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Ask HN: What book are you reading?

13 points by Sealy ↗ HN
I recently discovered a book from Jessica Livingston, one of the Y Combinator founders. I'm finding it to be a great source inspiration (especially when I get frustrated with coding).

I thought I'd to share it with the hackers on here and also ask:

1. What books are you currently reading?

2. Which book has helped you the most?

Jessica's book is called "Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590597141

29 comments

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auslegung
Currently: 1. Javascript: The Good Parts 2. Eloquent Javascript 3. The New Testament and the People of God by NT Wright
Noel_V
The Great Gatsby
mindcrime
A woman next to me on the plane yesterday was reading that. I vaguely recall reading it (or at least being assigned to read it) in 11th grade, but I can't remember a damn thing about it now. Is it any good?
jeromesalimao
Yes.
mindcrime
Cool. Maybe I'll go back and re-read it. I'm pretty sure I actually did read it back then, but I'm drawing a blank on the story.

That reminds me, I started For Whom The Bell Tolls in 12th grade and never got around to finishing it. I guess I need to revisit that as well, at some point.

Sealy
I just saw the film this weekend and loved it. I'll be buying myself a copy of the book soon.
rbkillea
1. Axiomatic Set Theory by Suppes 2. Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick
emansim
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
pg
Cipolla's Before the Industrial Revolution (again).
Sealy
Hey Paul,

Do the lessons economic history that these books teach still have relevance today?

Technology (as a term to describe innovation) back then would have a very different meaning to technology today.

read
The specific instance of the technology might have changed but general phenomena surrounding people's perceptions of technology certainly haven't.
pg
See the last section of http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html.
Sealy
Thats an interesting read. Getting a technical developer to think as holistically as you laid out in that essay is a challenge. Its a challenge that I find very difficult, when I just want to dig into code, I have to continually tell myself to step back and see the bigger picture.
mindcrime
>> 1. What books are you currently reading?

Well, I'm one of those people who has a bookmark in about 15 different books that I'm "currently reading" but some are higher priorities than others, and some will never be finished (probably) and others I'll have to start over since I've forgotten what was happening when I sat it aside, etc. But offhand, I can think of:

Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore - re-reading this one

The Prime Solution - Jeff Thull - 3rd Jeff Thull book on selling that I've read lately, and I'll probably reread the entire series when I finish this one

The New Solution Selling - re-reading this - can you tell I'm starting to try and move into sales?

Selling to VITO - more sales stuff.

How to Create A Mind - Ray Kurzweil

Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter - set this aside over a year ago; about halfway through, will probably finish it, but FSM only knows when

A New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram (see above about GEB)

Madame Bovary - Meh. May finish one day, may not. Would have to start it over at this point.

REAMDE - Neal Stephenson - set this aside a while back, but intend to finish it eventually. Will probably restart from the beginning.

The Four Steps To The Epiphany - Stephen Gary Blank - I'm kinda in a perpetual state of reading and re-reading sections of this book.

The Dispossessed - Ursula K. LeGuin - sat this aside quite some time ago, will have to start over at some point.

The Man In The Moss - Phil Rickman - another one that I sat aside for a while, and may or may not ever bother finishing. Weird, because I usually really enjoy Rickman's work and just tear through his books, but I got stalled out on this one for some reason.

>> 2. Which book has helped you the most?

The Four Steps To The Epiphany - Stephen Gary Blank.

Also, The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki and Crossing the Chasm by Moore.

Of all these sales books I've read lately, I'm really starting to buy into this "Diagnostic Selling" stuff by Jeff Thull, so I'd endorse Mastering The Complex Sale, Exceptional Selling and The Prime Solution by Thull. Also, The New Solution Selling.

decasteve
I'm on this Buckminster Fuller: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Bibliography kick lately. Reading everything of his that I can get my hands on. Pretty insightful and prescient stuff considering he died 30 years ago.

His insights from the 1930-70s seem to apply more to the world we live in today than the way things were in his time.

mkhDev
I'm currently reading these books:

1. Journey through Genius

2. Principles of Uncertainty by Kadane

3. The Golden Ticketprint

garduque
Finished James Altucher's Choose Yourself over the weekend.

Currently working on The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

cosmc
Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
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jlengrand
Currently, the old testament.

I am not church-goer or anything, and still I find it quite impressive the amount of surprising stuff (good and bad) you can find in there. It's actually as cool as the Iliad, and you may even find some good advice in there :).

Hey, who said everything had to be around software/startups.

gadders
I've read some Plutarch, Seutonius, Tacitus (in translation) and always wondered how the Old Testament measured up as a work of ancient literature.
jlengrand
I read lots of old greak and roman records too (among others, Sun Tzu was chinese :)). I am amazed every night how much the old testament can be different from what I was taught back in school.

Like the "eye for an eye" saying for example. Never taught it would be cited in the book.

mehmehshoe
Taking a break from tech books and stumbled across...

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It.

nekopa
Hacking - The next generation. I'm in the middle of developing my first web app, so I'm desperately trying to get up to speed with security. I find that there is a lot of 'I don't know what I don't know' for me with regards to security and crypto, so I'm using this book as a springboard to get a feel for the different areas of security I will need to dive into to make some informed decisions about the tech I use. (I already know not to roll my own security, but I am sick of making cargo cult decisions re sec, so I am trying to get a good foundation set up, any recommendations will be appreciated, I may even do a ask HN post about it)
alexrson
Code Complete second edition
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Sealy
Other books that I've found helpful are the many socioeconomics books out there:

Malcolm Gladwell - Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers Tim Harford - The Undercover Economist Nassim Taleb - The Black Swan

I enjoyed the Steve Jobs book too, I liked the fact that he believed in what he was working on (no matter how crazy or disruptive) and saw so much beauty in perfection. There's a lot we can learn from his persistence and attitude towards persevering in the face of failure.

And for entertainment, I like profound books: The Alchemist, The Little Prince

dome82
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie