
Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read? - Danilka
I want to find the absolutely crazy-to-grasp book of all times.<p>Most articles related to this topic suggest something like the Fight Club. Even though, there are some good twists to the story, I feel like my mind could be blown away way more than that.<p>Needless to say that we are talking about a book for the HN audience.
======
sriku
Gödel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter. Both a
work of literary and technical genius.

Le ton beau de Marot, also by Douglas Hofstadter. Was blown by his description
of how making the typographical choice of starting the first word of each
chapter with letters decreasing in height to the normal page font size, caused
him to rethink a whole chapter (he couldn't use descenders, which limits the
first word, which limits his first sentence, which constrains his first
paragraph and so on).

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Every
single chapter is potentially mind blowing. The whole approach of trying to
instruct rationality through such fiction is itself brilliant I think.

~~~
raquo
Re: Eliezer Yudkowsky, also "Three Worlds Collide":
[http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-
collide.pd...](http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pdf)

------
BigCanOfTuna
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkings.
([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene))

The idea that organisms evolved to be survival vehicles for our genes totally
inverted and simplified my view of life. It gave me a plausible explanation
for how we came to be, and put the final nail in religion's coffin (for me).

~~~
hga
Ditto for me, although not with quite the same effects. It ties into so many
things in the real world; for us, e.g. "Worse is Better"
([https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html](https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html))
because it has survival value.

------
ThePhysicist
"Human Evolution" by Robin Dunbar ([http://www.amazon.com/A-Pelican-
Introduction-Human-Evolution...](http://www.amazon.com/A-Pelican-Introduction-
Human-Evolution/dp/0141975318))

The book is a mind-boggling journey through our own evolutionary history and
delivers surprising and sometimes funny insights on many aspects of our
behavior as modern humans (e.g. it attempts to explain the origins of
religion, dancing and music). The beauty of the book lies in the fact that it
makes you understand in detail which processes have transformed us from
primates to modern humans. Truly fascinating, beautiful stuff.

Most people probably know Dunbar from "Dunbar's number", which relates the
relative brain size of animals to the number of individuals with which they
live together
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number)).
This often (mis-)cited number is but one example of Dunbar's ingenious, math-
driven approach to many problems in biology and evolution.

To maximize mind-blowing capacity, combine Dunbar with Jared Diamond's "The
World Until Yesterday"
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Until_Yesterday](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Until_Yesterday)),
which explains how our ancestors and many traditional tribes lived (and
sometimes still live), and "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)),
which explains many aspects of life and social organization using mathematics
and evolution theory.

For me, this stuff is more mysterious, thrilling and captivating than any
fiction book I've ever read.

~~~
karuneshkaushal
I read 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond in College and it is single
handedly the most insightful book I have ever read.

One of these days I will buy all of Jared Diamond's and Robert Greene's books
and read them multiple times.

~~~
mrpsbrk
'Guns, Germs and Steel' is pure geographical determinism, dressed up as
something else.

~~~
cpach
What is it more specifically that you disagree with in Diamond’s theories?

~~~
wolf550e
I suggest reading this:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/2vf565/myths_of...](https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/2vf565/myths_of_conquest_part_nine_the_terminal_narrative/)
and other posts in the AskHistorians SubReddit.

------
neilk
Chomsky's oeuvre on politics, in general. There isn't one single book that
states a thesis, it's about a perspective. So perhaps start with _The Chomsky
Reader_. An easier-to-digest intro is the documentary _Manufacturing Consent_.
The twist is that a lot of the things you think of as "bugs" in the political
and economic systems of the Western democracies are "features" from the
perspective of powerful elites. But the meta-lesson is that big questions can
be answered. If you get past the mythology in your culture, and read primary
sources, you can really figure this stuff out. Chomsky can go off the deep end
at times (and his fanclub does so a lot), but his documentation is meticulous.
Well worth reading.

For very different perspectives on programming, check out _Structure and
Interpretation of Computer Programming_ (read it a decade ago and I use
techniques from there every day.)

 _The Gift_ by Lewis Hyde. Although directed at artists, it is highly relevant
to creative programmers and the phenomenon of open source. He is able to
articulate things which are very hard to talk about, like the intersection of
economics and artistry, and how the gifting ethos is necessary for any culture
to thrive. If you think ESR had the last word on how open source works, you
need to read this.

Another book of interest by Hyde is _Trickster Makes This World_ , wherein you
learn the hacker archetype - the giver of technology; the player of tricks -
has been around since prehistory. It's not a coincidence that those two
aspects are always seen together.

------
devgutt
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

also, not a book but very good "The last question" Isaac Asimov [1]

[1]
[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html](http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html)

~~~
vijayr
Could you explain why you find Atlas Shrugged mind blowing? I read "we the
living" and "The fountainhead" and found them quite annoying. Haven't read
Atlas Shrugged, just curious if I am missing something.

~~~
sixaxe
I read The Fountainhead when I was 18 and I found it absolutely mind blowing.
Needless to say, I was quite impressionable at the time, and a young atheist.
The book served as positive reinforcement to me, emphasizing on belief in
oneself, rather than belief in God. It was also the perfect fodder for my teen
angst, wrapped in delicious ideological and intellectual mysticism. This led
me to be an unapologetic jerk to everyone around me for a year or so. I laugh
thinking about it now.

~~~
semateos
Hahahahaha - that's awesome. Just think - that happens to some people and
lasts their whole life.

------
sanketsaurav
Contact, by Carl Sagan. One of my absolute favorites. It's such an intense
book emotionally. I read it when I was 14. It changed how I looked at life in
general.

------
SCHiM
Gödel, Escher, Bach[1] has shaped the way I think in many ways and really
warped my perspective on allot of things.

There's also the Imperial Radch series which is a very, very good sci fi
series which is unlike any other sf I've ever read[0].

[0]: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17333324-ancillary-
justi...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17333324-ancillary-justice)

>Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, British Science Fiction, Locus and Arthur C.
Clarke Awards.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach)

~~~
junkblocker
Ann Leckie was being touted as Iain M Bank's successor with her Imperial Radch
series. But due to that expectation being set up I was underwhelmed. It was
enjoyable on its own but doesn't compare in quality to Banks's works, e.g.
Excession, in my opinion.

------
kbob
Numerous people have already recommended Hofstadter, so I'll skip to:

The Moral Animal, Robert Wright. It looks at how natural selection applies to
human cultures.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber. History of economic systems.
Everything we know about money is one of many alternatives tried somewhere at
some time.

Where Mathematics Comes From, George Lakoff. Presents the radical notion that
math is not a truth we've discovered, but a byproduct of the organization of
our brains. It looks at the evolution of the concept of infinity as an
example, and so it resembles David Foster Wallace's Infinity and More.

I think these books all have the theme that what we think of as reality is
just the current point on the random path of our culture's concensus. If
that's not mind blowing, I can't help you. (-:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Animal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Animal)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From)

------
tokenadult
_The Nature of Paleolithic Art_ by R. Dale Guthrie.[1] I accidentally chanced
upon this book in a library catalog search while looking for something else.
The author is a biologist based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who
specializes in late Pleistocene megafauna (including _Homo sapiens_ ) and who
is a very skilled visual artist himself. He analyzes most of the surviving
rock art from the earlist period of human art around the world and along the
way discusses hunting, ancient art technique, sex, and the nature of human
nature. The book is full of interesting illustrations and lots of food for
thought.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-Paleolithic-Dale-
Guthrie/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-Paleolithic-Dale-
Guthrie/dp/0226311260)

------
nish1500
I am biased towards fiction.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. The timeless beauty and innocence of the
book remains unparalleled.

Light in August, by William Faulkner. It is the opposite of the above, dealing
with complex emotions. Faulkner's prose and characters are unmatched in their
depth.

------
jepper
The Selfish Gene - Dawkins, The Red Queen - Ridley

I've read these books midway through high school, already interested in
biology and medicine. The depth and complexity of how life forms handle
evolutionary pressure is mind blowing. Why you favor relatives over strangers,
the competition between mother and child, progress through collaboration of
genes etc. You see the world completely differently (after reading many more
books on geology, genetics, anthropology, anatomy, cellular biology etc)
afterwards.

For a novel: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson,

Truely changed how I look at computers and encryption as a not mathematically
inclined reader. Building a computer out of church pipe organ components etc.

------
minikomi
Solaris by Stanisław Lem. Well, maybe the loneliest might be a more accurate
description.

------
lake99
The Selfish Gene -- Richard Dawkins. Not crazy to grasp, but figuring out how
nature works is mind blowing. Of all the books I have gifted to people, this
one tops the list.

------
Symmetry
I'm just going to answer with the books that rearranged my understanding of
the world the most. In no particular order.

"Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman.

"Quantum Computing since Democritus" by Scott Aaronson.

"The Strategy of Conflict" by Thomas Schelling.

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "The World until Yesterday" by Jared Diamond.

"The Retreat To Commitment" by W. W. Bartley.

"The Myth of the Rational Voter" by Bryan Caplan. Despite the name it made me
appreciate democracy a lot more.

"Wars, Guns, and Votes" by Paul Collier.

~~~
eveningcoffee
> "The Strategy of Conflict" by Thomas Schelling.

"Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" by Edward N. Luttwak

------
yodsanklai
1984 made a very strong impression on me.

~~~
sergioschuler
Great book!

------
fsloth
Neal Stephenson's Anathem is fairly mind blowing if read in the correct
mindset.

------
jen729w
Dan Simmonds' Hyperion/The Fall of Hyperion. Astonishingly good SF.

~~~
dmux
His last name is Simmons. And the Hyperion Cantos is an excellent series. His
other books are worth reading too: Summer of Night, The Terror.

------
nirai
The Feynman lectures -
[http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/)

For me it consistently produces one OMG or more per chapter.

------
aida_mirbadi
"The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz.

This book advocates personal freedom from beliefs and agreements that we have
made with ourselves and others that are creating limitation and unhappiness in
our lives.

------
dikaiosune
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The core story is one of
stalinist Faust but the whole arc is much better.

~~~
eveningcoffee
This is "a little" off topic but I wanted to share experience. I have been
lucky to have been seen Simon McBurney's interpretation of The Master and
Margarita in the theatre. The tram scene with Pontius Pilate just blew me
away.

------
jonathansizz
Mind-blowing for those who've read 'The Selfish Gene' and thought it explained
everything about evolution:

'The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the
Adaptationist Programme', SJ Gould and RC Lewontin

'The Origins of Genome Architecture', M Lynch

'Mutation-Driven Evolution', M Nei

~~~
folli
Regarding 'the selfish gene', I still think that the concept that the gene is
the unit of evolution and the resulting organism is just its proxy, is one of
the greatest insights since Darwin.

~~~
mrpsbrk
Be that as it might, that is not Dawkins' idea (i believe the foremost thinker
in that regard is W. D. Hamilton), what Dawkins did was just giving it the
catchy name.

~~~
cpach
'folli never claimed it was Dawkins’ idea ;-)

 _”what Dawkins did was just giving it the catchy name”_

Well, he also wrote an accessible book on the subject. And that book is
littered with references to other literature on the subject.

------
fbrusch
"The Beginning of Infinity", from David Deutsch, in which evolution, Popper
epistemology and theory of computation blend into a world view fruitful of
thrilling perspectives for humanity. To me, as mind blowing as anything can
ever be.

------
wensheng
The Mind's I, by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett

Blowed my mind when I read the Chinese translation of this book 25 years ago
in College.

------
qubex
The Computational Beauty of Nature by Gary William flake (1997)
[https://books.google.it/books/about/The_Computational_Beauty...](https://books.google.it/books/about/The_Computational_Beauty_of_Nature.html?id=0aUhuv7fjxMC&hl=en)

A totally astounding introduction to how computing fits into the broader scale
of understanding other phenomena in our everyday scientific lives — and,
unlike most “oh wide-eyed wonder!” popsci books it contains code, equations,
and deeply significant diagrams.

------
tptacek
It sounds like you're asking for Gravity's Rainbow, which is the predecessor
of both Neal Stephenson and the Illuminatus trilogy, and 10x more annoying to
decode.

------
davidy123
(Trouble on) Triton, by Samuel Delaney. I read a lot of sf in my early teens
(in the late 70s), all the classic space-ship stuff, this was one of the first
that in a very real way brushed all that aside and exposed more about
individual values, by following a protagonist who really wasn't admirable. If
you aren't just looking to excite yourself about the amazing possibilities of
science and advantage, it's highly recommended.

~~~
ludicast
Cool seeing his name. I grew up about 3 blocks from him and his daughter Iva
(he was gay and had Iva with a lesbian poet (actually think they were married,
not sure if it was just an arrangement though)). Iva was my best friend when I
was pre-school age, fwiw :).

Have a lot of great memories of him and his daughter. Now that I have young
kids of my own, every so often something reminds me of those days.

------
kweinber
The Denial of Death by Becker. (The discussions of homosexuality are outdated
but the rest is amazing).

The Wisdom of Insecurity by Watts helped center my adolescence.

------
ymse
War with the Newts (1936) by Karel Čapek (of R.U.R. fame). Classical sci-fi
novel and political satire in which a new intelligent breed of Newts are
taking over the world and no-one realizes before it's too late. Still relevant
today.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts)

~~~
ThePhysicist
Seconded. Great political science-fiction!

------
golemotron
'The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature' by Steven Pinker.

~~~
semateos
Yes! Would highly recommend that one or 'How the Mind Works' by Pinker. I'm
constantly blown away by how few people are aware of modern cognitive science
and just how much we DO understand about the operation of the mind. It's also
super useful if you do any kind design, UX, marketing or interact with other
humans.

------
tonyedgecombe
Walden by Thoreau

Not mind blowing in that there was any startling revelations in it, rather
that reading and absorbing it changed my outlook on many things.

~~~
hugocaracoll
Funny you say that. I'm going to buy Walden today :)

------
boothead
The most awesome book I'm currently reading is "Custard, Cakes and Category
Theory" by Eugenia Cheng [1]. It's already bringing some much needed back
ground, some "why", to my much neglected maths education.

On a more spiritual note, I'd also recommend Mindsight by Dan Siegel [2]. An
excellent book for getting some intuition into how people's past experiences
shape them. The Trauma of Everyday life by Mark Epstien [3] blends teachings
of Buddhism and mindfulness with the life long lessons of a Psychotherapist.

[1] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cakes-Custard-Category-Theory-
unders...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cakes-Custard-Category-Theory-
understanding/dp/1781252874)

[2]
[http://www.drdansiegel.com/books/mindsight/2/](http://www.drdansiegel.com/books/mindsight/2/)

[3] [http://markepsteinmd.com/](http://markepsteinmd.com/)

------
manlio
Lots of good essays already, so I'll chime in with some literature/fiction
suggestions off the top of my head:

\- Borges, Ficciones
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones);](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones\);)
that's the quintessence of mind-blowing literature: an unparalleled mix of
genius, culture and crazy imagination.

\- Celine, Journey to the End of the Night; a harsh, hopeless journey to the
bottom of humanity. It's not an easy read even though the style is so simple.
Think Houellebecq, but much better :)

\- Dostoyevsky; I was obsessed with him when I was younger. "Notes from the
underground" is one of the best introductions to existential nihilism I can
think of. "The Idiot" one of the few books that made me cry.

\- The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony; if you're into Greek literature, this
book will become your Bible; it requires a lot of attention and dedication
though, it's incredibly dense.

------
glaberficken
2 great sf books

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland)
Set as a satire of Victorian society "The story describes a two-dimensional
world occupied by geometric figures, whereof women are simple line-segments,
while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square
named A Square, a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who
guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two
dimensions."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud)
I won't spoil this one for you, it's just a really interesting and suspenseful
sf story. Richard Dawkins (writing in the 2010 Penguin Classics reissue)
claimed the novel was "one of the greatest science fiction novels ever
written."

------
walterbell
Any of the novels by sci-fi and fantasy author R.A. Lafferty,
[http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._A._Lafferty](http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._A._Lafferty),
because they contain allusions to centuries worth of mind-blowing books, in
addition to being unlike any other author.

------
werber
Letters from an American farmer, it radically shifted my understanding of
early American identity and the rationalization of exploitation that still
exist.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_an_American_Farm...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_an_American_Farmer)

------
jestinjoy1
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

This changed how I look at my life

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-
Rules/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-
Rules/dp/0307275175)

------
century19
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. There is an invented slang used in the
book, which make the first pages difficult, as you have to work out what is
being said. But the book is much richer for it.

------
brown-dragon
"The Gods Themselves" is a easy to read but truly mind blowing book. Asimov's
characters are a bit wooden but the ideas in the book really got me to look at
the world differently.

The line "I have an idea, a simple idea, based on the quite obvious fact that
the number two is ridiculous and can't exist." has stayed with me for over a
decade now as has the surprising lovemaking of the aliens.

For a hard read that you may enjoy I'd suggest "The Book of the New Sun". I'm
re-reading it for the fourth time and it just gets better.

~~~
tzs
There's an interesting song based on the moral conflict faced by the three
aliens in "The Gods Themselves", by Bob Kanefsky, and sung by Julia Ecklar:
[1].

Kanefsky may be familiar to many HN readers for his song "Eternal Flame",
about the superiority of Lisp to other languages, also sung by Julia Ecklar
[2].

[1]
[http://www.last.fm/music/Julia+Ecklar/_/Meltdown+(Julia+Eckl...](http://www.last.fm/music/Julia+Ecklar/_/Meltdown+\(Julia+Ecklar\))

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OjTPj7K54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OjTPj7K54)

~~~
brown-dragon
Ha! That was excellent! :-D :-D

------
ThomPete
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

[http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-
Bicamer...](http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-
Mind/dp/0618057072)

I found it on this list:

[http://spacecollective.org/wilfriedhoujebek/4076/Summery-
Boo...](http://spacecollective.org/wilfriedhoujebek/4076/Summery-Books-Too-
Far-Out-For-Johnny-Depp)

Where also the following books some of which I read to (Vehicles is really
good) can be found:

The White Goddess - Robert Graves

Graves' grammar of poetic myth works at so many levels at the same time that I
can't keep track of them all. This is not a book, this is a neurosis you can
borrow. Druidic power to the nerds.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Julian
Jaynes

Never mind the bulky title. The theory of Jaynes seems preposterous at first:
before man was conscious he would not stop and think when making a decision,
instead he would literally hear a voice telling him what to do. When life
became too complicated this faculty broke down, but not in an instant.
Religion is a by-product of this neuro-catastrophe. Jaynes however knows to
make use of historic material in such a way that in the course of his argument
he becomes plausible! If you don't trust me on this, trust Daniel Dennett.

The Ghost of Chance - William S. Burroughs

Burroughs was a great admirer of Jaynes and here he uses the bicameral image
of two dividing brain spheres as a metaphor for the divide between peaceful
lemur on Madagascar and the war-mongering chimpanzee on the African mainland
as a reminder that human evolution could have taken a better turn.

Ancient Evenings - Norman Mailer

This book, the only lengthy novel in this list, I first looked up because
Burroughs referenced it as his inspiration for 'The Western Lands'. When I
noticed it starts with my favourite Yeats quote I knew I needed to read this.
Even though Burroughs could never have written it like this, at times it is
more Burroughs then Burroughs himself. It is the autobiography of a Ka, the
lowliest soul of the seven souls of the ancient Egyptians, which makes for
unusual reading. Especially because Mailer uses an uncensored version of
Egyptian mythology which, to put it mildly, differs from the version you get
of it from the National Geographic. The Egyptians practised sex magic with the
stamina of a bonobo. Mailer makes Aleister Crowley look like a prudish
schoolboy. This is the boldest attempt to recreate a radically different mind
from ours that I know of, and does so successfully. The novel as the creation
of an artificial consciousness. At the same time it doubles as an All American
Novel (yuk).

The Mind in the Cave - David Lewis-Williams

Palaeolithic Psychedelia anyone? Close your eyes, place a finger on both of
your eyelids and press gently. What you see is the origin of all art, you only
need to look at rock-art with a guide like Lewis-Williams to see it.

The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry - Ernest Fennolosa

Edited by Ezra Pound, the most spectacular misunderstanding of language ever
to be reprinted. It reads excellent and it gives us a language (Chinoiserie-
Chinese) that does not exist in this world but should exist in a better world.

Vehicles - Valentino Braitenberg

I have read so much stuff relating to Cybernetics, AI, emergent systems and
self-organization that I am totally saturated with it. The material itself is
exciting but the professional obligation of science to be dull gets on my
nerves. But this is an exception, wonderfully written and illustrated with
funky little drawings. Vehicles is a tiny book but its size is deceptive. This
introduction to synthetic psychology describes a number of simple responsive
vehicles that with each new feature became aware of the world around them a
good deal more. Each new vehicle is a new mind.

The Coleridge Notebooks.

Charles Lamb said he loved to lend his books to ‘Poet, Metaphysician, Bard’
Coleridge because he would return them with annotations more interesting then
the book itself. Samuel Taylor Coleridge had a mind that was free, discursive,
unruly and truly original. His notebooks record the flow of his thoughts as if
you are sitting next to him. Every now and then I dip into this and always
come out with some gem I never saw before. Get the Seamus Perry edition of
this. Get a copy of the Road to Xanadu by Livingstone-Lowes for extra
enjoyment.

~~~
profexile
I'll second Jaynes. I re-read it from time to time, and afterwards, feel like
I understand what is actually going on in the world, briefly. Maybe if I read
it back to back with "The City and The City"..? Or, maybe that's ill advised.

------
jrs235
"I want to find the absolutely crazy-to-grasp book of all times."

Gödel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter. Anytime
I start reading a story which contains recursiveness my mind will feel warped
and stuck in a loop at times.

[http://amzn.to/1KijebX](http://amzn.to/1KijebX) (affiliate link)

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465026567](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465026567)
(non affiliate link)

------
nathell
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon. Both the short story and the book (I read
the book first, so I'm more attached to it). It is still deeply moving after
all these rereads, decades on.

------
radicalbyte
These all had a profound effect on me; especially Dune..

Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes Dune Series, Frank Herbert Foundation
Series, Isaac Asimov Calculus Made Easy Paperback, Silvanus P. Thompson

------
tammer
Mimesis & Alterity - Michael Taussig[1]

Building on philosophical ideas from the Frankfurt school Taussig strings
together ethnographic examples & historical vignettes to outline the human
faculty for mimicry, and how it permeates everyday life.

[1]:
[https://books.google.com/books/about/Mimesis_and_Alterity.ht...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Mimesis_and_Alterity.html?id=x6AbsQhGNrAC)

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gt565k
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience [http://www.amazon.com/Flow-
Psychology-Experience-Perennial-C...](http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-
Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202)

It really has opened my eyes about how to deal with having a negative attitude
and understanding the driving forces behind being in the "flow"

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timtas
"The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek [1]

"Novum Organum" by Francis Bacon [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum)

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bichiliad
I really liked Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, although most of
Murakami's stuff is pretty amazing. He does short stories for the New Yorker
every now and then, too:
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/kino](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/kino)

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apricot
Maybe not mind-blowing but life-altering: The Turing Omnibus, by A.K. Dewdney.
I read it while in high school and it made me decide to learn computer
science. It has 50 short chapters on things like RSA cryptography, the halting
problem, logic circuits, perceptrons.

For fiction, Ted Chiang is my go-to author when I want my mind blown.

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vlow
"Your Brain at Work" by David Rock is full of insights about the human brain
in daily situations. What makes it different from many other neuro-biology
books is that it does not only present scientific knowledge but enables you to
put that knowledge to use immediately. It really changed my way of thinking.

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puranjay
Immortality by Milan Kundera

It made me think about mortality, love and sexuality in ways I'd never thought
of before

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mkamdar
Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/03/boo...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/03/books-
which-have-influenced-me-most.html)

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dietrichepp
If you want "crazy-to-grasp", you want Ulysses, To the Lighthouse, Gravity's
Rainbow, Infinite Jest, Moby Dick, House of Leaves, etc.

Not that "crazy-to-grasp" approximates "good" in any way.

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franciscop
Battle Royale. The movie is, from western/hollywood point of view, really bad.
But the book is the most shocking book I've ever read. Don't read if you are
sensitive though (;

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fakturk
The Third Wave - Alvin Toffler

Listen Little Man - Wilhelm Reich

Praise to Hell - Gunduz Vassaf (actully I read this book in turkish and I
don't know is it translated to english but I still want to recommend this one)

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knowuh
"Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology" by Valentino Braitenberg is a
quick read, and fun thought experiment. It's inspirational for engineering
tinkering types.

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moubarak
It's a religious scripture. Unfortunately you need to learn Arabic first.
Translations don't do it justice to say the least. The book is called The
Quran. It talks about parallel universes, "aliens", super heroes, travelling
through space and time, how ants communicate, and even modern superpower
alliances. It's a hard read even if you know Arabic. For instance, reading a
phrase from the first chapter will not make sense unless you reach later
chapters. It even has encrypted letter combinations that have not been
unlocked yet. i've read it twice from cover to cover, and about to start my
third.

~~~
Sven7
It's nonsense written 1500 years ago which is why it's hard to read. There are
interesting themes. Great poetry but nothing too "mind blowing" when compared
with similar texts of the period from other religions and cultures.

~~~
moubarak
Your opinion of the book is interesting. is it safe to say that you haven't
read it? i'm assuming that because there is no poetry in there. Just assuming.
Otherwise your opinion is interesting because there is a large group of people
who share the same. i personally found it mind blowing.

Edit: Typo

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bencoder
Permutation City, by Greg Egan. It's one of my favourites.

~~~
ValleyOfTheMtns
Yes, the first few chapters were mind-bogglingly good. Loses its punch towards
the end, but the first two thirds floored me.

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ConceptJunkie
Greg Bear's "The City At The End of Time" It has its flaws, but there are more
cool SF ideas in this book than practically anything I've ever read.

------
Loks002
When rabbit howls. I don't remember the author, but it will definitely make
you look at things differently. I also really liked lullaby by Chuck
Palahniuk.

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Cyph0n
Check out the excellent, and recently translated, Chinese scifi novel “The
Three Body Problem”.

Grimwood's “Replay” is a great time travel novel if you're into that.

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pacnw
Anything by Phillip K. Dick. Start with the Valis Trilogy.

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jacobroufa
I'd have to recommend the Manifold trilogy by Stephen Baxter. I know it's not
_a_ book, but as a whole entity, it deserves to be looked at.

------
bosky101
Banker to the poor - the story of Muhammad Yusuf 's grameen & micro-finance,
over-coming odds, and a good read if you are curious about lending.

------
dmux
If on a Winter's Night, a Traveler -- Italo Calvino

~~~
shervinafshar
The most "meta" book I've ever read. Fantastic approach to the methods of
narrative in novel and kind of an homage to Borges and Bulgakov among other
masters.

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atirip
Hobbit. I was young then. No book after that came close.

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teenie
TIE!!! "The Crying of Lot 49" by Pynchon // "The Demolished Man" by Bester //
"Ubik" by Dick !!!

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mikefantast
Hofstadter - GEB - for sure

The Malazan Book of the Fallen (10 volumes) - Stephen Erikson - redefines
impenetrable

Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks - master of the interwoven narrative

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iliaznk
Fiction: 'Anna Karenina' & 'War and Peace' by L. Tolstoy. Non-fiction:
'Quantum Psychology' by R.A. Wilson.

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jessup
"Elements of Set Theory" by Herbert B. Enderton....

ℝ ≈ P(ℕ)

------
jgrzymski
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace The Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard
Rhodes Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

------
afshinmeh
The alchemist - Paulo Coelho

I've read it several times and each time I found something interesting that I
didn't notice.

~~~
shervinafshar
It's a nice, romantic take on a narrative called "The Tale of Two Dreamers"
which influenced many others writers (such as Borges) and can be traced back
to "The Thousand and One Nights":

[https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0i8aZ94CJUC&lpg=PA514&ots...](https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0i8aZ94CJUC&lpg=PA514&ots=Kw7A4he-
_U&dq=%22It%20is%20related%20also%2C%20that%20a%20man%20of%20baghdad%20was%20possessed%20of%20ample%20riches%22&pg=PA514#v=onepage&q=%22It%20is%20related%20also,%20that%20a%20man%20of%20baghdad%20was%20possessed%20of%20ample%20riches%22&f=false)

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hugodahl
"JOB: A Comedy of Justice" by Robert Heinlein

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsing

~~~
onnoonno
> "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsing

Seconded. I think this one does a good job at resetting one's worldview to the
state of 'what do we actually know?'

------
mjklin
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse

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JasonBlantonUX
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Considered to be the
philosopher's pholosopher!

------
tmej
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Opened my mind and put into writing some of the things I'd been contemplating.

------
Jach
Military Nanotechnology: Potential Applications and Preventive Arms Control -
Jürgen Altmann

------
dade_
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West by John Ralston
Saul

------
swatkat
"Freedom from the Known" by J. Krishnamurti.

"I Am That" by Nisargadatta Maharaj.

------
curiousfab
"Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees" by Roger Fouts.

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hariis
Learn to Meditate. It will "blow away your Mind". No kidding.

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vermooten
Raintree County by Ross Lockridge Jr. Man the ending destroyed me...

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fenomas
Foucault's Pendulum.

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slilo
The Reader (Der Vorleser)

~~~
shervinafshar
I watched the movie and find the narrative fascinating and have the book in my
to-read list. Was the movie faithful to the book (in case you watched it as
well)?

------
kseistrup
“Mind Magic: Doorways Into Higher Consciousness” by Bill Harvey

------
umbs
Autobiography of a Yogi by Sri Paramahamsa Yogananda

------
skilesare
The Nature of Order - Chris Alexander. Full Stop.

~~~
chadzawistowski
I'd like to second this, but the books can be quite expensive! The library at
my university had a copy of the series; make sure to check your own local
libraries.

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Simulacra
Really a tie between Blink, and Atlas Shrugged.

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cthrax
"The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker

------
hackrobat
The Tao of Programming, by Geoffrey James.

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justintocci
human life values i started this book as a child thinking I was an adult. i
finished it and i really was.

------
utefan001
Sgt. Rock. Last warrior standing.

------
costea
Ernst Gombrich - The story of art

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nkoren
Star Maker, by Olav Stapledon.

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t0rb3n
Doug Hoyte - Let Over Lambda

------
megalodon
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

------
dbcooper
Crash by J.G. Ballard.

------
hoers
Crazy to Grasp:

\- Hermann Hesse - The Glass Bead Game

\- Hofstädter - Gödel, Escher, Bach

\- Bulgakov - Master and Margherita

\- Melville - Moby Dick

\- Joyce - Ulysses

\- Everything by Baudrillard (esp. 'Agony of Power')

\- Everything by William Burroughs (The ticket that exploded, Place of dead
roads, Discipline of DE)

Not that crazy to grasp, but still amazing:

\- Everything by Egon Friedell (mostly Historical, unbelievably dense and
awesome)

\- Chatwin - Songlines

\- Ludwig Marcuse - Philosophy of Happiness / Philosophy of Unhappiness

~~~
tptacek
Love that Bulgakov book (apparently the translation you pick matters a lot,
but I wouldn't know, since my sister gave it to me as a gift).

I like the Hesse book a lot, although the metaphor is more powerful to me than
the book, which is probably not the first Hesse book I'd suggest.

~~~
hoers
Yeah sadly a lot of books from the former soviet union are still circulating
with horrible translations (if any). I can't really give a recommendation
either because I read it in german.

And truth to what you say about the glass bead game, the first 200 pages are a
torture, but I still cherish it even for the metaphor alone. Do you know of
any book that does a better job bringing that across? That'd be very
interesting.

\+ Edit to my post: Meant to put Finnegan's wake to Joyce, not Ulysses! (even
thought that's a pretty decent mindbender in itself)

\+ Some I forgot:

\- C G Jung - The Red Book (get the readers edition)

\- Nobody mentioned McKenna! 'True Hallucinations' for example. Skip
everything to do with I Ching and Timewave.

\- Illuminatus! trilogy was only mentioned once for some reason (but then
horrible to read)

\- Toffler - Third Wave

\- Gibson - Neuromancer

\- Hesse - Demian

\- P K Dick - Electric Sheep

\- J A West - Serpent in the sky

\- R A Wilson - Prometheus Rising

and some awesomely trippy, mindbending 'children's books':

\- Preußler - Krabat

\- Lindgreen - Brothers Lionheart

\- Ende - Momo

------
benihana
Catch-22.

We're all playing a game and most of us aren't even aware that we can choose
not to play. Yossarian is one of the bravest characters in all of literature.
He stays true to himself even in the face of overwhelming evidence that all of
the world disagrees with him.

------
mknits
Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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indoindo
Reflection on freewill by Sam Harris

------
dschiptsov
Upanishads.

~~~
sciencesama
what !! how can i read that can you refer to a particular author ?

~~~
atsaloli
The authorship of most Upanishads is uncertain and unknown. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads)

------
jackr9
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

~~~
sciencesama
good collection :)

