[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
I'm into non-fiction books. Any field will do as long as it's
interesting. I'm definitely trying to get into something new.
Author : snjy7
Score : 16 points
Date : 2022-01-05 20:52 UTC (2 hours ago)
| splittingTimes wrote:
| At that age I can only recommend to you to read fiction as well.
| Classic literature and philosophy will enrich your mind.
|
| Instead of tech/science books, let me throw something else at
| you:
|
| Jacque Fresco "The Best That Money Can't Buy" [1].
|
| Robert Steele "Open-Source Everything Manifesto" [2]. Do not be
| mislead by the title. Open-source here is all-encompassing,
| software is only a tiny fraction of the spectrum.
|
| David Graeber "Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology" [3]
|
| ===
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.de/Best-That-Money-Cant-Buy-
| ebook/dp/B077...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Robert-David-Steele/dp/1583944435
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.de/-/en/David-Graeber-ebook/dp/B00MAPBIYA
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| Buy "Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari.
| mmerlin wrote:
| David Allen - Getting things done
|
| Steven Pressfield - The War of Art + Turning Pro
|
| Tony Robbins - Awaken the giant within (maybe he's released a
| better book than that now, but it was impactful personally back
| in the 90s)
| azalemeth wrote:
| When I was 18, I read Godel Escher Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid
| on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carol, by Douglas R
| Hofstader. It's a book that won a pullitzer prize in the 1970s
| and is about maths and formal logic, but really gives you a
| flavour of how consciousness might come about.
| conformist wrote:
| Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is always worth
| having a look at. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I greatly
| enjoyed it at around that age.
|
| Ed Thorp's autobiography "A man for all markets" is fun, in
| particular if you're interested in maths, gambling or finance.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| I found Capital in the 21st Century to be very readable and an
| interesting perspective.
| thehappypm wrote:
| My favorite book is "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Jurassic Park if you haven't yet.
| quietthrow wrote:
| Man's search for meaning - Viktor Frankl
|
| It will change your life, dare I say.
| lunatuna wrote:
| I second this. Buy several copies and give them to your friends
| and strangers on the bus that see you reading it ;)
| momofuku wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I'll get downvoted, but Ashlee Vance's book on
| Elon Musk. Hear me out. I'm not recommending it for Elon's story
| but more to understand how to build companies, understand complex
| problems, look for great talent and how to build better systems
| by looking at things from a slightly different perspective. I
| read it when I was 18 as well and I learnt that Tesla wasn't
| actually (not entirely) Elon's acheivement. It was actually JB
| Straubel's passion project. As an engineer, I deeply admire JB
| and the things he has acheived (by being at the helm of Tesla),
| and what he will acheive through Redwood Materials, his new
| recycled batteries project. If his resillence and stint at
| Tesla/Stanford etc are any indication, we can soon expect some
| revolutionary things from him (once again).
|
| It also showed me how SpaceX was born when Elon and his team
| crunched some numbers on a trip back from Russia, only to realize
| that it would be cheaper to build their own rockets rather than
| rent Russia's.
|
| That book is filled with stories about complex systems that
| humans broke down into simpler problems and hacked them together
| into monolith companies. Contrary to popular beliefs (mostly held
| by people who haven't read the book), its not entirely about
| Elon.
|
| My two cents.
| TheMerovingian wrote:
| My recommendation: A Brief History of Progress by Ronald Wright.
| My Wife's recommendation: Your Money or Your Life.
| Const-me wrote:
| Last non-fiction book I read was "A Plague Upon Our House" by dr.
| Scott Atlas. Good one, can recommend, but it might be too
| depressing for a birthday, it's about COVID and modern politics.
|
| Another good non-fiction one is "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir
| of My Years of Lockheed" by Leo Janos, about cold war and
| aviation technology. This one is fine for a birthday, assuming
| you generally like these topics.
| cpach wrote:
| _The Selfish Gene_ by Richard Dawkins is great.
|
| Or something by Jared Diamond, e.g. _The Third Chimpanzee_.
| akeck wrote:
| If you're into Permaculture and Solarpunk, "Dirt to Soil" by Gabe
| Brown
| splittingTimes wrote:
| Soudns good. What fiction can you recommend for Solarpunk?
| wchandler wrote:
| Read the Christian Bible. Even if you are not religious its
| worthwhile to read it from cover to cover.
| oversocialized wrote:
| I like the Jefferson Bible. Has Jesus teachings pieced together
| without all the supernatural.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Autobiography of Malcolm X. Read it when I was 18 and it was
| awakening. I've re-read it every few years since then.
| [deleted]
| camjw wrote:
| The Player of Games by Iain M Banks.
| djohnston wrote:
| Psychology of Money is a light read that might give you some
| foundation for finances as you enter adulthood.
|
| China: A History by Keay is a pretty great overview of the last
| 5000 years of Chinese history. This was recommended to me on this
| very site!
| avgDev wrote:
| I'm huge on investing. I believe building wealth is extremely
| important and 18 is a great time to start.
|
| Therefore, I would recommend "The simple path to wealth" and "The
| little book of common sense investing".
| contingencies wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_Ch...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP_Illustrated#Volume_1:_T...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-05 23:01 UTC)