Top Hacker News Book Recommendations in Science & Math (past 6 months)

All Time Past 6 Months

The Order of Time

Carlo Rovelli, Benedict Cumberbatch, et al.

4.5 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight

Satchin Panda PhD

4.6 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr

4.4 on Amazon

1 HN comments

Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space

Stephen Walker

4.7 on Amazon

1 HN comments

Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner

4.4 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness

Mark Solms

4.6 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations

Robert Livingston

4.7 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Art of Statistics: How to Learn from Data

David Spiegelhalter

4.6 on Amazon

1 HN comments

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

Christina Thompson

4.6 on Amazon

1 HN comments

Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games

László Polgár and Bruce Pandolfini

4.6 on Amazon

1 HN comments

Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe

Theodore Gray and Nick Mann

4.8 on Amazon

1 HN comments

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

Tom Nichols

4.5 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Gene: An Intimate History

Siddhartha Mukherjee, Dennis Boutsikaris, et al.

4.7 on Amazon

1 HN comments

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures

Malcolm Gladwell and Hachette Audio

4.5 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)

Eric Hoffer

4.7 on Amazon

1 HN comments

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LeftHandPathonAug 3, 2021

I've started weening myself off of everything that's instant-gratification. No reddit, no imgur, no short-format news stories or list articles. A week ago I drove 9 hours for a camping trip and spent several days without my phone and smart-watch. For several months I've made a point to walk at least an hour a day (to go about 5 miles) without looking at my phone -- but I still wear my watch to track the distance. I still feel like I have to have some form of audio going in the background - maybe something educational, maybe ASMR - while I'm browsing hacker news. If I play a game, I still choose one without a narrative so that I can listen to a podcast while I play. I'm not sure that any of these habits are beneficial.

I think Nicholas Carr had a great point in The Shallows (2010) [1] -- our brains have a lot of plasticity, even into late adulthood. The way we use the internet probably has a much larger impact on the way we think than we are currently willing to acknowledge. There is a healthy way to integrate electronics into our daily lives, but I don't think many of us have found it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows_(book)

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