Yuxiang Huang (Shawn Huang)

Yuxiang Huang (Shawn Huang)

An undergraduate student of Tsinghua University

Yuxiang Huang’s Book List

Here is a non-academical book list from a Chinese reader who is doing research on Large Language Models and likes casual reading for books written in Chinese or English. His book interests are World History and Culture, the Development of Science and Technologies, Chinese society and history, etc. Contributions to this book list are welcomed, by simply sending a email to Yuxiang Huang. Note: Names of East Asian authors go by [Family name] [Given name], as what people commonly do when it comes to literature and politics.

Future Plans

  • Anything written by Han Kang, havn’t decided yet.

    Any recommendations?

  • Horizons: A Global History of Science [English] by James Poskett | 地平线：现代科学的全球起源 詹姆斯·波斯基特著

    This is a facinating book and I’ve decided to read its English original version.

  • Civilization and Disease [Translated to Chinese] by Henry Ernest Sigerist | 疾病与人类文明 亨利.欧内斯特.西格里斯特

    Reading TBD. Could anyone explain to me why the price of the official Chinese translated version is only 1/10 of the original English version? I would like to read the English version (because this book was used as lecture notes by the author at Universities), but they are toooooo expensive.

2024

  • Horizons: A Global History of Science [Translated to Chinese] by James Poskett | 地平线：现代科学的全球起源 詹姆斯·波斯基特著

    The best book I’ve read on the history of science. The book uses abundant examples and historical incidents to convey one central idea: the development of science goes far beyond the “Euro-centric” view of history. For various reasons, Europe is often regarded as the center of scientific history, with the belief that scientific progress was exclusive to Europe. However, the author effectively demonstrates that this is not true. The development of science and technology occurred simultaneously in other regions, from Africa to Asia and the Americas. Moreover, science is never just about science; it is always interconnected with other aspects of international society, such as religion, war, politics, and ethnic self-esteem.

    It is fascinating to learn that Einstein traveled to China, formed close friendships with Japanese scientists, was involved in India’s independence movement, and inspired many Israeli Jewish scientists. Top scientists have been engaged with various parts of the world throughout their lives. The book made me realize that, while we acknowledge that world history is intertwined and interconnected, we often overlook this point in the context of the history of technology. The author’s perspective helps explain why researchers today frequently complain about being distracted from their scientific work—this is not a new issue. Throughout history, scientists have always been interrupted! Good scientists have also been effective managers, influencers, and politicians, a phenomenon that dates back as far as human history itself.

    I would recommend this book to anyone considering a career in science or technology, as it offers insights on how to be a successful scientist through international collaboration, what individuals can achieve within the larger historical context, and why scientists are often pulled away by other matters.

  • How Language Began [Translated to Chinese] by Daniel L. Everett | 语言的诞生 丹尼尔·L.埃弗里特著

    A great book to rethink how language is generated during the evolution of human. Lots of good ideas can be grasped, and I would say that it is especially inspiring for people working on Natual Language Processing or Computational Linguistics. Although the author does not believe in that intelligence can be implemented by machines (which is what we are doing on LLMs), the book still contains lots of interesting views from archeologists, including the releationship between language and culture. I read this book on the flight (that’s definitely a very long flight) to the first COLM conference, and it is a perfect match with Alice Oh’s panel on Multilinguality during the conference, that lots of the theories among archeologists and computational linguistics are same, although they refuse to admit it :)

  • The Worlds I See [In English] by Fei-fei Li | 我眼中的世界 李飞飞著

    This is actually a very famous book in universities in Beijing (I believe it is also popular in other places in this world) now, written by the famous computer vision researher Fei-fei Li, who is a professor of Stanford Univerisity. Fei-fei shows her unique perspective towards American acedemia as a female immigrant born in Beijing, China and finished her immigration in her teens. She described the difficulty as both a female and an immigrant, and the aid she received to improve her studies all the way along, which is very touching. She also showed an authentic east-asian style of her origin family, which I believe every reader from such cultural environment should feel deeply related. (Personal advise: You should always check her google scholar page during reading this book. So you can know which paper or student she is refering to. :) )

  • The Nile River begins to flow - true notes of a journalist stationed in Africa for 1,123 days [In Chinese] by Lyu Qiang | 尼罗河开始流淌————驻非记者1123天真实手记 吕强著

    The author of this book, Lyu Qiang, is a journalist who has beed stationed in Africa for years and wrote this book after his return to China. The book provides a good view to Africa and Africaans, as it only describe and document the incidents that is happening in African contries, without making any comments. Readers are able to develop their personal opinions to such incidents without getting influence. The author mainly shows the difference among various regions and ethnics, which is affected to their culture and religious. In the last parts, the author focuses on the interactions of local residents and foriegn organizations e.g. UN forces and foriegn traders, deepening the topic of peace and urging to establish a newer, better international relationship.

  • My Students in Second Tier University [In Chinese] by Huang Deng | 我的二本学生 黄灯著

    In the past, Universities in China are officially devided into Tier 1, 2 and 3 Universities, where only the most prestigious schools, i.e. Tsinghua and Peking University, are classified into the Tier 1. Students in Tier 2 and 3 are expected to receive career education and the admission difficulty is lower compared to the tier 1 universities. The author of this book is a Chinese Literature Professor working in a tier 2 university in Guangdong Province, which is one of the richest provinces in China. This book shows what do second tier university students mainly concern about during the past 10 years, at the meantime exhibits the massive changes of Chinese society, i.e. the development of economy, the rise of housing price, and the differences occur in the HR market. This is good book for people who want to persue a research/educational career in universities, as it calls the readers to rethink the relationship of education and social needs.

Earlier

  • Three Body [In Chinese] by Liu Cixin | 三体 刘慈欣著

    Very famous. Everyone knows this in China. It has won the Hugo Award for best Novel in 2015. It is recommended by Barack Obama. There is no need to write too much recommendation here, just go for it!

  • Steves Jobs [Translated to Chinese] by Walter Isaacson | 史蒂夫·乔布斯传 沃尔特·艾萨克森著

    A very detailed book on Jobs’ personal life. Cannot remember too much since I read this in high school. Good for someone that wants to join the high-tech industry.