0: Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths

Anyone interested in information theory, intelligence (artificial or otherwise), many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, metafiction, the nature of art, or even probabilistic sequence modeling should read Borges’ short stories. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.

1: Hero With A Thousand Faces

A classic book collating world mythologies and psychoanalytical thought to investigate an individual’s core struggle for meaning and purpose. I find that it has informed my appreciation of literature, film, music. More importantly, it helped me understand how I want to live my life and from whence I now choose to derive my personal senses of direction and meaning.

2: Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies

An obtuse, rambling, depressing novel without a sense of momentum or even plot. The narrator or narrators are unreliable, prone to aporetics, and capricious. Beyond its stark exterior, the prose is, at times, achingly beautiful, the narrator is relatable in his uncertainty and frailty, and the dual struggle for meaning and accepting the absolute absence thereof is invigorating. It’s book two of a trilogy, but these postmodern novels are enjoyable on their own, and the rare, tenuous grasp on plot or direction makes reading them in sequence seem to be more a suggestion on how to experience them than a strict ordering.

I’ve also been reading The Double (Dostoevsky), but I haven’t progressed far enough to make an informed recommendation.

I would HIGHLY recommend him to other technical-minded people who have interest in the arts. Two stories that I loved were "The Library of Babel" (obviously) and "The South". Two more from a different collection (The Book of Sand) that I think go hand-in-hand with each other conceptually are “The Mirror and the Mask” and “Undr”

This. My HS Physics teacher introduced my to Labyrinths. Still the best book recommendation I've ever received. Giving time for each story to absorb is essential. I'd also like to add "The Lottery in Babylon" is an excellent story.

Unusual. The first time, I - happily - see someone on HN mentioning Joseph Campbell and this book.

As a following up lecture, I'd recommend: The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242530.The_Hero_s_Journe...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth

Absolutely wonderfully insightful journey through the different myths of our ancestors

There are two things in your comment I want to address. First, I'm not sure what you mean by "the problem," so I'll assume you mean the question of what constitutes a solid education. Second, there's an underlying debate here of another question, what is the purpose of education?

I'd argue the second question begets the first, for how can you determine what constitutes education until you know what the purpose of it is? For example, is the purpose to be trained for a job, or to be able to think critically and ask fundamental questions about the nature of life?

If the answer is the former, then I would agree with you that no lesson should be allowed unless it can be directly followed along to a relevant skill at a job. But I think the answer ought to be the latter, and in that case, the questions posted by Campbell's responses in "Power of Myth" and exploration of ideas and narratives that many of us simply take for granted, compel one to have serious reflection; even better that the pivot is Star Wars, a story with which many people are already well acquainted.

So, while I was using a rather casual colloquialism, hopefully this reasoning justifies its use :)

[1] https://jordanbpeterson.com/books/book-list/

So I don’t like his platform, but he has some excellent taste in books.

Then again, George Lucas is among those who like it, so it’s not necessarily an intellectually valuable cohort.

Also, for sci-fi I'd recommend Hyperion by Dan Simmons. This is the first in a trilogy but can be read and be satisfied with not reading the other two (although the second one, The Fall of Hyperion, is very good).

I read the first (Hyperion) one on a recommendation and I think the guy who recommended it to me was also read it based on a recommendation. It makes me wonder what the longest "recommendation streaks" are and what books they could be for.

Now, while the narrative style is different in the later of these books, if you enjoy NFU, I recommend both Crime and Punishment and Demons. I see Notes From Underground, Crime and Punishment, and Demons/The Possessed as unified by a core set of ideas. In the first, Dostoevsky states his claims. Crime and Punishment is a case study of what would happen should an individual act upon the ideas of his (Dostoevsky’s) time, and Demons extrapolated this to societal scale. I may not be in the majority, but I think Demons is by far his best.

[0] http://www.foliosociety.com/book/GNB/golden-bough

If you’ve perhaps read any of Beckett’s plays, especially Krapp’s Last Tape, that might be a proper frame of reference. The recollections and musings all take place in a single room where a man is preparing for death, undisturbed apart from nurses or maids who never talk to him.

1) Songs of Innocence and of Experience from William Blake.

2) The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

3) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I've started to enjoy reading poetry again. The education system managed to extinguish any love I had for poetry. It's been a bit over half a decade since I was in school, and I've started to enjoy reading poetry again.

Turns out it's possible to just read a poem and enjoy it without having to go through line by line and word by word analysing the thing to death.

I actually prefer poetry to long form text right now. I don't have the time or attention span to sit down and read a whole book, but poems are like a shot of literature. I've been enjoying reading sci-fi short stories for the same reason.

Asimov, Isaac - "Nightfall"

Asimov, Isaac - "The Last Question"

Barthelme, Donald - "Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby"

Beckett, Samuel - "That Time"

Bisson, Terry - They're Made Out of Meat

Boyle, T. C. - The Hit Man

Carver, Raymond - Little Things

Chekhov, Anton - "The Bet"

Dick, Philip K - "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" Gibson, William - Dogfight ("...he had nobody to tell it to. Nobody at all.")

Hemingway, Ernest - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Hemingway, Ernest - Hills Like White Elephants

Makkai, Rebecca - "The Briefcase"

Bradbury, Ray - "The Veldt"

Saroyan, William - "Seventy Thousand Assyrians"

I would point others to Robert Browning’s Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came. It’s a late romantic poem about the time after Camelot’s glory has faded and all hopes have been dashed by man’s weakness and the inexorable hunger of time. A fitting poem for those of us who live in an age whose greatest promises lay unfulfilled. These were not the robots we were promised.*

*Tagline stolen from a truly stellar Op-Ed from last year available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/opinion/sunday/household-...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07gh4pg

- Lost and Founder - the founder of Moz shares his advice and experience from building a 40M/year company. I found the things he says about building a startup extremely insightful and practically useful. Reading it feels like having a dinner with a friend who shares with you the things he has learned in a very honest, down to earth way. Highly recommend it.

- Rationality from AI to Zombies - probably the most influential book I've read in my life, profoundly changed the way I think. It's a collection of LessWrong essays on science and rationality. (recently they've released an an audio version by the way).

- "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and "Our Mathematical Universe" - two general popular science books I'm enjoying a lot. Haven't finished reading them yet, but so far they're brilliant(and very easy to understand, authors do an amazing job explaining complicated things in a simple, accessible way).

- Hacking Growth - an AMAZING book on "growth hacking". It provides a framework for marketing a startup, gives a ton of practical advice and specific tactics. It breaks down step by step how startups and big tech companies grow their products. Most of the books I've read on the subject were bullshit, but this one is absolutely fantastic, can't recommend it enough.

Other great books I should mention: This Idea is Brilliant, Actionable Gamification, The Design of Everyday Things, The Master Algorithm (great overview of machine learning techniqes), Springfield Confidential (fun behind the scenes from one of the writers on Simpsons), Homo Deus(from the author of Sapiens).

”Our mathematical universe” is a fun and interesting book, but probably more of interest to someone with an explicit interest in physics. I enjoyed the first few chapters the most, but still feel a bit skeptical about his level 4 multiverse.

Yes, not forgetting to mention that Bill Bryson is such a fantastic writer who can not only make the complex simple but who is also fun to read. Love his travel memoirs as well.

Then it goes really downhill IMO. It (pretty much) only gets worse from level 4.

If you haven't read A Walk in the Woods, or In a Sunburned Country by him, I highly recommend those as well.

I mean, yes, Yudkowsky is pretty verbose, but that's not what I'd call a super-accurate summary and there's definitely more in that chapter than your one-sentence summary.

(It's about understanding as well as knowledge, and in so far as it's about knowledge it's not only about terminology or only about science. There's some evo-psych-y speculation on why it's so easy to forget that inferential distances are there, which may or may not be correct but (1) is interesting in its own right and (2) helps to fit the notion of "inferential distance" into the reader's overall model of the world, rather than just giving specific instructions like "explain basic terminology". There's the concrete and I think useful suggestion that when you encounter a failure of communication you probably need to back off further than you are initially inclined to. There's a concrete example (appeals to "simplicity") of the sort of thing that once you've been immersed in, say, scientific thinking for a while becomes second nature to you and that you may not think to explain -- and, please note, it's not primarily a matter of terminology. There's an important warning of a failure mode you may encounter when trying to take inferential distances into account -- which seems like it should be obvious, but I've seen people fall into it often enough.)

[Note: Those things are on the Less Wrong page from which the chapter is derived. I haven't read the ebook, and it's possible that some stuff was trimmed out.]

There's also a bit of irony in complaining "this could have been explained much more briefly" about a chapter whose whole point is to warn about how communication can fail unexpectedly when you don't take the time to explain things slowly and apparently redundantly.

Scott Alexander (Slatestarcodex) is related and more readable if verbose, but less focused on that groundwork material of (so-called) rationality.

Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality is the best fiction I've ever read, and am actually rereading now, so that's one.

I absolutely love everything written by Alexander Wales, The Martian by Andy Weir, and a lot of stuff from /r/rational. Also I think that Atlas Shrugged and everything written by Ayn Rand is brilliant.

I've read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson not so long ago, they were pretty fun, but I wasn't blown away or anything.

Aside from that, I don't know many great ones, so I mostly read non-fiction.

Just want to check I'm buying the right book!

Oh, and if you're interested in the subject, I can also recommend "Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, it's a really neat outline of traction channels.

Traction is a really interesting overview of all sorts of channels

Everything from the tulip craze to the dotcom boom.

2) If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? by Alan Alda

Alan Alda of MASH fame teaches you how to build more empathy and improve your communication skills.

3) Bad Blood by James Carreyou

Theranos. Enough said.

4) Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Steve Coll

I think of this as the last book in Coll's unofficial trilogy on Afghanistan. First up was Ghost Wars, a history of American involvement in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion up to 2001. Second is his biography on the Bin Laden family. Last year he released Directorate S, a chronicle of American and Pakistani involvement post-9/11 primarily told through the lens of the Pakistani intelligence directorate tasked with influencing Afghanistan.

Coll has interviews with everyone from in-country CIA agents and foot soldiers who were on the ground all the way up to defense secretaries and military leaders, from both sides. An in-depth examination of what went wrong and why we're still stuck there.

5) Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads by Paul Theroux.

The greatest travel writer of the last half-century finally turns his attention homeward: the American Deep South. Four road trips over four seasons. He published an article in Smithsonian Magazine hitting the highlights: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/soul-south-180951861/

Aside from being a really enthralling and interesting story about one of SV's darling unicorns, it was also really eye opening into the absurdity of the amount of money that gets thrown around willy-nilly in SV, and how the bandwagon/FOMO effect just makes it worse. I won't say anything more because it's better to just read the book, but this is one of those stories that is almost endlessly fascinating.

Not sure what I learned other than people are carried away easily, but it was very entertaining.

- The Language Instinct. How mind creates language.

- The Elephant in the Brain. I’ve posted notes here https://invertedpassion.com/notes-from-the-elephant-in-the-b...

- Existential Cafe. History of existential thought. Excellent book.

- 12 rules of life. Highly opiniated but well argued book on how to live life

- Skin in the game by Nasim Taleb.

- Daemon. The sci-fi book that anticipated what rouge blockchain like programs can do. Again, highly recommended

It would have to be a fantasy book to truly go rogue - if it was sci-fi it would get bogged down in network congestion or high transaction fees, or consume all of the planet's energy production, before it could do much damage.

It gets a little bit over the top, but the concept is very entertaining.

Surfaces and Essences by Douglas Hofstadter & Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff

Nevertheless, it behooves us to try to remember that we are susceptible to the "Black Swan effect", the very real tendency to immediately forget that our sacred cows shit the bed.

Edit: grammar

Black swan, the concept which brought him in the spotlight is somewhat valid but it's worth at most a chapter in a risk management book. But he milks the black swan cow to biblical proportions.

Antifragile is so longwinded it's an exercise in attention and patience. I think it's remarkable how he managed to fill so many pages.

In my view, Taleb resides close to Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin, the 'thought leaders' experts at rebranding/refactoring common concepts and milking the proverbial cow in publishing, speaking events, etc..

Also just started another sci-fi trilogy with A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge which has some really fun and interesting (if hand-wavy) ideas about deep space physics.

I could not find a single thing to like about The Three Body Problem. I’ve heard it gets better after the first book, but I loathed the first book so thoroughly I wasn’t willing to try any more.

What did you like about it? It seemed like there was practically zero plot, and the science bits seemed unconvincing.

I also didn't like the 1st part very much but I was blown apart after reading the 2nd. The third was not as good, so at least read the 2nd one

But I've really enjoyed them so far because the books have surprised me at least a dozen times.

The characters ranged from caricatures to boringly malevolent, the plot dripped out like an icicle half a degree above freezing, and the aliens, which were at least interesting, got about 20 pages of attention.

I just don’t get the hype.

Vernor Vinge single handedly became one of my favourite writers (along side Clarke and Lem) with his short story True Names. I didn't find Rainbow's End as easy a read, I'll probably reapproach it after finishing The Star Diaries or Snow Crash, though.

The perspective given by the course shows to me that Chinese is one of the most sensible languages on earth. And the fact that we can trace the lineage of the language back to the Bronze age is one hell of a bonus!

Of course traditional learning methods (by rote, etc.) are not going to work for a pictographic language, but mnemonic learning is greatly aided by the story and history of the symbols therein.

Upvoted just for your last sentence.

I've found that this is true for correctly learning certain topics that appear to be impenetrable to me when using standard reading materials. So what I do now is try to read up on some historical materials to help me understand how the original ideas evolved to what they have become today, before re-attempting to read modern texts.

Familiarity with the topic's history prepares the foundation on which I can mentally hang together the topic's most important ideas, in a way that is coherent for me for future recall.

Indeed, most of the time the initial problem is caught up in the history and story of it, so not only does it give a mental context, but it helps you in applying the thing that you're learning!

For example, Mathematics became much more accessible to me when I learned the historical context for the maths first. Polynomials seemed not only completely useless, but also utterly mystical. Now I will never forget that once-upon a time, ability to solve Polynomials and other similar things were used not only as the measure of a person, but also became a type of challenge, and through that a form of gambling!

I have a few more recommendations in that vein here: http://compellingsciencefiction.com/blog/2016-12-18.html

Edit: Having said that, the concept of "focus" in Deepness is utterly terrifying - particularly as it seems very plausible and, as is noted in the book, some people might willingly submit to it (relevant to HN!).

A friend gave me the book. I was skeptical of the premise. By the third chapter (the 70's, basically) I was like "I remember that!" "Yes, he was in all the newspapers!" "Yes, that was 'the greatest financial disaster since the Great Depression'!" (I've lived through three of those, btw.)

Interesting premise, good scholarship (he traces Citizen's United back to the college paper written to impress a college prof by a fellow who ended up clerking for SCOTUS judge who was the swing vote for Citizen's United (Kennedy?)).

Interesting read. I know it sounds like a grandiose conspiracy theory but he has actual facts (that I experienced growing up) to back him up.

Now I am reading Tools of titans by Tim Ferris. I never thought I would get into the genre of self-improvement books, but it seems I like these :-) Even though I am conscious about the fact, that I am applying maybe 10% of the books advice :P

Another thing I am reading is Math from three to seven [1], mostly because I would like to discuss math with my 4yo daughter one day, preferably sooner rather than later, because I find math discussions immensely fun :-D Maybe I will even start a math-circle :-)

[1] http://www.msri.org/people/staff/levy/files/MCL/Zvonkin.pdf

I've commented before [1][2]; but pasting here: the author presents a vast amount of scientific evidence amount pretty much every corner of why we sleep, from its evolutionary roots thousands of years ago, to the importance of dreams and REM sleep for your memory, reasons and impact of insomnia, to what happens in the neurochemistry in your brain when you drink coffee, alcohol or sleep pills, and much, much more.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17381235

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446932

Above all, I appreciate his perspective on the importance of sleep for public health, and how transformative it could be for society. And how bad we're doing, by not enforcing public education and health policies to counterbalance the side effects of modern society - blue light, addiction-forming social media, school classes starting too early and others.

Concrete example:I did a routine physical exam last week, and my (new) doctor spent 20 minutes asking me questions about my family history and current behaviors, from food to favorite pastime to overall mental state. Incredibly comprehensive -- but not a single word about sleep. Simply didn't cross her mind to ask me how many hours on average I sleep per day/week -- despite many of the symptoms she was interested in assessing can be eventually caused by poor sleep - weight, mood, performance, memory, etc.

Joe Rogan interviews the author here, great vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

[2] Guns, Germs and Steel - Can't believe I waited so long to check this off my list. Very thorough and well written argument about how geography and environment shaped the modern world.

[3] Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion - Scientific and philosophical reasoning for why the self is an illusion. Covers a lot of ground without getting too heavy: Buddhism, mediation, neuroscience, religion, and more.

I sometimes enjoy the podcast by the same name as well, though the conversations are more hit or miss.

The other day I started Pictures of a Gone City, a book about the Bay Area by critical geographer Richard Walker. It was recently discussed here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17473141). I'm only about fifty pages in, but I can tell this is going to be worthwhile.

I'm also still finishing Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. It's a very compelling account of the crises and pressures confronting today's young adults (among which I can still, just barely, count myself).

Other books I've got lined up for the summer:

• The Boy Kings: A Journey Into the Heart of the Social Network, by Kate Losse. This memoir by an early Facebook employee came out a few years ago, and I finally want to read it.

• Social Creature, by Tara Isabella Burton. Recently published novel that's been getting rave reviews. It's been described as "a literary novel about social media."

• Surveys, by Natasha Stagg. A novel about microcelebrity/instafame that came out in 2016.

PS: LitHub runs a "Rotten Tomatoes for Book Reviews" site at https://bookmarks.reviews/ that I'm finding to be a useful resource to discover new books coming out. That's how I found out about the Burton and Stagg books.

I read her translation of Tao Te Ching while waiting in 2 hours of traffic for a ferry and it was wonderful and really informs the rest of her works.

I'm currently reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner, on the history of U.S. water policy in the West. Frustratingly dry.

Also re-reading On the Road but unlike 16 years ago I'm reading the 'Original Scroll Edition' this time: no chapters, paragraph breaks, invented character names, censors, etc. The book you read in high school is, in fact, the novelization of the original, which Kerouac wrote in twenty days. I've kept my beat-up paperback copy of the 'novel' nearby and I've preferred the scroll edition for the most part.

On the nightstand: - Annals of the Former World by John McPhee 300 pages into it, but I got a bit tired of the redundancy inherent in combining multiple books into one. - The Vulgar Tongue by Jonathon Green. 40 pages in. I've been looking for a copy of the dictionary. - The Path to the Nest of Spiders by Italo Calvino.

I tried reading her Earthsea series once, but I found her writing style rather awkward. It all felt rather emotionless and descriptive, with much detail left out. In fact, now I think about it, it rather reminded me of the writing style of the Old Testament. Are her other books also like that?

Deep Work had the similar effects on my work habits as the former did on my finances.

If you're looking for a fun fantasy read, Elantris by Brandon Sanderson is one of my all-time favorite standalone novels.

I have not read The Millionaire Next Door, but that seems fraught. Does it avoid survivorship bias? E.g. Playing the lottery is a 'habit' common to all lottery winners, but it's also common to all lottery losers, of whom there are many more. If you only studied the winners though, the lottery might start to look like a wise investment. Maybe the habits common to millionaires are counterproductive for the average person and only helpful to the lucky few.

They find that most millionaires are quite frugal, have stable families, and live modest lifestyles--they have accumulated wealth but don't flaunt it and don't waste it. These are essentially the lowest risk strategies in life, and survivorship bias favors the exact opposite, i.e. the "lottery ticket" decisions.

The exception to the low risk mantra is that many millionaires run their own businesses, and of course entrepreneurship is risky. The authors do note the effects of survivorship bias here.

I'd summarize the book by saying: "work hard, live well below your means, and invest the difference. Also, don't spoil your kids if you want them to build wealth."

From the "Millionaire" or not game we're all "losers" by default.

On the other hand, a low risk strategy might give you a comfortable life with high probability, but almost certainly won't make you a millionaire.

You need to know the base rate to understand whether survivorship bias is a factor or not.

If you invest $5k per year and earn a 7% annual return with a mix of stock and bond index funds, you'll be a millionaire in 40 years. If you don't like my 7% number, then invest $16,500 at 2% (short term government bond type rates), and you'll still get there in about 40 years.

For a sufficiently frugal person on an engineer's salary, getting to a >$1 million net worth is easy, but it takes a while. It's worth noting, however, that $1 million isn't a particularly lavish retirement anymore (and will be much more modest in 40 years).

The easiest way to become a millionaire is to have boring financial habits.

That said, in hindsight a lot of Elantris feels pretty similar to Way of Kings.

So, it's been a while since I dipped into this book, but my recollection was that I read the summary and intro and thought "this sounds like an analysis which suffers significantly from survivorship bias." Did you find with a close read that was/wasn't a problem with the picture it presented?

(Not that I think that the advice I skimmed over was bad, certainly, I don't like to buy depreciating assets like cars on credit, and more people could likely benefit from budgeting investing conscientiously.)

1. Save at least 10% (or 25%) of your income

2. Live frugally. No flashy cars, etc.

3. Choose friends doing similar

I.e how to retire with a million.

I guess given enough income and decent rates on savings, it's not so revolutionary but perhaps hard work.

Basically the opposite of the SV mantra which is raise a ton of money for a shot at the lottery, live in the nicest apartment you can find/afford, eat out at fancy restaurants most nights, drive a nice audi or bmw, etc.

> Liu describes the 21st century relations between the United States and China as a “Marathon contest” in which the “Beijing Plan will replace the Washington Consensus” so that China would become a “Champion nation”. This is a question of who will rule the world in the 21st century. The implications are institutions and ideas we fundamentally value as Westerners: Our Democratic rules-based world order, Human Rights and The United Nations could become uprooted.

The China Dream may scare you.

Liu provides an interesting alternative perspective on American History, The American psyche and American strategic misconceptions. He also unwittingly reveals deep insecurities with respect to single party rule and global perceptions of China.

This was an amazing strategic read and has opened my eyes to a new perspective.

Shoe Dog - Nike founder Phil Knight shares the story of the company’s early days.

Chasing the Scream - History and impact of drug criminalisation (War on Drugs). The author describes the War on Drugs (mostly in US but also describes other countries like Portugal where the policies on drugs are different)

Homo Deus... less so. It rehashes a lot of Sapiens and I found it a bit of a drag. The introduction is worth reading though. He recounts all the progress we've made as a species, which would surprise people who think our world is growing worse by the day.

Chasing the Scream was amazing. Nothing more to be said.

The book I learned the most from was probably The Dictator's Handbook. Again, a very simple idea - how can we predict a politician/leader's behaviour based on a simple assumption - they will try their best to stay employed. The authors manage to explain almost all of how politics works based on this one single idea. If you're one of those people who likes to try-before-they-buy, here's a trailer of the book - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

It's impressive how so much clearly one may see the world by relearning well-known concepts using one's intuition, which is how the authors happened upon the simple but powerful idea behind what really drives political behavior.

must read for anyone leaving in, or interested in the politics of the European Union; the book is a political memoir of Varoufakis' fight against the EU institutions during his 6 months as finance minister of Greece in early 2015.

The people of Greece had elected the syriza government to put an end to the incredibly harsh austerity they've been through during the past 5 years. But the Greek government had agreed to, and was bounded by the terms of the two bailout programs from the Eurozone & the IMF. Faced with a dilemma, democracies must compromise. But Democracy has no place in the Eurozone, as Wolfgang Shäuble, former finance minister of Germany, puts it very clearly during his first meeting with Varoufakis: "Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy".

Three years after the events recounted, this book is still very much relevant, and anyone wanting to understand EU politics ought to read it.

--

2) And the Weak Suffer What They Must? - Yanis Varoufakis (2016)

Companion book to the first one, it explained how the Eurozone crisis came to be by recounting its history from the end of the second world war to today. A key book to understand the institutions of the European Union, whether or not you agree with Varoufakis' economic theories. I highly recommend it, as it is very well written, in plain english, with no economic background required.

Seriously, that's why people use ad blockers. If you're running content on your site that you have no control over, stop doing that. If you're serving malicious ads, at the very least turn off the banner that tells people you're not serving malicious ads.

"How to Change Your Mind" by Michael Pollan. A fascinating look into the world and science of psychedelic drugs.

"Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke. One of, if not Clarke's best. It's short for a sci-fi book and almost impossible not to like.

"The Hydrogen Sonata" By Iain M. Banks. It certainly wasn't my favorite culture entry, but it's worth a read none the less. If you haven't read the others in the series I wouldn't suggest starting with it.

"Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It took me a bit to get into this book, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. If you're into long timelines and human existential crisis this is your book.

As far as July goes, I'm digging into "Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes and "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes.

From the header:

> This list was last updated in March 2015.

> Why are updates to my reading list so rare? Because computers change a lot in 10 years, but people don't.

> To make better software, you need to understand how people work, and that is what the books I recommend tend to focus on.

Travel books can be a good fit for the summer, and Keri Smith's Wander Society is a fun pick.

I also like to make a random pick or two that I'd never normally choose for myself. My next random pick may be off this thread...

Z

Right now I'm doing classics. I find that taking a month or two each year and reading classics I may have overlooked makes all the other books I read that much better. (It also gives them a higher bar to reach!)

This month it's The Count of Monte Cristo and The Brothers Karamazov. I'm having a blast. I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to these.

I was recently in Brittany and there was a sea gaol off one of the beaches that reminded me how great that book is.

"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace.

Great read on consumerism, escapism, and the funny things that people seem to do on cruise ships.

Also just started keeping a public kanban board of my book backlog and wondering if others do something similar? I'd be curious to know how others organize their book lists and peaking through to find new things to read. https://github.com/davidsantoso/books/projects/1

I read it because I see some parallels to programming/verification language design, where research is usually justified aesthetically because empirical data is hard to come by. It appears doubtful that the book will help you career-wise if you're an academic stuck in a field with similar problems, but it is consolidating to know you're not alone.

It's a fantasy series with an incredibly detailed, logical, well-thought-out magic system and world history.

And 3 books that have most recently made it into my "must-reread" category.

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

Antifragile by Nassim Taleb

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

I really like Sowell's writing style and willingness to tackle issues in a straightforward way that others skirt around. I still have many of his past writings to get to, as I only recently started reading him, to my own detriment.

We're blessed to have nearly 50 years of his writing and that he's still at it at 88.

Actually IIRC he retired ;)

Something I didn't even knew writers did...

I've only read 2 books and a half so far and it is brilliant!

I'm not a big fan of fantasy books (prefer hard sci-fi), but Malazan just blew my mind. One of the best things I've ever read.

Not an easy read though, be prepared!

I've heard good things about it (along with that it won't be an easy read as you say) however I don't want to torture myself reading boring stuff for like 1000 pages until something interesting happens.

There are much better books to read and too little time.

Actually, that's more or less a rule I try to follow: If the book can't hook me after some pages and I keep feeling bored and not interesting I just put it away. Other books that I have started but found way too boring to keep reading them:

(* please don't downvote me for this. I know that some of these books are considered classics and many of you won't like this but remember that this is just my personal opinion; I tend to get border easily *)

- The orphan master's son - The man in the high castle - Metro 2033 - Neuromancer - Catch 22 - Digital Fortress (this wasn't so boring but I hated the smart-ass characters)

I haven't read any of the off-shoot books yet, but they're on my list.

Medium is the Massage; Gutenberg Galaxy would be my top 2 recommendation given what you wrote.

Take Today: the executive as drop out with Barry Nevitt

From Cliché to Archetype with Wilfred Watson

and finally,

Culture is Our Business, the last book he did solo [the one with WWIII being a 'guerrilla information war']

Also, if you're feeling philanthropic: I'm screening McLuhan's origin story at the Park in the place where he began University in Winnipeg.

At the very least watch the trailer and bask in the prescience of McLuhan yelling Fake News in 1969

http://gofundme.com/mcluhan-movie

I initially thought that was a typo. For others reading this: it's not, it was a collage-style collaboration between Mcluhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore. That's really cool, I will have to check it out.

- History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell : This is a wonderful book. Read it.

- Why the West rules -- for now, Ian Morris : How geography drives history. really deep and thought-provoking.

- the Strange Defeat, Marc Bloch : A gripping, living narration of the French armies collapse in 1940, from the inside (Marc Bloch was an officer). With a very deep analysis of the long maturing reasons for this defeat.

- Histories of Alexander the Great, Quintus Curtius Rufus : The title says it all. Very elegant Latin prose.

- The Golden Ass, Apuleius : A funny story and an immortal classic.

- The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West, Karl-Heinz Frieser : For true military history geeks :)

I notice that these are either classics, or history. Well, so be it :)

This year I decided to read at least one book a month the ones I found most inspiring were: * Factfulness - how we can misinterpret the data and how most of us have a wrong idea about the state of the world * Let my people go surfing - growing a business organically, doing the last harm and taking care of your people. This book inspired me to start my own business and follow some of the ideas presented in this book. * When breath becomes air - memories of a neurosurgeon battling cancer. Very insightful and important read about dying. In a way it's a heavy book, I cried multiple times when reading it.

Africa is also the center of the Arab world (Cairo + 2/3 of the arab world population is there) although the popular belief is that the middle east is.

What are you looking exactly for? I'm from the north so I can answer some questions about that part.

Sorry for being so vague, I don't have any starting point, except the books others recommended. I'll start digging and see where it gets me!

If you like the beaches, they offer lots of options (for Egypt go to Sharm ElSheikh. I have yet to do a better scuba diving).

Also I don't read books about countries. I visit them. People and especially authors are biased and also perceptions are very relative. A shitty country for someone is a home for another one.

For life, the 3 countries can offer good value quality/price. I live in Tunis. It has good food, good weather, nice beaches, new constructions that are cheap and easy to rent, etc... You can even get optic fibre for $25/month.

They have various issues especially with governmental services and transportation (particularly Cairo and Tunis). Tunis and Casa are definitively more open to tourists and foreigners than Cairo. Woman might find it unbearable to live in Cairo and Tunis would be the friendliest for woman in the whole of the Arab world.

One problem is that you can't travel around by car. If you are in Tunis, you can't jump to Algeria (very hostile to foreigners). You also don't want to jump to Libya. So you are limited to a 10 million population.

If you are in Egypt, beside Cairo and some touristic resorts, there is not much to go. It's downhill from the capital. The living standards are way too low.

If you're looking for a somewhat bleak overview of corruption and despots since independence, then try Martin Meredith The State of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence

One of my favourites is Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

Disgrace, by JM Coetzee. Outstanding book, emotionally difficult to read. Made into a not-too-bad movie with John Malkovich, but the book is infinitely better.

Granted, it's old and describes a version of Africa that there's not much left of, but I'd highly recommend it anyway.

Van Reybrouck describes the history of Congo starting pre-colonial, the colonization by Belgium and the entire aftermath. The books gives you a good understanding on the impact and the how of colonization and the history of Congo.

i) Ryszard Kapuściński, both the The Emperor and the Soccer War ( half of this is about Africa, other half is South/Central America)

ii) Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart - fiction but feels 'truthy'

Robin Hobbs latest Fitz and the Fool trilogy are also great books i read this year. as are all her works really.

Treating People Well: The Extraordinary Power of Civility at Work and in Life by Lea Berman and Jeremy Bernard -- "A guide to personal and professional empowerment through civility and social skills"

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride -- "a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist"

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee -- "Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all"

- The Mirror of Beauty by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (I am reading it in Hindi/Urdu[0]. Anyone who loves historical fiction should check this out)

- Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995 (received it as a birthday gift; my first graphic novel and I am loving it)

- Shoes of the Dead by Kota Neelima

- Everybody Loves a Good Drought by P. Sainath (one of the best non-fiction works I have read)

- and some Manto, Pratchett, and John Le Carré.

I have been reading three of the books among these forever and I intend finish them. I am again starting to spend time reading that I had basically allocated to Internet and just doing nothing.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26021373-kai-chaand-the-...

2: High Performance Browser Networking. Really explained a lot of modern networking. I was already familiar with the basics of the OSI stack, but this explained a lot of newer ideas, optimizations, and HTTP2. Really comprehensive guide to how the internet works.

3: The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein): A history of how the CIA has shot down democratic regimes to enforce small-government-free-market policy in developing countries when these policies are rejected in polls. Explains a lot of the crises in Latin America and Russia.

I haven't read the book but from another perspective it sounds like the CIA shot down democratic regimes in developing countries to enforce policies favorable towards U.S.-based internationally big, militarily market-intervening government that were rejected in the local polls. I wouldn't be surprised if there were extra-governmental industrial interests that benefited as well.

He seems to have an incredible knack for both the unsettling, and the compassionate. It's close to the most thought provoking fiction I've ever read.

A real classic, each story is intriguing and some center on incredibly creative ideas.

Joseph Conrad was 50 to 100 years ahead of his time. His story of European exploitation of Africa and the underlying racism that empowered that still, sadly has many parallels to our world.

It's a novella so it's quick read, with beautiful pros. Interestingly enough, English was not Conrad's native language. But you couldn't tell that from his prose.

The movie, Apocalypse Now was loosely based and inspired by this this book with some dialogues completely copied over.

There is an audiobook version of it on iTunes [0] by Ralph Cosham. His narrative voice is so soothing that I listen to it sometime to fall asleep when I'm unable to turn off my brain.

[0] https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/heart-of-darkness-unab...

The Blind Owl, Sadegh Hedayat and translated by D.P. Costello is a great read if you're into Kafka.

I read the book both in original language, Farsi and its translation in English. The translation is excellent.

Hedayat translated the work of Kafka in Farsi. Which might explain some resemblance between Blind Owl and some of Kafka's writings. Ultimately and tragically he committed suicide in his Paris apartment.

Sohrab Sepehri, Iranian poet is still largely under-discovered in US. There is a recent translation that seems to have done justice to his poetry [1]. A decade ago, I foolishly partnered with a colleague and a poet to translate some of his poems. I translated one poem, it was the most stressful thing I ever did and something, I will never try again [2].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Oasis-Now-Selected-Translations-Selec...

[2] http://www.caveat-lector.org/1601/html/1601_poetry_sepehri1....

I haven't read it recently but anyone that lived experienced technology of the 80s/90s or wants a realistic feel for what it was like should read this.

It's a great story about how a guy from Berkley (I think) tracked down a hacker. I don't remember the specifics but it was very War Games-esque but based in reality.

There's also a movie about the story which is worth watching: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308449/ You can easily find it (and quite a few talks and interviews by/with Clifford Stoll about the subject of the book) on Youtube if you search for "Cuckoo's Egg".

I does so by contrasting our behavior with that of the great apes so that we can determine the characteristics of our common ancestor and then build a scenario for how we could have gone from there to here.

I'm about half-way through right now and I highly recommend it

Given the amount of imposter syndrome, internalized shame, and unhealthy posturing that I've seen in the startup space, it seems especially relevant for folks here. This really changed my relationship towards vulnerability as a leader.

Also, it's quite entertaining. She's very charming in her delivery, and she does a good job exemplifying her findings in the presentation of the book.

It's actually an audio seminar, as opposed to a written book, but I think it's delivered far more effectively that way.

I assume you would be interested.

I feel I was able to apply a lot of it to my day to day family life.

Read it before seeing the movie.

If you were born in late 70s or 80s, you will enjoy the references.

"The World According to Garp" by John Irving. Again, one of my favorite authors, one of his best books, but I really recommend almost all of his books.

"Starship Troopers" by Robert A. Heinlein. Just read this a couple weeks ago, highly recommended.

"A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. Just another of my favorite authors, I recommend any of his books if you like travel books. Very witty and well written stuff. A Walk in the Woods is probably his best known book about his attempt to thru-hike the AT.

"Story of Your Life and Others" - Ted Chiang. Really really good sci-fi short stories. Some great stuff. The movie Arrival is based on the title short story, Story of Your Life.

Honorable Mentions (from things I've read in the past year): "Meddling Kids" by Edgar Cantero "The Island of Dr. Moreau" by H.G. Wells "Furiously Happy" by Jenny Lawson

I could keep listing books, but this is probably already excessive.

I also realize none of these are really HN-related content. I just assumed you were looking for any type of books, and this are some of my recent favorite leisure books.

1. Delhi: A novel

2. The modern architecture of New Delhi

3. Train to Pakistan

4. Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found

5. City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

Currently reading -

1. Bauhas

2. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (Though, I think I should read Making of the Atomic Bomb first)

I'm still a bit hyped about these books ;)

Banks was an author with a truly singular style. He is sorely missed.

2. Examined Lives from Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller Biographies of, some of the most famous philosophers.

3. The Soul of a new machine by Tracy Kidder its about 2 competing computer design teams juggling between engineering quality and time to market.

It tells a story about Lou who is fighting to keep his business alive and keeping his son out of jail, as Lou learns how to be more humane and create less conflict, so does the reader.

It is the book that has had the biggest impact on me and my business.

The second most impactful book is “Crucial Conversations”

The History of the Peloponessian War - Thucydides.

On book 3 right now, it's some of the most profound political strategy and philosophy I've ever read. It really helps if you read Herodotus' Histories before hand, to give context on the Persian War, and how what we now call Greece ended up in this mess. It's extremely illustrative, and if you've read it, the rise of populism after 70 years of American hegemony should be absolutely no surprise (it looks a lot like Athens).

The Gulag Archipelago - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Another book that is very important today, as socialism/communism is on the rise in parts of the western world. It's an exploration of what happens when social trust breaks down in a society, as it did after the Bolshevik Revolution. Is the US at that point? No. Does it have the potential to get there, with a few elections of more radical types and further breakdown of the social fabric? Absolutely.

Other than recent technical papers, I am pretty much trying to eschew anything published in the last century until it passes the test of time. I get more out of a casual perusal of Aeschylus' Persians via Wikisource on my phone while sitting under a tree. Than I do from all the Ray Dalio Principles and Yuval Harari Homo Deus style tomes that are currently in vogue right now ;)

Skin in the game is the latest, it is on my reading list. Taleb is an arrogant *hole, but I love following him on Twitter and reading his books. A genuinely great opinions.

It has convinced me to improve my sleeping habits, and I've been feeling much better because of it.

Highly recommended!