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Comment by waltbosz | Hacker News Reader

I'm on an Asimov binge right now. Just finished Foundation and Earth. So I jumped to the scifi section of the list and saw Ready Player One on there. I found that book mildly entertaining, but not a work of great literature, and certainly not mind expanding.

I agree with your sentiment about the importance of knowing the reviewer. I think using general popularity as a gauge is a good way to get the worst recommendations.

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There was a time where Amazon was great to explore books: "users who bought also bought". Good old collaborative filtering.

I feel bad for giving useless advice so as someone who read several times the whole foundation series as a teen may I suggest: A deepness in the sky, a fire upon the deep, the forever war, gateway (Frederick Pohl). If you like fantasy, or even if not: the blade itself. If you have an enemy recommend him/her "the name of the wind". It's a great book but it's the first of an unfinished trilogy.

Edit: how could I forget the cryptonomicon?

I’m currently working my way through the Hugo award winners and am in the time of The Forever War and Gateway. I also recommend them for the most part. Rendezvous with Rama around that time is also really enjoyable.

I still recommend Name of the Wind. It's frustrating, but I would rather have loved and lost, than not loved at all.

> I think using general popularity as a gauge is a good way to get the worst recommendations.

Do you know a better way to get good recommendations? I am genuinely interested.

I've had success looking up the book recommendation lists of people who I think are intelligent. For example, Bill Gates publishes a list of recommended reading. I know that Bill Gates isn't the sort of person who would waste his time reading crappy books. And even if he did, he would not waste his reputation recommending them to others. I'm not saying go read the books on his list (I have not). I'm just using him as a concrete example of smart people who recommend books.

To find recommendations for yourself: Think of a person that you respect. Then google "{name} book recommendations" That should get you some hits.

It's quite possible that if the person you respect is not too famous and busy, you could email them and ask for a recommendation.

# Regarding popularity

I can't speak with any actual authority on the matter of general popularity being a poor gauge other than my own observations that I've never been a fan of what is popular. I suspect that there are several people like me in that regard on this forum.

Talk about books with people you admire. My best reads came from recommendations by mentors, managers and friends. A quick message on LinkedIn is often enough to get a solid recommendation. Generally it seems people like being asked for that kind of advice.

If you want to learn a non-fiction subject, university reading lists are a great place to start. It's a very different experience reading a textbook when you don't have to take an exam -- or even re-reading one that you read when you did. For me, the dry wit of the authors comes out more and you can focus on stuff that really interests you.

The other nice thing about this approach is that some textbooks are commonly recommended by different universities for the same courses -- and they're more likely to be good. For some random examples, Horrowitz and Hill, the art of electronics (for electronics!); Riley Hobson and Bence: mathematical methods for the physical sciences (for vector calculus); or David Mackay's book on information theory (legally freely available online, published by CUP and contains lots of Bayesian stuff the average HN reader would probably love).

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