This is a place to consolidate book recommendations.
I'm reading The Logic of Failure and enjoying it quite a bit. I wasn't sure whether I'd heard of it here, and I found a post here called Great Books of Failure, an article which hadn't crossed my path before.
There's a recent thread about books for a gifted young teen and a slightly less recent discussion of books on cogsci thread which might or might not be found by someone looking for good books.
So, what books or lists of books do you recommend?
My picks, some of which have already been mentioned. I would classify these all as "viewquake" books for someone who hasn't encountered the concepts in them before.
Godel, Escher, Bach - gets a huge credit for sending me down the rabbit hole of "what your brain is actually doing", though like others I'm not sure if I would like it as much on a second reading.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - Stoicism at its best, I count this as the most motivational book I've ever read.
The Sciences of the Artificial by Herbert Simon - retreads topics that are probably already somewhat familiar to LW readers, but still has one of the highest insights/page ratios I've ever seen.
48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene - instrumental rationality in the social arena.
And one dis-recommendation:
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander - the concept of "design patterns" which gets quite a bit of mention nowadays got its start here, but this book is a mess. The support Alexander uses to back up his choice of patterns is laughably sparse, often completely wrong and picked to support his somewhat warped sense of eco-morality. Avoid.
I've only read bits and pieces of Godel, Escher, Bach but I certainly mean to read more. I'd borrow it from my parents, but my father (who showed me the Crab Canon when I was ten) is reading it to my fourteen year old little brother, and I'm certainly not about to interrupt!
Maybe once I get around to paying back my library fees, yeah?
Wikipedia lists seven popular english translations. Is there a particular one you can recommend?
1xamdam
Greene appears to assume worst-possible social equilibrium to justify the book, unnecessarily IMO. Clearly there are societies where people are more altruistic and trustworthy than others, but in a fairly decent society they are still useful for defense at the very least. On the other hand he's more honest than Cialdini, who pretended all of his methods are defensive, while greatly benefiting from booksales to manipulators.
This is a place to consolidate book recommendations.
I'm reading The Logic of Failure and enjoying it quite a bit. I wasn't sure whether I'd heard of it here, and I found a post here called Great Books of Failure, an article which hadn't crossed my path before.
There's a recent thread about books for a gifted young teen and a slightly less recent discussion of books on cogsci thread which might or might not be found by someone looking for good books.
So, what books or lists of books do you recommend?