[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your f...
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Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?
If you were to choose one book (or maybe more than one :P) to lure
a curious person to your field of study, which will you choose?
For example: How to Design Programs for Computer Science. Note: It
has to be inviting for someone that knows nothing about the field
but becomes hooked after reading it. Not some epitome which is
revered by experts only.
Author : debanjan16
Score : 199 points
Date : 2022-03-27 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
| biztos wrote:
| _Ways of Curating_ by Hans Ulrich Obrist should do the trick for
| anyone considering contemporary art in galleries, museums, etc,
| and it's also a great read for artists and collectors.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20613616-ways-of-curatin...
|
| For me personally this helped a lot with the decision to create
| an international art center (small, and still under
| construction!) instead of just pounding my artist head against
| the wall of the market forever.
|
| But generally speaking, it's an eye opener and a great
| illustration of how to generate influence from enthusiasm. It's
| probably hard to read if you aren't already familiar with
| European contemporary art, but it rewards patience.
| Errancer wrote:
| I would go with "Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of
| Mathematical" by Lakatos, its a dialog-form history of defining
| Euler's formula and it shows the human side of mathematics as a
| science. I think its great as math has this unique status as
| providing with undoubtable knowledge but history shows that human
| error is possible even in this field.
|
| Alternately "The Unreality of Time" by McTaggart, it has less
| than 20 pages and argues that time doesn't exist since it is
| logically incoherent.
|
| Not sure if this would get someone hooked up but for me those two
| were extremely fun reads.
|
| EDIT: Just to be clear - both are meant as philosophy books, even
| if they touch on other things. :)
| gaba wrote:
| Not my field of study but the book but I got really engaged with
| this book on architecture (houses) patterns
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TXSR1O/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Stalking the Wild Asparagus - Eueull Gibbons.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| I am not a cryptographer but I do work in security and The Code
| Book by Simon Singh is an excellent history of the history of
| cryptography/cryptanalysis presented as periods through history
| where the pendulum swung between giving the edge to the code
| makers or breakers. The code makers have been ahead since about
| the 1970s.
| mimimi31 wrote:
| I picked that one up because of a similar recommendation, but
| didn't finish it. I think I was expecting an extensive
| collection of different ciphers throughout history with some
| short historical anectodes to go along with them. But it's
| really more about a few selected historical applications of
| encryption with a heavy focus on their historical context.
| misterpurple45 wrote:
| > The code makers have been ahead since about the 1970s.
|
| Or so the code breakers would have us believe...
| seanw444 wrote:
| Been on a cryptography kick lately, so I went to the city
| library a couple days ago to find what they had, and I came out
| with this book.
|
| So far, I've gotta give the +1 on this one.
| werber wrote:
| Eloquent JS, for coding, On Photography by Sontag for
| Photography, Anything James Baldwin for literature, Anything
| Angela Davis or Emma Goldman for political theory, A blank
| (perhaps square lined, Rhodia brand) notebook and a pack of
| Stabillo pens for creativity.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic" for mental health /
| clinical psychology / psychiatry.
| barkingcat wrote:
| Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine for computer engineering.
| CyanBird wrote:
| Kicking away the ladder by Ha-Joon Chang
|
| Industrial development and political economy, it really is a must
| read for anyone even mildly interested on the field, then you
| could go to Joan Robinson's criticism of Ricardian economics, but
| these are slightly more in depth topics
| KarlKemp wrote:
| "The Molecular Biology of the Cell", an actual textbook. It's
| like the owners' manual for your cells.
| vibrio wrote:
| This had great impact on me...and the quick read of Ptashne's
| "a genetic switch" really pulled me into molecular biology.
| They helped me start to conceptualize how a group of inanimate
| objects (eg proteins, lipids, nucleic acid) can collectively be
| "alive", including reproduce, and "make decisions".
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| If we are recommending actual life sciences textbooks or
| literature, I would recommend the Hallmarks of Cancer, which is
| actually a review article. Simply reading that alone will give
| someone a strong basic understanding for how cancerous tissue
| actually develops and evolves capabilities until it becomes
| deadly.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| As a volcanologist, I feel everyone should read "No Apparent
| Danger" . It's quite a critical account of the profession, so it
| might not "lure" you, but it's what you need to read if you are
| interested. Accessible and full of true drama and tragedies you
| probably didn't know about.
|
| Original poster: Did you mean "tome" when you said "epitome"?
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| [deleted]
| oyebenny wrote:
| POC || GTFO
| rsfern wrote:
| Materials Science: Stuff Matters, Mark Miodownik
|
| https://archive.org/details/StuffMatters
|
| Very accessible and fun to read, and the book is structured
| around introducing a lot of fundamental materials science
| concepts in the context of everyday objects (silverware,
| chocolate, etc)
| zabzonk wrote:
| Not entirely sure what you are asking here, but:
|
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/Threaded-Interpretive-Languages-R-G...
|
| It's quite easy to get into and you can expand it and have all
| sorts of fun with it. Certainly not a revered epitome.
| ecesena wrote:
| The code book, by Simon Singh.
|
| History of cryptography, really fascinating.
| I_complete_me wrote:
| Finally, a question on HN I am "qualified" to answer. During my
| university education I came across Structures[1] by J.E. Gordon
| who, unlike me, was an aeronautical engineer but his take on
| structures really made so much sense to me, as a student of
| engineering, in a way that the fustian delivery of the professors
| at college did not. Some books stay with you for life - this one
| did for me.
|
| [1] Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down by J.E. Gordon.
| Goodreads link:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245344.Structures
| karaterobot wrote:
| I can confirm that this book made me interested in "real"
| engineering (as in, engineering physical things in the real
| world rather than abstract symbols) when I read it. A bit too
| late for a career change, but I have talked to a few other
| people who hold this in high esteem as well. Good
| recommendation!
| m_a_g wrote:
| What makes you think those "abstract symbols" are not real?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Surely the fact that he put "real" in quote marks is
| sufficient to not have this tiresome argument.
| braingenious wrote:
| Probably the word "abstract"
| e2e4 wrote:
| Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Michael Sipser
| pxska wrote:
| A very tough question. I feel that it might be quite hard to lure
| a curious person into Computer Science, who doesn't know anything
| about the field yet.
|
| One of the books I liked (since I actually studied Linguistics in
| my Bachelor's) and what drew me towards CS was "Code: The Hidden
| Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Another one like code but even more gentle is Understanding the
| Digital World by Brian Kernighan
| triyambakam wrote:
| What about a book for Linguistics? I also studied Linguistics
| and now while I still find the knowledge useful (getting to
| describe to my son a voiced vs unvoiced plosive) I am not as
| interested in it anymore.
| stuxnet79 wrote:
| Very interested in this. I'm currently learning a second
| language and my programmer brain keeps getting side tracked
| by _human language as an abstraction_ in and of itself. I'd
| be very interested in a basic intro to linguistics book that
| starts from first principles and goes through what grammar
| fundamentally is, syntax, morphology, etc.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| "don't sleep there are snakes" - half an adventure book, half
| linguistic analysis and explanation of a fairly unique
| language.
| muh_gradle wrote:
| Code by Petzold is 100% my choice as well. It is an incredibly
| good book to describe not just code but computing and
| ultimately computing machines. I would give my 18 year old self
| Code and it would've done a very good job of piecing all the
| college courses that I would end up taking.
| worldmerge wrote:
| I think maybe some of the history books could do it for cs.
| Like I'm very early into the book Crypto Anarchy, Cyber States
| and Pirate Utopias (2002 MIT PRESS), and it's kinda
| interesting. I'm not sure how the later parts are but chapter 1
| is interesting. It definitely has an audience in mind but I
| think it could be an interesting book for someone outside of
| CS.
| pjbeam wrote:
| It stays interesting, or at least it did for me. A lot of the
| thoughts in there capture the spirit of reflection during a
| long since ended period of the Internet but there are some
| timeless ideas as well. Enjoy!
| inamiyar wrote:
| This book was absolutely revolutionary for me
| jll29 wrote:
| Mathematics:
|
| Burns, Marilyn (1975) I hate Mathematics Book, Little, Brown
| Books for Young Readers. https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-
| Brown-Paper-School-Books/...
|
| Mathematics, philosophy, music, molecular biology/biochemistry,
| computer science, visual art, poetry, cognitive science:
|
| Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979) Godel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal
| Golden Braid. New York, NY: Basic Books. ("GEB")
|
| Computer Science:
|
| Abelson, Harold and Gerald Jay Sussmann (1984) Structure and
| Interpretation of Computer Programs. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
| ("SICP")
|
| Stoll, Clifford (1989) The Cuckoo's Egg. New York, NY: Doubleday.
|
| Linguistics:
|
| McCrum, Robert, Robert MacNeil, William Cran (1986). The Story of
| English. New York, NY: Viking.
| https://archive.org/details/storyofenglish000mccr
|
| Accounting: n/a
| ipnon wrote:
| PiHKAL by Alexander and Ann Shulgin is on its face a book about
| love and chemistry. Taken together it becomes more of a treatise
| on how psychopharmacology is a method of personal and
| sociological analysis. Drug use becomes a psychological tool to
| manifest the phenomena of the mind that are normally hidden, and
| novel synthesis becomes a tool to then access the areas of the
| mind unexplored throughout history. Aside of all this, the
| Shulgin's story is one of absolute dedication to science in the
| face of its many impediments: internal psychology, interpersonal
| relations, social stigma, technical innovation, and authoritarian
| censorship.
| hencq wrote:
| For Industrial Engineering or Operations Research, I'd say The
| Goal by Goldratt. An easy to read novel that leaves you looking
| at things differently.
| unoti wrote:
| "Deep Learning for Coders" (aka Fastai)
| https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/deep-learning-for/97814...
|
| This book will take you from knowing nothing other than high
| school algenbra to knowing both practical applications and
| theoretical foundations and best practices for AI. If you're
| interested in AI and machine learning, you need this book.
| destroyerofsoul wrote:
| True!!. Also with video tutorials are great source for
| learning. I like the way Jeremy explains every concepts in
| simple english.
| aerovistae wrote:
| It's not my field, but feels like an appropriate answer.
|
| After the recent death of the myrmecologist EO Wilson, I decided
| to order a couple of his books and have spent the last few nights
| reading "Journey to the ants". It has been completely
| fascinating, I can't put it down.
| openfuture wrote:
| I feel the question highlights how stupid it is to limit yourself
| to a single field of study.
| kulikalov wrote:
| "Our mathematical universe" by Max Tegmark.
|
| I'm not a physicist, but this book took me very close to
| abandoning my CS career and getting into theoretical physics.
| congoe wrote:
| Lifespan by David Sinclair would be my recommendation if you want
| to energise someone for molecular biology/ biotech
| folli wrote:
| For me it was Dawkins' "the selfish gene" that drove me to
| biology. It's quite eye-opening how the simple rules of
| evolution result in this enormous diversity and complexity we
| see in nature.
| mkaic wrote:
| _Rebel Without a Crew_ by Robert Rodriguez. I 'm a filmmaker and
| that book glorifies guerrilla filmmaking like no other. Really
| fun book by the guy who unfortunately didn't go on to make very
| many critical successes but _did_ create the masterpiece of
| cinema that is Sharkboy and Lavagirl
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I think Masters of Doom is a great book for getting people
| interested in either software development in general, or game
| development. Alternatively, some of the horror stories may
| actually turn them away. But every time I read it, I get excited
| about writing code again.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Agreed, re: _Masters of Doom_. Given the inherent interest of
| the subject matter to its likely audience, that book was much
| better than it had to be.
|
| Same is true for Steven Levy's _Hackers._
| anderspitman wrote:
| I've read a lot of books and it definitely stands out. It's so
| inspiring as a programmer.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The Feynman Lectures.
| porknubbins wrote:
| Code by Charles Petzold then doing Nand to Tetris has given me an
| abiding (though amateur) fascination with computer architecture,
| which lead to building a 6502 machine and reading about lots of
| other architectures.
| bennysomething wrote:
| I went through the nand book too,it's amazing. What do you mean
| exactly by building a 6502 machine? In real hardware? You
| bought a 6502 and created a whole computer from other bits?
| redwoolf wrote:
| I came here to mention this book. I think it's a great
| introduction to how computers work and well written.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| If you're looking into user experience/usability, then:
|
| "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug
|
| "Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman
| 2bitlobster wrote:
| Don't Make Me Think, by Steve Krug. I used it for years as a
| required text in pretty much every UX related class I taught.
| Entertaining, super digestable and very nutritious.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I expected to see this one or "The Design of Everyday Things"
| by Don Norman. I don't know a designer who hasn't read one or
| both.
| wannabebarista wrote:
| For logic: Language, Truth and Logic by AJ Ayer. It is an account
| that tried to introduce logical positivism to the English
| speaking world after the author visited Vienna in the 1930s.
| While logical positivism didn't pan out, the book is full of the
| excitement of resolving multiple perennial philosophical problems
| all at once. The author's enthusiasm is infectious.
| zeta0134 wrote:
| My "field of study" is more like a hobby, but the definitive book
| is "Racing the Beam" by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort. If you're
| at all interested in retro game consoles and especially the
| clever tricks old programmers used to push these systems to their
| limits, it's an incredibly fun dive.
| ericd wrote:
| (Racing the Beam) :-) and agreed, amazing book.
| dgeiser13 wrote:
| I want to Race the Bean
| zoover2020 wrote:
| ;-)
| adyer07 wrote:
| "The Art of Responsive Drawing" by Nathan Goldstein.
|
| It's an in depth analysis of the elements of drawing and, more
| importantly, what those elements actually _do_. It really
| celebrates the expressive and creative aspects of drawing, in a
| way that 's both beautiful to look at, and accessible to read.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Ones I would suggest as gateway drugs would be:
|
| The Code Book, by Simon Singh is a very accessible history of
| cryptography and its role in historical events.
|
| The Nazi Census, by Aly, Roth and Black, is an important survey
| of how data collection methods get used for bad things, and I
| recommend it to anyone doing large scale systems architecture, or
| working in privacy.
|
| The Mathematical Theory of Communication, by Claude Shannon is
| beautiful, and gives you an intuition for concepts like bandwith,
| signal, message entropy, finite fields, among others.
|
| Power, by Jeffery Pfeffer, when combined with the Dictator's
| Handbook by Smith and DeMesquita forms the foundation for any
| serious management and strategy consulting.
|
| GEB, by Hofstader was a way to have an intuitive frame of
| reference about cognitive science and theories of mind, which I
| think are going to be the next great cultural battle ground, and
| also relevant in the context of machine learning, and consulting.
|
| My field? Security, privacy, and risk management.
| Tomte wrote:
| It is off-topic, insofar as it's not my field, but let me answer
| a dual question:
|
| The Vital Question by Nick Lane made me think that were I to
| start over, be young and finish school, I'd study biology and
| biochemistry.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| If you haven't read it yet, pick up "Sex, Power Suicide" as
| well. Very dense reading but I learned something new or
| understood something I knew better from basically every page I
| read.
| alexashka wrote:
| I think there ought to be a book that explains how the modern
| world works at large, that'd include many many fields of study
| and explain how they all work together.
|
| I'm not aware of anything of the sort. If anyone else knows, let
| me know :)
| talliedthoughts wrote:
| Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but I found this
| entertaining:
|
| How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded
| Time Traveler:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39026990-how-to-invent-e...
|
| It's written in a comedic style, and takes you through what you
| would need to build to "reimplement modern civilization" if you
| found yourself stuck back in time.
| going_ham wrote:
| The entire ray tracing in one weekend[1] series is really good
| book for getting into computer graphics. It covers a simple
| implementation of path tracer and getting the image is really
| satisfying! Modern hardware and light simulation makes art fun!
|
| [1]: https://raytracing.github.io/
| amateurlogician wrote:
| Girard's rhetoric never fails to keep me hooked. I treasure any
| number of works of Girard, whether his introductions to Type
| Theory and his Linear Logic or notes on his quest for
| Transcendental Logic. Clear prose of exposition, to the point and
| clearly motivated, intermingled with literary allusions in
| critique of philosophers' ideas of truth, the work of Girard is
| truly a gem.
|
| Particularly entertaining is his 'A pure waste of paper'
| (Appendix A of 'LOCUS SOLUM')
| (https://girard.perso.math.cnrs.fr/0.pdf). I could flip to a
| random page of his 'appendix' and just sink in.
|
| A fine introductory work of his to the subject would be 'PROOFS
| AND TYPES' (https://people.mpi-
| sws.org/~dreyer/ats/papers/girard.pdf).
| imranq wrote:
| "Fermat's Enigma" for Mathematics
|
| "The Pleasure of Findings Things Out" for science
|
| "How To Draw: Drawing And Sketching Objects And Environments From
| Your Imagination" for concept art / industrial design
| mk416 wrote:
| "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini
| (1984) "How to Make Friends and Influence People" by Dale
| Carnegie (1936)
|
| Two great books that could lure a curious mind into sales.
| However, I recommend both to everyone.
| cl42 wrote:
| "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott
|
| I started my career in international development, and the book
| above provides a dozen case studies on states using scientific
| management, stats, etc. to try and control their
| growth/populations/economies and failing miserably.
|
| It is a beautiful book in that it illustrates how difficult it is
| to actually manage a country and economy well, especially if you
| are trying to completely change it (i.e., "develop" it, solve
| poverty, etc.). It humbled me as a 22 year old "professional"
| wanting to fix the world.
|
| "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs is a
| close second to this theme of economic, technocratic development.
|
| EDIT: I notice 22 upvotes. WOW! If you are a fan of this book or
| curious to hear more, please comment. Happy to elaborate. If you
| want a third book, The Evolution of Civilizations[1] is another
| fun one here. It tries to apply scientific principles and
| hypothesis testing to historical analysis!
|
| [1] https://10millionsteps.com/review-evolution-of-civilizations
| cloudier wrote:
| "Seeing like a state" taught me what high modernism is and it's
| pitfalls (since I - and I imagine many readers of HN - are
| already familiar with its strengths and achievements e.g.
| modern medicine).
|
| Poor Economics is a book in a similar vein that talks about how
| policies that sound like they would be effective can backfire.
|
| (I am a software engineer and found both of these books
| approachable and interesting.)
| H8crilA wrote:
| One thing I've observed is population growth control - be it
| reducing the growth or encouraging growth - always fails
| miserably. For example many people have heard of the one child
| policy in China, but the facts are that both the introduction
| and the removal of the policy had no perceptible effect on
| fertility rates.
| nxmnxm99 wrote:
| This is definitely not true. There was a decade of population
| growth control mechanisms in the decade before the official,
| universal one child policy. Over that decade (the 70s) China
| experienced an incredibly sharp reduction in fertility.
|
| It's likely that increasing socioeconomic wealth would have
| naturally followed that trajectory, but it's unarguable that
| Chinas fertility policies accelerated the drop.
| H8crilA wrote:
| I mean, I still don't see anything out of trend here
| between the 60s and the 70s:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-
| child_policy#/media/File:B...
| JuettnerDistrib wrote:
| It's pretty obvious if you ignore the great leap
| backwards... I mean forward, coming down from ~40
| births/1000 in the 1950s and 1960s to ~20 in the late 70s
| and after.
| H8crilA wrote:
| You mean to ignore the dip during the leap, ignore the
| spike in the 1960 (assuming this is the recovery from the
| leap), so that we would have ~flat line up to year 1970?
| coder-3 wrote:
| Interesting. Do you have a good source for this? Googling it
| is just the same (Chinese source) line repeated over and
| over:
|
| > National Health and Family Planning Commission spokesman
| Mao Qunan said the agency's work had reduced the number of
| births in China over the years by "400 million".
|
| Nothing much about the effect of the removal of the policy
| either.
| H8crilA wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=china+fertility+rate
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-
| child_policy#/media/File:B...
|
| It was introduced (officially) in the 80s
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Jane Jacobs, "Systems of survival" is also a good one.
| Formulates a theory about corruption and the nature of it.
| Changed the way I think about it forever.
| ihodes wrote:
| This book is next on my reading list. One question that's come
| to mind before having read the book is if Singapore is an
| example of a highly-legible planned state's success?
| cl42 wrote:
| That's a beautiful question. I am not intimately familiar
| with Singapore's planning processes. The authors above (Jane
| Jacobs, James C. Scott) would argue that the best
| cities/countries are ones that have a centralized strategy
| that leaves enough leeway to enable each community to
| optimize their specific situation on their own.
|
| I don't know if Singapore does that or not. Do you have a
| POV?
|
| I've been meaning to read Lee Kuan Yew's "From Third World to
| First" to learn more but haven't found the time.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Singapore does have the advantage of being compact and
| having the ability to set policy at all levels at once. The
| US can't do that, because cities and towns depend on the
| state and federal governments for funding, but those same
| cities and towns have some autonomy in how they run day-to-
| day governance.
| reese_john wrote:
| I wouldn't say so. Scale matters. What worked for Singapore,
| may not work for China.
|
| There is this great article about the story of Singapore[0],
| it was also discussed on HN some time ago. I believe one of
| its main takes really resonates with "Seeing like a State"
| thesis. Decision-makers must rely on
| simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are
| by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a
| scheme that reflected reality perfectly would be cluttered
| and uninterpretable. The reality is always more complex than
| the plan. In large countries, the planner is further from
| ground reality than in tiny city-states. Abstractions and
| errors inevitably compound as the distance increases
| Ironically, Lee Kuan Yew himself had no patience for other
| people's models. In his words, "I am not following any
| prescription given to me by any theoretician on democracy or
| whatever. I work from first principles: what will get me
| there?" If there is a lesson from Singapore's development it
| is this: forget grand ideologies and others' models. There is
| no replacement for experimentation, independent thought, and
| ruthless pragmatism.
|
| [0] https://palladiummag.com/2020/08/13/the-true-story-of-
| lee-ku...
|
| HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24382249
| realroadl wrote:
| Working as an UX Engineer, I always recommend ,,refactoring UI"
| by Adam Watham. It's super easy to read, most pictures speak for
| themselfes. This book targets developers who like to put their UI
| on the next level.
| beernet wrote:
| Not exactly my field, but I think "Building a Storybrand" by
| Donald Miller is a great read for everyone dealing with creating
| products customers love.
| Issaclabs wrote:
| Chaos by James gleick for multiple fields in physics
| luminadiffusion wrote:
| Physics & Mathematics - Anyone who seriously pursues these fields
| learns to embrace the challenges as beautiful and the struggle to
| unravel their nature as fulfilling. To do this, we embrace the
| beauty in nature and see the connection with everything around
| us. Four books come to mind.
|
| Physics:
|
| 1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious
| Character) by Richard P. Feynman
|
| 2. The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking
|
| Mathematics:
|
| 1. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by
| J.A. Paulos
|
| 2. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by D. Hofstadter
|
| These books brilliantly illuminate the beauty in these fields.
| They show you that underneath all of that complex notation and
| "math speak" are beautiful ideas about life, the universe, and
| the nature of reality. These fueled me, even in to my PhD
| research. I still love them today.
| isaacyes wrote:
| Atul Gawande - Better or Being Mortal
|
| Non-technical but very interesting and emotive to most people.
|
| Healthcare analytics
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| I would also add Complications to that list. As a former life
| sciences researcher, I've loved everything that Atul Gawande
| has written.
| artemonster wrote:
| The art of electronics for electrical engineers. It is dated, but
| it has everything
| amelius wrote:
| Except a good scientific explanation of how transistors work,
| how to build an amplifier given a number of constraints (power,
| bandwidth), how to design an antenna ...
|
| It's a nice book for hobbyists, though.
| mourner wrote:
| A hobby rather than a field of study, but _Open Crumb Mastery_ by
| Trevor Wilson made me fall in love with sourdough baking, it 's
| amazing. I'm baking regularly for 2 years now since reading it
| and has gotten pretty good, even with difficult pastry like
| croissants and panettone.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| The book is described explicitly as "not for beginners". Do you
| have a recommendation for beginners?
| an-selm wrote:
| Measurement/A mathematicians lament by Paul Lockhart. The first
| is not by any means very advanced/interesting mathematics per se,
| but it is written by somebody with an incredible passion for
| mathematics, which you can feel throughout the whole book, and
| which was totally novel for me coming from schoolish mathematics
| drudgery. Also, the way he approaches mathematics and teaching is
| quite interesting. Nothing for somebody who is already into
| mathematics, but as an entry point it is absolutely great. The
| second is a critique of school math, freely available online (htt
| ps://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/Lockharts...),
| that absolutely hits home on a lot of problems of math and school
| in general, but in a way that basically says "Look, its so cool,
| why are we ruining it? Lets do this better." which is much better
| than another bitter, destructive critique. And its well written
| and only twenty pages. Definitely recommend.
| Random_BSD_Geek wrote:
| The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll.
| alexvoda wrote:
| I totally recommend this series for various domains:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manga_Guides
| lifeplusplus wrote:
| any physics book for hs... but without penalty of failing tests
| etc. Why sky is blue, how does heat get to earth from sun, how do
| computers work, how does magnet work, how to tell how far ball
| will go if i throw it, why do balloons stick to wall when rubbed,
| etc....
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Maybe _Physics for Fuure Presidents_?
| https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Future-Presidents-Science-Hea...
| auslegung wrote:
| Software engineering
|
| - Steve Wozniak's autobiography
|
| - The Phoenix Project
|
| - The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks
| Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
| spchampion2 wrote:
| Anyone interested in product management shoulder read "INSPIRED:
| How to Create Tech Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| This book both introduced me to what a PM is and showed me that
| I already am one in my role at my company. And it opened my
| eyes to a few new directions and inspired some ideas.
| anyfactor wrote:
| Accounting...
|
| The rule of accouting is that if anything excites you about
| accounting you shouldn't do accounting. The most fun I had
| studying accounting was learning about tax evasion, money
| laundering, defrauding stakeholders etc. Any academic book about
| forensic accounting could be deemed interesting if you just read
| only the case studies.
| karambahh wrote:
| What book on forensic accounting would you recommend for
| entertainment value?
|
| I have some knowledge of french accounting, been exposed to US
| style, and thoroughly enjoyed long forms involving forensic
| accounting, money laundering and the like...
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Not a book but CNBC's series "American Greed" is great. My
| favorite episode was about a guy who was (on paper) the
| second largest biodiesel producer in the country. He was
| literally just making up fake green energy credit numbers in
| a spreadsheet and selling them to companies looking to buy
| green energy credits.
|
| The EPA was made aware of him but did nothing even after they
| physically inspected his biodiesel "factory" and discovered
| it was basically just an empty warehouse.
|
| What finally brought him down was his taste for expensive
| sports cars and his being an asshole neighbor. He was always
| parking his sports cars pn the street, blocking school bus
| stops, etc. Local parents suspected he might be a drug dealer
| because of how many cars he had and how lavishly he spent his
| money, and they asked the local police to look into him. It
| was the local investigation that uncovered the fraud and
| brought him down.
|
| https://advancedbiofuelsusa.info/rodney-hailey-sentenced-
| to-...
| [deleted]
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| Harry Markopolos's _No One Would Listen_. A bit over the top
| in places, but entertaining.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| > The most fun I had studying accounting was learning about tax
| evasion, money laundering, defrauding stakeholders etc.
|
| Sounds like hacking.
| [deleted]
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