The Voyage of the Beagle
by Charles Darwin · first published 2008
39% recommend61% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Vivid travel and natural history writing that shows Darwin's observant, curious mind at work; readers enjoy its asides on local places, animals, and food, and it suits anyone interested in science or travel literature.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…enhance the experience. Not only can I enjoy the book, but I can enrich the experience by taking up extra context from easily available online sources. If you haven't tried it, pick up the ebook of "Voyage of the Beagle" and trace Darwin's travels with google earth and wiki. I assure you that the time you spend "distracted" looking at pictures of Patagonia will be a great time.
on “The myth of the golden age of reading” ↗…jack) is a sure way to plant the kind of approach to problems that is required to understand modern technology or work in science. * * * It's somewhat off the subject, but I've been reading Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, and it’s truly wonderful to see his mind at work. Not only is he constantly carefully observing the culture, geology, weather, flora/fauna, fossil record, etc. that he comes across on the trip, but also…
on “The Complexity of 'Simplicity'” ↗The Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin is a great read - its an account of his adventures (no other word) on the Beagle.
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?” ↗Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle[0] is also a great travel read. His style is much more scientific. But that eye for rationalism often leads to very good observations about the places he visited Dana's Two Years Before the Mast[1] is…
on “Transiting the Suez Canal in a Private Sailboat (2003)” ↗I would highly recommend reading Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle. It is one of the finest examples of travel literature and natural history in one text. It is also worth noting that the Galapagos play a relatively minor role in the book and are in many ways one of…
on “Darwin’s Barnacles” ↗The Voyage of the Beagle is a fun read, with many little asides about what the animals Darwin ate tasted like. Puma meat was one he called out as particularly delicious and remarkably like veal.
on “Charles Darwin Ate One of Everything He Discovered” ↗Darwin "The Voyage of the Beagle" Homer "The Odyssey"
on “Ask HN: Good books written before ~1900?” ↗…spent his whole life furiously gathering evidence from everywhere he could and communicating with the rest of the biology community worldwide. If you read any of his books (the most fun, I think, is the Voyage of the Beagle) the constant probing and questioning shines through. The man made hypotheses about everything he saw and tested them where he could, or suggested possible tests even when they were beyond him. The character…
on “How Geniuses Think” ↗I am very interested in the maps-based story, because I have a similar pet project on my TODO list: the idea is to put Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle" on Google maps or Google Earth, to get a better feel of the voyage. A friend of mine used to read "The Lord Of The Rings" with the "Middle Earth Atlas" on hand, in the right chronological order (read…
on “Penguin's Putting Books on Twitter and Google Maps” ↗Ever heard about Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle"? The purpose was to collect specimens and chart coasts -- purely descriptive. Even the idea of predictive natural science was a little awkward in the face of the religious concept that God created the…
on “The Accidental Elitist: Academia is too important to be left to academics” ↗In his Journal of Researches as well as the condensed recount found in The Voyage of the Beagle, a young Charles Darwin describes his considerable astonishment at the constitutional robustness of the indigenous peoples he encountered in Tierra del Fuego in the 1830s. At that time they were called…
on “Hominin head-scratcher: who butchered this rhino 700k years ago?” ↗Most weird organisms have been noticed long before their genetic weirdness was known. Darwin mentioned in "The Voyage of the Beagle" that a salt lake in South America was reddish due to microbes, but only in the late 20th century did people recognize that these were very unusual microbes -- members of the Archaea.
on “Rare microbes lead scientists to discover new branch on the tree of life” ↗…Maggie Gyllenhaal, 36 hours for a single credit: https://www.audible.com/pd/Anna-Karenina-Audiobook/B01FN88BH... - 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami https://www.audible.com/pd/1Q84-Audiobook/B005XZM7R6 - 25 hours: Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Voyage-of-the-Beagle-Audioboo... Enjoy!
on “What are your favorite books on Audible?” ↗…edifice, now proving to be quite secure from outside observation. Early "travel writers" functioned as reliable spies, with many of them bieng, young, out of work,recent science graduates. Even Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle has hints. One of the bigest secret's the British maintained was determining a countrys hydrocloric acid production capacity, and as still the worlds most used industrial chemical is a reliable proxy…
on “Book and Dagger: How scholars and librarians became spies during World War II” ↗Darwin's "The voyage of the Beagle" which is basically his edited travel diary. It's a slow read because he just describes his observations on animals and landscape (he was really into geology) and sometimes the interactions with the people…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗