Range
Range by David Epsteinby David Epstein
Shares rank 30 of 152 nonfiction books by recommenders
Readers recommend Range for its engaging, well-written look at how generalists and specialists learn and solve problems, with vivid examples of specialists' experiences.
Readers recommend Range for its engaging, well-written look at how generalists and specialists learn and solve problems, with vivid examples of specialists' experiences.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Engaging, well-written, highly praised read
“Anybody who reads this stupid poem and gets a sinking feeling in their chest should pick up a copy”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Men That Don't Fit In” “That book is so good it inspired a blog post three years before it was published!”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “The Importance of Limitations for Creativity and Learning (2023)” “Fantastic book called Range that talks about this phenomenon.”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Why child prodigies rarely become elite performers” Insight into generalists and specialists
“it displays so many different scenarios of people engaging with specialized fields and interacting with them in ways that relate to their past experiences”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “The Suck Is Why We're Here” “groups of people with very mixed backgrounds leads to much faster rates of problem solving and innovation”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “Patterns and problems in emerging multi-agent systems” “David Epstein calls this "desirable difficulty" in the book Range.”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Thin desires are eating life”
Other nonfiction books people recommend
The four most recommended other nonfiction books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Cuckoo's Eggby Cliff Stoll | 40 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Amusing Ourselves to Deathby Neil Postman | 36 | 0 | 100% | 9 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| The Anxious Generationby Jonathan Haidt | 24 | 12 | 67% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Bullshit Jobsby David Graeber | 20 | 12 | 63% | 8 | — | — |
| Rangeby David EpsteinThis page | 7 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
All 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“That book is so good it inspired a blog post three years before it was published!”
“runs any OCI image without pulling it”
“Range always reads only the bytes your program touches. Nothing else.”
“Most importantly, Range doesn't need any daemon, any container runtime, any registry or any image conversion.”
“groups of people with very mixed backgrounds leads to much faster rates of problem solving and innovation”
“Anybody who reads this stupid poem and gets a sinking feeling in their chest should pick up a copy”
“Fantastic book called Range that talks about this phenomenon.”
“it displays so many different scenarios of people engaging with specialized fields and interacting with them in ways that relate to their past experiences”
“David Epstein calls this "desirable difficulty" in the book Range.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.