The Old Man and the Sea
Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the tale of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. This story of heroic endeavour won Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature. It stands as a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements.
Stats for nerds
31recommend
87mentions
82people
2010–2026years
40% recommend54% neutral6% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Old Man and the sea - Hemmingway - so many things, with every reread I find something new.
The Heart of the Buddhas Teaching - Thich Nhat Hanh, useful prayers, concepts for understanding and dealing with life and a moral compass for going through it.
The Way of Zen - Alan Watts, opened my eyes to different forms of religious experience
Also a lot of psychology and philosophy books in undergrad were foundational to my thinking. The Moral Animal, the Moral Landscape, The Blank Slate, The Republic and Plato’s writings on Socrates, Tao te Ching, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the Tanakh and parts of the Talmud, but many of these were more academic, still holistically they have shaped my thinking and moral compass.
- Ernest Hemingway - starting with “The Old Man and the Sea”.
After reading that, you’ll no longer think that Nobel Prize winners for literature write books that are difficult to read and understand.
- I guess it was the hobbit that got me into reading (even more than I already was) and into computers as it came with the c64 adventure game which my godparents had. Every time we went there I got some computer time as they'd bought it for "office work", but I played scuba dive, the hobbit, manic miner, hunchback etc. It also led to reading the lord of the rings, which felt like a massive achievement at the time. I've just read the fellowship of the ring to my kids and it was a fun (though slow) experience.
As am adult The Stranger - Camus and The Old Man and the Sea had a big impact, I think because you can read and get the whole experience in a single sitting.
- The old man and the sea
- For some reason i can't get the stranger, Camus out of my head. I had it on my desk for at least 10 years at one company as a sign that I never quite fitted in there, but I never felt like I fitted anywhere else either. I enjoy books you can easily read in a single sitting as you could really get into a zone with the story. Old man and the sea and several Iain Banks books fell into the same category.
- Read when you're fresh (set your alarm earlier and read before you get out of bed) rather than when you're tired at the end of the day. Use a habit tracking app (mine is Streaks on iOS). If tired, walking around the house while reading ticks off pages and steps. Read books you like; quit anything that you feel is a waste of time. Read while eating breakfast if it's not antisocial. Pick shorter books to get momentum (Old Man and the Sea, Into the Wild). Read on your phone, so it's always an option. Put your Books app prominently on the home screen and relegate social media apps out of view.
