HN Books @HNBooksMonth

James Gleick‘s “Chaos”[0] (history of chaos theory) and “The Information”[1] (history of information theory) are so beautifully and artfully written you might forget they’re technical. As close as (history of) science writing comes to poetry.

A lot drier but top marks for clarity: “Linear Algebra Done Right” by Axler.[2] It got me through both undergraduate and PhD math degrees. When something was confusing in a lecture or another textbook, I could always return to Axler for the most direct path from ignorance to understanding.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1... [2]: https://linear.axler.net/

⬐ carb

Thank you for the recommendations! These look wonderful.

⬐ kashyapc

Long ago I recall Robert Sapolsky calling Chaos "the most influential book in my thinking about science since college." I found it quite a statement, so I did some superficial research and read some reviews (I know), and concluded that it felt too "pop-sci" and I skipped over it. Maybe I should reconsider.

Hands down, the most fascinating book I read in 2021 (and I will have read for a long time!) is "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" by James Gleick: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400096235

Those who have a computer science background will almost definitely love the book. It connects many dots that are previously seemingly unrelated. My jaw dropped for literally every few pages of most chapters.

⬐ victorbstan

I didn’t read it this year, but can confirm 10/10 would read again.

⬐ micmankos

Claude Shannon had quite the mind.

"A Mind at Play" is a good book on Shannon's life and "The Bit Player" is a good partner movie to watch :)

"A Mathematical Theory of Communication" and "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits" paved the way for much of modern computing.

⬐ d1str0

A Mind At Play was fantastic. :)

I have not read any extensive studies of his work, but I have section regarding him in "The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood" [0], super cool. It is also a nice book overall IMHO.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1...

Gleick's "The Information" and Dyson's "Turing's Cathedral" would be 2 other good pop sci books on the origins of CS.

https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1...

https://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Uni...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBbVbqRvqTM

This is a nice short video about her. And I read a bit more about her in this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Information-History-Theory-Flood/d...

The embedded short on Claude Shannon is very good and highly reccommended https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq1-Iq9Vm28

A good book on the subject is Gleick's The Information http://www.amazon.com/The-Information-History-Theory-Flood/d...

Seconding Dream Machine. Three more:

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood http://www.amazon.com/The-Information-History-Theory-Flood/d...

Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Univ...

Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Algorithms-That-Changed-Future/dp...

Kurt Beyer's book on Grace Hopper gives a great perspective on the early days of computing: http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Information-Lemelson-Studies...

A very comprehensive view an lots of great stories in James Gleick's _The Information_: http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/14...

The Information A History, A Theory, A Flood. is the book that I wanted to write and then I found out it existed and the author did a better job than I probably could have.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Information-History-Theory-Flood/d...

Secrets of a JavaScript Ninja I enjoyed. Nothing that was like "ZOMG!" but it did help me think better about my JS code. http://www.manning.com/resig/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Tartt Has a new book out I haven't read, yet, but her other books have been great. especially http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-History-Donna-Tartt/dp/1400...

Then neither a tutorial nor book, but pretty helpful: Bookmarking the comments of people like Paul Graham. Since he usually makes insightful comments on interesting articles, it works as a sorta hackish "Best Of" link https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg