
Ask HN: What is HN reading? - _dt47
Alright, so a month ago i made this same thread, and it seemed quite popular. 
(https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8257369)
Since then i´ve:<p>Read:<p>Siddhartha - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Siddhartha_(novel)<p>Das Steppenwolf - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steppenwolf_(novel)<p>Into the Wild - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Into_the_Wild_(book)<p>Bought, but yet not read:<p>Godel, Escher, Bach - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach<p>Being and Nothingness - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Being_and_Nothingness<p>CODE - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Code:_The_Hidden_Language_of_Computer_Hardware_and_Software<p>Let´s hear what HN recommends and is currenty reading
======
KhalilK
Godel, Escher, Bach;

This book is dense. But takes three times as long to read as any fiction that
length. Most paragraphs require stopping and pondering.

It is my second time attempting to read this book. The first time, was about 6
months ago. Now, being on my second year in CPGE and having been through quite
some math, it was more approachable.

Hofstadter invents his own system of formal mathematical logic and his own
procedural programming language to explain concepts, without going into what
would be considered a more "standard" formal logic system or even the Turing
machine itself. He does a good job piecing them together but at certain times
I feel like it'd be more meaningful to read the original works on several of
the subjects he touches on.

While formal logic certainly predates this book, a lot of the AI and
neuroscience research that he describes were (and are) very much active. The
book was published in 1979, and its references to AI reflect the time period.

The book is hard to read, especially for prolonged periods of time. It's dense
and the concepts are not the easiest to begin with.

Worth reading? Maybe.

Will it expand your thinking? Probably, though maybe not as much as you might
expect; due to the broad spectrum of topics covered, it's not as deep as I
would like in some areas and spends too much time smoothing over difficult
topics in certain fields in order to make "clever" maps between concepts in
the fields (though in this aspect he's just being a computer scientist---
simple representations that map cleanly across everything! Sadly, the world is
not that way).

Very good? Absolutely.

------
cwal37
Currently engaged in:

-The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell. Just a fun read. Fiction sucks me in pretty easily, and I enjoy the time-hopping.

-Dirty, Sacred Rivers: Confronting South Asia's Water Crisis - Cheryl Colopy. Not enjoying this as much as I thought I would so far, possibly because I have too much academic experience in the topic area and the writer is a reporter. I'm a bit more pragmatic about large energy projects, not exactly bleeding heart, but I try to focus on the bigger picture. It was a free book on a table at work though from someone cleaning out their office, so not a big deal.

-Operations Research - Hillier and Lieberman. Also a free book from work. Something I need a stronger foundation in for upcoming projects.

Perpetual Backburner

-Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace. I've gotten a couple hundred pages in a few times. If I get distracted at all it's so hard to go back to.

-Capital in the 21st Century - Piketty. I blazed through the first couple hundred pages around when it came out, then I went on a long vacation. Now I sort of nibble at it when I'm in the mood. One of the most compelling economics books I've ever read.

Recently finished

-The Book of Basketball - Bill Simmons. Fun to read about the history of the NBA from a true fanatic. Eyes glazed over in some sections on the Celtics though.

~~~
mrfusion
What makes "Capital in the 21st Century " compelling?

~~~
cwal37
Giant data set, big collaborative effort, spreadsheets and calculations are
available online, and enjoyably written. Most economics texts I've found to be
extremely dry, mostly theoretical (minimal or short-term real world data),
and/or have their calculations hidden in some excel-based black box that will
never be seen by anyone else.

------
milhous
Read: "Einstein: His Life and Universe" by Walter Isaacson

Currently reading:

"Zero to One" by Peter Thiel

"Discover Meteor: Building Real-Time JavaScript Web Apps" by Tom Coleman &
Sacha Greif

Reading next:

"Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" by Walter Isaacson

Overall, I like Isaacson's writing style, and for someone with a non-
scientific background, did a pretty good job at describing physical concepts
such as a relativity and space-time.

It was exciting to read his bio on Steve Jobs the day it came out, but in
retrospect seemed to lack depth. I'm not sure if I learned anything new about
him as a person, than just someone following Apple and his career over the
years.

------
selleck
Currently reading:

A Guide to the Good Life: Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine

Algorithm Design Manual - Steven S Skiena

Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work - Dan Roam

Highly recommend the first 2, Blah Blah Blah is a rehash with a twist on Back
of the Napkin.

------
eli_gottlieb
Recently finished:

 _Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom_ by Cory Doctorow -- frankly, I found it
kind of boring, and also found the narrator unsympathetic. I'm not sure if the
author intended him to be an Unreliable Narrator or not.

 _Facts, Values, and Norms_ by Peter Railton -- Gains three stars for
combining serious consideration of ethical and meta-ethical issues with a
completely naturalistic worldview and a genuine grappling with history and
ideology. Loses two stars for being far, far too long-winded and using vague,
colloquial terminology and appeals to intuition where a methodoological
naturalist can and should appeal to the fruits of science. (Copy-pasta'd from
my Amazon review)

 _Rapture of the Nerds_ by Charles Stross -- pretty funny, even if it made a
transhuman superintelligent supercivilization look kind of... dumb.

Currently re-reading for fun:

 _The Wee Free Men_ and _I Shall Wear Midnight_ by Terry Pratchett -- It's
Discworld. Go read them. NOW. And read _A Hat Full of Sky_ in the middle.

Then there's been a lot of textbooks I've been reading, which I won't list.
Though...

 _Logical Labyrinths_ by Raymond Smullyan -- dense, and _fun_ , a graduate-
level intro textbook to first-order logic disguised as a logic textbook.

------
dneronique
The Algorithm Design Manual

My 'technical non-fiction' read to help keep my mind sharp.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B8139Z8/ref=oh_aui_d_det...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B8139Z8/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

The Disaster Artist

My 'non-technical non-fiction' read to help keep me interesting around non-
tech folk. The making of 'The Room,' complete with lots of weird Tommy Wiseau
moments and behind the scenes insanity.

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BSAZ6LE/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl...](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BSAZ6LE/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1OHHR3E8POWSY&coliid=I3NWCBWNSAIPVW)

Neuromancer

My fiction read to help keep my mind young.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O76ON6/ref=oh_aui_d_det...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O76ON6/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o02_?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Edit: formatting

------
potatolicious
Started this book way back, but finally getting around to finishing it now:

 _The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America 's Man-Made
Landscape_ \- James Howard Kunstler

It's a bit of a rant, though I think the author is generally on-point. As an
armchair urban planner myself, his constant skewering of Le Corbusier work as
a total failure makes me very, very happy.

For balance I'm also working through:

 _Doing Documentary Work_ \- Robert Coles

There are some great insights in the book, but the author has a very tedious
tone and is very, very verbose. I'm not sure if I will finish it, though I'll
try. He also likes using really big words (like, a level of vocabulary that
suggests he's deliberately trying to write at a superhuman reading level),
which is tedious since his excessive vocabulary ultimately doesn't help him
make his point better. I'm pretty sure I can get through Middle English faster
than I can get through this book.

------
walterbell
China Mieville, Embassytown,
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/books/review/book-
review-e...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/books/review/book-review-
embassytown-by-china-mieville.html?_r=0)

 _" Language is the principal theme of “Embassytown,” a particularly deep-
thinking entry in a tradition of using the speculative resources of science
fiction to address how language shapes culture and society ... The drama of
“Embassytown” develops as the Ariekei learn to lie and are beset by violent
addiction to a new kind of speech. The resulting plague sends waves of change
pulsing through the semi-sentient buildings and machinery of their city — an
inspired Miévillean touch, grotesquely original (addicted houses try to grow
ears) and yet also strikingly familiar to anybody who’s spent time in a
neighborhood in steep decline."_

------
Kevin_S
Read: Ayn Rand - We The Living Currently Reading: Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged

Honestly loving Atlas Shrugged, but We The Living is easily my favorite book I
have ever read. It has deeply affected how I think about life and I share many
philosophical beliefs with Rand, would highly highly recommend.

~~~
dangerlibrary
Rand gets some things right. She takes hero worship to a whole new level,
though.

Peter Thiel's take on her in Zero to One is pretty good.

~~~
mrfusion
I don't remember reading about Ayn Rand in Zero to One. Could you tell me
where? (Hoping the Kindle version wasn't abridged or something)

~~~
dangerlibrary
I don't have my copy nearby. It's a one-off comment about how Galt's Gulch is
a childish fantasy. Some things are necessarily the work of many minds working
together - nobody can build a rocket or a railroad on their own in a secluded
community of genius captains of industry.

edit: I also just realized that I read a pre-release screener - it may have
been cut out of the published edition.

------
MattGrommes
I'm about a quarter of the way through "The Martian" by Andy Weir. It's good,
geeky fun so far. Some of the dialog is clunky but the main character is
interesting and fun.

I also read "11/22/63" by Stephen King. An interesting twist on time travel
with the usual King propulsiveness. Recommended for King fans like me who may
not have read him in awhile.

"Geek Sublime" by Vikram Chandra is a surprising mix of "my career in writing"
with computation lessons and history. I took a break from it to read The
Martian but it's extremely interesting. He's one of my favorite writers and
I'm glad he's got something out that might expose him to a different audience.

~~~
anishkothari
Look up Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra - it's a great, multilayered story. I'm
hoping it will be made into a movie someday!

------
arethuza
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945 (John
Toland)

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (Alfred Lansing)

Dusty Warriors: Modern Soldiers at War (Richard Holmes)

NB A book that I read recently that I wasn't expecting to like very much but
really enjoyed was "A Fortunate Life: The Autobiography of Paddy Ashdown" \-
to say that he's had an eventful life is a bit of an understatement (Royal
Marines, SBS, MI6, politics) - he actually comes across as a politician with
strongly held morals - shame I can't vote for him!

------
ivan_ah
Machine Learning: a Probabilistic Perspective
[http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/MLbook/](http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/MLbook/)

excellent ML textbook, comes with code

------
zbravo
Currently Reading:

Annals of the Former World - John McPhee
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78.Annals_of_the_Former_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78.Annals_of_the_Former_World)

My Years with GM - Alfred P. Sloan Jr.
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275912.My_Years_with_Gene...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275912.My_Years_with_General_Motors)

------
tustlem
Read: Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales (This
was a great read), The Painter by Peter Heller (Interesting novel),
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (Good ideas and
content, repeats a lot)

Currently reading: The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, A Guide to the
Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine, Into Thin Air by
Jon Krakauer

Edit: reformatted for clarity.

------
Joeri
I'm working my way through the novels that were joint winners of the Hugo and
nebula awards. Every book has been fantastic, although The Left Hand of
Darkness was the high note of the books I hadn't read before.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_Hugo_and_Nebula_awards)

------
joshfinnie
Read: Dune by Frank Herbert

Reading: Foundation by Isaac Asimov

I have been trying to get back to science fiction after leaving it for so
long. It's great so far!

~~~
totalrobe
Comedic sci fi is getting me back into it:

John Scalzi writes a kickass tale- Old Man's War series

Robert Kroese just hilarious - Starship Grifters

Read a while ago and couldn't put it down - Avogadro Corp: The Singularity is
Closer than it Appers by William Hertling

------
JSeymourATL
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tradgedy of the Whaleship Essex, often called the
non-fiction version of Moby Dick.

It's a brilliant, engrossing read >
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17780.In_the_Heart_of_the...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17780.In_the_Heart_of_the_Sea)

------
interurban
Just finished: In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger

Now reading: Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiesen

Been on a travel themed binge the last few weeks, rereading my favorite travel
books. I highly recommend Arabian Sands, gives a pretty unique view of how the
Arabian Peninsula was changing right after WWII.

------
dedalus
Read \-----

The Unwritten Laws of Engineering - King & Skakoon The Epic Struggle of the
Internet of Things - Bruce Sterling The Dilbert Future : Thriving on Stupidity
in the 21st Century Always Postpone Meetings with Time-Wasting Morons - Scott
Adams

The Straight Dope Tells All

Currently Reading

The Mahabharata - This is an epic

Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet

------
vyshane
Recently read:

Programming Elixir - Dave Thomas

Introducing Elixir - Simon St. Laurent and J. David Eisenberg

The Swift Programming Language - Apple

Currently reading:

Functional Programming in Swift - Chris Eidhof, Florian Kugler, and Wouter
Swierstra

Recently purchased but not started:

The Algorithm Design Manual - Steven S Skiena

Sipping from time to time:

Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics - Jonathan Wilson

------
rfzabick
I just finished Feynman's Rainbow by Mlodinow. It's an interesting look at
Feynman and Gell-Man. It was a little lighter on Feynman moments than I
expected, but certainly worth the read. I took a break from the 3rd Game of
Thrones book to read that.

------
AndrewKemendo
I'm a good way through Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

So far it has given a lot of insight into his upbringing and general history
that would be the bedrock of his philosophy. Hopefully it gets into how he
identified and executed on his business strategies.

------
ComNik
Reading: Jaron Lanier - "Who Owns the Future?"

Read: Jessica Livingston - "Founders at Work"

------
bg4
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox

Highly recommend

Next up: Zero to One - Peter Thiel

~~~
keithba
The Goal is one my favorite books to recommend to anyone joining a startup,
but also for product management types. I first read it around the same time I
read The Lean Startup, and I found the two to be very complementary.

------
dasboth
Recently finished Freakonomics (S Dubner & S Levitt) and East of Eden
(Steinbeck). Highly recommend the latter, but Freakonomics was a bit of a
disappointment, possibly because it was overhyped to me beforehand. Worth a
read, though.

------
city41
Reading: "A Game Design Vocabulary" by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark.

It's good, I recommend it. She addresses quite well what I think is wrong with
a lot of indie games these days, and offers insightful ideas to making games
better.

------
maresca
Read:

Zero to One - Peter Thiel

Traction Book - Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

Currently Reading:

How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie

------
akeck
Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management
System (Sobek II and Smalley)

Data Smart: Using Data Science To Transform Information into Insight (Foreman)

An Everlasting Meal (Waters and Adler)

Product Design and Development (Ulrich et al)

------
sunkarapk
Currently Reading:

Good Strategy, Bad Strategy
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11721966-good-
strategy-b...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11721966-good-strategy-bad-
strategy)

------
boot
This is an interesting site, which started up recently, producing short
stories paired with music.

[http://musicandmythology.com/mm0.html](http://musicandmythology.com/mm0.html)

------
ggambetta
Currently read and recently read, in no particular order:

Modern C++ Design (Andrei Alexandrescu)

The Screenwriter's Bible (David Trottier)

Clean Code (Robert Cecil Martin)

Il Codice da Vinci (Dan Brown)

The Anatomy of Story (John Truby)

A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Burton Malkiel)

The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)

------
davidkellis
Evidence-Based Technical Analysis - David Aronson ; Chapters 4 and 5 give a
very accessible explanation of statistical inference through the use of
sampling distributions. It's an excellent book.

------
chilicuil
Code Complete, 2nd Edition.

Rating [ _][_ ][ _][_ ][ _][_ ][ _][ ][ ][ ] = > [7]

Level [_][ _][_ ][ _][_ ][*][ ][ ][ ][ ] => [6]

Basic => Intermediate

Pages => 753

This is a generalist book with lots of references to more advanced topics
about programming.

------
colomon
Currently reading:

Where The Golden Apples Grow, Kage Baker

Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew, Ellen Notbohm

Atypical: Life With Asperger's in 20 1/2 Chapters, Jesse A. Saperstein

Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

------
akbarnama
Currently Reading:

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (William Dalrymple)

------
me2222
The Turning Point (book)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turning_Point_(book)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turning_Point_\(book\))

------
darrennix
Just finished: Ready Player One and The Riftwar Saga (both very enjoyable)

Reading: Predictably Irrational (more substance than most business books I've
read)

------
wyc
Reading: How to Lie with Statistics - Darrell Huff

A very entertaining read: throughout the short book, Huff satirically likens
abusers of statistics to criminals.

------
cbovis
Recently read:

Fluent in 3 Months - Benny Lewis

Currently reading:

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World
Economy Bigger

Looking forward to:

Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)

------
banderon
I started reading "Atlas Shrugged" after reading about Peter Thiel's
libertarian views. I'm thoroughly enjoying it!

~~~
jokela
Great! It is a thought provoking book.

------
espitia
Zero To One - Peter Thiel

Tribes - Seth Godin

The Four Agreements - Miguel Angel Ruiz (life changing) The

Seven Spiritual Laws of Success - Deepak Chopra

These are some that I am reading/read recently.

------
lincolnpark
Reading: Be As You Are - Ramana Maharshi Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg
Applied Security Visualization - Raffael Marty

------
himanshuy
Read: A short history of nearly everything. - Bill Bryson

Bought, but yet not read : My Struggle: Book 1 - Karl Ove Knausgaard

------
sateesh
Currently reading: For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the
Edge of Time - Walter Lewin

------
steve-benjamins
\-- Read --

Don Delillo: End Zone

Luc Ferry: A Brief History of Thought

Brett Easton Ellis: Less Than Zero

\-- Working on --

Don Delillo: Libra

Hubert Dreyfuss: Being in the World (it's taking me a long time...)

------
Phlarp
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion
of Safety -- Eric Schlosser

------
mksm
Currently reading: \- "When Google Met Wikileaks" by Julian Assange \- 1984 by
George Orwell

------
Luyt
Design for Hackers - David Kadavy

A rebours - J.K. Huysmans (in dutch translation: 'Tegen de keer')

Bad Astronomy - Philip Plait

------
donniezazen
How did you manage to read 7 books in a month? That a book in 4 days.

I hope to finish To Kill a Mockingjay this month.

~~~
ClashTheBunny
He only got through 3.

~~~
donniezazen
You are right. 3 is a good number. 20.43 pages ((152+237+224)/30) per day.

------
keithba
Just completed: Zero to One.

Always reading: Christopher Alexander's The Nature of Order: The Phenomenon of
Life.

~~~
ComNik
Would also recommend Christopher Alexander's "Notes on the Synthesis of Form".

Is Zero to One worth the read?

~~~
keithba
I thought it was worth the read. It's short and quick. I don't agree with
everything, but it's compelling and entertaining, and thought provoking.

I also read Blake Master's blog entries back when he first wrote them, and
found the book a better superset.

Thanks for the rec on Synthesis of Form!

------
burningion
Reading:

Michaelangelo - A Life in Six Masterpieces

Proving Darwin - Making Biology Mathematical

Handmade Electronic Music - The Art of Hardware Hacking

------
achalshah
House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

Very similar style to Infinite Jest, but the story seems much more sinister.

~~~
kabdib
Parts of it were boring, parts of it terrified me (way more than Lovecraft
ever did).

------
musgravepeter
Read: Expanse Series by J.S.A. Corry (decently diverting space opera)

Reading: Galaxy Formation and Evolution

------
jonbaer
One Jump Ahead: Computer Perfection at Checkers - Jonathan Schaeffer

The Number Mysteries - Marcus Du Sautoy

------
hiraki9
Currently reading: The Humans, by Matt Haig.

Funny, insightful, perceptive. It's a really great book.

------
Spooky23
Currently working on Robert Caro's series on Lyndon Johnson. Awesome, dense
books.

------
almog
Read: The Fall of Hyperion

Reading: Eloquent Javascript 2nd edition Learn You a Haskell for Great Good

Next:

Discworld series

Secrets of The Javascript Ninja

------
scottm01
Reading:

Cadilllac Desert: The American West and it's Disappearing Water - Mark Reisner

Year Zero: A Novel - Rob Reid

------
laurenbee
Read: "Galápagos" \- Kurt Vonnegut

(re)Reading: "Drown" \- Junot Díaz

------
shreeshga
Reading : After dark by Haruki Murakami

Read: No Place to Hide by Glenn Greenwald

------
mackniv
Currently reading

Mature optimization handbook by Carlos Bueno

------
wahnfrieden
Last read: Hard to Be a God

Reading: The Karamazov Brothers

------
loma
currently reading \- Working effectively with legacy code (Michael C.
Feathers)

