10 ms·

Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?

421 points by ellinoora 7y ago

Any great books you cannot wait to read next year? Maybe something you wish to learn? Curious about all kinds of great book suggestions for 2020. Thank you for sharing! (And I wish you all a great, educational new year)

kvajsvem2 7y ago
jaron lanier - who owns the future?
puszczyk 7y ago
I look forward to read “Meditations”[1] by Marcus Aurelius and re-read “Black Swan”[2]. On the _craftsperson_ front I’ve heard good things about “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”[3] by Martin Kleppman. Also hope to get some good recommendations here :) [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30659.Meditations?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=6PGKWaSVqW&rank=1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30659.Meditations?ac=1&f... [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=jVPTaf8bzO&rank=1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan?ac... [3]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23463279-designing-data-intensive-applications https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23463279-designing-data-...
- volument 7y ago
  Thanks! Seems legit.
- 0kl 7y ago
  Re Aurelius: preview a couple different translations if you can - I have found there to be significant differences. If you have the time/inclination and haven’t already I’d also suggest reading Epictetus and Seneca first. NB: My favorite of all the available Aurelius translations so far is Martin Hammond (Penguin Classics)
  - robin_reala 7y ago
    Standard Ebooks has a nice PD edition of the George Long translation.[1] Also Elizabeth Carter’s translation of Epictetus’s The Enchiridion[2] and Aubrey Stewart’s translation of Seneca’s Dialogues.[3] [1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditations/george-long https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditation... [2] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/the-enchiridion/elizabeth-carter https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/the-enchiridion/... [3] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/seneca/dialogues/aubrey-stewart https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/seneca/dialogues/aubrey-st...
  - criddell 7y ago
    Is Hammond's your favorite because it's the best read or because it's the most faithful to the source material?
    - 0kl 7y ago
      Best read for me - most powerful and readable imo. I’m sure there is a better academic/true-to-source read. I’ve read about 4 different translations and Hammond always stick with me - possibly because I read it first. Thank you - in the future I will clarify.
    - shantly 7y ago
      I surveyed a ton of translations a few years ago and found Maxwell Staniforth's to be the best balance between readability and fidelity to the original text. Older translations (as is typical of older translations of ancient works) tend to use needlessly "elevated" language, while a lot of newer ones seem to be convinced the Greek is even more simple and informal than it actually is, for whatever reason.
- Havoc 7y ago
  Before diving into meditations spend 15 mins researching Aurelius. Because it's written diary style without intention to publish the context triggering his thoughts isn't always explained in the text. e.g. Parts seemed quite obsessed with death - which is in part a stoic thing - but also just because at time of writing he was already old & his health was failing.
- beaconstudios 7y ago
  Meditations can be a slog - he repeats himself constantly, as is the tendency in published ancient Greek diaries/correspondence. It's a great grounding for stoicism though. I'd recommend also reading the Enchiridion and Discourses of Epictetus - I found them easier to absorb.
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
  It's become a yearly tradition of mine to reread this at the beach over the summer.
- kedean 7y ago
  I just finished Kleppman last week. It took me since August since I was mostly reading during working hours, but I highly recommend it, especially as a companion piece if you already have a lot of familiarity with database technologies.
- zeeone 7y ago
  “craftsperson” <rolls eyes>
- Scarblac 7y ago
  I read Meditations this year, and found it very repetitive and only occasionally inspiring. It might be good to spread out reading it over a long time. Read until you find something that clicks with you. Repeat after a few weeks.
- rramadass 7y ago
  Get a few different translations of "Meditations". I recommend the ones by Gregory Hays, Martin Hammond and Robin Hard. The book is basically a collection of thoughts on various aspects of cultivating one's character and developing a "stoic" approach to whatever life may throw at you. It has no overarching framework/grand theory and thus you can read the individual thoughts in random order as the mood strikes you. It is quite practical and needs to be practiced in everyday life (with some commonsense changes to adapt to current time period). You might also want to look into the works of Epictetus, Seneca and Cicero.
  - woile 7y ago
    Hey, is any of this version with modern english? The one I'm reading includes this words "thy" or similar, which makes it super hard for me to understand (english is not my native)
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Meditations has some cool phrases here and there. It mostly gets very repetitive and you figure out his philosophy pretty clearly early on because he restates the same idea in hundreds of different ways. It's largely the same idea though.
haah 7y ago
My 2019 reading list
- ellinoora 7y ago
  Hahaha. I know the feeling.
dlojudice 7y ago
Lifespan: Why We Age-and Why We Don't Have To - David Sinclair [1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age-Dont-Have-ebook/dp/B07N4C6LGR https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age-Dont-Have-ebook/dp/B...
chris5745 7y ago
Not educational, but I enjoy comic books. House of X and Powers of X.
peacemaker 7y ago
I'm moving back into a team leadership role after working for myself a while so probably The Managers Path and Managing Humans. Would love to hear other suggestions for software development managers too!
- otobrglez 7y ago
  The Managers Path is brilliant. I highly recommend it. One of the best books I read in 2019. :)
- thijsb 7y ago
  Radical candor by Kim Scott. Was an eye opener for me.
- derangedHorse 7y ago
  Managing Humans was hilarious and definitely insightful. I saw myself in some of the stories he mentions lol.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
spodek 7y ago
I plan to write my next book, this time on leadership and the environment. I see a lack of leadership -- like a Mandela of the environment. I don't call telling people what to do or spreading facts, figures, doom, and gloom leadership. Nor do I see anyone of renown trying to live by values that would lead us to sustainability and sharing how they create joy, community, and connection. Even Greta promotes panic. I believe we crave leadership so we can act on our values and overcome the jaded cynicism, shame, guilt, and pointing fingers. We want to take responsibility, to pick up other people's trash, to fly less when we see the compassion and empathy in it, when we can feel the meaning and purpose those who went to jail for other people's freedom did in the US civil rights struggle half a century ago or fighting Hitler a generation before. My podcast Leadership and the Environment http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast, and my experience acting, have taught me a lot.
nottorp 7y ago
Why in 2020? There are 2 weeks left of 2019... time enough for a couple books...
- zeroonetwothree 7y ago
  Exactly. I still plan to finish 6 more this year which is apparently more than some plan for all of 2020...
  - goobynight 7y ago
    most* 25% of people are going to hit 0 again. 1-2 is huge for most people
matteuan 7y ago
I plan to read: - "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" by David Graeber - "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief" by Lawrence Wright - "The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves" by Matt Ridley - "Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life" by William Finnegan
- finleymedia 7y ago
  Going Clear is great. I've read several of Wright's books and really enjoy the depth of the research he does.
melenaboija 7y ago
"Between the world and me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates "A people's history of the United States" by Howard Zinn
- cryoshon 7y ago
  be sure to take the people's history with a grain of salt... there's factual information in there, but a lot of it is a bit exaggerated and from a very... shall we say, not-rigorous perspective, even if you largely believe in the thrust of what's being said and the facts aren't really up for dispute.
  - aguyfromnb 7y ago
    >there's factual information in there, but a lot of it is a bit exaggerated and from a very... shall we say, not-rigorous perspective, I agree. Perhaps when the book came out in the 80s, and there was far less access to "information", this book was probably great from a "history isn't always as it seems" perspective. Today we are far more conscious of the "elite narrative" of history. Now I think you'd be better served by perusing the table of contents and finding various sources on the subject matter that interests you. It's well written, and Zinn is great. Just feels a bit dated.
drclau 7y ago
Ken MacLeod. I read most of his hard SF, and I am just about to finish re-reading Fractions: The First Half of the Fall Revolution (The Star Fraction + The Stone Canal). It’s a great series, often underrated because it’s more political and technical. The Stone Canal is probably the best of the series. I plan to re-read Descent and The Restoration Game, at the least. Haven’t made yet a list of new stuff to read, I’ll pick stuff is it comes.
L_Rahman 7y ago
Seeing Like a State Robert Caro's Lyndon B. Johnson biographies The Overstory
rakamotog 7y ago
Books I bought in 2019 1) Creativity Inc 2) Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice 3) Start With Why 4) Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love 5) The Hard Thing about Hard Thing: Building a Business When There are No Easy Answers I only managed to finish ~50% of my planned reading in 2019
klohto 7y ago
I’d like to finally read something by Jason Fung. I have been trying fasting on and off for about 6 months and I can see results, but I have not bothered to check the theory behind it at all. If anybody would like to recommend some books on nutrition, body aging and general health regarding food, bring it!
- jlavine 7y ago
  Jason Fung explains his theory of type 2 diabetes / metabolic disorder, and how it is addressed by fasting, in detail in episode #59 of Peter Attia's "The Drive" podcast [1]. The review of Fung's "The Obesity Code" on Red Pen Reviews [2] details some serious flaws in the scientific claims in the book related to calories, insulin, and fasting, and their relation to obesity and fat loss. Relating to nutrition/health/longevity, they aren't books, but I've found the podcasts, blogs, YouTube videos, and even tweets by Rhonda Patrick (FoundMyFitness), Peter Attia (The Drive), Stephan Guyenet, and Chris Masterjohn quite enlightening. [1] https://peterattiamd.com/jasonfung/ https://peterattiamd.com/jasonfung/ [2] https://www.redpenreviews.org/reviews/the-obesity-code-unlocking-the-secrets-of-weight-loss/ https://www.redpenreviews.org/reviews/the-obesity-code-unloc...
- MonkeyIsNull 7y ago
  He did write The Complete Guide to Fasting, which is excellent and covers all the science behind it. There is also Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle by Gin Stephens which is basically One Meal a Day, however she includes links to all the reports to everything she talks about in the book and yes, she actually read them and encourages others to do the same, not just believe what she says. There's always the fasting subreddit's wiki that has links to other info: https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell
wooolfgang 7y ago
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Slimbo 7y ago
The Unicorn Project. I got a lot out of the phoenix project and very much looking forward to the sequel.
kidintech 7y ago
My compiled list for 2020, as suggested by friends I respect and HN: General ==== - Master & Margarita (w reader's guide) - Why we sleep - The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion - The wisdom of insecurity - The denial of death - The three body problem (friend's advice: slow burn, stick with it) - The dubliners - The devils (Dostoyevski) - The name of the rose - Enten-Oller (Kierkegaard) - Zero to one (Peter Thiel, recommended reading as palantir new joiner - not fantastic but has some thought provoking ideas; i.e. which very important truth would very few people agree with you on?) Economy/finance === - Basic economics (Thomas Sowell) - How an economy grows and why it crashes - Know the city Math === - Coffee time in Memphis - Real analysis (mathematics textbook) - Problems from the book (Halfway through this one, and I found it really enjoyable, even with only a CS bachelors) If anyone has read any and has feedback/notes, I'm looking forward to hearing them!
- inertiatic 7y ago
  Interesting list, commenting to have a look again later. I'm already reading the name of the rose after giving up half-way a few years ago.
  - kidintech 7y ago
    how are you finding it?
    - inertiatic 7y ago
      I'm not very well educated in the fields of history and philosophy so I constantly have to google for references to people or concepts I've only heard of before. It's much more rewarding this way than how I went through half of the book in the past ignoring a lot of things I was ignorant of, but it's a way slower process. It's an experience I'm thoroughly enjoying, but some of the characters described seem to me like they couldn't be real people, but this might just be that my way of thinking as someone living now clashes so heavily with how actual monks in the 14th century thought about the world. I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt on this for now, as, again, I'm very ignorant on this topic and he was an actual academic in the broader field we're discussing.
qntmfred 7y ago
The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
outime 7y ago
My bare minimum is learn more about Alan Watts and his books. I saw him mentioned here many times but it wasn’t until I started reading one of the books that I got hooked by his way of explaining fundamental life stuff.
zeronone 7y ago
- Design Data Intensive Applications (https://dataintensive.net https://dataintensive.net) - Database Internals (https://www.databass.dev/ https://www.databass.dev/)
nandreev 7y ago
The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas (A. Grigas) We (Y. Zamyatin) The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper (C. Petzold) Endurance (A. Lansing) Economics: The User's Guide (H. Chang) Oblomov (I. Goncharov)
- dgellow 7y ago
  I love “We”, one of my favorite work of science fiction! Crazy to think that has been written in 1921.
  - nandreev 7y ago
    I've heard it's a must-read for sci-fi lovers so I'm excited for that one!
- cryoshon 7y ago
  highly recommend oblomov... there's something about it that's really entertaining even though it's impossible to describe.
6700417 7y ago
Say What You Mean by Oren Jay Sofer After that I intend to primarily focus on additional books about communication: written and verbal including listening skills
beaconstudios 7y ago
For me: - On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche - Simulcra and Simulations, Jean Baudrillard - The Ruling Class, Gaetano Mosca - Finish off the Enchiridion and Shobogenzo For work: - Envisioning Information, Edward Tufte - Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- 0kl 7y ago
  When I studied Nietzsche it was more or less “Read Zarathustra, then read all the ‘Viking Portable Nietzsche’ then read all of the ‘Basic Writings of Nietzche’” all translates by Hollingdale or, preferably, Kauffman. Among the jewels you’ll find in such a reading are things like the seed of Nietzsche’s thought being placed, imo, in The Birth of Tragedy, with the line: > It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified Other Nietzsche related recommendations: Pre-Nietzsche: Plato, Schopenhauer Post-Nietzsche: Camus - maybe?
  - beaconstudios 7y ago
    I'm on the back end of Zarathustra at the moment, hence moving onto something a bit stronger. I tend to flick between different books by any given author in order to assimilate their ideas, so I might add Birth of Tragedy at the same time - thank for the recommendation. I'd like to get through all of Nietzsche's key writing in the next couple of years. I've thought about reading Schopenhauer as I understand he's a great complement to Nietzsche's work - I'll see where I get to with Nietzsche first. Camus is somewhat related as an absurdist compared to Nietzsche/Schopenhauer's existentialism, but a bit more optimistic about the possibility of meaning. I'm tempted to dig into Plato as the problem of universals is a philosophical topic that I value greatly, and his theory of forms is basically its origin story.
    - 0kl 7y ago
      I heavily recommend the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Republic, and Phaedrus (in particular) - it’s said all of philosophy is a footnote on Plato until Nietzsche. I think only a summary of Schopenhauer (like a penguin selection or something) is all that’s needed - he moves past Schopenhauer pretty quickly. I enjoyed Camus due to it being an attempt to move beyond Nietzsche and offer something more digestible, but I never moved past the Nietzsche/Plato combo for my personal philosophies (with a heavy dash of stoicism) Re forms: I find that Plato’s forms are one of the most used mental models I engage with - especially working with software.
dgellow 7y ago
I want to finish to read Snowden’s autobiography: “Permanent Record”. I started during a long train trip recently and found that I really enjoyed the tone of the first few chapters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Record_(autobiography) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Record_(autobiogra...
- dvko 7y ago
  I am currently reading it as well. Only a few chapters in but already gained some interesting insights from it.
- rocketpastsix 7y ago
  I listened to him read it on Audible. It's really interesting. Though it started off a little slow but picks up as it keeps going. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    It's definitely a book that I thought benefited from being read by the author - strongly recommended!
- lawn 7y ago
  It's great. I was surprised by how well written it was, it was very easy to read and had some good insights.
- bluesquared 7y ago
  I enjoyed it, though I thought it ended rather abruptly. I enjoyed reading about his childhood/early adulthood and how that shaped him and prompted him to act, but I thought more time would have been spent during/after "the main event"
axegon 7y ago
I usually don't plan in advance but I'll finish The Dark Tower series(3 to go).
- sshine 7y ago
  The Gunslinger (part of The Dark Tower series) was excellent. Demons and Wizards, the metal band, made a song called The Gunslinger, through which I learned of this book.
shekhardesigner 7y ago
These are on my list: Five Dysfuncitons of a Team: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21343.The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21343.The_Five_Dysfuncti... The Advantage: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12975375-the-advantage https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12975375-the-advantage
ptah 7y ago
Permaculture: A Designers' Manual by Bill Mollison
Rerarom 7y ago
I'd like to read the Realm of the Elderlings series and the Skolian Saga, which I've neglected so far. Also, I think I'll start a thorough reading of all Spider-Man comics. Regarding non-fiction, I think I will read some books about algebraic geometry and Lie groups. Haven't yet made a plan.
mcv 7y ago
Utopia for Realists, by Rutger Bregman
docdeek 7y ago
It’s fiction and mass-market but I enjoy reading the new John Grisham novel every October or about then. He’s consistent in quality, the books consistently interesting, and it’s about the only hardback novel I’ll shell out for instead of waiting for the paperback or Kindle version now.
0kl 7y ago
I plan to reread a couple core works for myself. Of that list the ones that I’d recommend for others are: Aurelius (trans. Martin Hammond) Fear and Trembling Man’s Search for Meaning Tolstoy’s Confessions Kundera’s The Art of the Novel After doing a thorough reading of “How to Read a Book” I decided to try rereading a few books to pull more out of them. I can’t recommend “How to Read a Book” enough - despite its anachronisms and glaring faults, it’s the only book I’ve found that has genuinely made me feel that I’ve not really read a single book in my life.
- criddell 7y ago
  How to Read a Book has been on my list for the longest time. I might have to finally give it a go. Is the book very dense? I think one of the reasons I've held off is because I have a suspicion that it could probably be distilled down to the length of a magazine article... I read a decent amount and enjoy it, but I feel in the end I don't get much from it. The time doesn't feel well spent. FWIW, I try to alternate fiction with non-fiction.
  - bloudermilk 7y ago
    Anne-Laure Le Cunff just published a blog post that appears to be a summary of the book, which you might find interesting. https://nesslabs.com/how-to-read-a-book https://nesslabs.com/how-to-read-a-book
    - criddell 7y ago
      Thanks for the link! Have you read the book? Is the article you linked to a decent summary of the book?
      - 0kl 7y ago
        It is a very good summary; matches a lot of my own notes on it. One thing to note though... > Adler’s main point in the first section of his work about how to read a book is that it’s best to gain knowledge straight from the source. Instead of going through a teacher sharing the main points of a book, he considered it better to read the book yourself. He called this concept “original communication”—the idea that information coming directly from those who first discovered an idea is the best way of gaining an understanding. Also worth checking out is Adler's "How to Mark a Book" : http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/mark_a_book.htm http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/mark_a_book.htm
bemmu 7y ago
To start the year off, my casual just-before-sleep reading will be "Ender's Shadow", which is a story that isn't a prequel or a sequel to "Ender's Game", but a story parallel to it. "What We Cannot Know", which is an exploration of all the topics that we might never be able to know, such as how to predict the weather, is the universe infinite etc. "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly long and I'm feeling masochistic. "Commodore - A Company on the Edge" because I really enjoyed "Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made", so I think I'll also like seeing how another computer I really like (the Commodore 64) came about.
- eric_cc 7y ago
  > because it's dauntingly long and I'm feeling masochistic. it's only 544 pages?
  - bemmu 7y ago
    For the reasons psv1 mentioned, despite this it feels long.
- petey283 7y ago
  Ender's Shadow is a great series. It complements the original story so, so well.
- psv1 7y ago
  > "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", because it's dauntingly long and I'm feeling masochistic. The length on its own isn't that big of a problem. But if you want a simple idea which can be explained thoroughly in a couple of pages to be stretched out for hundreds pages in the most unbearably condescending and arrogant tone that you can imagine... then Antifragile will fit in great with your masochistic inclinations.
  - ewhizrd 7y ago
    True that it's a simple idea. But the length of the book is worth it for the breadth it covers(economics, health, politics, etc), the implications of the idea would be otherwise hard to explore by self.
0xmohit 7y ago
Plan to read again: - How Democracies Die https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die - The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third_Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third...
- iamjk 7y ago
  Shirer has a shorter book called The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler that was concise and clear. I look forward to reading this longer iteration on the same topic too.
dvko 7y ago
My to-read shelve on Goodreads has 620 books on it, but top of my list are: - Feed by M.T. Anderson - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff - Equality by Edward Bellamy
apress 7y ago
Before the next wave of Internet-from-space companies fly by, I'm going to delve in to the last great bubble. John Bloom's "Eccentric Orbits," mainly about the life and death and rebirth of Iridium–but also covering all of that company's even less successful peers–came out in 2016, but somehow I missed it until now. Lots of awards.
haxordie 7y ago
I'll just keep on following the guide on Western philosophy. Currently finishing the Greeks.
keiferski 7y ago
I'm planning on going through the entire Harvard Classics. At 51 volumes, it works out pretty nicely to read one volume per week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics
- utopian3 7y ago
  Those volumes seem very dense for reading, digesting, and understanding in a single week. Unless you read & learn very fast, how do you plan to do this?
  - keiferski 7y ago
    They aren't too bad, really. Each volume is something like 500 pages, so roughly 70 pages per day. If you can dedicate an hour or two per weekday and three hours per weekend day, it's very doable. And as far as a deeper understanding of the work in question, I plan to listen to podcasts or lectures during my commute or when I'm getting ready in the morning. For example, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations has a plethora of free lectures on YouTube.
- madhadron 7y ago
  I'm going to suggest some alternate translations for some of these where it really matters. Virgil's Aeneid, the best I know if is CS Lewis's partial translation. I'm unaware of a complete translation that has any of the magic of the original. Dante's Divine Comedy, read the Clive James translation. This is the first one that captures some of the luminous quality of the Tuscan. Beowulf, get Seamus Heaney's translation. I don't read Spanish and cannot offer any insights on Cervantes, but maybe someone else can chime in. Likewise, do some research on translations of the Buddhist writings in volume 45. One volume a week of this material is steep. A lot of this has its own pace and forcing your way through it faster loses the reason to bother. Milton's Paradise Lost, for example, is an awesome poem, but it implies a cadence, and it's a much slower cadence than modern readers are used to for nontechnical prose.
  - keiferski 7y ago
divkakwani 7y ago
Some of the books I plan to read are: * The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham * Complications by Atul Gawande * The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century by Fernand Braudel
arethuza 7y ago
Tim Shipman will be writing his 3rd book about Brexit - the other two being great pieces of journalism so I'm really looking forward to the next, and presumably final, instalment.
douglaswlance 7y ago
My top priority books: Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan Design Patterns - Gang of Four Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman, Bert Bates Code Complete - Steve McConnell Peopleware - Tim Lister, Tom DeMarco Clean Code - Robert C. Martin The Clean Coder - Robert C. Martin Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug Functional Design Patterns for Express.js - Jonathan Lee Martin The Surrender Experiment - Michael A. Singer The best books I've ever read: Principles - Ray Dalio The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin Influence - Robert B. Cialdini The Startup Way - Eric Ries The Lean Startup - Eric Ries 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B. Peterson Measure What Matters - John Doerr, Larry Page The Fish That Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh Management - Peter F. Drucker Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne
- ronyfadel 7y ago
  Sounds like you’re diving head first into web development? Or taking it to the next level? Careful not to burn yourself out, that is a long list of technical books, that have nothing to do with the books you’ve read and enjoyed in the past that are from other genres.
  - douglaswlance 7y ago
    Long story short, I am an entrepreneur who sold a company and am transitioning into maximizing my engineering knowledge before diving back into entrepreneurship. I've spent a considerable amount of time studying top performers and learned how to manage stress levels effectively. I do exercise, meditation, yoga, stretching, forest bathing, mindfulness, journaling, and other activities that battle against burnout. I am much more worried about failing to meet my goals than I am burnout. Appreciate your concern though!
kaypro 7y ago
The Body - Bill Bryson Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Rovelli, Carlo Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment - Robert Wright Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
- branweb 7y ago
  The only one on this list I disliked was the Wright book, mainly because it's not a scientific justification of Buddhism. It's really about how evolutionary psychology explains stuff like road-rage and dieting struggles and how insight meditation (Wright's brand of secularized Buddhism) helps us manage those emotions. Which is fine. Only he's not an evolutionary psychologist and almost all the evidence he puts forward for the effects of meditation is anecdotal. For me a pretty disappointing book.
  - kaypro 7y ago
    Really appreciate that feedback.. thank you!
    - branweb 7y ago
      Thanks for posting it! Definitely going to add a couple of those to my list.
- yboris 7y ago
  Can highly recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow and Why Buddhism is True (listened to both as audio books). I have not read the others, but the 5+ books I read by Bill Bryson have been awesome, putting The Body on my year's list - thanks ;)
  - arethuza 7y ago
    Bill Bryson has a remarkable talent for making stuff that should be pretty dry quite remarkably interesting - I even found the sections on baseball in "One Summer: America 1927" fascinating (I'm not from the US).
sbolt 7y ago
I'm hoping to tackle this list in 2020, I've been wanting to read Caro's LBJ series for a while now. ===== Robert Caro - Lyndon B. Johnson series & The Power Broker S.C Gwynne - Empire of the Summer Moon Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Black Swan & Antifragile Graham Hancock - America Before Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel Safi Bahcall - Loonshots
- yboris 7y ago
  Start with Guns, Germs and Steel ;)
  - sbolt 7y ago
    I've had this book recommended to me so many times, I might try and tackle it over the Christmas break.
    - therealdrag0 7y ago
      I found it less interesting than I anticipated, but I think it was because we watched the PBS documentary in HS. So if you're short on time, then you could try that, it seemed to cover all the key bits :)
      - sbolt 7y ago
        Oh cool, I wasn’t aware of the PBS documentary, I’ll definitely check it out. Thank you!
- Ozumandias 7y ago
  The entire LBJ series and The Power Broker? Ambitious! Caro has a fantastic voice in his writing but by golly he sure does know how to fill a thousand pages!
  - sbolt 7y ago
    Yes, it's an ambitious list, Caro is my priority for 2020 so I don't mind spending a large portion of the year on his books. Are there any other books you'd recommend?
philshem 7y ago
I'm not much for planning my reading, but still unread in 2019 is Tara Westover's _Educated_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35133922-educated
MattConfluence 7y ago
The Dune movie isn't due until December 2020, but I figured I'd get started with Dune the book, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a while. Maybe if I enjoy it I will get my hands on the rest of the Dune series.
- firko 7y ago
  Can't recommend it enough
- zeroonetwothree 7y ago
  The first book is great but the sequels are awful. So yeah
  - the_watcher 7y ago
    I really enjoy expanded universes (I'll forgive a lot on the quality side in exchange for coloring in the world), and I also just couldn't get through the sequels.
    - Scarblac 7y ago
      And I love the sequels...
      - the_watcher 7y ago
        Huh, maybe someday I'll try again. I did find that Dune took me a few attempts to truly get into.
r_singh 7y ago
Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Pandabob 7y ago
My plan is to read about the french revolution and as such I was thinking about reading the books recommended by Five Books[1]: 1. Ancien Regime and the Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville 2. Interpreting the French Revolution by François Furet 3. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama 4. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution by R. R. Palmer 5. New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789-1820s by Woloch Isser Just ordered the first one! [1]: https://fivebooks.com/best-books/french-revolution-lynn-hunt/ https://fivebooks.com/best-books/french-revolution-lynn-hunt...
- chance_state 7y ago
  That's a great list. What made you interested in the subject?
  - Pandabob 7y ago
    A couple of years ago a friend mentioned a now infamous quote by the Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai, who, when asked by Henry Kissinger what he thought about the French Revolution, said that it's "too early to tell"[1]. Apparently he was referring to the revolutions of 1968, but the quote has taken a life of its own to kind of describe the magnitude of the actual french revolution. Anyway, it's been 15 years since I first really learned about the revolution in high school and after hearing the quote I've been skimming the wikipedia page every now and then and it just seems like one of the most fascinating events in the history of the western world. In the span of 30 years: - The french kill their king - They're the first monarchy to convert into a republic - Most of the early leaders of the revolution die, apparently because they're so brutal - The whole thing ends with Napoleon becoming emperor and conquering half of Europe. Also at the same time the industrial revolution is going on. I think that for someone who's living in 2020 it's hard to put into context the magnitude of the changes for the people at the time. Absolutely fascinating stuff. [1]: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00018657 https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019182...
- habnds 7y ago
  Anatomy of a revolution is a good one to frame the French rev in the context of the other revolutions of that time. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/648063.The_Anatomy_of_Revolution https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/648063.The_Anatomy_of_Re...
ewhizrd 7y ago
Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous Freedom from the known - Jiddu Krishnamurti
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles Mann, it covers two different approaches to the environmental problems we face. Whether we can use technology to extract ourselves from these problems or restraint and a simpler life. After that I'll probably read Walden again.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  First two thirds are engaging, though he over simplifies rather too much to fit everything neatly into the either-or, but I learnt of much I did not know. Despite his efforts over preceding pages to remain neutral, the later parts become infuriating. He can't help guiding you to Borlaugianism (wizard's tech as adversary to nature) as the preferred correct solution. I felt rather let down in the end and wonder about how balanced the preceding actually was.
john-radio 7y ago
"And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin "This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar "Priestdaddy" by Patricia Lockwood "Black Leopard, Red Wolf" by Marlon James "Consider Phlebas," and maybe the rest of The Culture series of novels, by Iain Banks
- Loughla 7y ago
  >"Consider Phlebas," and maybe the rest of The Culture series of novels, by Iain Banks Oh man, this will start a shitstorm, because it's so subjective, but Consider Phlebas isn't the best intro to the culture series. I would start with Either Player of Games or Use of Weapons. Now let's hear from everyone who disagrees with me.
zer0faith 7y ago
Wheel Of Time is quite honestly the best adventure and most gratifying book series I have ever had the pleasure to read.
texteller 7y ago
* The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos by Christian Davenport * The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Stephen Brusatte * Machine Platform Crowd: Harnessing the Digital Revolution Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson * Kiss The Ground Josh Tickell * The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by MichioKaku * * * My other 95 Books I am going to continue re-read in 2020: http://casualwalker.com/95-best-books-to-read-in-2019 http://casualwalker.com/95-best-books-to-read-in-2019
pjmorris 7y ago
I hilariously overestimate the number of books I can get through when I make these lists, but my current list for 2020 is as follows: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution Book of Proof Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War (for a friend) Master and Commander Educated Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark Stretch goal: The Power Broker, as a warm-up for Caro's LBJ series The Bible (perpetual, I don't get through it every year, but I get through much of it, often) EDIT: I also hilariously underestimate the number of books I want to read. Here's one more I think is vital for my 2020: The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
- chiefalchemist 7y ago
  My father had a stroke a couple years ago. Read "The Brain That Changes Itself" to get a feel for what might or might not be possible. Good stuff. Had practical insights for me as well. Definitely bump it up your priority list.
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    That book is freaky. In a really, really good way. I loved first chapter where the lady who can't balance has her brain rewired to map alternative signals as input into the balancing process. Also the chapter on pain. Fascinating.
- techstrategist 7y ago
  Depending on your current habits, starting with Digital Minimalism will help get through the others in one year.
  - dominotw 7y ago
agentultra 7y ago
Going to finish Crime and Punishment, Year of the Monkey (Patti Smith), The Children of Húrin (along with many cross references and letters) (Tolkien), re-reading A Game of Thrones for fun... as for 2020 I might read Slaughterhouse 5 again and work through George Sand. Technical things I am working through are the: - https://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative/abstract-algebra https://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative/a... along with the Artin text, writing proofs out by hand and in Lean. - Seven Sketches in Compositionality: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05316 https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05316
mattdanger 7y ago
Next up on my list is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I was given it as a gift from a friend and have seen it recommend here on HN
- nemo1618 7y ago
  I'm not one to reread books, but I have read that one three times. My father recommended it to me when I was young and I have treasured it ever since. Be sure to read the author's Afterward, which is available online.
- Syntoniclese 7y ago
  When I read this book the first time, I was slightly intrigued and somewhat disappointed. Years later, when I was on a spiritual journey, a reread revealed profound depth and led me toward a complete shift in perspective on life. After months of philosophy, I again questioned the value of the ideas the book hints at. It's one of those books that can be a guide - if you need one, are ready for one, and haven't yet encountered the deeper themes.
tz180k 7y ago
If you are looking for more inspiration check out these books: https://www.techbookofthemonth.com/ https://www.techbookofthemonth.com/ All are related to tech / business!
bilekas 7y ago
Everyone else with nice collections of books. Mine : Harry Potter
- matsemann 7y ago
  Well, I still read them almost every christmas. At least a few of them. I'd also recommend Brandon Sanderson. Mistborn series is very good, and Stormligh Archive is good so far. I really like his world-building, and I think the way he uses magic is something most HNers would approve of. It's often well defined, and the characters try to exploit it the same way a reader would.
  - renjimen 7y ago
    I’ll add The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss to this, having recently gotten into Brandon Sanderson. Probably my favourite fantasy series. Lots of similarities to the Mistborn Series.
    - samtechie 7y ago
      Kingkiller Chronicles is hands down my best fantasy series but its unfinished and the last book has taken over 8 years now with the author constantly pushing the release date. There are rumours that it will be released in 2020 but they have been saying this for years.
- dorchadas 7y ago
  That's a given yearly re-read for me, honestly.
janvdberg 7y ago
I own more books than I can read: https://books.j11g.com/ https://books.j11g.com/ I'm currently plowing through David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest (which is enjoyable but taxing!) should be finished in 2020!
jtwigg 7y ago
All of the books I planned to read in 2018, 2019 + more...
yboris 7y ago
Looking forward to the upcoming book by Toby Ord: Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity https://www.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Humanity/dp/0316484911/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=toby+ord&qid=1576508942&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Hum...
lghh 7y ago
Leisure Stuff: Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga Of Oklahoma City, It's Chaotic Founding... by Sam Anderson Midnight In Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham Dune by Frank Herbert The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (tried it this year and stopped, want to give it another go) Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just finished Exhalation and I think it's great) An Ursula K. Le Guin novel, have not picked one out yet A book related to basketball (possibly Dream Team, but IDK yet) Less Leisure Stuff: Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John Pfaff Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond The End Of Policing by Alex S Vitale Either Manufacturing Consent or Understanding Power by Chomsky The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold Work: Code Complete 2 by Steve McConnell The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws by Dafydd Stuttard, Marcus Pinto Finish Writing An Interpreter In Go by Thorsten Ball If I can get through all of these, I will be very pleased. Throw in a book or two at recommendation from friends and I think I'm full for the year.
- neeeeees 7y ago
  If you haven’t read it already, I highly suggest Sam Smith’s “The Jordan Rules”. It’s really fascinating to see the tension that’s present behind-the-scenes even on a team that is super successful on the court.
  - lghh 7y ago
    That was one of the others I was considering for that spot!
- chucky_z 7y ago
  For Ursula, I would strongly suggest Left Hand of Darkness. Try to read it without looking into it too much.
  - madhadron 7y ago
    Or go dip into her novellas. There's a collected edition out now ('The Found and the Lost'). I think my favorite stuff of hers is in there. Or, if you just want fun, 'Changing Planes' is a delightful romp inspired by the misery of sitting in airports.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach is an amazing book, that I just started, and I will be working through into the new year. It is a well written textbook with clear learning paths for readers with different backgrounds and learning objectives.
plahteenlahti 7y ago
Currently, my list of to-reads looks like this: Non-fiction: The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity Bad Science I'm Afraid Debbie From Marketing Has Left for the Day: How to Use Behavioural Design to Create Change in the Real World Fiction: This Is How You Lose the Time War Catch-22 The Wanderers I could definitely use some more fiction. Any suggestions?
- dmos62 7y ago
  > This Is How You Lose the Time War Catch-22 The Wanderers At first I thought "wow that's a crazy book title", but then I realised that this is just markdown shenanigans.
lumannnn 7y ago
- Nassim Taleb's Incerto Box Set: - Antifragile (already started) - The Black Swan - Skin In The Game - (there are 2 more books which I've already read) - The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith - Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman - Reread: E-Myth, Michael E. Gerber
- rramadass 7y ago
  Ah, a fellow NNT fan! I am curious; what is your opinion of his works and the man himself? I had read (a long time ago) "Fooled by Randomness" and "The Black Swan" and the thing i remember most is his definitions of Extremistan/Mediocristan (from the latter book) and our inability to understand "random chance" leading to a tendency to see patterns and devise explanations where there are none (eg. Causation vs. Correlation vs. Randomness) I find his writings thought-provoking but difficult to understand (eg. Differences between Randomness, Uncertainty, Probability and Risk) and sometimes quite nihilistic.
Balgair 7y ago
USMC Commandant's 2020 Reading List. This year I am finishing up the Harvard Classics and am looking for a new view point. https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1 https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1 Unfortunately, the military only publish on New Years Day (traditionally as a sort of holiday gift to those under command), so the 2020 list is not out yet. Every title is free via either the base library or the Navy Digital Library. Most have free audio book narration. There are discussion guides also provided for free. The website is very easy to use and poke around in, I'd suggest looking at it from a Dev standpoint alone. That said, the 2019 list is here: https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/usmc-reading-list https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/usmc-reading-list There are a LOT of titles so here are the Poolee through PFC levels: Poolee: BATTLE CRY by Leon Uris CORPS VALUES by Zell Miller GATES OF FIRE: AN EPIC NOVEL OF THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE by Steven Pressfield GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert A. Heinlein PFC through Lance Corporal: CHESTY by Jon T. Hoffman ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card THE LAST STAND OF FOX COMPANY: A TRUE STORY OF U.S. MARINES IN COMBAT by Bob Drury THE MARINES OF MONTFORD POINT: AMERICA'S FIRST BLACK MARINES by Melton Alonza McLaurin ON CALL IN HELL by Richard Jadick; Thomas Hayden READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline RIFLEMAN DODD: A NOVEL OF THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN by C. S. Forester THE WARRIOR ETHOS by Steven Pressfield The 2020 list should have some froth in it (Greitens likely won't stay, but who knows, judge the art not the artist). I think it'll be a good look into a Corps that has been punched for a long time in Afghanistan. Still, some great titles in there.
- aerovistae 7y ago
  I wouldn't bother with Ready Player One, which is an unrewarding story mostly written as an effort by the author to collect every bit of his 80s nostalgia in one place. Instead I would suggest Speaker For The Dead, the sequel to Ender's Game and a remarkable novel.
  - jackklika 7y ago
    I had a lot of fun reading the book and thought it was influential to my view of the future and VR. It's an easy read (I finished it on a long train ride) but certain parts stuck in my brain ever since. Much different and more mature than the movie.
pi-rat 7y ago
Elements of Clojure - Zachary Tellman Domain Modeling Made Functional - Scott Wlaschin --- Stormlight Book 4 - Brandon Sanderson The Doors of Stone - Patrick Rothfuss (fingers crossed?) Culture series - Iain Banks
- Vieira 7y ago
  I was also considering buying "Domain Modeling Made Functional" but I read that it uses F#. Are you working with F# or do you think it will be easy translatable to any functional language?
  - pi-rat 7y ago
    We only have a tiny bit of F#, I’m gambling on it being: - A decent refresher on DDD. - Applicable to other functional languages, both strongly typed and dynamic.
Brajeshwar 7y ago
I've read over 38 books till now, so, it will be about 40 by the year-end. I have a long list of Book Wishlist on Amazon. I try to buy (both physical and Kindle) about 5 books ahead. Twitter has become a very good source of my Books to Read. I also tend to and try to re-read quite a few books from before. I never have any specific books lined up for a year but I'm sure, I won't be able to finish my current wishlist. The comment thread on this post is going to be another good source for my book wishlist. I wish to be rich enough to have all the time to read so many books. :-)
dmos62 7y ago
I've begun reading The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, his first novel. It's left a very good impression so far. It's a fourteenth century murder mystery, set in a monastery, where the mystery is mostly an excuse for exploring the historical and cultural contexts, which are very interesting. Wikipedia has a nice summary: "an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory". Eco was a semiotician and a philosopher and he brings the best of that to the table in this book.
- madhadron 7y ago
  I have resorted to his phrase "what is good for an old monk may not be so for a young novice" from that book about Emacs over the years. The quote above will not be exact since I was reading it in Italian.
- Merem 7y ago
  I've read that book two years ago and really liked it. As such, I was recommended "My Name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk which is supposedly similar and which will be the next one to tackle (after I finish my current one: "Faust" by Goethe). After that...no idea. I don't really plan ahead like that since the decision on what book to start depends most on how I feel at the time/what kind of genre/story/setting I desire the most. All I can say is that "The Three Musketeers" by Dumas is on my radar.
aerovistae 7y ago
I just started Ulysses for the second time, see if I get further this time.
- habnds 7y ago
  I did eventually get through it. I found that thinking of the chapters as individual books (which in a lot of ways they are) was helpful to enjoy the reading and to get through it. Read one, take a break digest it. It's enjoyable. There are good accompanying books to read alongside it.
jjuel 7y ago
Billion Dollar Whale - Tom Wright and Bradley Hope Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way - Will Kurt
andreilys 7y ago
Well here are the books I’m currently reading (physical, kindle, and audible). I bounce around a lot. Sometimes it takes me a week to finish a book, other times I take a few months. Sometimes I never finish. But these are the ones I have some progress on so far: 1. Faust by goethe 2. I am That 3. Book of why 4. The gift by hafiz 5. Simulacra and simulation 6. Candide by Voltaire 7. Meeting the shadow: the hidden power of the dark side of human nature 8. Nonviolent communication 9. After the ecstasy, the laundry 10. Watchmen 11. Noble heart by Pena chodron 12. Developer hegemony 13. Brothers karamazov
- deesep 7y ago
  I am That by Sri Nisargadatta is a great book.
  - andreilys 7y ago
    I read the intro and really liked it. Unfortunately it's been a month since I picked it up, got distracted by a few other books haha.
matt_the_bass 7y ago
Suggestion: Any fiction my Haruki Murakami.
jriot 7y ago
I've curated my 2020 list over the last few months, eventually splitting it in two; 2021 has been started, but below is my 2020 list. Brave New World Catcher in the Rye (3rd read) Tom Sawyer The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn War and Peace Catch-22 Stranger in a Strange Lan The Hobbit (3rd read) The Illiad The Odessey Walden Leisure, The Basis of Culture The Seven Storey Mountain Confessions The City of God Ways of Life St Augustine Catechism of the Catholic Church These Truths Battle Cry of Freedom The Complete Guide to Fly Fishing The Lure and Lore of Trout Fishing The Duck Huntingest Gentlemen
- nemo1618 7y ago
  Once you've finished Walden, don't miss the thrilling sequel, Walden II!
Delfino 7y ago
I read about 25 books this year, here are the top 10 I look forward to reading in 2020, many of them informed by my favorites of 2019: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari - I read Sapiens this year and really enjoyed it. I just started this today one so I may finish that before the end of the year. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - I like books that make me think and from what I've heard, this will definitely do the trick. I read Factfulness this year and this was a suggested follow-up. The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker - I've gotten really into natural languages since I've lived outside my country of origin for the last 2 and a half years and I've heard good things about this book being an entry point into linguistics. Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski - With the new Witcher show coming out on Netflix I finally went back and beat The Witcher 3 then read the first book, The Last Wish. It was enjoyable enough that I want to keep going with the series. Educated by Tara Westover - Was convinced by Bill Gate's blog this is worthwhile. I'm a teacher so it wasn't hard to convince me. Robot Builder's Bonanza by Gordon McComb - I've been asked to teach a robotics course next year and this one seems to be The Book everyone recommends to dive into robotics. Divided by Partition: United by Resilience by Mallika Ahluwalia - I recently visited the Partition Museum in Amritsar, Punjab, India and purchased this book there to learn about more stories about people impacted by this event. The Elements of Computing Systems by Noam Nisan and Shimon Shocken - I just read Code by Petzold and it was one of my favorite books. Even though I studied Computer Science in University and most of the concepts weren't new to me, it was such a fun experience mentally "building" a computer from relays/transistors to logic gates and up to assemblers, compilers, and interpreters. I want to keep going with this and jump into the Nand2Tetris online course. The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold - Again, I loved Petzold's Code so I looked up other books he wrote and this one looks great. I've never actually read Turing's work so I'm excited to have some background and explanation to help me not just read the words but grasp their significance. ZACH-LIKE by Zachtronics - I played through several Zachtronics games this year (TIS-100, Shenzhen I/O and Opus Magnum) so I can't wait to dive into some of the thinking behind creating these and similar games.
- sriacha 7y ago
  As a contrast to 'The Language Instinct' I would highly recommend 'Don't Sleep There are Snakes' by linguist Daniel Everett, which follows his time living with a remote tribe in the Amazon and learning their language. A very nice introduction of the idea of recursion in linguistics, and a rebuttal of the old dogma that there is in fact such a thing as a language instinct.
misiti3780 7y ago
Writing a Go Interpreter Writing a Go Compiler No One Cares about Crazy People I Heard You Paint Houses UNIX: A History and a Memoir Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine How Asia Works The Dream Machine Black Earth The Fabric of Reality Behave (tried twice, maybe third times a charm?) A Short History of Nearly Everything Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Genius: The Life and Science Richard Feynman Super Thinking Man's Search for Meaning The Cooking Gene The Vital Question: Why is Life The Way it Is (re-read) The Case Against Sugar The 15 Decisive Battles of the World The History of the Peloponnesian War The Beginning of Infinity The Book of Why
chirau 7y ago
Principles - Ray Dalio Jay Z: Made in America - Michael Eric Dysson The Design of Web APIs - Arnaud Lauret
mindcrime 7y ago
A lot of what I read in 2020 will involve just finishing titles I started in 2019 (or before). So my "To read in 2020" list already has a lot of stuff on it. But to name ones that I very specifically want to read/finish sooner than later... hmm... there are a number of books that fall more into the realms of history / anthropology / etc., that I have been meaning to read. Books like Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Sapiens - things of that nature. One of those that I'm already on, but probably won't finish before Jan 1, is Human Universals by Donald Brown. I also want to get through some books on writing/reading mathematical proofs. Mathematical Reasoning: Writing and Proof by Ted Sundstrom, or The Book of Proof by Richard Hammack. Another one I hope to get through is Designing Data-Intensive Applications.
baristaGeek 7y ago
-The Rational Optimist -Hacking Sales -The Singapore Story -Thinking fast and slow -The Mating Mind -Blitzscaling
dcchambers 7y ago
The Winds of Winter ...I hope!
- sriacha 7y ago
  We can dream.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
qpiox 7y ago
Asimov - whole Robots, Empire and Foundation series once again, now that I am older, and robots and psychohistory are slowly becoming a reality.
clavalle 7y ago
The Doors of Stone by Patrick Rothfuss. Fingers crossed.
shantly 7y ago
Hopefully I'll knock at least a couple off my "most shameful not to have read" list: - Paradise Lost - The Divine Comedy - The Aeneid - Moby Dick - Middlemarch - Othello & at least the lesser Henriad - Any of several Russian novels, of which I've read none (War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment probably being the biggest) - Kafka's The Trial - The Canterbury Tales (I've read Sir Gawain & The Green Knight but not this, WTF is wrong with me?) - Don Quixote
JonathanMerklin 7y ago
Great thread. 2019 was the first time in about 7-8 years I made reading for pleasure a tertiary priority ((school+career)work/sleep/exercise+socializing+(NEW!)reading) and I got through about 20 books of varying length and difficulty, so here are the next 20 in my queue: - Infinite Jest (already started, will likely finish in early Jan. I love it so far.) - Quantum Computing Since Democritus (started in November as my nonfiction read, but took a break; I think I want to finish IJ first. Scott is an excellent writer and I was really enjoying this) - Building Microservices - The Code Book - How Cars Work (I want to turn the projection of a car in my brain from a black box to a gray box this year, and I don't mean by purchasing a Cybertruck) - To Kill a Mockingbird - The Personal MBA (for years I laughed off caring about the business of business and lived in my fantasy land of being satisfied with just the technical details and being focused on only implementing great software/learning how to do so. With a few years in the workforce under my belt, I realize that such an outlook was of great detriment to me. I'm open to other suggestions on similar "catch me up to speed on general business education" material) - Designing Data-Intensive Applications - Island (I have a copy of this but not Brave New World. Multiple friends of mine demand I try Huxley, so here we are.) - The Annotated Turing - How to Invent Everything - Soonish (SMBC is a daily read for me and I'm excited to get to this.) - How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems (ditto XKCD modulo release schedule) - Basic Economics - Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Seveneves - The Prince - Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball - Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong - Fahrenheit 451 Additionally, to tickle the part of my brain that fancies mathematics (one of my my majors in undergrad), I try to work through a chapter or two of Evan Chen's "An Infinitely Long Napkin" on a quarterly basis. If you don't mind a conversational tone to your math textbooks, I've found this to be an excellent resource for scraping the surface of a wide variety of topics and fields (including, well, topics like fields). I think I'll continue this habit.
the_watcher 7y ago
A few PG Twitter recs: * My Family and Other Animals (started, already really enjoying it) * Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (started, enjoying it but moving slowly through it. It's very good, and the author is palpably excited about the subject, I just wouldn't call it a page turner)
Scarblac 7y ago
3 or 4 Discworld books, as in every year. Starting with Soul Music this time, in publication order. Designing Data Intensive Applications. Some books on leadership from the recent HN discussion, not decided which yet. Death's End (book 3 of The Three Body Problem). The first two were really good. The Algorithm Design Manual. Domain Driven Design. Some chess books. Some general science and history. The yearly random self help book. If I manage all that plus whatever I'll decide I want in the actual year, it will be a good year for reading, but maybe I need to have some more focus. We'll see.
LoveMortuus 7y ago
Book: How to Win Friends and Influence People Reason: To learn how to be a human. Or something like this, because apparently there's a thing called emotional intelligence, the Doctor says that I have a severe lack of it...
wishinghand 7y ago
I don’t have a list handy but I do intend to read a lot. Every year I make the same New Year’s Resolution: read one book a week. The closest I came to 52 was in 2011 when I read 36. I do this because I calculated that if I met my goal from the age of 16 to 90, I’d only read 3,900 books. I grew up an avid reader and the decline in my intake bums me out. So here’s to 52 in 2020!
ludwigvan 7y ago
The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
knzhou 7y ago
I try to only read books that are at least a few years old, so these aren’t timely recommendations. On the list for next year: The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language Essays of Montaign Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology The Enigma of Reason Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind Impro Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China Invisible Cities Collapse of Complex Societies -- Favorites from this year: Death's End One Man's Meat Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery Cosmicomics Why Quark Rhymes with Pork The Unfolding of Language A Sand County Almanac
GcVmvNhBsU 7y ago
The Body: A Guide for Occupants The Topeka School: A Novel The Yellow House Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures Mastery Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations Alone at Dawn: Medal of Honor Recipient John Chapman and the Untold Story of the World's Deadliest Special Operations Force Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
trenning 7y ago
I don't have a list because I usually look around on here for my next book to read. I see a lot of similar titles after reading through this thread. Some I've read, some I've started and got bored with and a lot I've never heard of. I just finished reading Siddartha, which is a really short book, but I'd like to read more that are similar to this, any suggestions? I see Designing Data-Intensive Applications quite a bit in this thread, might have a go at that one too. Currently I'm reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Standard_Oil_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Standard_Oi... which is fascinating!
- ralphosphorous 7y ago
  I'm a huge fan of Hermann Hesse. Beneath the Wheel is probably my favorite novel of his, although Steppenwolf & Demian are also fantastic. The Fairytales of Hermann Hesse re-read every couple years. I've also bought it probably 5 times now, each time lending (giving?) it out to a friend. His fairytales hit the same themes as his novels and often do so with a bit stronger punch and a fun sense of magic.
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Digg_mov 7y ago
No i don't have books sorry :(
DanielleMolloy 7y ago
I will try getting through Goodfellows ‚Deep Learning‘ book, the maths for ML book: https://mml-book.github.io/ https://mml-book.github.io/ and the classic ‚The Fractal Geometry of Nature‘. I’m also listening to various audiobooks, but these are much easier to get through in bulk than books I’ve actually got to sit down and read for like the above.
BooneJS 7y ago
This is going to be an expensive thread for me. Thank you for posting the Ask HN!
vo2maxer 7y ago
Some of the books in my 2020 to be read basket: Cultural Amnesia by Clive James Exhalation by Ted Chiang Silver, Sword & Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Maria Arana The World As I Found It by Bruce Duffy Alice And Bob Meet The Wall Of Fire edited by Thomas Lin Masscult and Midcult by Dwight Macdonald Big Bang by David Bowman White Noise by Don DeLillo The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann A House for Mr. Biwas by V. S. Naipaul A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace On The Abolition Of All Political Parties by Simone Weil Collected Stories by Bruno Schulz On Being The Right Size by J. B. S. Haldane Bela Tarr, The Time After by Jacques Ranciere La Vida Breve by Juan Carlos Onetti The Clown by Heinrich Boll Memoirs From Beyond The Grave by Francois-Rene De Chateubriand Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling Cuentos Completos by Juan Carlos Onetti Balcony In The Forest by Julien Gracq Historia De España Contada Para Escépticos by Juan Eslava Galán Diez Lecciones Sobre Los Clásicos by Piero Boitani Waiting For The Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee 97,196 Words by Emmanuel Carrere Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace El Zafarrancho Aquel De Via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda
haileris 7y ago
I feel like I'm way behind on fundamentals so mostly textbooks. I'm focused on CS, maths, and finance mainly, not sure I'll achieve this in a year, kind of my perpetual read this within 10 years list. I'm also interested in literature but prefer reading to enrich my knowledge and skills as opposed to reading for leisure : Maths: James Stewart's Precalculus Spivak's Calculus How to Solve It Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid I Am a Strange Loop Introduction to Linear Algebra Euclid's Elements The Principia: The Authoritative Translation and Guide: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy CS: The Algorithm Design Manual Finish SICP Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach Computer Systems: A Programmer's Persepctive C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition Operating Systems: 3 Easy pieces Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment Hacking: The Art of Exploitation The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools Lions' Commentary on Unix TCP/IP Illustrated Finance/Econ/Business: Liar's Poker Investor Z (Manga) Trading & Exchanges Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options Python for Finance: Mastering Data-Driven Finance Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on it Alpha Masters Fooling Some of the People All of Time Dark Pools When Genius Failed Advances in Financial Machine Learning Algorithmic Trading Other: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free productivity Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes Chaos: Making a New Science Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World Data and Reality: A Timeless Perspective on Perceiving and Managing Information in Our Imprecise World
- iamjk 7y ago
  > Computer Systems: A Programmer's Persepctive Can vouch for this one. Provides a great overview of systems through the lens of algorithms they are built on.
  - hackermailman 7y ago
    There's lectures online for it too: https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=%22b96d90ae-9871-4fae-91e2-b1627b43e25e%22&maxResults=50 https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.a...
sartethought 7y ago
Capital Volume I By Karl Marx
voisin 7y ago
Check out Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Worth a read.
x2f10 7y ago
I have made it a goal to read all of Cal Newport's books. This is a step in curbing my internet addiction and taking back as much attention span as I can.
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photon_lines 7y ago
- Princeton Companion to Mathematics - The Art and Craft of Problem Solving - Div, Grad, Curl and all that - Visual Complex Analysis - Ordinary Differential Equations - Mathematics and Its History - Geometry and the Imagination - Introduction to Electrodynamics - Penrose's Road to Reality
adhista 7y ago
The book I plan to read is Chanting Hare Krishna by AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
nestorherre 7y ago
AH! So many books to read.. I always get excited when I see these type of threads (because I can get new worthy books to add to my list), but on the other hand I get depressed that it is pretty damn hard to catch up with everything that I want to read. My list would be too long to post, but these are the ones next in line: - Meditations - Digital Minimalism - I Ching - Art of War - Tao Te King - Steppenwolf - Think and grow rich In general want to focus on books of: business, leadership, self development, productivity and spiritualism (mostly buddhism).
ismail 7y ago
Here is my list, which excludes fiction. Mostly philosophy. I prefer to read fewer books but more deeply. Currently reading: Republic - Plato Being and time - Heidegger On the list to begin reading: Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle Recursivity and contingency - Yuk Hui Wholeness and the implicate order or thought as a system - David Bohm Finite and infinite games - James P Carse Book lists: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=to-read https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=to-read https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=currently-reading https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=current... https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=read https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31590496?shelf=read
Fazel94 7y ago
"Thinking Fast, and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, I am in Chapter 12. "System Design Primer" https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer
sentientforest 7y ago
On my list to read in 2020: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information The Rust Programming Language Progressive Web Apps Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability Farming the Woods Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms Affinity Designer Workbook The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Walden A Guide for Desert and Dryland Restoration Ernest Hemingway On Writing The Two Hands of God (Alan Watts) The Anarchist's Design Book and/or With the Grain: A Craftsman's Guide to Wood Dune Some other fiction reading I'll decide on after I finish Dune Books/Authors I've read that I would recommend: Tao of Physics, Web of Life, Systems View of Life, etc. (Fritjof Capra) ^Capra's work has heavily influenced my worldview and ability to think in systems Designing Data Intensive Applications (just finishing this week) Permaculture One & Two, Gaia's Garden, Edible Forest Gardens I&II Black Swan, Antifragile, etc. (Nassim Taleb) Cloud Hidden: Whereabouts Unknown (Alan Watts, written late in life) Ishmael, Story of B, etc. (Daniel Quinn) You are Not a Gadget, Who Owns the Future, etc. (Jaron Lanier) Goethe's Italian Journey Vonnegut, Hemingway, Steinbeck The Wheel of Time
Ashleyvivian 7y ago
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Ashleyvivian 7y ago
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Simmo 7y ago
I would like to start with: High Output Management Grove, Andrew S. 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Covey, Stephen R Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship,(Robert C. Martin) Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design (Robert C. Martin Series) Building Evolutionary Architectures: Support Constant Change by Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons, Patrick Kua If you have read any of them and you would like to share your thoughts, I will be truly happy to listen!:) Happy reading
woldemariam 7y ago
-The Triumph of Injustice -Politics of Institutional Reform: Katrina, Education, and the Second Face of Power -The Economists' Hour -Insurance of Dummies -Architect of Prosperity: Sir John Cowperthwaite and the Making of Hong Kong
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beaconstudios 7y ago
Thanks for the suggestion - I'll add Plato's works to my list. I tried to get into Republic when I was a bit younger but couldn't digest it at the time, but I wasn't very familiar with philosophy (or reading dry books in general) at the time so it would be worth another go round. I'm roughly familiar with Camus' ideas as presented in the Myth of Sisyphus, and I like the idea that one can make the fight against suffering the source of meaning - it resonates with my understanding of the role of dukkha in the four noble truths in Buddhism. I personally use a mix of Zen Buddhism and stoicism, which seems very similar to you. The main mental models I use day-to-day are those derived from systems theory, and I believe that patterns of emergence and recursion described by systems theory are the underlying mechanism that brings about abstract properties. I believe I have a copy of "The Human Use of Human Beings" by Norbert Wiener on the way for Christmas, which is meant to be a great book on the topic of cybernetics which is essentially a sub-category of systems theory.
- 0kl 7y ago
  That does sound very similar. I know that in my interpretation Camus is one of the possible outcomes of Nietzsche's thoughts, and that his thoughts afford for many... I think that is something that resonated with me - that _my_ philosophy does not need to be yours, but that we can still find some common ground to survive with one another. Do you have good recommendations for Zen Buddhism and systems theories? I have touched on both, but never got deep enough to know what are the main works I should be working off of.
  - beaconstudios 7y ago
    > in my interpretation Camus is one of the possible outcomes of Nietzsche's thoughts, and that his thoughts afford for many Yeah that makes total sense. How do you respond to a meaningless universe? By imagining up our own meaning and putting value in that. > I think that is something that resonated with me - that _my_ philosophy does not need to be yours, but that we can still find some common ground to survive with one another. Yeah I totally agree, and I think we could benefit from more people who viewed our existence in that way. > Do you have good recommendations for Zen Buddhism and systems theories? Unfortunately I'm not generally that bookish - a lot of the knowledge I have on these subjects, I've picked up from thinking and practicing the ideas within, odd sources on the internet and in conversations rather than reading books. However, I can recommend Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen" and Donella Meadows' "Thinking in Systems", which I have read and both of which are fantastic. Unfortunately sometimes systems theorists get caught up in the fine grained details such as "stock and flow" and "causal loop" diagrams and specific types of loop structure, which happens in Donella Meadows' book - the wiki page for complex systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system) is a good entry point for the high level concerns in systems theory. [edit] I'm also told that Godel Escher Bach is an interesting book for approaching systems concepts like self-reference and emergence in a more esoteric, example-driven way.
  - ismail 7y ago
    Here is a list of systems thinking readings I posted before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19835208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19835208

yboris 7y ago

I find it so disappointing that people are reading Nietzsche ... why not read practical philosophy like Practical Ethics by Peter Singer? I strongly recommend any of Peter Singer's writings. https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Ethics-Peter-Singer/dp/0521707684 https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Ethics-Peter-Singer/dp/0521...

beaconstudios 7y ago
You're not helping your recommendation by starting it with a condemnation. What makes you think I want to read this book at all? Or that I'm reading Nietzsche for practical ethical advice? I have no idea who would do such a thing.
- yboris 7y ago
  Much of philosophy is concerned with "how are we to live"? I am consistently puzzled what people seek when they read Nietzsche, or what of value they take away from his writings.
  - beaconstudios 7y ago
    > Much of philosophy is concerned with "how are we to live"? And how does one decide that question? Presumably in response to a model of how the world is. > I am consistently puzzled what people seek when they read Nietzsche, or what of value they take away from his writings. I'm sorry that you aren't able to benefit from his writing.
    - yboris 7y ago
      I wonder if we both agree on our dislike of Ayn Rand. She presents a world view that is nicely convenient to people who don't want to care about others. Having a model of how the world is based on her writing would make one a callous person.
      - beaconstudios 7y ago
        That's a poor comparison - just because the universe is amoral, doesn't mean we have to be. There's two parallel paths that I see people confuse all the time, that of how the world is (truth) and how we should be (good). Nietzsche is interesting for talking about truth, not necessarily good. Practical philosophy is just telling you what is good, and so far I haven't seen a moral framework that is competent at that. Especially utilitarianism. Partly because I think the idea of a moral framework is reductionist, but this isn't the right place, nor perhaps you the right counterparty, for me to lay out my issues with reductionism. Tldr: yes I think Rand is a poor moral philosopher too.
        yboris 7y ago
        Thank you for engaging in this conversation and sharing your thoughts!

nireyal 7y ago

Have you read my book, Indistractable, @techstrategist? Would love to know what you think of it! I spent 5 years researching and writing a tech positive guide to the deeper psychology of distraction.

tren 7y ago
Hey Nir, I just finished your book (loaned from the library). I feel like it has a lot of good information, however the people who are most likely to benefit from it are least likely to read it, or read anything at all for that matter. I'd already implemented most of your recommendations before reading it, and this year I feel like I've finally balanced tech consumption so that it's at a healthy level. It's allowed me to read over 20 books, pursue my hobbies in more depth and spend more time with my kid. Things that worked for me: - no tech in the bedroom, I leave my phone in the living room every night. - start a morning routine without tech every day, I meditate, do stretches and a light work out. - i try to read as much as possible in hard copy from the library. 3 week loans push me to finish things. I look forward to getting a notification that one of my reserves has arrived. If the library doesn't have a book it will inter library loan or purchase it for me most of the time. - all phone alerts turned off except for text msg/calls - only use FB messenger light if I'm going to use FB at all - plenty of time to do nothing. I don't think the human machine is meant to be on all the time
- techstrategist 7y ago
  I agree with these, although I do still struggle implementing them.
- nireyal 7y ago
  I love that you’ve become Indistractable! Congrats!! What did you think about the section on “how to raise Indistractable kids”?
  - tren 7y ago
    I think it's good advice for a lot of people. You're a role model for them, if you're always checking your phone your distraction will rub off on them. I try to spend a couple of hours each day with my kid focusing 100% on what we're doing. I try to follow Derek Sivers advice as much as possible: https://sivers.org/pa https://sivers.org/pa
techstrategist 7y ago
I haven't, and can't say for certain whether or not I've come across it yet. Downloading the audiobook as I type this.
- nireyal 7y ago
  I hope you enjoy Indistractable! Please let me know what you think of it!