Stats for nerds
5recommend
5mentions
5people
2019–2026years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- And if interested in underground in general, I can recommend Underland by Robert Macfarlane.
- There's a good couple of chapters on the catacombs in Robert Macfarlane's book The Underland (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53121631)
- Certainly, the majority of books are not worth your time; the same is of course true of YouTube videos, podcasts, blog posts, or any media you may consume. But the best books do offer things you can't get elsewhere.
Crucially, reading book is not just about information intake! Really great books don't just teach you things, they open you up to new ways of thinking, expose new corners of the universe and of experience, stretch your mind, and so on.
If you're reading books filled with "fluff" — read better books! If a book bores you, find a different one! Reading a great book should be a joy.
It's true that most books don't age well — but the converse to this is that books that have been around for a long time and are still popular are usually well-known for good reasons; they've endured on their merits for far longer than any bestsellers of the decade.
Challenge: don't read any more self help books. Instead, read books on education, economics, science, technology, nature, history. Read epics, read science fiction, read poetry.
Do some research on the areas that most interest you, and take time to find the very best books you can find — based on Amazon/Goodreads reviews, suggestions from friends, best-of lists, whatever — and pick just a few to spend time with. And keep in mind it's always a better use of your time to read 10 really amazing books than 100 average ones; take your time and have fun :)
I recently took up a Twitter challenge to post 100 opinions about books and reading, and I wrote a lot about the concept of the "antilibrary" — basically, the value of knowing about books even if you don't necessarily read them, and getting good at curating your reading list. You may find some of this useful for how to think about reading:
https://twitter.com/schlagetown/status/1206268052498780160
A handful of these book thoughts that may be particularly relevant here:
1. Every curious person should be a serious reader. Ever serious reader should build an antilibrary.
(Essential vocab for this thread: your antilibrary = all the books you know about but have not read, designating a sort of potential energy for learning / knowledge / reading)
2. An antilibrary should exist in both physical form (books on your shelves; books browsed but unpurchased at your favorite bookstores) and virtual form (in digital lists; in tweets and reviews scanned; in your memory).
3. An antilibrary should have many levels: books you have an urgent desire to read, books you definitely want to read someday, books you find intriguing but may never read, books you've lost interest in entirely
Categorize not only by topic but by priority / importance / status
8. We should all be more aware of (& deliberately apply) the many different levels of reading that exist — the spectrum from close reading to skimming a book quickly for major themes / ideas.
Different books + different contexts demand different approaches for optimal reading.
17. There aren't that many truly great books you definitely need to read.
While there are infinitely more good books than you can ever read in a lifetime, you can probably get to a surprisingly high portion of those that are both excellent & a good match for you personally.
24. Building your "read really big books" muscle is helpful for practicing sustained attention & deep engagement. Living with a text for months on end, whether a particular story or set of ideas, creates a special type of relationship!
45. You should have a "non-reading practice" — being intentional about not-reading certain books (just as some authors should not-write certain books!)
Abandon more books. Browse many; read few. Choose to engage w/ books & their ideas outside the text itself.
52. Best books I've read in the last year: Underland—Robert Macfarlane How to Do Nothing—Jenny Odell Go Ahead in the Rain—Hanif Abdurraqib Daemon Voices—Philip Pullman Carceral Capitalism—Jackie Wang So Many Books—Gabriel Zaid The Collected Schizophrenias—Esmé Weijun Wang
53. Best books I've read in the last 10 years: The Moonstone—Wilkie Collins Moby Dick—Melville Infinite Jest—DFW Pilgrim at Tinker Creek—Dillard Impro—Johnstone Time and the Art of Living—Grudin Le Ton beau de Marot—Hofstadter Death and Life of Great American Cities—Jacobs
72. There are many books we should know about for reasons other than the story or info (etc.) of the text itself.
Reasons like: important cultural context, influence on future books, significance to people you love… Such books are prime candidates for antilibrary inclusion!
- My struggle book 6 by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Good, though I think I preferred the earlier books. It's still very compelling, but a little too much Hitler in this one
Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane. Poetic landscape history, reminiscent of Sebald. Good stuff.
Click here to kill everybody by Bruce Schneier. Scary.
Machines like me by Ian McEwan. First McEwan I read for a while but I liked it more than I expected. I thought the AI bits were quite good.
The deep history of ourselves : the four-billion-year story of how we got conscious brains by Joseph LeDoux. Bit disappointed in this one, it seemed like there should have been a better story here.
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life: David Quammen.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff. Makes CS careers look less appealing.
- Thirded (?). I just finished reading "Underland". Incredible read, highly recommend his work.
