

Ask YC: Let's start a Hacker News book club - robertk

This is in response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=406995<p>How about each week or month (I know we're all busy, so perhaps monthly is better), we all agree on a book to read and discuss? I am very busy for many parts of the year, and often don't have time to read leisurely even though I would very much like to. I imagine the idea of an HN book club would help in this regard, as I would be much more motivated to make time (like a co-founder motivates you to keep going!).<p>What do you guys say? If this post has enough upvotes (say 10), start discussing options for the first book, and whether weekly or monthly would work better.<p>EDIT: lallysingh below has made the following suggestion of topics. This seems like a very good fit judging by the posts on HN, as well as the comments already present.<p>1. High-level programming, probably functional-related.<p>2. Business/startup<p>3. Some quality-of-life stuff.<p>Perhaps newer releases (or exotic material) might be a good choice due to the presence of ideas not yet assimilated, discussed, or pondered by many of us.<p>EDIT2: Judging by the time concerns below, maybe it is wise to start with something short (say under 250 pages).<p>EDIT3: If we're going to go with fiction, this looks like a good list to pick from:<p>http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6.Best_Books_of_the_20th_Century<p>Personally, I've read almost none of these!
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wheels
Sounds silly to me, honestly. We don't have the same gaps in our knowledge and
I don't have time (or interest) to read about the stuff that you're interested
in that I'm not.

Book clubs seem to make more sense for fiction where the goal is entertainment
or being more cultured or whatever. For non-fiction, my reading choices are
much more pragmatic and I also don't mind just reading the parts of a book
that are interesting to me. I don't fundamentally want to read more business
or hacking books; I want to fill the gaps in my knowledge.

~~~
josefresco
Business books are mostly trash, avoid them like the plague. Also non-fiction
does not have to mean 'hacking' books, there's lots of good stuff out there
that can fill gaps you never knew you had.

I usually take a note when Charlie Rose has authors on, or even Stephen
Colbert (although I skipped the whole doom+gloom book style of the last two
years)

~~~
wheels
Comments about things that are universally bad are universally bad, and should
be avoided like the plague.

I've got some good business books around here. Most of the ones that are
wretched are self-help books with a little business language sprinkled on top
to cover the flavor.

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s_baar
Jeez, this sounds good, but if people here are like me then they already have
about 5 books on their list that they want to read. I don't know how many
would commit.

~~~
pierrefar
Not just on the list, but actually bought and stacked on your desk. Right next
to the stack of 5 books you previously purchased to read.

~~~
KevBurnsJr
Are you sure you aren't me?

<http://is.gd/d7G0>

~~~
raju
Oh my god! That looks like the pile of books that is currently sitting
underneath my desk!

<http://twitpic.com/uyw7>

I keep moving the pile around hoping a new location will give me the necessary
kick in the guts to start reading, but I just keep adding to it.

~~~
akkartik
I toss books out on their ear* if I don't get to them in 2 months or so. And
it's the book's fault, not mine.

Prioritize. If the stack was smaller and less intimidating perhaps you'd read
more of it than you are reading now.

* - They go to the library whether I purchased or borrowed them: <http://reddit.com/r/programming/info/6f0fz/comments/c03nzlo>

------
jkkramer
I would be more inclined to do this if the book is non-technical. When you
commit to reading a technical book, you're committing yourself to more than
just the time spent reading: you're committing yourself to the time spent
applying and fully understanding what you read -- installing tools, tinkering
with syntax, coding, and so on. I've got enough of that now.

With non-technical books (literature, history, quality-of-life), most of the
time will be invested into actual reading, with a bit of pondering and maybe
discussing. We can have a conversation right away, and there's still knowledge
and insight to be gained.

Here are some non-technical books I'd like to read:

* How to Read a Book - <http://amazon.com/dp/0671212095>

* Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - <http://amazon.com/dp/006124189X>

* Liar's Poker - <http://amazon.com/dp/0140143459>

* Growing a Business - <http://amazon.com/dp/0671671642>

~~~
Herring
" _When you commit to reading a technical book, you're committing yourself to
more than just the time spent reading: ..._ "

I wish more hackers took that attitude towards science books. Can't really get
much out of a pop-physics book without solving problems.

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kleevr
I'll tell you what would be awesome. A peer reviewed hacker reading list. But,
only the really sacred books. For instance GEB or from the post that prompted
this post, after reading that review, I can tell you it will absolutely be my
next non-fiction book. I've been wanting to read through some old textbooks to
try and pick up somewhere I might've left off, but always found them
distancing. This looks like a great way to dive back into it.

~~~
woodsier
I'm keen.

Someone want to hack it together? Maybe have a vote site built similar to
YC/reddit where anyone can submit a book and discuss it, then the most popular
submission every 2 weeks is chosen and we all read it?

Maybe decide 5 groups of books (business, technology, scifi, philosophy, etc)
and choose 1 from each every month, to facilitate those who may want to use
this book club for different reasons such as a learning facility (those who
would gravitate to functional books on tech for example) or an escape from the
every day (and read/discuss scifi or philosophy). I don't know, I havn't
really thought this out. Maybe I'm over complicating it - I do that when I'm
boozy!

Either way, it sounds like it could be a fun way to play with the Amazon API.

~~~
KevBurnsJr
<http://www.goodreads.com/>

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swombat
_EDIT3: If we're going to go with fiction, this looks like a good list to pick
from:

[http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6.Best_Books_of_the_20th_...](http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6.Best_Books_of_the_20th_Century)

Personally, I've read almost none of these!_

1) How can you have read none of these? Get started already! And don't wait
for others to tell you which books to read!

2) That list is very suspect... I don't know how they compiled it, but it's a
bit strange that it does contain some good books but then simultaneously
allocates several positions to enjoyable but trashy books such as Harry
Potter. Also gives several position to LotR (one is warranted, no more!),
including one for the Silmarillion (wtf? I enjoyed it, but "best book of the
20th century"? no way!) Memoirs of a Geisha is also nice but hardly a thought
leader. And it seems to be completely missing immortal masterpieces such as
Narziss & Goldmund (Herman Hesse), Joseph and his Brothers (Thomas Mann), The
Trial (Kafka), and many others.

An "OK" starting point, but not even the shadow of a definitive list.

------
antiform
I have a suggestion for what to read: the posts that make up Joel Spolsky's
Introduction to Best Software Writing I.
[[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BestSoftwareWriting.h...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BestSoftwareWriting.html)]

Most of the entries included in the book are solid articles, but most tend to
merely skim the surface of the topic at hand, and I would love to go deeper
and discuss the posts with the HN community.

They are brief enough to have something like one per week, and not distract
too much from our day jobs (no more than HN itself, anyway). Also, I believe
all the entries are still freely available at their original sites, so we
don't have to worry about people not participating because they could not find
the book.

As for downsides, I think a couple of the posts were submitted to HN before,
but I think most, if not all, of them are worth revisiting. Also, it could be
the case that many members have already read the book, but again, I think
these posts are good enough to read again and discuss.

------
gruseom
Sounds like fun. I think monthly is better. If people suggest titles here, you
could collect them and make a poll after a day or two.

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edb
This should be a feature of hacker news, have a books link at the top menu
where you can submit a book and a deadline, then people can commit to reading
it, and then everybody can discuss. Upmod if you're committing, then the top
few books will generally get a following and a good discussion going.

I guess you could do something like kill all books without more than 20
committed readers or something like that to eliminate the noise.

------
anthonyrubin
Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

[http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Up-Business-Adventures-
Entrepr...](http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Up-Business-Adventures-
Entrepreneurship/dp/0470050454/)

------
zitterbewegung
TAOCP ,SICP, Lisp in small pieces, Probably the upcoming clojure book comes to
stuff that should be consed on the list.

~~~
robertk
TAOCP? Isn't that thing like 2,000 pages long now?

~~~
Kaizyn
Yes, that's how he intends to weed out the undedicated.

~~~
zitterbewegung
That and MMIX.

------
mattmaroon
Why isn't there a startup that just facilitates book clubs?

~~~
staunch
I'm going to launch BookClubiouslyr before anyone else can!

~~~
brandonkm
I think the trend now is adding a 'd' to the end of your startup name, so
possibly bookclubd? or maybe just bookd?

~~~
ramchip
bookclubd 1.0 ☆βeta

~~~
woodsier
Hey! We can keep it in BETA for a few years! Nice idea.

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charlesju
I think that we should do all 4 categories and create a discussion thread the
first of each month for each 4 categories so everyone can talk about what they
want to talk about it.

I really like 2 and 3, personally.

Can I suggest our first book be "4 Hour Workweek"? I am reading it right now,
very interesting book and concepts, I would love to get everyone's opinion on
it.

------
bluishgreen
Well, Its good thing but it seems highly unlikely that this will work. But hey
since when did that stop us from trying?

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robertk
Please upvote this suggestion if you are in favor.

To overcome the quarrel of choosing a new book each time, how about the
highest-upvoted commenter from the previous book club meeting (i.e., someone
we all agree is insightful) pick the next book (unless it is massively
vetoed)? Or, perhaps provide a list of 5 recommended books, in case a single
choice might be restricting the next book choice too tightly.

This both stimulates us to discuss the book insightfully (so we can pick the
next book), and it resolves the dilemma of picking the next book!

------
thomasmallen
I'll briefly recommend "The Black Jacobins" by CLR James: A classical quasi-
Marxist study of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution (the only
widely successful slave revolt). Toussaint hacked the slave trade, colonial
oppression, and the pernicious influence of the French, Spanish, English, and
self-interested bourgeoisie mulattoes.

I'm about half-way through it right now. Good book.

------
davidw
I'm always up for some more comments/discussion of the business books on
Squeezed Books. Many of the books are ones I'd recommend and have read myself.
Obviously I'd love it if people wanted to summarize new books, but I find it
interesting to learn what people took away from the books already there, what
sorts of applications they've found in their own businesses, and so on.

------
zby
Goodreads looks nice - but is rather unresponsive. There are many similar
sites - but I have not yet found any that would make it easy to do the
practical things - like finding people who would like to talk about a book
(instead of just finding out who has read one), with added bonus if that was
also location aware or finding bookclubs with most similar reading taste to
mine.

------
bookhuddle
I track my book list on Bookhuddle; here is one list that might be of interest
to others [http://www.bookhuddle.com/list/491/Recommended-Technical-
and...](http://www.bookhuddle.com/list/491/Recommended-Technical-and-
Entrepreneurship-Reading)

You can also form book clubs there and manage multiple group lists.

------
mlLK
4\. Hacker Porn? [ascii only]

EDIT: _It only seemed appropriate given item number 3_

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shaunxcode
all I can say is "yes!". I have a ton of programming books that I would love
to re-read and discuss even (the art of the meta object protocol, let over
lambda, on lisp etc.) but I would also be down with relevant math and fiction
stuff.

~~~
Kaizyn
The problem is that you'll maybe find two other people on this site who
understand functional and meta-programming well enough to discuss the issues
with you (and I'm not yet one of them).

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safetytrick
I would definitely read, I'd rather stick with programming books however.
Maybe books from this list? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348019>

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blakehall
Since it's already set up how about <http://groups.google.com/group/real-
world-haskell-book-club>

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jacobscott
It seems to me like you get much better bandwidth talking about books by
meeting in person. Do internet book clubs work?

~~~
shutter
Skype, Ventrilo or something similar might work, depending on how many people
meet at once.

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known
<http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/>

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pclark
I've been enjoying the Knuth series over the past year or so. Almost done now.

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vaksel
What kind of book? Coding related? Business related? Harry Potter?

~~~
lallysingh
By the crowd here, some ideas:

1\. High-level programming, probably functional-related.

2\. Business/startup

3\. Some quality-of-life stuff.

Instead of institutionalizing the topics, we can just start with one good one,
and then use suggestions/voting to make up a queue.

My bigger concern is timing. We're all pretty busy.

~~~
z3r0p4r4d0x
Seriously, if you don't have time to gain knowledge, you're probably wasting
your time to begin with. Sounds like a fantastic idea to me, just get the
prototype off the ground ASAP.

~~~
lallysingh
Sorry, I should've been more explicit. I'm mostly concerned about
synchronization in terms of getting us all to read a book within the same time
frame.

~~~
SapphireSun
Given that there are so many, it seems like what will probably happen is that
some will finish on time, and others will trickle in over the week. Keep the
discussion open ^_^

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tdupree
May I suggest Peoplesoft? I think it is a worthwile read.

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Allocator2008
Let me suggest "The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates. It was one of the first
computer/software related books I ever read, and I think it is a classic in
the field of software business kind of reads. It is accessible by anyone, even
non-techie types, and its vision remains important for understanding where we
are heading.

If anyone here might remember, in 90210, Steve Sanders' father gives this book
to him as a graduation present. That in itself should be endorsement enough!

