
Books that have stayed with us - btilly
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/books-that-have-stayed-with-us/10152511240328859
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devindotcom
I suppose it's not that strange that this data was aggregated intelligently
from status updates.

I do wonder, though, the number of lists and data collections like this that
are assembled and we are not told about. Not that I resent it, exactly, I know
the terms I joined the network on — but it is a little unnerving to think just
how many ways such a huge trove of data could be mined - weekly popularity
lists for books, movies, etc. Makes me wonder why Facebook bothers advertising
when they have the most powerful and targetable polling tool in history
available to be gated off for a price. Maybe they're already doing this and I
just don't know.

~~~
sharkweek
With all that data and most users being logged into Facebook on their browser
at all times, I cannot for the life of me figure out why they haven't released
an Adsense competitor -

I'm assuming there are some deep philosophical reasons about not wanting to
encourage any business decision that focuses entirely outside of the Facebook
ecosystem, but hot damn, I would drop Adsense on my sites in a heartbeat for a
FB version as I'm 100% convinced their service would easily defeat the
competition in an ad relevancy test.

I can't imagine it's privacy related, because that's proven to mostly be only
a minor hurdle to overcome every time everyone freaks out at every FB change.

~~~
Retric
Intention is incredibly important when doing advertising. Consider the
difference between "Looking for a new car this weekend" vs. "just bought a new
car the weekend".

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brian_cloutier
Given how many comments there are mentioning how lowbrow this list is (which I
don't necessarily disagree with), maybe you could offer some suggestions of
books which have stayed with you?

Personally, Godel Escher Bach was pretty formative on my path to becoming a
programmer; and The New Jim Crow is a monument to overkill, there are so many
statistics that it's impossible to read the entire thing and not come to
believe her thesis.

~~~
redraga
I've never read GEB. Can you elaborate on how it helped you become a
programmer?

~~~
brian_cloutier
There are many parts to the book, but in one the author goes over formal
systems. It was the first time symbol manipulation had been introduced to me
as a way of formalizing things like arithmetic.

By that point I was already playing with numbers and looking for patterns in
the Fibonacci triangle and various series, so being able to play with just
symbols was natural and fun, especially if the system is constructed in just
the right way so as to have meaning that transcends itself.

Later the book meanders through lots of other wonderful topics, but the theme
seems to be simple systems which add up to something more than the sum of
their parts. There's something about realizing how much depth lies in a
handful of simple rules that really clicks and makes you value those rules in
some way. After he's primed you with all kinda of these things, he introduces
lisp.

It took another step or two after GEB for the beauty of lisp to really hit me,
but GEB laid the groundwork by fetishizing recursion and simple foundations,
among other things.

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patja
The most interesting bits in this summary are the network connections such as
"people who liked this liked that". Is there anywhere this is published in
detail or with the ability to manipulate the visualization/report? Just
posting a zoomed out pretty picture of "look at the nifty analysis we can do"
without sharing the ability to do so is as disheartening as seeing Harry
Potter, the Hunger Games, and The Stand in the top titles.

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dmix
Is there a name for statistics that are presented as specific to x which are
primarily just a reflection of popular choices in general?

~~~
lutusp
Yes, they're called demographic studies, studies of the choices of
populations. Such studies can be used to find out what populations are likely
to do when confronted by various choices. Then there's polling, meant to test
one's population theories using actual data.

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tokenadult
Several of the previous comments here mention the methodological issue of how
much these data really represent the population of interest. A FAQ comment
posted to Hacker News before[1] points out that voluntary response data in
general are often very unreliable for generalizing to nonresponders. We can't
be sure that the people who bother to respond to online quiz questions or poll
questions (including here on Hacker News) have much resemblance to the people
who do not bother to respond.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2772603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2772603)

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pacaro
Given how few books most people read, my suspicion is that this captures "10
books that you have read", more than "10 books that have stayed with you"

~~~
IneffablePigeon
I'd counter that people who've only read 10 books are probably much less
likely to participate in this meme.

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oldbuzzard
It is interesting that there is no non-fiction in the top 100.

Godel Escher Bach

Plagues and People by McNeil

Something by Jared Diamond

Braudel's Capitalism series

The Worldly Philosophers by Heilbronner etc etc

Maybe nonfiction is more dispersed but it is still interesting to have none in
the top 100.

~~~
kamaal
I don't find the absence of GEB in the top 100 amazing at all. Firstly not all
readers have a science inclination. Even most of the programmers I know of,
haven't heard of GEB. And plus GEB is a long slog even for people like us.
Because to really understand it fully, you have to work through it and re read
a few chapters over and over again.

As much as a gem of a book it is, its not for every one.

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pessimizer
Depressing list. Is there an index for the reading level required for
particular books to join this with? The mean on this would have to be
somewhere around 8th-10th grade, and if the weights were used the median would
be even lower.

What percentage of books here would be found outside of the 'Young Adult'
section of the bookstore or a high school assigned reading list?

~~~
ebiester
I see a few reasons for this:

First, the books that introduce us to the world of literature tend to stay
with us, especially those we choose on our own. This is opposed to the books
we are forced to read because they are "great." For example, I still hate "The
Great Gatsby" even if it is objectively great because I was forced to read it
in a class with a teacher whom I did not respect.

So, I'm going to say Piers Anthony was more memorable to me than Hemingway.
I'm sure that Harry Potter would have stayed with me if I'd read it at 12.

I watched through these lists and noticed that some of my best read friends
still had YA books on their lists, so it doesn't seem to be "just" a matter of
people who don't read much.

~~~
cweiss
Agreed - I would love to see the results of the same search but with the key
words "school" and "class" elsewhere in the post flagged as non-participants
(unless they were part of the title). I'm guessing the results would be quite
different.

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bemmu
Would be interesting to see an animation of the meme spreading over time.

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e12e
Interesting to see Watchmen on there as the only(?) graphic novel?

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Kurtz79
Is "Watchmen" considered a book ?

Not complaining, just surprised.

~~~
freehunter
Is Hamlet considered a book? It's stretching the definition the same way
calling The Star Spangled Banner a song. A poem set to music doesn't
automatically become a song.

~~~
Kurtz79
Point taken. I am actually glad to see a graphic novel being granted "book"
status.

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herbig
I'd be willing to bet that the majority of books people cite on these lists
they haven't actually read. The list serves as a status symbol and there's no
way to verify it anyway.

Also, U.S. citizens will happily list the entire high school summer reading
list that they "loved" over ten years ago, which of course they didn't
actually read then either.

Just my cynical take on it. Still interesting data.

~~~
VLM
Claims the Silmarillion, probably lying. Claims the Hobbit or LOTR, probably
telling truth

I am willing to put it out there that people are embarrassed to admit certain
books, so I'll be the first to admit that I think most people prefer "Blood
Meridian" to "The Road" but don't want to put their full authenticated legal
name to the claim. I don't claim blood meridian is some kind of great
literature, but as an action book with memorable characters and local
flavor...

Another book with gallons of local flavor and just "weirdness" and interesting
is Lucifers Hammer and that's another "I'm not going to admit in public, but
..."

How about "Post Office" another, uh, questionable tome.

There is also an age aspect. Some young kid claims to have slogged thru all of
Gibbon, he's probably a history student or more likely lying, but I'm an older
guy and I really did invest the time reading the whole decline and fall. I
think it was worth it, at least the first half or so.

~~~
darasen
I will gladly admit I thought Lucifer's Hammer was great. One of my favourites
from my favourite author.

