The anatomy of melancholy

What Hacker News says

1. devindotcomJan 2025
   I look forward to reading this.

   But anyone who thinks it's new should go back and read the first part of The Anatomy of Melancholy; there, a fictionalized Democritus, accused of insanity, turns the accusation back on the world at large, citing a surprisingly large and still relevant list of issues: information overload, self-serving politicians, charlatans, rubes, general bullshit. The phenomenon of meteoria goes back that far and further. I'm actually curious whether Carr cites Burton!

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2. ayshdhdoabdhMar 2024
   Anatomy of melancholy
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3. epilysFeb 2024
   I recommend the 1621 book Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton. He was a big bibliophile with a huge collection, and also melancholic, so he wrote about melancholy while pulling material from his own reading. The result is a huge book that is figuratively 50% main text and 50% marginalia; if you find a good edition where they are printed as actual marginalia instead of footnotes/endnotes, it gives a completely different perspective into the mind of the author as he wrote the book.
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4. devindotcomFeb 2022
   As a "general" recommendation I think "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster (1909) is an especially interesting read today. Extremely prescient and a fun, short book.

   For someone more ambitious I might recommend "The Anatomy of Melancholy," by Richard Burton (17th c.). At least the preface (around 100 pages) and maybe a smattering of the book proper. It's hard to explain - better to look it up.

   For something more recent and immediately relevant, I think "Are Prisons Obsolete?" by Angela Davis was quite eye opening about the history of racism in law enforcement and the production of the modern prison system.

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5. billfruitMay 2020
   Some authours and books offer deep introspection of human lives, that you learn and realise things about yourself from reading them:

   I got that feeling from reading Montaigne's Essays.

   Anatomy of Melancholy by Burton and Samuel Johnson's essays also are effective in a similar vein.

   Plutarch's Parallel Live's is the essential book on politics, after reading it, when you read the newspapers you get a feeling that there is nothing new under the Sun, in politics.

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6. logariJul 2019
   Location: anywhere except Japan, China, Korea, and Africa.

   Remote: yes!

   Willing to relocate: yes

   Tech: Python, Julia, some R (I dislike it), Scheme, HTML/CSS/Js, Ruby, Django/Rails. Mostly data science/analytics and web dev, but open to other fields.

   Resume: mostly self-taught programmer. (I dislike being taught in the traditional sense: give me a few good books and I will learn. Lecture me and I am gone to sleepland) ...Also BA Chinese (as if it matters here)

   Website: www.learnook.surge.sh

   Email: jaemez@outlook.com

   Quick learner, good at communication. Age 40.

   Previously worked as a uni teacher for over a decade.

   My favorite book (in English): the anatomy of melancholy by Robert Burton. Highly recommend it!

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