
What are you reading? - brownegg
I don't ever see this discussed here.  The level and focus of discourse here should make for great recommendations.<p>&#60;edit&#62; Should this be restricted to "on topic" material? &#60;/edit&#62;<p>Me, recently and currently:<p>http://www.amazon.com/About-Face-2-0-Essentials-Interaction/dp/0764526413/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1251767831&#38;sr=8-12<p>http://www.amazon.com/Matter-Great-Design-People-Company/dp/0137142447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1251767882&#38;sr=8-1<p>http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Mind-Anniversary/dp/0071359168/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#38;s=books&#38;qid=1251767926&#38;sr=1-1
======
tokenadult
Assessment of Children: Cognitive Foundations by Jerome Sattler

[http://www.amazon.com/Assessment-Children-Foundations-
Jerome...](http://www.amazon.com/Assessment-Children-Foundations-Jerome-
Sattler/dp/0970267142/)

Assessing Adolescent and Adult Intelligence, Third Edition by Alan S. Kaufman
and Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger

[http://www.amazon.com/Assessing-Adolescent-Adult-
Intelligenc...](http://www.amazon.com/Assessing-Adolescent-Adult-Intelligence-
Third/dp/0471735531/)

What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought by Keith
Stanovich

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-
Psycholog...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-
Psychology/dp/030012385X/)

What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect by James R. Flynn

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-
Effect/...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-
Effect/dp/0521741475/)

Handbook of Intelligence edited by Robert Sternberg

[http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Intelligence-Robert-
Sternberg...](http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Intelligence-Robert-Sternberg-
PhD/dp/0521596483/)

and a host of related books about IQ testing and what it means, to prepare a
working paper on the latest research on IQ testing.

~~~
TheElder
Do you know if baby size at birth is correlated to higher intelligence later
in life? Also, what about the amount of hair a child is born with? Any
correlation there?

~~~
tokenadult
This is a paper by an eminent researcher in the discipline (I have read one of
his books and have another at hand) that I Googled up:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4GG8W00-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=997575277&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9c4afe03e007ecc9d51908d673d72e30)

~~~
TheElder
Thank you! Through your link, I gathered a few keywords and found this:
<http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7280/199>

Birth weight was also associated with education, with those of higher birth
weight more likely to have achieved higher qualifications, and this effect was
accounted for partly by cognitive function at age 8.

Small size at birth is associated with a range of adverse health outcomes,
including poor cognitive development, an effect that is largely unconfounded
by features of the family environment, such as socioeconomic status and birth
order.

------
sabon
Finishing "Atlas Shrugged". While ideas and the spirit of the book have aged
only slightly, the way of writing seems way too pretentious for our times. But
overall the book is interesting. From historic and ideological point of view.

~~~
NoBSWebDesign
Ayn Rand was able to name so much of what I've felt growing up. While she may
have used the literary technique of exaggeration to heighten the contrast
between her philosophical views of moral vs. immoral, I don't think she took
it "too far" as others are commenting. I think that's like saying Philip K.
Dick took the ideas of technological advances and psychic ability too far in
his story, "Minority Report", or like saying Pablo Picasso took multi-
perspective simplicity too far in his Cubist paintings. Of course they did,
it's part of their literary freedom. Exaggeration helps to make an underlaying
principle become self-evident by speeding along conclusions that could
eventually be drawn from observation.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I took her meritocratic stance seriously until I heard her defend inherited
wealth, which is ridiculously inconsistent.

~~~
perfectlyfrank
"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who
would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to
his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him." - I think she's still
basing it on merit. While I disagree with some of what she says, and she says
a lot, she does a decent job of staying consistent.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
It would be consistent if everyone who was fit to inherit actually did
inherit. But that is not the case. Some of those who are fit do not inherit
and others do. What is the basis for this inequality? Birth.

She destroys the idea of meritocracy that she herself presented so eloquently
and discredits libertarianism as yet another excuse for those born wealthy to
keep their wealth.

If an hair is not equal to his money it destroys him? Come on, what does it
even mean to be "equal to money"? And how can someone who does not inherit
wealth even prove that he or she is "equal to the money"? That's just the kind
of fluffy nonsense that moral philosophers are so infamous for.

~~~
NoBSWebDesign
I don't think you would enjoy reading Rand (either you haven't yet read any of
her work and are going based solely on what you read in this thread, or you
just completely didn't understand her work).

As she argues, money is a means of trading human production and value. To be
equal to your money is to provide production and value to society equal to the
value of your money. According to Rand, if one who is barely capable of ever
making more than $30k per year were to inherit $5m, it would not end well. And
actually lottery statistics support this pretty consistently.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
How does that explain why it is consistent that some get the opportunity to
start out wealthy and some do not?

You don't seem to get what I'm saying at all. Among those who are willing and
able to provide production value are some who get a boost from inherited
wealth and some who do not.

Do you consider that fair or consistent with a merit based society? I do get
perfectly well what Ayn Rand says in her books, and based on that her stance
on inheritance is grotesque.

~~~
NoBSWebDesign
I think that according to Rand, fairness is a moot point when it comes to this
situation. She is saying that if you are capable of achieving wealth, then you
will achieve it no matter where you start from in our society. She also
explains that those who are capable of achieving are concerned only with their
own achievements and awards, and those of others only so far as they help to
achieve their own.

If you put all of this together, you end up with the person of achievement not
caring where others started (or what they inherited) in relation to
themselves. Fairness only holds value when the person getting shafted cares
enough to give it value.

Besides, Rand's argument is that over the long run, it really doesn't matter,
as the person who is capable of producing great wealth will do so, with or
without an inheritance. The person who is not will quickly squander it all and
end up right back where they started. Her point is simply that an inheritance
does not change one's ability to produce.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Well, she's a fiction writer. Me shrugs.

------
roryokane
I'm reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson for the third time, and
understanding it more than the second time. It has wonderful technical
digressions that seem aimed precisely at geeks/hackers. In fact, on the the
main characters is a programmer, and another is a code-breaker in the military
who sees an opportunity for geeky analysis in everything he sees. (There are
also many accounts of military battles from a soldier's point of view to break
the talking up.)

~~~
leif
I'm about halfway through this. Not sure I liked it at first, because his
style seemed a bit too heavy-handed, as if he were a 16 year old with a really
big thesaurus, trying to allude to as many different things as possible. It's
grown on me though, over the last far-too-many pages. Still not totally happy,
but it's interesting.

~~~
tremendo
A third of the way in. While I find it definitely entertaining, and like both
the military adventures and geeky bits, I do not—so far—feel actually engaged
with it. However this could be because it's hard to read while in bed: tiny
type and bulky (at 900+ pages).

Recently read "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins. The middle part was quite
dense for me, but in the end I gained new appreciation for the AI field, which
before really seemed like much pie in the sky nonsense, and after reading this
book I am a believer.

Gearing up for something completely different now as the 12th installment of
the WoT series is coming out in a few weeks.

------
zemariamm
. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

. Programming Clojure

. Little Schemer (re-reading)

. Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and
Statistical Inference to Trading Signals by David Aronson

~~~
ddemchuk
+1 on ZAMM, very interesting book...do you plan on moving on to Lila, the
"sequel"? I've read that very few have a full understanding of the point of
the second book...I never got around to reading it after the first...

~~~
Estragon
That book caused me no end of confusion, when I read it as a teenager. By the
time _Lila_ came out, it was no surprise to me that in it he repudiates much
of what he said in _ZAMM_.

People should avoid reading it, because it's useless, and if they do read it,
they should take it a lot less seriously than it does itself, because it's
clear from the sequel that the author himself does.

------
habiteer
Rereading How to Win Friends and Influence People (once again). That book
never ages. May very well be the best book ever written. I'm guessing most of
you have read it, but if you haven't, I urge you to order it right away! It
will be your best purchase in a long time.

Also just finished Genome ([http://www.amazon.com/Genome-Autobiography-
Species-Chapters-...](http://www.amazon.com/Genome-Autobiography-Species-
Chapters-P-S/dp/0060894083/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251786710&sr=1-1)).
Good read, but there are better books in the category.

------
jerryji
"How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis ( [http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Felix-
Dennis/dp/009191265...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rich-Felix-
Dennis/dp/0091912652) ) THE best get rich how-to guides that I've read (not
that I've read too many of them, though :)

~~~
jksmith
Best advice: "If it floats, flies or fornicates, better to rent it than own
it."

I wonder how Dennis would feel about the fractional ownership model for each
of those items.

~~~
bloch
In other words: Never own ducks.

------
DanielBMarkham
I got books like sheiks got oil. I'm swimming in them. I try to read a little
from at least four books every day. (You'll have to look up these links
yourself)

\-----------------------------------------------------------

On my Kindle:

Anna Karenina, Tolstoy; Clean Code, Uncle Bob; Palm WebOS; Antoninus
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, Emperor; Never Eat Alone, and Other Secrets to
Success, Ferrazzi

\-----------------------------------------------------------

In my stack:

Daniel-X, James Patterson; Born To Run, Christopher McDougall; The Existential
Jesus, John Carroll; Fear and Trembling - Repetition, Soren Kierkegaard

\-----------------------------------------------------------

On the way in from Amazon: The Trusted Advisor, Maister; Secrets of
Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully, Weinberg; Rain
Making: Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field, Harding

\-----------------------------------------------------------

I'm thinking about growing another pair of eyeballs so I can read two books at
once. I'll let you know how the genetic engineering goes. (grin)

~~~
kristiandupont
Why do you try to read from four books every day?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
It's an interesting phenomenon. Now that I have my Kindle, I find I can
"parallel read" instead of sequentially reading. It's really easy to flip
between several books, and the Kindle keeps track of what percentage I have
completed of each book.

I'm finding that the Kindle might not be so good with technical books -- why,
I don't know. But for fiction and "light" books it's great. I wished I had
read Tolstoy many years ago. That guy can really write!

------
carbon8
Omnivore's Dilemma. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma>

~~~
latortuga
On the (sort of) same topic, I'm in the middle of Good Calories, Bad Calories.

------
derwiki
"The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins. This was a result of asking my Twitter friends
to decide between this and Art of War for me, and this won overwhelmingly.
It's been a great read so far, and I'm really looking forward to learning more
about how evolution and computer science can mix.

~~~
MikeCapone
Dawkins is eminently readable, even in books that you think you know what he's
going to say. I also recommend The God Delusion.

~~~
derwiki
The God Delusion was the first Dawkins book I read -- a Christmas gift from my
mother. When I told her what it was about, she got made and said "that's not
in the spirit of Christmas."

------
edw519
"The Four Steps to the Epiphany" by Steven Gary Blank

[http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-
Blank/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-
Blank/dp/0976470705)

~~~
dawie
Me too. I am struggeling to get through it though.

~~~
imperator
It is poorly edited, but full of excellent content. The author should release
it to a wiki so that some enthusiasts can clean up the typos and other
formatting issues.

I keep referring back to it. I think it would be good to read in parallel with
a business partner.

------
Simucal
"Anathem", by Neal Stephenson.

Don't be put off by its size, the book is great.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem>

~~~
brown9-2
Not only don't be put off by it's size, but don't be put off by the press it
got from when it was released. The book is way better than anyone could
possibly sum up in a blurb.

~~~
whatusername
And don't be put off by the slog through the first 100 pages or so.. it does
have a pay-off.

------
chrisconley
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

~~~
dtf
That book corrupted me. I've never had an innocent conversation with a
salesperson since.

~~~
mtrimpe
Haha, I know exactly what you mean!

------
raju
1\. Programming Clojure (Not going too well)

2\. Refactoring your Wetware (This is a very good book)

3\. SICP (Just started looking into this to see if I can attempt to write the
code in Clojure)

~~~
oscardelben
I am half the way of SICP and I also have my hand on clojure. It would be a
good experiment to solve the problems with clojure.

------
navshaikh
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One
Quest for Transcendent Software [http://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Code-
Programmers-Transcendent...](http://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Code-Programmers-
Transcendent-Software/dp/1400082463)

The Design of Everyday Things [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-
Donald-Norman/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-
Norman/dp/0465067107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251771897&sr=1-1)

~~~
jksmith
"Dreaming in Code" was ultimately so depressing I couldn't finish it.

------
windsurfer
1\. The Mythical Man Month (Some interesting essays, some dated)

2\. The Art of Agile Development (First agile book to read, certainly
interesting)

3\. Object Oriented Perl (Very interesting stuff... I've read it a few times
but keep flipping open to chapters and being in awe of the cleverness of the
author)

~~~
apotheon
Damn -- now I'm going to have to get _Object Oriented Perl_.

------
adityakothadiya
Maverick - By Ricardo Semler of Semco. It's a must read book for every
entrepreneur. I've read few business books, but this is one of those books
I'll always recommend everyone with Founders at Work and Art of the Start.

It's a real story of Semco with great business lessons.

~~~
imperator
If you are interested in democratic and effective companies this is a great
story. I wish more companies had a culture like Semco. Strong leadership
should never go out the door, but autocracy should.

------
kwantam
The Reasoned Schemer by Friedman, Byrd, and Kiselyov

Purely Functional Data Structures by Okasaki

Programming Language Pragmatics, 3rd ed by Scott

Fast Analytical Techniques for Electrical and Electronic Circuits by Vorperian

~~~
sb
I second "Programming Language Pragmatics" it is a fantastic book, and he is a
very good writer, with illustrative examples and just the right balance
between breadth/depth.

------
bmunro
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

~~~
silvio
That is such an excellent book. If you like it, you may also enjoy "Foucault's
Pendulum" by Eco as well.

~~~
rodrigo
Very dense, the kind of book that a book geek writes.

When i read The DaVinci Code years later, it feeled like a very decaffeinated
(really "de-lots of things") version of Foucaults Pendulum. It also feels like
it spawned this sort of genre of history-mystery-conspiracy-airport-and-beach-
novel.

------
yan
OO i love these threads.

I am currently reading "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro and its awesome so
far (~150 pgs in). Just finished Zinn's "A people's history". Next up is
"Atlas Shrugged" or "The Power of Babel" by John McWhorter.

~~~
mynameishere
Why? Just because someone is reading something doesn't mean it's a good
recommendation. I'm reading "Two years before the mast," and it's okay. There
are better books.

However, here's a real recommendation: If you have a netbook, it can be used
very effectively as an e-book reader if you turn it on its side while in bed,
or place it upon your chest. I didn't buy it for that reason, but it is the
most comfortable manner of reading books, AFAICS.

~~~
yan
Because recommendations tend to be very specific to a certain topic (probably
very technical), but asking what a person is reading now includes outside
interests, hobbies and curiosities.

------
notaddicted
I am reading _way_ too many books at once. Not in danger of finishing them
all, but in the last month I have read from:

    
    
      Technical:
    

Armstrong, Programming Erlang

Oppenheim et al, Signals and Systems

Abelson and Sussman, SICP

The Fourier Transform and its Applications

Project Management for Construction

    
    
      Nontechnical:
    

Russel, History of Western Philosophy

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Schelling, Strategy of Conflict

The US Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual

Araki Photofile

...

All of them are too interesting.

~~~
akamaka
I only read the first chapter of Malcolm X's autobiography before I lost my
copy, but boy was it ever worth reading.

I think everyone should take an hour to sit down and read the first chapter,
even if they don't like books.

------
10ren
_Edison : a Life of Invention_ , Paul Israel (terribly dense condensation of a
6 volume biography... but it has all the facts. I don't know if Edison was a
"genius", but he had lots of ideas, and he _did_ them. BTW Tesla isn't
mentioned at all, and the AC/DC controversy only peripherally, in terms of
Western Union)

Just finished _iWoz_ , by Woz. It's extremely casually written. He comes
across as ego-centric but sadly without self-awareness even here, in
autobiography (incidentally, I think the appropriate comic strip to represent
Steve and Steve would be Calvin and Calvin. But I digress). The guy is a
genius, there's some funny bits, and he gives some great advice: being able to
think objectively gives you confidence, and independence of the opinions of
others. Worth being reminded of when the pressure's on.

 _now to join the long tail of comments_

------
bufordtwain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and
Education by Grace Llewellyn

------
darkxanthos
Just finished The Time Traveler's Wife... Working on GEB, and Ulysses (also a
simple French reader and Le Petit Prince since I'm just learning French).

I also got a book about Ulysses to help me glean as much as possible out of
this intellectual and physical monstrosity of a book.

------
reddiar
Network Algorithmics - George Varghese; Back of the Napkin - Dan Roam

~~~
tptacek
Good for you on Varghese. Let us know what you build.

------
rodrigo
Halfway into "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and im liking it so
far, specially its hindsights on philosophy and rationality.

"Beautiful Data", a couple of chapters, i like the "Beautiful" series cause
you can take any chapter as a more or less isolated topic.

------
Randai
Starship Troopers. Began and finished off 1984 after all the hubbub about it
recently on HN.

~~~
ilamparithi
Me too. Finished up to 9 chapters.

------
crc
An introduction to probability - Vol I (William Feller)

Introduction to dynamic systems - David Luenberger

~~~
frig
How are you finding Feller?

I've been through Shiryaev and have very mixed feelings on that one.

------
jamesbritt
* Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, by Winifred Gallagher (So-so. Pop-psychy, but interesting ideas.)

* 500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide, by Helen Mccarthy (Perhaps one doesn't actually _read_ such a book, but graze.)

* Mister Blank Exhaustive Collection, by Christopher J. Hicks (Fun. Love the art.)

* Programming Cocoa with Ruby, by Brian Marick (Tonight I will likely crack this open and see how soon I can code something.)

* Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories, by Raymond Carver (Started in, will work slowly through the stories.)

Sitting on the floor, beckoning me:

* Sunnyside, by Glen David Gold

* The Invention of Air, by Steven Johnson

------
dionidium
The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of
the Spanish Civil War, Brenan [http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Labyrinth-
Account-Political-Ba...](http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Labyrinth-Account-
Political-Background/dp/0521398274)

Homage to Catalonia, Orwell [http://www.amazon.com/Homage-Catalonia-George-
Orwell/dp/0156...](http://www.amazon.com/Homage-Catalonia-George-
Orwell/dp/0156421178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251784961&sr=1-1)

------
pg
Cabeza de Vaca's _Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America_

------
gsk
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges. Always a delight, the two prefaces
for the collection written decades apart are a must read (Amazon Look Inside
hasn't got it. Don't know why.).

~~~
rodrigo
Borges its great, i find his tales super-concentrated: one tale mentions
people or stories that can spawn hundreds of other tales or biographies, and
that leaves me wishing to read more of him to see if that story is told
somewhere else.

------
bigwill
_McMafia_ by Misha Glenny. Interesting read on globalization and organized
crime as circumstances have materialized since the end of the Cold War.

~~~
Kaizyn
You'd probably also be interested in the book Rogue Economics by Napoleoni. It
discusses how the money from illicit activities are flowing around the world.

------
83457
IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and
America's Most Powerful Corporation

Imitation of Life: How Biology Is Inspiring Computing

Programming in Python 3

------
daeken

      The Machinery Of Freedom by David Friedman
      Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
      Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
    

I'm in the middle of writing a book on emulation, and I'm finding it really
hard to read anything tech-wise these days. There's only so long you can see
such material before you can't take it anymore, and my own book pushes me over
that line most days.

------
seshagiric
1\. The Annotated Turing - Charles Petzold 2\. SICP (going very slow) 3\.
Findability - Peter Morville 4\. Making Things Happen - Scott Berkun

------
norwayjose
Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight by David A. Mindell

Gray Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Reverse Engineers by
Justin Seitz

------
fogus
Okasaki's "Purely Functional Data Structures"

Giola's "The History of Jazz"

Herbert's "Chapterhouse: Dune"

------
anigbrowl
_Why's (poignant) guide to Ruby_. I have no interest in Ruby, I just wanted to
read why's thing on paper instead of on the screen. Though with hindsight, it
might have been cheaper to just print it.

 _Fisher vs. Spassky: inside the 1972 world chess championship_. It is
crushing me with brute force.

 _consider Phlebas_ by Iain M. Banks. War is hell.

------
timf
Good Calories, Bad Calories (Taubes)

About 700 children's books (Assorted authors)

------
sammyo
Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions

The Road to Reality (and I'll probably be able to post this for the next 3 or
more threads of this type :)

Dead Until Dark (well when it comes in, certainly not going to buy this, and
the library reserve goes nuts for books that spawn your popular vapire drama)

------
quantumhobbit
A friend of mine has been completely obsessed with the Discworld books. I just
borrowed "Jingo" and was impressed with how mature it was.(Mature in the ideas
presented. The humor is absurd and appropriately silly) Pratchett isn't quite
as great as Douglas Adams but is certainly close enough.

------
etravers
Microsoft's Axum Programmers Guide (PDF). The language is beyond me, but I
felt like going through it.

[http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/D/5/BD51FFB2-C777-4...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/D/5/BD51FFB2-C777-43B0-AC24-BDE3C88E231F/Axum%20Programmers%20Guide.pdf)

------
Kototama
Technical:

\- _Practical Common Lisp_

\- _Programming Clojure_

Non technical:

\- _Empire_ , Antonio Negri & Michael Hardt. A deep political and
philosophical essay about the transition between modern and postmodern times.

\- Various material about the International Situationist, an avant-garde
political and artistic movement from the 60s.

------
christofd
My basic CS stuff:

Still at 'Real World Haskell'...and still not through the Monads part

Programming Clojure, started reading

Chris Okasaki's Thesis on 'Functional Data Structures'

O'Reilly's 'Algorithms in a Nutshell'

'Collective Intelligence', T. Segaran, O'Reilly

Some old Isaac Asimov books I found in my Landlord's cellar

R. L. Stevenson, re-reading 'Treasure Island' on Google Books

------
mv
Psycho-Cybernetics [http://www.amazon.com/Psycho-Cybernetics-New-More-Living-
Lif...](http://www.amazon.com/Psycho-Cybernetics-New-More-Living-
Life/dp/0671700758)

probably the best self-help book I've ever read.. Teaches a lot about how to
think.

------
TheElder
A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself, by Rabbi
Joseph Telushkin

[http://www.amazon.com/Code-Jewish-Ethics-Neighbor-
Yourself/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Code-Jewish-Ethics-Neighbor-
Yourself/dp/1400048362)

------
kallistec
The correct question is, "what are you reading _for_?" and the answer is "I'm
reading 'Hee Haw: The Book.'"

Actually, it's "Matrix Methods in Data Mining and Pattern Recognition." Two
years ago I would have torn through the math but now I'm, uh, less smart.

------
Mongoose
I'm currently reading "Persepolis," the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, and
MIT Press' "A History of Modern Computing." I recently acquired a copy of
Steven Levy's "Hackers," which I'd like to at least start before the end of
the summer.

~~~
mkramlich
Hackers is an excellent book, probably should be required reading for anyone
into the programmer/entrepreneur lifestyle, or wannabe.

It gave me my first moment where I was reading a book and thought, "Yes.
_That's_ what I want to be doing. What they're doing. But me," when reading
about some of the first computer game companies like Sierra, early Electronic
Arts, early Apple, etc. Especially the story of Ken and Roberta Williams.

As a kid, I was using the software and hardware made by the folks described in
those stories and felt that when I grew up I also wanted to be my own boss,
and make and sell my own stuff. Make, sell, repeat. All other BS minimized.

~~~
Mongoose
That's the feeling I'm going for. Hopefully the MIT history of computing book
coupled with Hackers and a full load of computer science courses in the fall
will help motivate me.

------
Oompa
Second Treatise of Government - Locke On Liberty - Mill The Communist
Manifesto - Marx & Engels Eros & Civilization - Marcuse Civilization and Its
Discontents - Freud The Road To Serfdom - Hayak Milestones - Qutb

------
eserorg
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

and

The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes

~~~
akamaka
Interesting and unusual books for a hacker. Can you give us a quick mini-
review of what you think so far?

------
nfnaaron
The Candy Bombers, about the Berlin Airlift, the political and military
conflicts surrounding the Airlift, and the Airlift pilot that started dropping
candy for the kids near the airport.

------
brown9-2
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton

recommended in this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=760771>

~~~
tptacek
Great interview with him on Marketplace of Ideas podcast (Google it).

~~~
brown9-2
Thanks! Here's the link:
[http://media.libsyn.com/media/colinmarshall/MOI_Alain_de_Bot...](http://media.libsyn.com/media/colinmarshall/MOI_Alain_de_Botton.mp3)

------
warewolfe
Last three books I read were; Atlas Shrugged, Code Complete, The Mythical Man
Month,

The three books I'm currently reading; flex and bison, Mastering Algorithms in
C Expert C programming,

The next three books on the "to read" stack are; Cyptonomicom, The definitive
guide to GCC, Managing projects with GNU make,

Did anyone else find "Code Complete" to be a bit repetitive, in places a bit
redundant, and sometimes repetitive? I think the "pragmatic programmer" was a
better read, and I could not put down "programming pearls"

------
tjr
Most recently, been doing some skill refreshing with Jon Bentley's
"Programming Pearls" and Paul Graham's "ANSI Common Lisp".

Not too long ago, Pepper White's "The Idea Factory".

------
Flemlord
Growing up, I was a big fan of Robert Aspirin who wrote the Another Fine Myth
series. I found out he died recently so I picked up his latest, Dragons Wild.
It's a young adult novel but it was a fun, nostalgic read.

Prior to that it was House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds. Far-future sci-fi
about a group of traders who travel at near-relativistic speeds from planet to
planet over billions of years, watching human civilizations rise and fall.

------
tel
_Ulysses_ , haha.

~~~
jobeirne
Ouch.

~~~
tel
Not entirely ouch. Much like when I read _Portrait of the Artist_ I am pressed
between wanting to stab Joyce for having obnoxious and terrible worldviews and
steal his flatcap for its clearly mystical powers of English wrangling.

I guess those aren't exactly mutually exclusive.

------
jalammar
Just finished "Heretics of Dune". Now starting "Chapterhouse: Dune". Both are
Audiobooks I got from Audible.com. Great production for the whole series.

~~~
jksmith
Any of the ones read by Tim Curry are excellent. His voice characterizations
are very good.

------
abyssknight
Agile Web Development with Rails. I'm up to Chapter 11 or so, if I remember
right. Took a break to solve some puzzles for something completely unrelated.
Hopefully I can get back to a chapter a night.

After that, I'll probably crack open the Flex 3 Cookbook that Mike Potter sent
over. I still feel awful about not having read through that one yet, as Flex 4
is almost ready to be released.

------
Chirag
. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance . Harvard Business Review - all
the case studies . The Innovator's Dilemma . Ayn Rand++

------
jksmith
Reading "Q for Mortals." Highly recommend it for ideas for your next Antlr
project. Whitney is a sharp character.

Also trying my best to read some fiction - it's gotten progressively more
difficult to do over the years (the programmer has become programmed). Best I
could muster was to re-read "The First 20 Million is Always The Hardest" by Po
Bronson. Precious read.

~~~
slackenerny
LtU thread with Steve Apter (of nsl.com) explaining parsing of pure K:
<http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1323#comment-15393>

------
andrewparker
* The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It :: by Jonathan Zittrain

* The Elementary Particles :: by Michel Houellebecq

~~~
code_scrapping
Good luck with Elementary Particles. It's was too depressing for me. "The
Possibility of an Island" gets better though, with a nice sci-fi underline.

------
brianto2010
> _I don't ever see this discussed here._

Nonsense :-).

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749706>

Code Complete 2 [Chapter 7] (McConnell)

Test Driven: Practical TDD and Acceptance TDD for Java Developers [Chapter 2]
(Koskela)

A friend is helping me with this one:

The Rebel [Chapter 2] (Camus)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Code Complete is good stuff. The first volume changed the way I thought about
code.

------
Gertm
Real World Haskell

<http://book.realworldhaskell.org/>

~~~
wwkeyboard
I'm bouncing between that book and "The Haskell School of Expression"(
<http://www.haskell.org/soe/> ). The second seems to be better at describing
data structures and building the language in your mind while the first is more
of a reference of useful ideas.

~~~
mapleoin
It's strange how I never heard of this one, while the other gets a lot of
attention. Is it very outdated?

~~~
wwkeyboard
I had a lot of trouble trying to get the libraries they mentioned working. The
code examples in the book are so straight forward it was simple to implement
them in OpenGL. I have not run across wrong information yet.

On a side note, I went to the Boston Haskell Users Group and their advice was
"just read the Haskell Report". I needed a little more gentle introduction
before we go jumping into the deep end of the pool.

------
neuralzen
Contemplative Science by B. Alan Wallace. It's about stripping out the
analytical tools of Buddhism for study of the mind and creating a robust and
consistent tool set for scientific inquiry into the nature of the subjective
mind. Very interesting stuff IMO.

------
Perceval
Michel Foucault _Security, Territory, Population (Lectures at the College De
France)_

------
whatusername
A re-read of the Wheel of Time series - kindof following along with the
tor.com re-read (Which is worth checking out if you are a WoT fan). Going to
push through the last 4 books in the next 2 months as Book 12 is coming out in
Nov.

------
NoBSWebDesign
I'm also finishing Atlas Shrugged finally this week, having just finished The
Fountainhead. Next on my list is Anthem, then I think I'll go back to some
non-fiction for the next couple books... like Outliers and Capital and
Freedom.

------
kleevr
Currently reading: "infinite jest" (wallace) "how to rock climb" (john long)

On deck for winter: "god created the integers" (hawking) "critique of pure
reason" (kant) "illuminatus trilogy" "a brief history of technology" (up to
1900)

------
hexis
Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch

The Hobbit

Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill

I track my reading on Goodreads: <http://www.goodreads.com/enkrates>

------
wingo
Pride an Prejudice, until 4 in the morning last night. I'm sleepy now at work
:)

------
JimmyL
Infinite Jest, as a long slow process.

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo/The Girl who Played with Fire, each of which I
found myself burning through in a day (the new definition of the genre of
Swedish crime writing, which is amazing).

~~~
tptacek
What do you think about IJ? Where are you at in it? I'm ~400; was doing 75
pages a day during my summer break last week, but now that I'm working I'm
down to 5 or 6 a day.

~~~
JimmyL
I like it, but it's a long march - I'm at about 320, and a had a similar
pattern; 40 a day while on holiday, five or so while at work.

Seems like once you clear 200 pages or so, you're in it for the long haul.
It's intimidatingly large, but I couldn't think of not finishing it.

------
oink
_Empires of the Silk Road_ yesterday and _Inside Central Asia_ today. Also
_The Lightness of Being_ , _A Savage War of Peace_ , and _Confessions of an
English Opium Eater_.

------
zzygan
I'm one of the ones that has too many books on my reading list.

Programming in Scala - Odersky et al. Code Complete 2- re reading, its a good
read actually Godel Escher Bach - Hofstadter

------
ScottWhigham
Ha! I'm the only one apparently reading Melville! I'm reading _Omoo_ , his
second book. I finished _Typee_ last week and _Omoo_ is the semi-sequel.

------
arethuza
Just finished:

"The Great War for Civilisation" - Robert Fisk "Life on the Mississippi" -
Mark Twain "3 Commando Brigade" - Ewen Southby-Tailyour "Anathem" - Neal
Stephenson

------
bkovitz
_Computational Pharmacokinetics_ by Anders Källén

 _Secrets of Consulting_ by Gerald Weinberg

 _Le Ton Beau de Marot_ by Douglas Hofstadter

 _Born to Win_ by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward

~~~
rodrigo
Le Ton Beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter

How is it? please share your impressions.

~~~
anigbrowl
If you're interested enough to ask, then you'll probably like it. If you've
read and liked any other Hofstadter, then just just go get it. A bit weird at
first, but ultimately superb.

~~~
rodrigo
I will. I took GEB and leave it 200 pages from the end, it is great but i keep
feeling im not getting something. Im starting over now. And "le ton..." would
be next.

------
dill_day
I just finished The Brothers Karamazov. It was excellent.

~~~
j1o1h1n
I'm just reading Poor Folk, in honour of the Recession.

------
jamesbritt
Do folks here use Library Thing?

<http://www.librarything.com/home/jamesbritt>

(I've fallen behind in updates ...)

------
murrayb
Fatal Revenant by Stephen Donaldson

The Art of Happiness by HH Dalai Lama

------
apotheon
\- _SICP_ by Abelman, Sussman, and Sussman

\- _The Black Company I: Glittering Stone_ by Glen Cook

I try to stick to two books at a time -- one fiction, one nonfiction.

------
mhansen
John von Neumann and the origins of modern computing

------
noodle
had my temporary fill of tech books, so:

on my bedstand is "when you are engulfed in flames"

and my next major read is probably "the gathering storm" once it comes out.

------
dawie
Go It Alone (<http://www.brucejudson.com/>) by Bruce Judson

You can read it free online.

------
truebosko
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland by Philip K. Dick

Sometimes a little bit of fiction is nice over the usual technical / theory
books one might read :)

------
balding_n_tired
Read through _Untimely Thoughts_ a couple of weeks ago, have been meaning to
pick up _The Great Melody_ by C.C. O'Brien.

------
Ixiaus
* Practical Mathematics * Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student * Foundations of Arithmetic * Emerson's Essays

------
MikeCapone
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Finished "Ghost" last week -- nice book!

Not as good as his first one, but well-written.

You know there's a third book in the series too, right? Not as good as the
first two, but good.

What impressed me most about this author was after writing three books, he
hung up the series. He said that was it, not going any father.

I gotta admire that. Most Sci-Fi Authors with a good series have to beat the
thing to death before they let go.

~~~
Kaizyn
Well, he did follow it up with Zoe's Tale, a fourth book. And there's also
Jane's Diary or some other book that is tangentially related to the main
trilogy.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Yikes!

Sorry about the misinformation. I said that based on how he closes "Last
Colony" -- he makes it pretty clear he's done for a while.

I guess the lure of the steady paycheck is a tough thing to resist.

------
tptacek
Infinite Jest (DFW)

Trading and Exchanges (Harris)

------
tetsuo13
* Dynamics of Software Development

* Wireless Communications & Networks

* Time Management for System Administrators

------
wglb
Founders At Work, On Lisp, SICP, Idoru, The Art of Racing In the Rain (Garth
Stein)

------
GotToStartup
C# in Depth: What you need to master C# 2 and 3 & Introduction to Algorithms

------
simanyay
Finished Amusing Ourselves to Death a week ago, now reading Cryptonomicon.

------
lionhearted
I've been trying to get through a book a week recently, and not quite
succeeding. Here's the three I'm going through right now (no affiliate links):

Arabian Nights, Hussain Haddawy's translation. Hilarious and many life
lessons, strongly recommended. [http://www.amazon.com/Arabian-Nights-New-
Deluxe/dp/039333166...](http://www.amazon.com/Arabian-Nights-New-
Deluxe/dp/0393331660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774786&sr=1-1)

Healthy at 100, John Robbins. Just started, looks promising.
[http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-100-Scientifically-
Healthiest-...](http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-100-Scientifically-Healthiest-
Longest-Lived/dp/0345490118/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774809&sr=1-1)

The Psychology of Self Esteem, Nathaniel Branden. Gosh, Branden's so smart, I
just wish he'd use smaller words and sentences so I could get his general
ideas faster. [http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Self-Esteem-
Revolutionary-A...](http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Self-Esteem-
Revolutionary-Approach-Self-
Understanding/dp/0787945269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774828&sr=1-1)

I just gave up on "Execution" by Larry Bossidy, it seems good but I wasn't
connecting with it right now.

I read "Katsuno's Revenge and Other Tales of the Samurai" recently, which was
a good, short book. It's like 120 pages, with six stories or so. A few of them
were interesting, a few didn't speak to me, but overall worth a read. You'll
learn some underpinnings of Japanese culture from it. (Also, it's only $9 on
Amazon right now, can just add to cart for next order) -
[http://www.amazon.com/Katsunos-Revenge-Other-Tales-
Samurai/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Katsunos-Revenge-Other-Tales-
Samurai/dp/0486447421/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774864&sr=1-1)

Finished "The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan" recently - very interesting, it's
a look at the more political machinations and presents a dirtier, less ethical
picture of the great strategists in the Sengoku era.
[http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Banner-Classics-Japanese-
Liter...](http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Banner-Classics-Japanese-
Literature/dp/0804837015/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774893&sr=1-1)

Don't start with it if you're not familiar with the era, though, you'll get
the general sense wrong. I'd recommend start with Eiji Yoshikawa if you like
Japanese history and want to learn more - of course, start with "Musashi",
which is fantastic. If you really like it, "Taiko" is good too.

Musashi (my favorite book, huge for people who have lots of potential and are
having a hard time dealing with people close to them because of it) -
[http://www.amazon.com/Musashi-Eiji-
Yoshikawa/dp/4770019572/r...](http://www.amazon.com/Musashi-Eiji-
Yoshikawa/dp/4770019572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774933&sr=1-1)

Taiko (start with Musashi, if you like it a lot, pick up Taiko) -
[http://www.amazon.com/Taiko-Eiji-
Yoshikawa/dp/4770026099/ref...](http://www.amazon.com/Taiko-Eiji-
Yoshikawa/dp/4770026099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774959&sr=1-1)

Also, finished The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing which is the best business
book I've read in a long time. Short, simple, to the point. Highly
recommended. [http://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing-
Violate/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing-
Violate/dp/0887306667/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251774971&sr=1-1)

------
bts
"The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman

"Goedel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter

------
ovi256
"La reine morte" (The dead queen) by Henry de Montherland.

------
scotty42
Inside the Mind of the Shopper - Herb Sorenson Born to Run

------
gcopenhaver
* Gödel, Escher, Bach

* The Pragmatic Programmer

* Programming Clojure

* Pragmatic Version Control Using Git

------
rmk
The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson.

An amazing book, very readable.

------
rokhayakebe
From Beirut to Jerussalem. Thomas Friedman.

------
yop
Practical Django Projects 2nd edition

------
aita
Ideas and Opinions - Albert Einstein

------
pizza
Haroun and the Sea of Stories :)

------
GVRV
Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki

------
mronge
Making of the Atomic Bomb

------
zackattack
Gang Leader for a Day Cracking the GRE Personal Development for Smart People
The Ultimate Sales Machine Finding Your Zone: Ten Core Lessons for Achieving
Peak Performance in Sports and Life

Must-read-soon: Infinite Jest; Tribes; Influence; Made to Stick; Foundation
Rails 2

There aren't enough hours in the day. I'm going to shift to a wake-up-at-6-am
sleep schedule so I can become a more productive person and have more time to
read. Anyway, back to work.

~~~
rmk
Gang Leader for a Day --> Awesome Book!

------
electronslave
The Brothers Karamazov. Awesome, if only for the casually violent Russian
realism that I loved in Преступление и Наказание.

As far as learning goes, I'm chugging through the FARs and the Pilot's
Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. I'm about to solo.

As far as computer tech stuff goes, I haven't picked up a book with hype (plus
requisite clipart/bad drawings/abuse of color space) on the cover in years.

Edit: What's up with all the Ayn Rand? Misogyny, xenophobia and unvarnished
greed aren't exactly admirable characteristics, and her books read like an
apologist's how-to manual. My favorite example of a Rand fanboy now works
(when last I checked) at a bowling alley in Santa Barbara, after loudly and
memorably insisting that he didn't need liberal pansy friends like me, because
he'd be the wealthiest tycoon alive.

Yeah.

I guess he has a stovepipe hat and a monocle now.

~~~
lionhearted
> What's up with all the Ayn Rand? Misogyny, xenophobia and unvarnished greed
> aren't exactly admirable characteristics

The big problem with Rand is that she's downright nasty to the other side. So
people feel attacked and tune themselves out to her good ideas. Rand's anti-
politicking, pro-individualism, pro-triumph, pro-innovation, pro-going against
the grain, and so on. She rails against the very real, very nasty backroom
deals that give privilege and blessing to companies who can work the political
system at the expense of companies built by clueless-to-the-law engineers and
scientists. She makes a heck of a lot of good points...

...but she's really nasty about it, incredibly unfriendly and unsympathetic to
the motives of people who have other politics than hers. It makes it easy for
people with other views to tune out everything she wrote, even though there's
a lot of value in it.

~~~
electronslave
Oops. I just thought it was an amusing anecdote, but this isn't a constructive
direction.

~~~
apotheon
It was an amusing anecdote that started with a harsh indictment of anyone who
likes Ayn Rand's writing. Are you _sure_ you didn't expect people to be
offended at what you said? Are you, perhaps, being a little disingenuous here?

~~~
jksmith
Ah, but if one aspires to an ego the size of Howard Roark's, he wouldn't be
offended by anything whatsoever.

~~~
apotheon
What does that have to do with liking Ayn Rand's writing?

------
sree_nair
Maximum City - Suketu Mehta Shantharam - Gregory David Roberts

