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Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by saryant on Thursday July 12, 2018 @11:44PM (#17520386)
1) Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor

Everything from the tulip craze to the dotcom boom.

2) If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? by Alan Alda

Alan Alda of MASH fame teaches you how to build more empathy and improve your communication skills.

3) Bad Blood by James Carreyou

Theranos. Enough said.

4) Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Steve Coll

I think of this as the last book in Coll's unofficial trilogy on Afghanistan. First up was Ghost Wars, a history of American involvement in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion up to 2001. Second is his biography on the Bin Laden family. Last year he released Directorate S, a chronicle of American and Pakistani involvement post-9/11 primarily told through the lens of the Pakistani intelligence directorate tasked with influencing Afghanistan.

Coll has interviews with everyone from in-country CIA agents and foot soldiers who were on the ground all the way up to defense secretaries and military leaders, from both sides. An in-depth examination of what went wrong and why we're still stuck there.

5) Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads by Paul Theroux.

The greatest travel writer of the last half-century finally turns his attention homeward: the American Deep South. Four road trips over four seasons. He published an article in Smithsonian Magazine hitting the highlights: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/soul-south-180951861/

Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by txcwpalpha on Friday July 13, 2018 @12:50AM (#17520582)
I can't second the recommendation of Bad Blood enough. I couldn't put it down. Every chapter I thought "surely I've reached the bottom of the rabbit hole now. It CANT get any crazier than this", but then it always did.

Aside from being a really enthralling and interesting story about one of SV's darling unicorns, it was also really eye opening into the absurdity of the amount of money that gets thrown around willy-nilly in SV, and how the bandwagon/FOMO effect just makes it worse. I won't say anything more because it's better to just read the book, but this is one of those stories that is almost endlessly fascinating.

Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by freehunter on Friday July 13, 2018 @10:25AM (#17523192)
Does anyone have a recommendation on a good book around the DotCom era? I was too young and too far removed from the tech world at the time to know much about it, and I've had a hard time finding anything that could transport me back to that era. What were the offices like, what was everyone doing, what languages/tooling were they using, what was the feel? There are plenty of books I see recommended that talk about SV today but what was it like 20 years ago?
Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by misiti3780 on Friday July 13, 2018 @02:05PM (#17525248)
Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by arethuza on Friday July 13, 2018 @06:05AM (#17521694)
The Steve Coll book is pretty disturbing - e.g. the CIA hints on "How to spot a terrorist" including things like "Keeps insisting on their innocence when tortured", "Keeps asking for to see a lawyer or a doctor" etc.
Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by cncrnd on Friday July 13, 2018 @11:11AM (#17523587)
Bad Blood is crazy stuff. Stayed up reading it last night after seeing the recs here.

Not sure what I learned other than people are carried away easily, but it was very entertaining.

Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by killaken2000 on Friday July 13, 2018 @04:54AM (#17521449)
+1 for bad blood as well. I don't think I've read a book faster. Every chapter was more unbelievable that the next.
Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by arethuza on Friday July 13, 2018 @06:23AM (#17521758)
If someone had written Bad Blood as a work of fiction I'm sure it would have been savaged for being completely unrealistic.
Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by refurb on Friday July 13, 2018 @08:42AM (#17522414)
Agree. Bad blood is a fantastic book. Really well written and tells the story in an incredible amount of details. The author did an amazing job in his research.
Re:Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List? by divan on Sunday July 15, 2018 @07:09PM (#17537609)
I also couldn't stop reading it, and devoured it in one day. Amazing read.