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Ask YC: Good books to take on a week away?

10 points by sadiq ↗ HN
I'm heading off on holiday in a fortnight, for a week break. I've decided to leave my laptop behind, to avoid the week long hotel hacking session, that was last year's 'holiday'.

Since this year i'm going to force myself to relax by the pool with a book or two, I was wondering what things people would recommend?

I'd prefer things not directly technical (since I tend to read many of them while working) though not necessarily fiction.

Thanks!

38 comments

[ 0.14 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] thread
rsa
Fountain head by Ayn Rand.
bigtoga
egads - he didn't say he wanted to be bored and made to feel like *&$% ;)
rw
If only to have a ritual burning of the book ceremony...
LPTS
Cryptonomicon is great if you haven't read it. I think it's a canonical piece of scifi. It's two generations of nerds from a family. One is a WW2 codebreaker, and his grandson is a startup tech guy. The book tells the story by switching between 1940s and 1990s. Lots of historical people, alternate timeline stuff. Lots of interesting ideas about economics and information. A great read.
knv
+1 or Cryptonomicon. Although I don't call it SciFi. Nerd Fiction?!
Shadow84
One could ad Neal Stephenson books in general. Especially Snow Crash. Jointly, with Cryptonomicon, one of the best books I've ever read! In Snow Crash, the author envisioned stuf like Google Earth or Second Life, only in a much more advanced way. The book was written in 1992 :-)
lbrandy
> I'd prefer things not directly technical though not necessarily fiction.

Sounds exactly like me. I strongly suggest:

1. The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins)

2. The Demon-Haunted World (Carl Sagan)

...or if you need a little inspiration...

3. Founders at Work

ca98am79
I'm on a week vacation right now and brought along Founders at Work - it is great.
rokhayakebe
Take "no books". Use this time to physically get in touch with the rest of the world. Spend time with you, then with total strangers. Now if you are an introvert like me, this will look scary, but I think it will do you more good then reading. Enjoy your vacation.
JacobAldridge
Mister God, This is Anna

A short book that shows the awesome power in looking at things in a new light (in this case, through the eyes of a child). Not directly religious as the title may seem. Warning: I can't get to the end of Page 1 without crying.

soundsop
Siddartha by Herman Hesse. It's a short read but very interesting.
knv
Or maybe Steppenwolf by the same author.
ovi256
I can also recommend Magister Ludi, or The Glass Bead Game. Wonderful book.
jsomers
Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. Quick read, very elegantly written.

Nearly everyone that I know who has read it puts it at the top of their list.

ola
Crash by JG Ballard
jordyhoyt
Anything by Vonnegut that you haven't read. Almost all of his books would be readable in a week or so. ("Player Piano" may be most appropriate to suggest given the nature of this site.)
robg
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

- I'm finishing it this weekend and it's a good fun read with lots to like: portrayal of early comics' culture, history, and impact, working long hours to produce a passionate product, leveraging your best qualities, and finding meaning when it appears bleak.

justindz
Haruki Murakami. Sputnik Sweetheart, Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore. After the Quake, if you like short stories. Great stuff.

If you want something lighter, try Banana Yoshimoto. If you want something with more sex and gruesome murders, try Ryu Murakami.

Tichy
I'd recommend to start with Norwegian Wood for Murakami. Didn't like Sputnik Sweetheart at all, and many of his other books tend to be too esoterical for my taste. But NW was esoterics-free, if I remember correctly.
justindz
You do. I'm a fan of magical realism, so the esoteric content doesn't bother me but I totally get your ranking on that point. Norwegian Wood is all psychology and no parapsychology. If I remember correctly, South of the Border, West of the Sun is similar in that regard.
brlewis
Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
tomjen
Second. This is a great book.
xirium
> This is a great book.

Which version did you read? Dale Carnegie's estate has published a slightly different version almost every year since Carnegie's death.

The version I read mentioned Stevie Wonder. I was thinking 'WTF? I thought that Stevie Wonder became famous after Dale Carnegie died.' Indeed, I was right. Anyhow, for this reason, I recommend the earliest edition you can obtain so that it is closer to Carnegie's intentions.

signa11
programming the universe, seth lloyd is very nice.
pfedor
Anything by Greg Egan. It is a science fiction author who actually has a very good understanding of science (he's published articles in a scientific journal about quantum gravity) and makes non-trivial use of it in his plots. Plus, he's a computer programmer and you can go to his website and see a collection of applets, some of them illustrating the concepts from his novels and short stories. On top of that, he is good with all the soft stuff, like character development and psychology etc., that is essential for great fiction but that some science-intensive science fiction is very much lacking.

There are other very good nerd literature authors out there, like Vernor Vinge and Neal Stephenson, but to me none of them was as big a revelation as Greg Egan.

If you don't mind something non-mainstream and a bit dated, but first-class literature nonetheless, you can try Stanislaw Lem. It's a Polish author but most of his work has been translated to English. I consider him one of the best science fiction authors ever. "The Star Diaries" is light and funny, a perfect pool side reading.

scorpioxy
Well, for non-technical books; I have enjoyed the following in no particular order: - Founders At Work - Eric Sink on the Business of Software - The Great War for Civilization - Pity the Nation - On Intelligence - The State of Africa - Long Walk to Freedom ....etc
timcederman
Things The Grandchildren Should Know - Mark Oliver Everett (as in son of Hugh Everett, many-worlds theorem physicist)
eznet
I know what book I am taking for my week away next week: The Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide - 5 complete novels and 1 story. This is an awesome group of stories that are really fun to read. If you haven't read them at least once or have only read the guide to the galaxy, you should definitely check it out.
avinashv
GEB? Might take you more than a week, but it's great reading.