Stats for nerds
4recommend
6mentions
5people
2017–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer. my 5th+ read
Weaveworld, by Clive Barker. my 2nd read
Surface Detail, by Ian M. Banks
devtest reads of my WIP book on computer performance
- The Overstory by Richard Powers - an intertwining of lives, as witnessed by the oldest beings on Earth, putting things into a rather different perspective.
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - compassion and redemption, set in a terrifyingly plausible near future where the oil and tech companies have been replaced by gene and agro conglomerates. Calories or joules, it’s just energy.
Weaveworld by Clive Barker - a dark, fantastical yarn of vivid (sometimes grotesque) imagery, spinning a new take on the oldest tale, that of good vs. evil.
- Fiction:
Biography/Memoirs:The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov The Steerswoman - Rosemary Kirstein The Carpet Makers - Andreas Eschbach Nine Hundred Grandmothers - R.A. Lafferty Weaveworld - Clive Barker A Small Death in Lisbon - Robert Wilson Bones of the Earth - Michael Swanwick Enough Rope - Lawrence Block The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers Her Smoke Rose Up Forever - James Tiptree Jr. Planetfall - Emma Newman
Technical:Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard Feynman What Do You Care What Other People Think? - Richard Feynman Crime and Guilt: Stories - Ferdinand von Schirach Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams Travels - Michael Crichton
Nonfiction:The Unwritten Laws of Engineering - W.J. KingLegal Systems Very Different From Ours - David Friedman Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World - Tim Marshall - Cool! I actually made a book recommendation service as well. [1] Its been indispensable for me, gives me much better recommendations than friends/Amazon/Goodreads give me. I've found Library at Mount Char and Hard Magic because I wanted something similar to Weaveworld [2] and both those have been perfect. I'm only two months into using it, but I feel like I have a never-ending reading list now!
I look forward to trying yours when it is back online (service was disrupted when I tried).
[1] https://www.booksuggestions.ninja/
[2] https://rpiai.com/why-i-made-a-book-recommendation-service/
- Here's my (simplistic) take: Believing in God (this word is problematic because it has many different uses) is an axiom, it doesn't need to be, or indeed can be, "proven". You just accept it as given as see what logical conclusions can be drawn from it. Think of it as similar to Euclid's fifth postulate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_postulate), you can accept or leave it and build a system around either choice. This is actually a fun activity to do, e.g. try to see if whatever definition of God you use imposes limits on the entity, e.g. "Can God create an equal" (if you've read Weaveworld this is how Shadwell tempts the The Scourge, but I digress)
I don't think the above approach clashes with science, many scientists have held religious beliefs.
However, organized religion is quite a different thing from the above approach, which is probably what you are referring to in your question. It seems humanity has needed religion as a bulwark against life's tragedies/evil/etc. from the earliest times (see Gobekli Tepe, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe) and it seems this inherent need is still going strong, although many attempts have been made to stamp it out. Depending on your deposition this may be a sign of the great Truth or an evolutionary bug in our brain's wetware.
- I made this to find a book similar to Weaveworld by Clive Barker. [1]
Basically, I was motivated from frustration with book suggestions services that inevitably included suggestions with unrelated genres, multiple books from the same author, or sequels. I wanted to get suggestions without those, hence this app.
I ended up finding one of the best books I've ever read, Library at Mount Char (#2 on the suggestions for Weaveworld). [2] Maybe it will be useful for you too!
[1] https://rpiai.com/why-i-made-a-book-recommendation-service/
[2] https://www.booksuggestions.ninja/book/weaveworld-by-clive-b...
