Books Worth Reading

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
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<p>What books are worth reading?</p>

<p>I decided to start a thread here dedicated to quality books after I read several of Ben's suggestions and they were great. For anyone who missed them in "Why Caltech? A series":

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And from "Wikipedia about Caltech":


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<p>I personally think Dummit and Foote is hard to read unless you're using it as part of a course. The first algebra book I read was "Topics in Algebra" by Herstein.</p>

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<p><em>peaks head in</em></p>

<p>Walden is a great book. Especially the first half.</p>

<p><em>bounces away</em></p>

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<p>Personally, I was disappointed with Principles of Analysis. As Ben says, it is very succinct, but I think Rudin too often sacrifices clarity for brevity. It works great as a reference volume(that’s why I got it), but will probably only confuse the uninitiated. My analysis class used Krantz; it isn’t the most rigorous, but most of the arguments are fully justified, providing a easier read than Rudin. </p>

<p>Sidenote: Feynman Rocks!</p>

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<p>I enjoyed "The World is Flat" by Tom Friedman, myself. Yeah, a lot of it is obvious and he hits you over the head a bit, but it was a good read--and I think his ideas about reforming our visa/education system sound pretty solid.</p>

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<p>Don't read Freakonomics. That stuff is trash that appeals to the masses and contains very little of intellectual value (i wrote a paper on this for my AP English class). I honestly swear, that book is a fun piece of pop culture/entertainment but do not expect anything challenging out of it.</p>

<p>DO read anything and everything by Peter Singer. He's awesome.</p>

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<p>What's wrong with reading for enjoyment and not for intellectual improvement? I'm currently reading Cold Moon by Jeffery Deaver, a fiction novel, and I am enjoying it. I don't see anything wrong with that.</p>

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<p>By the way, my favorite book is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.</p>

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<p>jimbob1225 says

[quote]
Don't read Freakonomics. That stuff is trash

[/quote]
</p>

<p>With all due respect, does your opinion on this issue have much weight? Steve Levitt won the most prestigious award given to young economists, and Stephen Dubner is a distinguished journalist. Their book won rave reviews from academics as well as laypeople. Serious people of all stripes think it is a book worth reading -- especially since it freely admits to being a popularization and refers you to every scientific study it discusses so you can check the conclusions for yourself. Nothing the book says has been successfully refuted, despite many attempts.</p>

<p>But, nevermind... after all, you did write a paper on this for your AP English class.</p>

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<p>Reading solely for pleasure is the only reason summers exist, lizzardfire. ; )I just finished rereading The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter. It's a perfect summer novel: a fearless hero William Wallace vs. a power hungry king Edward.</p>

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<p>Freakonomics is on my shelf right now, as well as the shelf of my business partner, who knows more about such things than I do (he did econ at UChicago and just finished his MBA there--youngest student in his class).</p>

<p>Is it an oversimplification? Maybe, in places. Does he assert things which are difficult to prove either way? Probably. Does the way Dubner opens each chapter by brown-nosing Levitt get a little annoying? Definitely.</p>

<p>But was it a good read? Yup. No word on what my AP English teacher would've thought.</p>

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<p>oh i totally agree, read Freakonomics for pleasure. I just took issue with the fact that people painted Freakonomics as some sort of magical intellectual masterpiece, which it's not. sorry i sounded more than a bit arrogant. i just don't like putting Freakonomics on the same list as, say, Practical Ethics. it's not the same kind of book.</p>

<p>also, i agree, Dubner and Levitt are brilliant and well-educated, the book just doesn't show off their analytical skills. for example, in one chapter, they talk about internet dating.The authors provide statistics that seem to show that people on internet dating sites discriminate based on race even if they profess not to care. Dubner and Levitt state that on one site “80 percent of the white men declared that race didn’t matter to them.” They then showed that these same men “sent 90 percent of their e-mail queries to white women” (81). This seems to be an indubitable indication of discrimination, but Dubner and Levitt fail to point out the percentage of non-white women on the site. They actually state that the site examined was “predominantly white” (80). In such a case, open-minded white men would have no choice but to go for white women, and even if some non-white women were on the site, there would be a smaller number to choose from and an even smaller number of ones desirable enough to e-mail. In the end, the authors seem to be digging too hard for a shocking nugget that doesn’t quite exist.</p>

<p>that was an excerpt from my essay. ok, im no scholar, but the point still stands. and i take back my statement that you shouldnt Read freakonomics, and that it's trash. Sorry. but it's still no erudite treatise on economics, and is not in the same class as Practical Ethics or something</p>

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<p>Zeta, if you enjoy reading about people like William Wallace and Edward, as the holder of an ultra-rare Caltech <em>history</em> degree, let me advise you to take one of Warren Brown's medieval history classes when you get there. He is absolutely a fantastic teacher.</p>

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<p>


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<p>You trash freakonomics but you emulate peter singer...therefore freakonomics must be a good book.</p>

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<p>I don't recommend freakonomics either. </p>

<p>Here's a run down of what it's about:
You can use data to support arguments. In fact, you should.</p>

<p>Now go read something better. :)</p>

<p>EDIT:
To be completely honest, though - some of his points are interesting; but are fairly common. (the abortion thing in particular)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
some of his points are interesting; but are fairly common. (the abortion thing in particular)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What? It seems to me that this is utterly false -- if the notion that abortion reduced crime is common, it's only because Steve Levitt's work, mostly publicized through Freakonomics, made such an impact. Could you cite a single specific statement (in a newspaper, magazine, Internet forum post, TV show, anything) made prior to the publication of Donohue and Levitt's famous abortion/crime paper* to suggest that abortion contributed to the drop in crime?</p>

<p>I am almost positive that there was no such thing before Levitt came up with his insight into this. Give the man credit where it's due, or bring the citation.</p>

<hr>

<ul>
<li>JJ Donohue, SD Levitt, "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2001</li>
</ul>

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<p>I meant that it's a common argument. I don't know who said it first, but I've heard it many times. That's why it didn't captivate me.</p>

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<p>ben golub: you must have ignored my last post</p>

<p>"ok, im no scholar, but the point still stands. and i take back my statement that you shouldnt Read freakonomics, and that it's trash. Sorry. but it's still no erudite treatise on economics, and is not in the same class as Practical Ethics or something"</p>

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<p>fool -- that seems like a funny reason to be dissatisfied with a book -- that it made such a big impact that you knew its most important points before reading it. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad reason, but maybe this is pretty high praise for the authors.</p>

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<p>jimbob -- I never asserted Freakonomics was an erudite treatise on economics. I'm a (baby) economist and I read real economics papers on most days. Freakonomics is, and is intended to be, a popular book to excite a mass audience about the ideas, techniques, and spirit of economic analysis. To read and/or evaluate it in the same frame of mind as you would read and evaluate a Nature paper or a philosophical text is to (a) completely miss the point (b) deprive yourself of significant pleasure.</p>

<p>This is an very mildly related tirade, but I get quite annoyed when scientific or well-educated people read a book like Freakonomics or The Tipping Point and quibble about imprecision or lack of scientific rigor. If I didn't know better, I'd assume that this is just a lame attempt to show off how sophisticated the critic supposedly is.</p>

<p>I know lots of real, very accomplished, famous scientists who get giddy with excitement when they read something like Freakonomics or The Tipping Point. They know it's flashy and stylized, but they are smart enough to wake up the excitable kid inside, who doesn't quibble -- who is capable of awe at the broad, fundamental insights and who can appreciate their potential (including the real scientific potential). Especially when you consider that there is no good, overarching theory to explain the things those books are about, and so the best we can do for now is to sketch the broad outlines and get enough young scientists excited, so they can actually construct the precise theory the complainers think is lacking.</p>

<p>Anyway, I think reading Freakonomics and complaining that its arguments aren't tight or precise enough is like reading a novel and complaining that it's false. Different books for different purposes. Learn to appreciate what the thing is meant to be.</p>