon, so far love it

Interesting that most seem to read two books at the same time. Usually I read
one fiction and one non-fiction, but this time really enjoying to focus on
only one book

------
tryitnow
The Sorcerer's Apprentice: How Medical Imaging Is Changing Health Care (by
Bruce Hillman and Jeff Goldsmith )

Agile Web Development with Rails (by Sam Ruby, Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier
Hansson)

------
Fargren
A Game of Thrones and A Hitchhikers guide to teh galaxy. I've been using this
past few months to read up a few things that I shyould have read long ago.
Next up is Stranger in a Strange Land

------
nicklovescode
Calculus - Michael Spivak

Salt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky

------
tokenadult
Teaching as Leadership,

<http://www.teachingasleadership.org/>

to learn more about effective teaching.

------
revolvingcur
_REAMDE_ by Neal Stephenson

 _Steve Jobs_ by Walter Isaacson

 _The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick_ edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem

------
thomas11
Artificial Intelligence, a Modern Approach (Russell & Norvig), while doing ai-
class.com. Great writing for a text book.

Coders at Work (Seibel).

------
blatherard
The Authentic Animal: Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy (Dave
Madden)

Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty (David Kadavy)

------
prophetjohn
The Ruby Programming Language - Flanagan, Matsumoto

Ruby on Rails 3 Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example - Hartl

Blood Meridian - McCarthy

------
deutronium
How to live safely in a science fictional universe

Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in "The Matrix"

------
espinchi
Breakthrough Rapid Reading (Peter Kump)

The Pragmatic Programmer (Andrew Hunt)

Cashflow Quadrant (Robert T. Kiyosaki)

------
Urgo
Currently on book two in the Spin series. Just finished book one (Spin) which
was great.

Axis (Robert Charles Wilson)

------
md1515
I'm far more into history than anything. I'm reading "The Campaigns of
Alexander" by Arrian and "Halliburton's Army"

------
jhaddon
I'm still slowly working my way through GEB. Also reading Ghost Story (Dresden
Files #13) for some lighter fare.

------
szcukg
Code By Charles Petzold. This book is taking me back to school. Law of
conservation of energy. Brilliant text

------
yangyang
Principles of Functional Programming - Glaser, Hankin, Till

I Have America Surrounded - John Higgs

------
Mutinix
Accelerated C++ (Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo) A Game of Thrones (George
R. R. Martin)

------
dananjaya86
Fundamentals of Physics - Halliday et al. and The Collected Short Stories of
Robert Dahl.

------
curtisa
Predictably irrational the hidden forces that shape our decisions by Dan
Ariely

------
zachcb
The Shallows (Nicholas Carr)

------
gpjt
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo -- the book, not the musical. Well worth it.

~~~
Geekette
Kudos to you!

Tried reading it several years ago and flung it down in despair at its
veboseness ~quarter way through. My French friends laughed with & at me,
saying I was lucky it wasn't mandatory reading like it was for them in high
school... I hear glowing reviews very occasionally, but when I think of the
sheer bulk of the book, I don't know if I can give it another chance.

~~~
gpjt
I'm reading on Kindle and carefully not looking at the "% read" indicator...
that might be helping.

------
zengr
_Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think_ by Brian Wansink

------
safetyscissors
Well Grounded Rubyist, iOS Programming (Big Nerd Ranch), Steve Jobs

------
azharb
Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, ofcourse. (still a noob)

------
jensnockert
Auralia's Colors (by Jeffery Overstreet)

------
ohashi
The Ascent of Money (Niall Fergusson)

------
toponium
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman)

------
giveaboneadog
Surface Detail, Iain M Banks

------
Geekette
White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)

------
tcarney
hacker news required reading of course:

Hackers & Painters - pg

------
niclupien
1984, Gorges Orwell

~~~
damoncali
One of the best ever. There's a part of me that is afraid to re-read it.

------
yuvadam
Gödel, Escher, Bach

------
majikrooster
A Feast for Crows

