Hacker News Books

The books I've enjoyed reading most this year are ones I ought to have read in high school some 15 years ago, but just never did because I didn't enjoy reading and never made the effort: The Great Gatsby, As I Lay Dying, and am currently reading Cry, The Beloved Country

I don't just read books; I wallow in them. I remember well the acute pain of not knowing how to read and the relief when my mother taught me. I was five, and I just haven't stopped reading since. I'll be 38 in a couple of months.

I'm reading Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, because O'Connor is wicked and funny. Favorite book? As others have pointed out, this is a ridiculous question -- my favorite kind! Some books I love: Lolita, As I Lay Dying, The Ghost Writer, Goodbye, Columbus, Blood Meridian, Anna Karenina, Where I'm Calling From, Huck Finn, Dubliners and on and on. I read mostly literary novels, but I read fairly widely -- genre stuff (skiffy, crime), history, philosophy, pop science, whatever's good. I average around 1 book per week, but I read in jags and sometimes go a couple of weeks without reading anything but blogs and news.

I'm sure there are any number of studies that will show the benefit of reading, but I much prefer to classify books with whiskey and cigarettes. How do you measure the utility of whiskey and cigarettes? I like the Romantic idea that books are bad for you. You know, the kind of thing that destroyed Emma Bovary and robbed Señor Quixote of his sanity. Maybe I just need to manufacture a vice. I don't like cigarettes, and a beer (and a book) after the kids are in bed is about all I can handle these days.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience

William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying & The Sound and the Fury

Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Peter Medawar's The Art of the Soluable

Designed by Peter Saville

Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols

Bloom County Babylon

1. Silence. I'm not smart enough to get anything done with a lot of noise or music going on.

2. Distracting my mind. I read long, complex fiction novels for 30-60 minutes at night before bed. This is the most valuable part of my day because it acts like a shutdown script for my mind. Afterwards I feel completely disconnected from what I'm working on, worrying about, or struggling with. Some novels that I've used in the past: War & Peace, Ulysses, As I Lay Dying, Moby Dick.

3. Frequent breaks. While working I make sure to pause regularly and often stop altogether, walk-around, etc. This helps and hurts because it can interrupt flow, but the big benefit is that I find myself less tired at the end of the day when I stick to this.

4. Pen & paper. I buy spiral-bound notebooks at Walgreens for $0.35 and fill one every 3-6 months or so. I use pen and paper to plan programming projects, do class designs, brainstorm ideas, draw diagrams, almost everything.

5. Org-mode. I also use org-mode to more formally track things. I consider my notebook an "informal" workspace, while my org-mode files are more "formal". I utilize the agenda feature to produce to-do lists and calendar.

6. Diversity of projects. I try to always have some toy or pet project to play with when I find myself lacking motivation or hitting dead-ends on my primary work.

7. Try to keep it to 8 hours per day. This often seems (or "is" depending on your management) impossible, but it really does make an enormous difference in your ability to stay consistently productive and creative.