Name: The Sorrows of Young Werther
ISBN: 9780990405214

What Hacker News says

avinasshSep 2019

For me, its The Sorrows of Young Werther. Published in 1779. It is a short read and quite beautifully written.

billybatsonDec 2018

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley: Decent. I think this book would best be read in conjunction while working through a textbook. I will admit that it did do quite a bit to help relieve math anxiety, but the nature of the book is practicality.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: A reread. A bit depressing considering the state of the world today. I found myself wondering which reality would be preferable.

Letters to a Young Mathematician by Ian Stewart: Easy, but fruitful read. I've struggled a lot with math confidence, and this helped alleviate a lot of that.

How to Speak, How to Listen by Mortimer J. Adler: A lot of practical advice. My biggest takeaway was this: if it's worth talking about, even if the conversation sucks or the other person doesn't understand, any bit of advancement and understanding is worth the effort. Really helped me increase my patience when talking to people.

Quack This Way by David Foster Wallace and Bryan Garner: Super useful and practical discussion between two lovers of language. I keep a copy with me at all times.

The Autobiography of Gucci Mane: Just a fun read while on vacation. "If Gucci can do it, you can do it".

Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson: A nice if brutal read. It was my first foray in DJ. I felt Cormac McCarthyish vibes.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy: A classic. The Judge.

Thinking About Mathematics by Stuart Shapiro: Highly recommended for anyone interested in the philosophical questions of mathematics. Shapiro writes clearly, concisely, and in a manner that is easy to read.

The Liars' Club by Mary Karr: Pretty great but brutal.

The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace: I really enjoyed it. It's ode to Wittgenstein and it helped me cope with a lot of questions that I felt after studying LW.

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: I think we've all been in Werther's shoes. Though I hope that nobody comes to the same conclusion he came to.

Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, & Sharpen Your Creative Mind: A pretty great book. I find myself writing a book report on it to make sure I internalize a lot of the lessons. If you're having trouble doing creative work while working, read this.

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rlupiAug 2025

I built something similar for myself.

I considered building an app, but I wonder how people will trust it. The target audience is the ones who are most likely to mistrust a third party.

I wonder what you use for evals and testing. I have found epistolary novels to be quite interesting to process, e.g. I used von Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther" to build a demo.

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400thecatAug 2025

imagine suing a library for having lent you a copy of "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe

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rlupiJul 2025

I just re-read "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by von Goethe. In the book, the protagonist commits suicide.

It appears that now tech firms cannot even host very significant old books without age checks, which is absurd.

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krishna2Jan 2025

Here are a few of my favorite reads from 2024.

If I were to just pick one favorite, it is not even a contest. Heck, challenge me to pick one favorite in a decade, it would still be this. Charlie Munger! Charlie Munger: Poor Charlie’s Almanack I even wrote about this: https://krishna2.com/munger

Just like countless others, I too grew up bewildered by Jackie Chan's movies and his stunts. And I liked his autobiography.

Jackie Chan: Never Grow Up

I read "The Poppy War" - even though I liked it, I didn't want to go down a full-fledged series. I read "Yellowface" and loved it so much. I have "Babel" on my shelf - but (irrationally) I am not reading it thinking that it would be over if I read it.

R. F. Kuang: Yellowface

I can't wait for what R.F. Kuang's going to come up with next.

This is an old classic -- my son recommended this to me. I enjoyed it.

Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther

What an amazing biography. Very very inspiring.

Robin Marantz Henig: Monk in the Garden: Life of Gregor Mendel

I had gotten her "Ember in the Ashes" in 2016 or so but never got to it - but this story snipper caught my attention. What a lovely book. It is set in a Motel in a Sierra Nevada town in California. Loved the book. Promptly went back to read "Ember in the ashes". This book (all my rage) won the National Book Award for Young Readers.

Sabhaa Tahir: All my Rage

Everyone's bound to get on this train sooner or later (I think this is being made into a movie) -- 440,000+ reviews on amazon. I got curious and got this book. Liked it.

Freida McFadden: The Housemaid

I am keeping the recommendations to a general audience and hence skipping my Vedanta books (which I thoroughly relish/read and read again many times). Oh, there are a bunch of business books too, a bunch more fiction this year (than my usual ratio) including a few LitRPG and of course, some running related. As always, you can see the full list here:

https://krishna2.com/books

Here's to a happy prosperous fulfilling 2025!

Happy reading!

This post is available at: https://krishna2.com/2024 Post on Jan 1, 2024 (2023 reading): https://krishna2.com/2023 Post on Jan 1, 2023 (2022 reading): https://krishna2.com/2022

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