
The Hacker Shelf: Collection of free books for the intellectually curious - romeoonisim
http://hackershelf.com/browse/?popular=1
======
anatoly
It's crazy to prefer free technical books just because they're free.

If you're reading a math textbook, or a CS textbook, or any but the most
fluffy programming book, then you're giving it so much of your time and
attention that any cost up to $100 is meaningless next to how much one book is
better or worse than another.

I see people living in the First World and saying things like "I wanted to
learn calculus from this very well-recommended book, but it costs $50, so I
got this reprint of an older textbook for $15". You're basing your choice of
the guide to challenging material that you predict will be tough to understand
on the cost of a dinner and a movie. Textbooks are not commodities! Some of
them are really good and others are really bad and it depends on the student,
too. It isn't always that the more expensive one is better, to be sure. Often
it's just the opposite. I'm saying you should just forget about price
altogether and choose based on sampling/reviews/recommendations.

Things may be difficult for someone truly in dire poverty, or someone living
in a poor country where $50 is more like the month's earnings. Those people
should just go to gen.lib.rus.ec and download everything.

~~~
dionidium
If $100 seems like a meaningless amount of money to you, then nothing I say
here will make you understand what it feels like when that's practically an
infinite amount of money. I've been on both sides of this and it's pretty hard
to understand one side from the point of view of the other.

I hope you'll just take my word for it that $100 is _not_ a meaningless amount
of money to most people.

~~~
davmre
This is one of the reasons that public libraries are so important. It's still
true that textbooks are a good investment even for the very poor - $100 is
less than 15 hours at minimum wage, and you'll learn more from 35 hours of
studying a good textbook than 50 hours of studying a bad one. But part of the
crushing burden of poverty is that it prevents you from making good
investments. It doesn't matter how much time that $100 investment will save in
the future if there's just no way you can spare the money now. So we as a
society should be doing whatever we can to give people access to these
resources.

~~~
dionidium
_part of the crushing burden of poverty is that it prevents you from making
good investments_

Exactly.

A car might be a better use of your time than three buses. Too bad. You can
only afford the buses.

Some strong work boots would be a better investment than these cheap knock-
offs. Too bad. I only have enough money for the knock-offs.

Paying my parking tickets would be a lot smarter than ending up in court. Too.
Bad. I don't have $30 to pay them.

An underestimated aspect of this is the _fuck it_ factor. So maybe I get the
$30 to pay the tickets? So what? It's just going to be something else
tomorrow. So, fuck it; I'm having a beer.

------
EliRivers
At risk of teaching people to suck eggs, and at risk of speaking to people
whose regional public library system has been defunded to the point of non-
functionality; inter library loans are a beautiful thing.

My local library (in the UK) will fetch me a book from any participating
library in the UK or Ireland and loan it to me for a month, for two pounds and
fifty pence (a bit under four dollars at current exchange rates). They'll
extend the loan if I ask and the owning library doesn't mind.

Over the past year, I've had books from university libraries up and down the
country, big chunky tomes from the British Library, and books from regional
library systems that happened by chance to hold a copy of whatever I was
looking for. Basically, any time I come across a book I want to read, I pitch
over to www.worldcat.org and see if any library in the UK holds a copy. If
someone does (and sometimes it's just one library), I make an inter library
loan request and a week later it's in my hands. I've been shot down twice;
once when the book was subsequently found to no longer exist in the single
library listed on worldcat, and once when the university library said it was
in too high demand and would I mind asking again in July when the demand would
have dropped.

I've had technical manuals, obscure novels, expensive books that I wanted to
get my hands on for a few weeks to see if I'd use it or enjoy it enough to buy
my own copy, some really niche books on the shipping industry, stupidly
expensive books of compiled data, all sorts. Two pounds fifty for a month's
loan is an absolute bargain.

~~~
ninjaoxygen
Also worth noting that many libraries now also have eBooks available through
Overdrive or similar - [http://www.overdrive.com/](http://www.overdrive.com/)
(I have used this in the UK, you can also join many UK libraries for free to
gain access to more collections)

~~~
gonzobent
Overdrive is amazing. I live in Minneapolis, MN, USA. There are about 4
library systems where I have Overdrive accounts (Minneapolis, St Paul,
counties, etc). I can find most books I want. I can also find many in
audiobook format, which I listen to on my commute and when walking the dog.

Personally, I would love to see more "philosophical" programming books in
audio format such as "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning", or "Dynamics of
Software Development".

------
douche
I've picked up number of decent free ebooks from here:
[https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-
learning/](https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning/) You do have
to check it every day, because it's always a different book.

I've also picked up a few decent books from
[https://www.syncfusion.com/resources/techportal/EBooks](https://www.syncfusion.com/resources/techportal/EBooks)

------
evantahler
I got a masters degree in Entertainment Technology (Video Game and Theme Park
Design) from CMU. They have started publishing books and articles related to
their research all for free, and in various formats:
[http://press.etc.cmu.edu](http://press.etc.cmu.edu) Perhaps this type of
nerdy content might interest you.

------
philippnagel
I think "intellectually curious" is a bit misleading.

True, most of us here are mostly interested in technology. But intellectuality
is a broader term. What about philosophy, management, etc.? These all belong
together in a broader sense and I would love to see a (digital) library
combining these fields.

~~~
navait
I cringe every time I see phrases connecting hackers to intellectuals. Most
people in software I know are intelligent, but being smart does not make you
intellectually curious. There are quite a few people I would consider hackers
who have zero interest in a intellectual life beyond technology.

That's not to say they should if they aren't interested. But "intellectual"
should mean more than just hacker-esque knowledge. I fear labeling your own in
group as always intellectual leads down the path of believing everyone else is
not worth listening to.

~~~
Dewie3
I think the title quite clearly means _hackers that happen to be
intellectually curious_. If _technology_ and such is too narrow for you, I
guess that's a fair point. We might as well go into how "smartness" is
narrowly seen as the only metric which programmers are judged by, while we're
at it.

------
avinassh
This repo maintains list of free programming books -
[https://github.com/vhf/free-programming-books](https://github.com/vhf/free-
programming-books)

------
taoufix
The first book I clicked on is not free.

[http://hackershelf.com/book/129/97-things-every-
programmer-s...](http://hackershelf.com/book/129/97-things-every-programmer-
should-know/)

~~~
DanBC
That was mentioned three years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3589963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3589963)

The site appears to use a loose definition of free.

~~~
okal
> "loose definition" How so? I state quite explicitly what sort of content is
> welcome. If the contents of the book are available for free from a site
> controlled by the author(s) or publisher, it is free enough for the purposes
> of the site. If you care enough and find a book that doesn't meet that
> standard, you can flag it, and I can have a look to confirm this.

------
christudor
Interesting, but very first book I clicked on led to a 404 error.

[http://hackershelf.com/book/274/rails-deep-
dive/](http://hackershelf.com/book/274/rails-deep-dive/)

Then the very next book I clicked on had another 404 error.

[http://hackershelf.com/book/90/big-fat-
rails/](http://hackershelf.com/book/90/big-fat-rails/)

...

~~~
roryokane
The books are community-curated. Those books were added in 2012. I searched
for updated links to those two books and updated their entries; you should be
able to read those books now.

------
phn
Cool resource, seems awesome to find tech related stuff.

However, and more related to the title than the website really, the
intellectually curious should broaden their reading material to an area
outside of what they do for a living. Broaden the perspective, open the mind
and all that jazz.

~~~
okal
That was my hope 1198 days ago when I started the website
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3589963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3589963)
:-) I would have titled it "Free Computer Books" otherwise. If you know of any
books that fulfill the "free" condition, that would appeal to a curious mind -
however you choose to define that, then feel free to submit them.

------
roneesh
I want to echo something suggested here already, but it's important: make
libraries a part of your life.

------
0hn0
more free e-books for developers: [http://www.eduhub.io/b/free-programming-
books](http://www.eduhub.io/b/free-programming-books)

------
artumi-richard
Open access science books

[http://www.intechopen.com/books](http://www.intechopen.com/books)

------
mcguire
I notice that "Natural Language Processing" and "natural language processing"
in the index are different.

~~~
rjcz
The same with "UNIX", "Unix" and "unix" (sic!).

------
Bladegunner
Just putting this here for people who want free non-technical books.
[https://www.gutenberg.org](https://www.gutenberg.org)

------
JesperRavn
The problem with this list is that a large proportion of programming texts are
available free online. So in most cases it's easier to find the book your
interested in, then search for a similar book with a free version.

This list would be better off with some explicit theme rather than claiming to
be a list of all interesting free books, which is impossible.

------
Sharma
Interesting, in the past 3 years, this same link/post has appeared multiple
times on the front page.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=hackershelf.com&sort=byPopular...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=hackershelf.com&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

------
mVChr
Bug note: if you're browsing by popular and add a book to your shelf, the page
is kept in the query string but the popular=1 is lost so you jump to that page
of date sort instead.

------
discordianfish
Probably stating the obvious, but making this HTTPS (only) would be great. Not
sure when I signed up the last time for something via http..

------
skillachie
Legal free technical books are very relevant for those that might not be able
to purchase them.

Promo:Feel free to upload and organize your ebooks using BookFusion
[[https://bookfusion.com](https://bookfusion.com)]. Our Android and IOS apps
coming soon. Along with curated list of free technical eBooks

------
Plough_Jogger
Internet Archive (May 7 2015) Link:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150507073902/http://hackershel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150507073902/http://hackershelf.com/browse/)

~~~
McUsr
Thanks a lot. :) Well, I can see a couple of books here I wish I had time to
read at the moment. I don't mind reading up on a topic in one book, and then
later on switching to another more authorative one, should I feel I need to.
However, there is always some luck involved in this. Some books covers what
you need, others don't, whether they are authorative on the subject or not.

------
helly
Reading is hard for me. I would love to find something like this for audio
books.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Code listings in audio books are going to be, er, interesting. I remember
seeing a video of a blind coder's set up and the audio was incredible - really
fast and hard to tune in to.

I think there's a service idea here - something to hook people up to others
who want to read a book and are prepared to read it out aloud and record it.
Build a library of books. Audio books tend to be edited mind you.

~~~
gshrikant
>> I think there's a service idea here - something to hook people up to others
who want to read a book and are prepared to read it out aloud and record it.
Build a library of books.

You mean something like Librivox? [1]

[1] [https://librivox.org/](https://librivox.org/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Lol, yes!

Except that I was envisaging some way to suggest a book (and by extension vote
for a book) so a volunteer could choose a book that was in demand.

Also I didn't figure copyright in to the equation; Librivox is for public
domain works it seems.

------
beyti
I think it receives some performance issues right now. But content is nice.

I maybe wrong but, couldn't see a favicon. it would be nice imho, to motivate
bookmarking.

------
anvarik
I think HN has bombarded the site, it is down...

------
signa11
| ?popular=1

nice :)

------
talnet
Oh.. yeah 333_jlo

