Wind, Sand and Stars
by Sarah Carter, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
55% recommend45% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Memoir of an early airmail pilot flying over the Alps, the Sahara and the South Atlantic, with an optimistic view of humans and technology. Praised for vivid desert passages and clear prose; suits adventure readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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If you liked this article you'd probably also enjoy the book "Wind, Sand, and Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It's all about his time flying as an airmail pilot through the Alps, over the Sahara, and crossing the South Atlantic in the early 20th century.
on “Pilots who risk their lives flying tiny planes over the Atlantic” ↗…Luis Borges (hard to pick a favorite, just dive into the short stories and find out for yourself). Imagine an M.C. Escher drawing in story form. I also have a strong pull towards adventure so books like Wind, Sand and Stars by Exupery or Starlight and Storm by Rebuffat are constant companions. Growing up I loved books by Emilio Salgari, for a man who traveled so little outside of Italy he had an uncanny ability to imagine…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books of all time, and why?” ↗I think a discussion would be incomplete without remembering The Little Prince, Wind Sand and Stars. Time for me to read Saint-Exupery again. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.…
on “Pilots who risk their lives flying tiny planes over the Atlantic” ↗There’s a wonderful passage in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry‘s memoir “Wind, Sand, and Stars” where he describes being marooned in the saharan (or is it Arabian) desert, and didn’t think much of the many small black stones speckled in the sand until night fell and he saw the steady stream of…
on “Meterorite chunk crashes into house, bedroom, pillow” ↗Antoine Saint-Exupery wrote - Wind, Sand and Stars. Recommended
on “Jetstar pilots forgot to lower the landing gear” ↗The classic line from St. Exupéry’s Wind, Sand, and Stars (in French, Terre des hommes) is “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove.” For any who have not read that book, I highly highly recommend…
on “The Complexity of 'Simplicity'” ↗Saint Exupéry's memoir is titled Wind, Sand, and Stars. It's quite good. (The post tells you some about the memoir without ever naming it.)
on “The Amazigh Adventures of Le Petit Prince (2017)” ↗You may also enjoy a lot of Hemingway's stuff, Wind, Sand, and Stars by de Saint-Exupéry, Out of Africa by Karen Blixen and West With the Night by Berly Markham -- all memoirs (except for Hemingway's non-memoirs) very similar in style and beauty. If anyone else has recommendations…
on “My Favorite Books 2020” ↗This is a splendid read. Flying 300 meters off the deck, without radio contact, detailed charts, or friends on the ground, reminds me very much of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's writing in _Wind, Sand, and Stars_.
on “Plane accidentally flew around the world (2018)” ↗…reworking what I wrote. The only directly related book I'd recommend is On Writing Well. I'd also suggest reading clear and simple authors like Hemingway (A Movable Feast), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Wind, Sand and Stars), and Beryl Markham (West with the Night). But fundamentally: consistent practice, rereading, and editing.
on “Ask HN: How to level up your technical writing?” ↗The books that (I think) made the biggest impact on my writing are Zinsser's On Writing Well, everything Hemingway (e.g. The Sun Also Rises, A Moveable Feast), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Wind, Sand and Stars, and Beryl Markham's West with the Night. The common theme being simplicity and informal, but correct, speech.
on “What to read to become a better writer” ↗I really recommend the whole chapter this quotation comes from, and for that matter the whole book (Wind, Sand, and Stars, or in the original French, Terre des hommes). It’s a fantastically optimistic take on the relation of humans to technology (the specific example is airplanes, but the argument is quite general). [Here’s…
on “This is engineering: Army Jeep torn apart and reassembled in 4 minutes” ↗Your quotation has distorted the original a bit. (Well, of course the original is in French, but Lewis Galantière’s translation into English is also lovely.) It’s from chapter 3 of the book Wind, Sand & Stars (in French, Terre des hommes). Here’s the full text of that chapter, which I highly recommend to everyone: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/cd950f8ac6d58349e9e6 And here’s the paragraph sur
on “Stephen King's “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully”” ↗…following books: 1. Mindfulness in plain English 2. As a man thinketh 3. Self reliance (essay by RWE) 4. Wherever you go, there you are 5. The monk who sold his Ferrari 6. The alchemist 7. Wind, sand and stars 8. The heart and the fist 9. The little prince 10. The phantom tollbooth If you think you don't have the time for all, just only read the first one.
on “Ask HN: How to Find Purpose?” ↗Anyone in technology should read the whole chapter 3 of Wind, Sand and Stars, if they haven’t before: http://pastie.org/pastes/10477072/text
on “The Twelve Networking Truths” ↗