

Ask HN: Books That Should Be Read - kiba

I realize that I was not the only one who have a favorite book that I think everybody should read.<p>So, what books do you think that everyone should read, or at least should know about?
======
hga
Ah, that turned out to be easier than I expected, after I remember that I
always keep a copy to give to someone depressed (it fully satisfies the "or at
least should know about" criteria):

 _Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy_ by David D. Burns, M.D.
([http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Therapy-Revised-
Updated/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Therapy-Revised-
Updated/dp/0380810336/))

This is the best popular treatment of cognitive therapy (nowadays cognitive
behavioral therapy, I haven't read this newer edition). Anyone who's depressed
really needs to try this out, with or without the aid of anti-depressants.

The thesis is that you, at least in part, make yourself depressed by telling
yourself depressing things that are largely false, about yourself, about what
others are saying and doing to/about to you, etc.; in general, incorrect
filtering of what you perceive.

So you identify those things and do you best to correct your mis-perceptions.
Since I read an earlier edition in the '80s, behavioral therapy has been added
to the mix, and that's supposed to help (I can't vouch for it either way).

Anyway, after I read this (and a few other cognitive psychology works) talking
therapy became absolutely useless ... I'd "fixed" myself as much as possible
in this way.

(Knowledge of this is also _really_ useful to understanding the end of the
Evangelion anime TV series (seriously, the creator was coming out of a multi-
year bad period, "living by not dying").)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Second the Burns book recommendation.

Burns wrote a book in the 80s about how to meet people. It was the best book I
ever read on how to meet girls. No gimmicks, just advice that works.

[http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Connections-David-D-
Burns/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Connections-David-D-
Burns/dp/0451148452)

------
JacobAldridge
Similar previous discussion - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=199722>

Which, in turn, included links to these previous suggestions -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=176710>,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=110899>,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=85840>

------
aarongough
'1984' by George Orwell - Even after all this time it is a chilling look at
one of the many ways a society can go wrong, particularly relevant these days
because so many parts of it are coming true.

'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson - Awesome cyberpunk novel that anyone with an
interest in programming.

'The Night's Dawn Trilogy' by Peter F. Hamilton - Fantastically engrossing
series of books that are so good you will finish them wishing they were
longer. The portrait painted in the books is so vivid that you will remember
it for years to come.

(In case you can't tell, I like Sci-Fi :-p)

~~~
mikecane
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules
Verne, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

~~~
aarongough
+1 for The Diamond Age, that is a killer book!

------
lochnessy
"Ender's Game" [O.S. Card even wrote his own review on Amazon]

"The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship" [a
Bukowski book about getting high on making good work]

------
mikecane
Hunger by Knut Hamsun, Wait Until Spring by John Fante, Post Office by Charles
Bukowski, The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary, The Outsider by Colin Wilson, The
Price of Greatness by Arnold M. Ludwig, Touched With Fire by Kay Redfield
Jamison

Just off the top of my head without any ordering.

~~~
s2r2
+1 for Hunger

my recent favorite: Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner

------
kristianp
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Pirsig. The lecturer recommended
this in a first-year computer science course, (a while ago now).

------
hellotoby
Neuromancer - William Gibson

Anything by Haruki Murakami

~~~
kimfuh
I still get a kick out of playing the old Neuromancer game til now.

------
andrewhyde
Catch 22, Monkey Wrench Gang.

------
kimfuh
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

