Hacker News Books

I haven't seen Carlo Rovelli's books mentioned. Especially 'Seven brief lessons on physics'.

The Body - Bill Bryson

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Rovelli, Carlo

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment - Robert Wright

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, written and narrated by Carlo Rovelli

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - The subject is extremely interesting, challenging and thought provoking but I felt like Ashlee Vance (Author) was somewhat inspired by Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs in terms of his portrayal of Musk as the genius who is somewhat a jerk. Either that or Vance was trying to convey that people like Musk and Jobs often are jerks....(6/10)

Extreme Ownership: Jocko Willink - entertaining listening in the car, perhaps no so much if you tried to read it. An impressive balance of storytelling and principles. (6/10)

Maximum City: Suketu Mehta - as someone who has lived in Mumbai for nearly five years, this book captured the pulse of the supercity as no other has. Able to describe the inherent beauty of modern India without resorting to the typical cliched western neuroses about the place. (8/10)

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics: Carlo Rovelli - Got recommended this book multiple times. Brief and succinct so Carlo must be commended for that. As a pop-science book it kind of paled in comparison to Bill Bryson's "Complete History" (6/10)

Rebels: Aris Roussinos - A raw, honest and powerful book that tells a story about many of the world's conflict zones from the perspective of someone who may get shot themselves. Refreshing and beautifully upsetting all at once. (7/10)

Mere Christianity: C.S. Lewis - A broad spectrum of thoughts about meaning and purpose that have obviously been considered for many years and then condensed in a very succinct way (8/10)

Business Adventures: John Brooks - A recommendation by Buffet and Gates, entertaining read with business principles built in (7/10)

Tools of Titans: Tim Ferriss - Obviously written for those of us who have allowed our attention spans to be destroyed by the constant sugary stimulation of the internet, Tim nails the balance of useful thoughts and observations from a broad array of guests while keeping it succinct and entertaining. (7/10)

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.

Ultimate Questions by Bryan Magee (more philosophy of knowledge than science per se).

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan.

The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski are not essays, but it is one of the finest writings on science I've read.

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard W. Hamming

Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson

I can't not help mention The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, which is fiction, but hear me out - it melds natural philosophy, alchemy, maths, history, Newton, Leibniz, The Sun King, British parliament, colonialism, slavery, Egypt, India, war, finance, commerce, revenge, satire and so much more. I've learnt more about the origins of the Royal Society and the early days of modern science from these three books than anywhere else.

Best-selling authors seem to be aware of this trend, because I keep coming across excellent but very, very short non-fiction books. Among those I can remember reading and would recommend, these are published in the past <5 years and are <150 pages (or <5 hour audiobook):

- Discrimination and Disparities By: Thomas Sowell

- A Colony in a Nation: Chris Hayes

- Between the World and Me: Ta-Nehisi Coates

(three very different takes on race relations in America)

- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: Neil deGrasse Tyson

- Seven Brief Lessons on Physics: Carlo Rovelli

- When Breath Becomes Air: Paul Kalanithi

- On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century: Timothy Snyder

- Requiem for the American Dream: The Principles of Concentrated Wealth and Power: Noam Chomsky

- Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now: Jaron Lanier

[edit: linebreaks]

When his great Italian friend Michele Besso died, Einstein wrote a moving letter to Michele’s sister: ‘Michele has left this strange world a little before me. This means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction made between past, present and future is nothing more than a persistent, stubborn illusion.’

...
...

Many times in the past we have realized that it is our immediate intuitions that are imprecise: if we had kept to these we would still believe that the Earth is flat and that it is orbited by the sun.

Our intuitions have developed on the basis of our limited experience. When we look a little further ahead we discover that the world is not as it appears to us: the Earth is round, and in Cape Town their feet are up and their heads are down.

To trust immediate intuitions rather than collective examination that is rational, careful and intelligent is not wisdom: it is the presumption of an old man who refuses to believe that the great world outside his village is any different from the one which he has always known.

-- Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli

Not in order

1 - Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)

2 - The Trial (Franz Kafka)

3 - Beyond the door (Philip K Dick - short story)

4 - The eyes have it (Philip K Dick - short story)

5 - Seven brief lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli)

6 - I have no mouth, and I must scream (Herlan Ellison - short story)

7 - The art of simplicity (Dominique Loreau)

8 - On anarchism (Noam Chomsky)

9 - The difference engine (William Gibson, Bruce Sterling)

10 - Utopia (Thomas More)

11 - Sophie's world (Jostein Gaarder)

12 - Rete padrona (Federico Rampini - essays about the 'dark side' of the corporate web)

13 - The art of discarding (Nagisa Tatsumi)

14 - Symposium (Plato)

And a couple of very short philosophy booklets by Zizek (about the Matrix) and Baudrillard (about 'cyberphilosophy')