
Ask HN: Whats the most challenging book you have ever read? - ThomPete
I just finished &quot;The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind&quot; by Julian Jaynes.<p>It&#x27;s one of those books that constantly leaves you uneasy and unsure whether you understand what you are reading but what an amazing read.
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kendallpark
MIT's Introduction to Algorithms

I'm not a technical book person and I definitely threw this book across the
room multiple times during this class. Hardest I've ever fought for an A-.
It's not poorly written, I just struggle with math-y books.

[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/introduction-to-
algorithms-t...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/introduction-to-algorithms-
thomas-h-cormen/1100497803?cm_mmc=google+product+search-
_-q000000633-_-9780262033848pla-_-
textbook_instock_under26_pt109-_-q000000633-_-9780262033848&ean=9780262033848&isbn=9780262033848&kpid=9780262033848&r=1)

~~~
dpeck
Completely agree.

One of the few books I kept from college and still pull it out once or twice a
year when I need to look up something and refresh/relearn. Incredibly dense.

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arca_vorago
There are quite a few at the top of this list, and they vary based on subject.
Are you speaking about technical books, or literature, or something else?

Regardless, the one that I spent a good year reading through multiple times
was Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. A brilliant book that challenged
my knowledge of rhetoric and enabled me to hone my rhetorical skills. You can
read it to learn or read it just for the awesomeness of the passages.

[http://www.amazon.com/Farnsworths-Classical-English-
Rhetoric...](http://www.amazon.com/Farnsworths-Classical-English-Rhetoric-
Farnsworth/dp/1567923852)

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brudgers
_The Art of Computer Programming, volume 4a: Combinatorial Algorithms_...and I
am not suggesting I understand a meaningful fraction of it. It reminds me of
how little I know. And in fairness I've been reading volume I by fits and
starts since the late 1980's.

 _Critique of Pure Reason_ for similar reasons in another of my lifetimes.
It's another book I'm not smart enough to criticize meaningfully.

Fiction, clearly Cormac McCarthy's _The Road_. As a parent it's just brutal to
find a place to put it. Not necessarily my first recommendation among his
novels, either.

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chrismdp
One of them was "How to read a book" by Mortimer Adler. I kid you not.

It taught me just how much I was reading for my own entertainment, not for
real information.

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avemuri
It probably wouldn't be as enlightening to most adults, but Problems in
General Physics by Irodov kicked my ass in high school and taught me a lot

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unimportant
Buddhist books whichs content cannot be fully understood as a concept and
require subsequent meditation experience.

Most programming books are challenging to me as I'm more of a learning by
doing guy and the content is usually either too abstract for me or in form of
sample projects that dont teach much beyond mere replication.

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throwaway653
I've never had any problem reading any book, obviously with the exception of
ones written in foreign languages I don't speak at all. You can't fake it if
you don't know anything at all. (trying to read chinese characters like Ezra
Pound who squinted at them for obvious pictographic meanings.)

But there's one exception, my black horse.

I tried to skim the Bible (Old and New Testament), in multiple translations.
Including easy ones, dumbed-down ones, ones for deaf readers, etc.

I thought that as literally millions of people have read this stuff for
literally hundreds of years, and it permeates every part of western culture,
it would be a walk through the park. Much easier than "more difficult" or
specialized stuff.

This is not true. I found it absolutely horrific to try to read it from
beginning to end. It's very difficult and basically I gave up, even in
situations where I had no other reading material and absoluetly nothing else
to do except drink some coffee and try to read it. I found the old and new
testaments are unreadable.

This is not just because of the subject matter. For example (I've said this
elsewwhere) I found the Qu'ran an incredibly easy skim. You can do it in an
hour. (easily, and for meaning.)

Just try it:

[http://www.nooresunnat.com/Audio/Complete%20Quran/Quran%20Tr...](http://www.nooresunnat.com/Audio/Complete%20Quran/Quran%20Translation%20in%20English%20by%20Mufti%20Taqi%20Usmani%20Sb%20DB.pdf)

This is just 566 pages triple-spaced with mostly blank lines, it's like 180
actual pages. It's incredibly repetitive. You can really stop on the parts
that say something.

The whole thing doesn't say much, there's not all this useless geneology and
history and names and such. It's easy.

Start skimming now and you'll be done by the time you get an answer to a quick
email you just sent. 20-40 minutes if you're fast.

So it's not me. It's not hte subject matter. It's just that the old and new
testaments are not the same at all. they're incredibly dense books that
somehow made it into our culture while being totally unreadable sequentially.
(for understanding.)

obviously it's fine to look up specific verses in. but as a book? Forget it.
Even if you're stuck on an island with nothing else, it makes for the most
impossible reading you'll ever find in a language you speak.

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kornakiewicz
I would distinguish between challenging, because book is so overwhellming
because of high level of proficiency required to read with understanding (eg.
University paperbooks) so here I could say that a lot of was hard thus
challenging. Other kind are challening because it change way you think about
world and/or things and it's hard to apply knowledge you get, even you know
it's right "view" like for me some of buddisth papers and Enchiridion by
Epictetus. It's pleasure to read, but when you want to live in stoic way -
yeah, then it's challenign.

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samcassatt
Definitely loved Julian Jaynes. It's a "just so" story, but quite compelling
and interesting - enough so to have a cult following.

Probably the most challenging/rewarding book I've ever read was Fuller's
Synergetics. It offers an understanding of science and nature that is holistic
in a way that is timeless and self-evident.

[http://www.amazon.com/Synergetics-Explorations-Geometry-
Buck...](http://www.amazon.com/Synergetics-Explorations-Geometry-Buckminster-
Fuller/dp/0020653204)

------
lordbusiness
The definition of challenging I'm choosing to apply here is, stimulating,
confronting, enlightening.

Martin Meredith's masterfully researched and written The Fate of Africa
completely altered my worldview, and brought into sharp focus contemporary
African politics. More broadly speaking, it brought clarity to global politics
in general, and our human condition.

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frozenport
Ulysses by James Joyce, but I am not sure if I missed large parts of it.

~~~
phaus
Ulysses is a walk in the park compared to his later work, Finnegan's Wake.

~~~
stephancoral
Finnegan's Wake is easier to read, in my opinion, because it isn't a linear
novel. By its very construction, the non-deterministic "narrative" implores
the Reader to leap, skip, and jump about as though lucid dreaming. John
Bishop's introduction to the Penguin Classics edition (not my favorite
edition, but definitely the best intro) provides a supporting context for
this.

I think the book is great fun.

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valdiorn
Field and Wave Electromagnetics: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Field-
Electromagnetics-International...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Field-
Electromagnetics-International-David-
Cheng/dp/0201528207/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420706734&sr=1-2&keywords=field+and+wave+electromagnetics)

That shit was tough.

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sunstone
"Consilience" by EO Wilson is a challenging and rewarding book, especially
considering it is thin, uses small words and short sentences. And has no math
whatsoever. My recollection is I could only read a couple of pages at time
without needing a nap.

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postit
Definitely GEB. This book stole 5 years of my life =)

~~~
lastofus
I read GEB not long after finishing a CS degree. Still had to try bloody hard
to wrap my brain around it all.

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ainiriand
The infinite book - [http://www.amazon.es/The-Infinite-Book-Boundless-
Timeless/dp...](http://www.amazon.es/The-Infinite-Book-Boundless-
Timeless/dp/1400032245)

Sometimes is a bit hard to conceptualize the infinite, you know!

~~~
ninebrows
Link to Amazon.com [http://amzn.to/1wqUnbO](http://amzn.to/1wqUnbO)

~~~
ainiriand
Sorry, but I did not knew that amazon had an url shortener, thank you!

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massung
Don Quixote. I was in HS at the time. Was pretty pissed off at the ending
after reading through it all. Looking back, though, I'm glad I read it.

------
paramk
'The Zen Experience' by Thomas Hoover

I didn't get most of the Zen kōan from this book. But I feel its a great book
about the history of Zen.

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jackgolding
Probably not the answer OP is looking for, but for me it was Baby Rudin at uni

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megaultra
The Bible.

~~~
hughdbrown
And it was challenging because ...? Did it change your life or some other
reason?

At a guess, I'd imagine many people would find the complete book challenging
because of the unexpected material and viewpoints that can be found in
sections of the Old Testament, like:
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+19:22-30](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+19:22-30)

~~~
jcarden
On this topic, you may want to check out How to Read the Bible: A Guide to
Scripture, Then and Now by James Kugel. It provides a historical overview of
how the implicit and explicit interpretations of the old testament narratives
have changed with respect to scholarship. Great read.

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-Guide-
Scripture/dp/0743...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-Guide-
Scripture/dp/0743235878)

