Hacker News Books

40,000 HackerNews book recommendations identified using NLP and deep learning

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thewhitetuliponMar 9, 2018

> "And Then There Were None"

This is a fascinating book indeed.

wpietrionDec 2, 2013

Awesome. I read that years ago but had forgotten it. Here's a link for those interested: http://www.e-reading.co.uk/chapter.php/149381/8/Sheckley_-_C...

It reminds me of "And Then There Were None": http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php

And "The Midas Plague": http://www.e-reading.co.uk/bookreader.php/1010251/Pohl_-_The...

082349872349872onJune 3, 2020

"And Then There Were None", SF by Eric Frank Russell, purposely characterises the natives as not fitting into "types" and thereby creeping out the Terrans who have come to explore (and exploit?) their planet...

thieving_magpieonOct 13, 2015

I'm not disagreeing with the premise, my sarcasm was too harsh in hindsight. I just disagreed with the idea that this is a simple fix. OP did not assert that, so that's just me reading into it.

I'm still hoping for a 'favor' economy like a story I read "And Then There Were None" by Eric Frank Russell.

gajjanagonMar 8, 2018

For fans of film, essentially all of Agatha Christie's mysteries featuring the Belgian detective character Hercule Poirot have been adapted by ITV into a fantastic TV series:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie's_Poirot

I find it fascinating that they did this series over a span of over 24 years, with the same lead actor (David Suchet, CBE) as Hercule Poirot throughout!

There is a behind the scenes interview with David Suchet reflecting upon the 24 year experience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX3ITew9Mpw

"And Then There Were None", which is one of Christie's most famous works not featuring Poirot, has been adapted by the BBC recently:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None_(mini....

bun_at_workonDec 12, 2018

Non-fiction:

- Factfulness by Hans Rosling

- The War on Science by Shawn Otto

- Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

- The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan

- The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier

Fiction:

- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

- The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

- The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The non-fiction books were all incredible and highly recommended. I especially appreciate The War on Science as it is highly relevant in today's polarized and emotional political climate.

The fiction books were good, for the most part. However, The Magicians might be the worst book I have ever read, not limited to fiction or fantasy. For more on that, ask.

I managed to read significantly more books this year due to joining an at-work book club, which has been very nice.

vram22onJune 23, 2018

How about Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse novels (fiction)? Asking, not saying (whether they are relatively unknown in the US). They are very popular in India, and of course must be so in the UK, since both authors were from there.

A lot of subtle humor (British-style, mainly about the aristocracy's ways, but fun to read) in the Wodehouse books. And Christie has many good novels in the detective genre. I actually don't find many detective novels good in the literal sense of being good stories about detection of crime, I like them more for the descriptions, conversation and atmosphere.

These stats for Christie from Wikipedia are impressive:

[ Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books,[5] behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages.[6] And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. ]

jacobkgonMar 8, 2018

I would add "And Then There Were None"

Haven't actually read Curtain, I will now immediately go buy it!

bshimminonAug 27, 2020

I was curious about this “Ursula N. Owen”, thinking perhaps she was an assistant of Knuth’s back in the 90s. It turns out that it’s a pseudonym sometimes used by Knuth himself, and is a reference to “U.N. Owen”, a character from And Then There Were None, a best-selling Agatha Christie novel first published in 1939 and one of the best-selling books of all time. The name “UN Owen” itself is a play on “unknown”, and I like to think of Donald chuckling to himself whenever he used that pseudonym.

From the postscript on https://ryanwaggoner.substack.com/p/could-you-delete-your-em...

umvionNov 18, 2020

For anyone who has never read Agatha Christie, I highly recommend the following:

- And Then There Were None

- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

- Murder on the Orient Express

- The A.B.C. Murders

The books are usually "slow burns", meaning they slowly build up to the big reveal at the end of the book. Agatha Christie is the master of making great payoffs though, so despite the initial slog, by the last page you are usually awash in dopamine/adrenaline (okay maybe that's a little exaggerated, but these books really do have good payoffs).

john-radioonDec 16, 2019

"And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie

"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin

"This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar

"Priestdaddy" by Patricia Lockwood

"Black Leopard, Red Wolf" by Marlon James

"Consider Phlebas," and maybe the rest of The Culture series of novels, by Iain Banks

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