Top Hacker News Book Recommendations in Science & Math (all time)

All Time Past 6 Months

The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming

Severine Von Tscharner Fleming, Jean-Martin Fortier , et al.

4.8 on Amazon

12 HN comments

Free Will

Sam Harris and Simon & Schuster Audio

4.3 on Amazon

11 HN comments

The Wright Brothers

David McCullough and Simon & Schuster Audio

4.7 on Amazon

11 HN comments

Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants (Rutgers University Press Classics)

John Drury Clark and Isaac Asimov

4.7 on Amazon

10 HN comments

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Bill Gates

4.5 on Amazon

10 HN comments

Introduction to Electrodynamics

David J. Griffiths

4.5 on Amazon

10 HN comments

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World

Andrea Wulf

4.7 on Amazon

9 HN comments

Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work

Steven Pressfield and Black Irish Entertainment LLC

4.5 on Amazon

9 HN comments

Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying

Wolfgang Langewiesche

4.8 on Amazon

9 HN comments

The Female Brain

Louann Brizendine

4.6 on Amazon

9 HN comments

Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe

Steven Strogatz

4.7 on Amazon

8 HN comments

Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games

László Polgár and Bruce Pandolfini

4.6 on Amazon

8 HN comments

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

Tom Nichols

4.5 on Amazon

8 HN comments

The Lost World

Michael Crichton, Scott Brick, et al.

4.7 on Amazon

8 HN comments

Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources

M. Kat Anderson

4.8 on Amazon

8 HN comments

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deathbyzenonNov 5, 2008

Man, when I was in middle school I was so proud of myself for devouring The Lost World in like 4 days. I loved his work, and though I haven't read one of his books in some time, I will miss him greatly.

jbenzonAug 20, 2015

If it makes you feel any better, I followed the exact same path. He was one of my favorite authors when I was a kid, but by the time Prey came out... yeesh.

But I still love Sphere, The Lost World, and so many more. I even love Disclosure, with its hilarious take on virtual reality file storage.

atombenderonFeb 8, 2019

Among his 25+ fiction books plus screenplays, Crichton wrote just two books (Jurassic Park, The Lost World) and one screenplay (Westworld) about theme parks. Not sure how that's an obsession, especially he had to be talked into writing The Lost World by Steven Spielberg, who wanted source material for a sequel movie.

PakG1onFeb 19, 2014

This is exactly the scenario that was presented by Ian Malcolm in Michael Crichton's The Lost World.

ComputerGuruonJune 18, 2016

I actually just finished watching The Great Mouse Detective with my wife - first time for her and the first time for me reliving that element of my childhood in more than twenty years – I was terrified it wouldn't live up to my memory, but was surprised at how good it was. I'm pretty sure it was my first exposure to the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (and I do recommend it heartily to anyone who hasn't watched it!).

Of Doyle's non-Sherlock works, The Lost World is the first that comes to my mind. Great fast read, also highly recommend! (Though nothing beats the full and complete collection of Sherlock Holmes, see [1] for the PDF and [2] for the actual book).

1: https://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/the-comple...

2: http://amzn.to/1UBvHwJ

liabilityonAug 1, 2019

"Liking video games" is like "liking books". Typically people prefer certain kinds of games or books, and may find any particular example enjoyable or not.

Nobody questions whether I "like books" when I say The Lost World was a lackluster sequel to Jurassic Park, right? Because there is no expectation that somebody who enjoyed one particular book should like every book, even within the same genre or franchise.

paulcoleonNov 3, 2015

This is paraphrased from The Lost World by Michael Crichton. I read it when I was in middle school and it has stuck with me for over 20 years:

"Most people are wrong about most things."

People give advice that is out of date, just plain wrong, irrelevant, self-serving, or otherwise generally useless. The key is to just ignore it and do whatever you want.

Over time you'll figure out what works and what doesn't. And in 30+ years of living, the only thing I've figured out that works is to ignore all the advice I receive.

chrischenonOct 12, 2009

The Lost World - Michael Crichton
Harry Potter -

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