Book of Disquiet
by Fernando Pessoa, Jerónimo Pizarro, Margaret Jull Costa · first published 2017
65% recommend35% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Fragmentary, introspective prose that is engrossing and often funny. It offers company in loneliness and a reflective, wide-ranging read that rewards dipping in.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…appear in, say a reddit top 100 books or whatever: 1. The tartar steppe. Dino Buzzati 2. Pedro Paramo. Juan Rulfo. 3. Life and fate.Vasily Grossman 4.Memoirs of Hadrian. Marguerite Yourcenar 5. The book of disquiet. Fernando Pessoa 6. The House of the Sleeping Beauties. Yasunari Kawabata. 7. Midaq Alley. Naguib Mahfouz [1]http://www.complete-review.com/main/main.html [2]http://www.complete-review.com/main/main.html [3]https://larepubliquedeslivres.com/ [4]https://www.clarin.com/tema/libros-recomendados.html [5]https://web.archive.org/web/20130401045155/http://www.themod... [6]https://4chanlit.fandom.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/Literat...
on “Good Books for a Lousy Year” ↗The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. On the Road by Kerouac. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I read Pessoa to feel not so alone. I read Kerouac to feel alive. I read Meditations to not lose my head.
on “Ask HN: Which book have you re-read the most times? how many times?” ↗…leadership / management insights). Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (An extremely simplified historical overview of how we got here). The Book of Disquiet (Serpent's Tail Classics) (Random journaling from one of the world’s greatest prose writers: Fernando Pessoa). Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software (Excellent explanation on how…
on “Patrick Collison's Bookshelf” ↗…but it's really fascinating and engrossing. I found it on Patrick Collison's bookshelf which looks like it has a lot of other really great recommendations - https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa: another one that I'm still currently reading. a very sad book but so well written and thought provoking that I only read 5 or 10 pages at a time and then spend any equal amount of…
on “Ask HN: 2019 Winter Reading List?” ↗I recommend everyone to read “The Book of Disquiet” by Bernardo Soares, a semi-heteronym of Fernando Pessoa.
on “Álvaro de Campos” ↗Excited to see Fernando Pessoa on HN. He's easily my favorite poet. The Book of Disquiet is under appreciated and I've recommended it to many friends.
on “The Politics of Fernando Pessoa” ↗Oh, sure! 1. The Book of Disquiet by Bernardo Soares/Fernando Pessoa ("Livro do Desassossego" in the original Portuguese) 2. 1984 by George Orwell 3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera 4. The Design of Everyday Things…
on “As 'Dorian Gray' ages, its relevance only grows” ↗…letter might be both conciliatory and provocative. For those troubled by the coexistence of apparent opposites, I recommend Hegel's sublation (Aufhebung), Crowley's crossing of the Abyss, and Pessoa's Book of Disquiet, in that order.
on “William Gibson and the trademarking of cyberspace” ↗…to university, but I feel I only got an education when I started reading and 4chan.org/lit was where I went to learn. This was in my mid-20s - this is where I learned about things like Middlemarch, The Book of Disquiet, If On A Winters Night a Traveler, etc. This (https://4chanlit.fandom.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/sub) is amazing and can be found nowhere else. It's also an anonymous board with people who are quite…
on “8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now” ↗I finally started reading The Book of Disquiet, which I have had sitting about for years. Quite surprised by it, has a far greater range than people make it out to have and some amazing humor. It is turning out to be one of the most fascinating books…
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗I won't read NYT, but I do recommend the Book of Disquiet to anyone with a soul
on “Fernando Pessoa: Office Worker, Occultist, Galaxy of Writers” ↗…hilarious, not just because it's trolling fascists but because it's completely consistent with Pessoa's belief that fictional characters can be just as "real" as real people. Reminds me of this passage from Book of Disquiet: > No one, I suppose, genuinely admits the real existence of another person. We may concede that the person is alive and that he thinks and feels as we do, but there will always be an unnamed element…
on “The Politics of Fernando Pessoa” ↗…conveniently drift out here to me. I’m sitting at the door, feasting my eyes and ears on the colours and sounds of the landscape, and I softly sing – for myself alone – wispy songs I compose while waiting." The Book of Disquiet -- Fernando Pessoa
on “I haven’t been I: On Fernando Pessoa (2021)” ↗People have been saying the same thing for over a century. Take the following passage from Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet, written in the 1920s: > I belong to a generation that inherited disbelief in the Christian faith and created in itself a disbelief in all other faiths. Our fathers still had the believing impulse, which…
on “Why do you waste so much time on the internet?” ↗…thing, and be happy now, in the moment we’re feeling happiness, thinking of nothing but what we’re feeling and completely excluding everything else. Trap all thought in our sensation..” Excerpt from The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
on “If you’re so smart, how come you’re not happy?” ↗