

Ask HN: What book are you reading? - Sealy

I recently discovered a book from Jessica Livingston, one of the Y Combinator founders. I&#x27;m finding it to be a great source inspiration (especially when I get frustrated with coding).<p>I thought I&#x27;d to share it with the hackers on here and also ask:<p>1. What books are you currently reading?<p>2. Which book has helped you the most?<p>Jessica&#x27;s book is called &quot;Founders at Work: Stories of Startups&#x27; Early Days&quot;<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;product&#x2F;1590597141
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mindcrime
>> 1\. What books are you currently reading?

Well, I'm one of those people who has a bookmark in about 15 different books
that I'm "currently reading" but some are higher priorities than others, and
some will never be finished (probably) and others I'll have to start over
since I've forgotten what was happening when I sat it aside, etc. But offhand,
I can think of:

 _Crossing The Chasm_ \- Geoffrey Moore - re-reading this one

 _The Prime Solution_ \- Jeff Thull - 3rd Jeff Thull book on selling that I've
read lately, and I'll probably reread the entire series when I finish this one

 _The New Solution Selling_ \- re-reading this - can you tell I'm starting to
try and move into sales?

 _Selling to VITO_ \- more sales stuff.

 _How to Create A Mind_ \- Ray Kurzweil

 _Godel, Escher, Bach_ \- Douglas Hofstadter - set this aside over a year ago;
about halfway through, will probably finish it, but FSM only knows when

 _A New Kind of Science_ \- Stephen Wolfram (see above about GEB)

 _Madame Bovary_ \- Meh. May finish one day, may not. Would have to start it
over at this point.

REAMDE - Neal Stephenson - set this aside a while back, but intend to finish
it eventually. Will probably restart from the beginning.

 _The Four Steps To The Epiphany_ \- Stephen Gary Blank - I'm kinda in a
perpetual state of reading and re-reading sections of this book.

 _The Dispossessed_ \- Ursula K. LeGuin - sat this aside quite some time ago,
will have to start over at some point.

 _The Man In The Moss_ \- Phil Rickman - another one that I sat aside for a
while, and may or may not ever bother finishing. Weird, because I usually
really enjoy Rickman's work and just tear through his books, but I got stalled
out on this one for some reason.

>> 2\. Which book has helped you the most?

 _The Four Steps To The Epiphany_ \- Stephen Gary Blank.

Also, _The Art of the Start_ by Guy Kawasaki and _Crossing the Chasm_ by
Moore.

Of all these sales books I've read lately, I'm really starting to buy into
this "Diagnostic Selling" stuff by Jeff Thull, so I'd endorse _Mastering The
Complex Sale_ , _Exceptional Selling_ and _The Prime Solution_ by Thull. Also,
_The New Solution Selling_.

------
nekopa
Hacking - The next generation. I'm in the middle of developing my first web
app, so I'm desperately trying to get up to speed with security. I find that
there is a lot of 'I don't know what I don't know' for me with regards to
security and crypto, so I'm using this book as a springboard to get a feel for
the different areas of security I will need to dive into to make some informed
decisions about the tech I use. (I already know not to roll my own security,
but I am sick of making cargo cult decisions re sec, so I am trying to get a
good foundation set up, any recommendations will be appreciated, I may even do
a ask HN post about it)

------
Sealy
Other books that I've found helpful are the many socioeconomics books out
there:

Malcolm Gladwell - Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers Tim Harford - The Undercover
Economist Nassim Taleb - The Black Swan

I enjoyed the Steve Jobs book too, I liked the fact that he believed in what
he was working on (no matter how crazy or disruptive) and saw so much beauty
in perfection. There's a lot we can learn from his persistence and attitude
towards persevering in the face of failure.

And for entertainment, I like profound books: The Alchemist, The Little Prince

------
decasteve
I'm on this Buckminster Fuller:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Bibliography](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Bibliography)
kick lately. Reading everything of his that I can get my hands on. Pretty
insightful and prescient stuff considering he died 30 years ago.

His insights from the 1930-70s seem to apply more to the world we live in
today than the way things were in his time.

------
pg
Cipolla's _Before the Industrial Revolution_ (again).

~~~
Sealy
Hey Paul,

Do the lessons economic history that these books teach still have relevance
today?

Technology (as a term to describe innovation) back then would have a very
different meaning to technology today.

~~~
pg
See the last section of
[http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html](http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html).

~~~
Sealy
Thats an interesting read. Getting a technical developer to think as
holistically as you laid out in that essay is a challenge. Its a challenge
that I find very difficult, when I just want to dig into code, I have to
continually tell myself to step back and see the bigger picture.

------
garduque
Finished James Altucher's _Choose Yourself_ over the weekend.

Currently working on _The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness_

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jlengrand
Currently, the old testament.

I am not church-goer or anything, and still I find it quite impressive the
amount of surprising stuff (good and bad) you can find in there. It's actually
as cool as the Iliad, and you may even find some good advice in there :).

Hey, who said everything had to be around software/startups.

~~~
gadders
I've read some Plutarch, Seutonius, Tacitus (in translation) and always
wondered how the Old Testament measured up as a work of ancient literature.

~~~
jlengrand
I read lots of old greak and roman records too (among others, Sun Tzu was
chinese :)). I am amazed every night how much the old testament can be
different from what I was taught back in school.

Like the "eye for an eye" saying for example. Never taught it would be cited
in the book.

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auslegung
Currently: 1\. Javascript: The Good Parts 2\. Eloquent Javascript 3\. The New
Testament and the People of God by NT Wright

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mkhDev
I'm currently reading these books:

1\. Journey through Genius

2\. Principles of Uncertainty by Kadane

3\. The Golden Ticketprint

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mehmehshoe
Taking a break from tech books and stumbled across...

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It.

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alexrson
Code Complete second edition

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rbkillea
1\. Axiomatic Set Theory by Suppes 2\. Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick

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dome82
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

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emansim
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

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cosmc
Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson

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jeromesalimao
Moonwalking with Einstein.

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Noel_V
The Great Gatsby

~~~
mindcrime
A woman next to me on the plane yesterday was reading that. I vaguely recall
reading it (or at least being assigned to read it) in 11th grade, but I can't
remember a damn thing about it now. Is it any good?

~~~
jeromesalimao
Yes.

~~~
mindcrime
Cool. Maybe I'll go back and re-read it. I'm pretty sure I actually _did_ read
it back then, but I'm drawing a blank on the story.

That reminds me, I started _For Whom The Bell Tolls_ in 12th grade and never
got around to finishing it. I guess I need to revisit that as well, at some
point.

