
Ask HN: Which non-technology book has influenced you the most and why? - fernandohur
Rules:
1. Only one book.
2. Can&#x27;t be a technical book e.g. &#x27;Programming C&#x27; doesn&#x27;t count.
======
epaga
The Gospel of John.

A palpable sense of mystery is maintained from start to finish, but it
arguably does better than any other book in the Bible at giving a deep look
into the person of Jesus as he was seen and believed in by the early church.
Additionally, there is a subtle sense of humor as the gospel author clearly
enjoyed language and word plays and describes multiple misunderstandings that
occur because of the ambiguity of language.

Probably more than any other book, this book has shaped me on a personal
level.

(If you're going to read it, I highly recommend a modern translation such as
the ESV, NKJV, or HCSB.)

~~~
cjf4
It's also notable for Jesus's consistent affirmation of his own divinity. Not
that the synoptics don't, but John is much more explicit about it. For me,
that does much to validate CS Lewis's liar, lunatic, or Lord argument.

~~~
williamle8300
Yep John 17: The high priestly prayer.

------
pklausler
"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. It describes biology from the
perspective of the _gene_ as the unit of natural selection, rather than the
organism or the species, and demonstrates the power of that perspective to
explain much about the natural world. But then, the author generalizes the
concept of a gene to that of the _replicator_ , which is any kind of pattern
that influences its environment to produce copies of the pattern. (As an
example, the author invents the concept of a _meme_ , being a unit of culture
that uses brains to spread itself across a culture.) This (the replicator) is
the mind-blowing concept that I'm still thinking about 35 years after I first
read this marvelous little book. Organisms and people and species and cultures
are ephemeral side-effects of mindlessly self-replicating patterns. You'll
never look at the world the same way after reading this one!

~~~
jonathansizz
But please continue by reading more rigorous work on evolution, or you run the
risk of being badly misinformed. I suggest, at a minimum, a decent textbook.
Here I'd recommend Douglas Futuyma's _Evolution_.

Follow this up with some key works in the field, such as Gould's early
critique of naive adaptationism, _The Spandrels of San Marco and the
Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme_.

Also consider different perspectives such as the those described in following
books, which take, respectively, drift- and mutation-first approaches to
evolution:

 _The Origins of Genome Architecture_ , M Lynch; and _Mutation-Driven
Evolution_ , M Nei.

Above all, know that evolution is far more complex, subtle (and interesting)
than _The Selfish Gene_ would have you believe.

~~~
pklausler
When I comply with a request to name a single book, please don't assume that
I've read but a single book. Thanks!

~~~
jonathansizz
The problem arises with those people who read _The Selfish Gene_ and assume
they now understand all there is to know about how evolution works.

I'm sure you're not one of them, but nevertheless they are quite common, well-
educated and intelligent though they often are.

------
randcraw
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig. While it's also
a tale of travel and self-exploration (the rediscovery of identity after a
nervous breakdown and shock therapy), mostly the book is about thinking. I was
a different person after identifying with the narrator who _also_ lived in the
mind, and asked questions about basic concepts like 'quality', or qualia of
events, objects, roles, and the subjective/objective values they embody or we
impart on them. A watershed book for me.

~~~
genkimind
I thought the first third of the book was absolutely fantastic. But then it
quickly decayed into philosophical drivel, IMO. Perhaps I'm not wise enough to
understand the end of the book but I truly thought it was garbage and believe
this is one of the most overrated books of all time. Anybody else feel this
way?

~~~
virtualwhys
Read it 20 years ago, and again this winter. Like you the first part of the
book had me thinking, this is genius, but then the rest of the way it seemed
to devolve into meaningless drivel.

Maybe in 20 years I'll give it another shot and finally see why the book is
considered a classic.

------
thedevil
I've got a tie between two books:

1) Design of Everyday Things by Dan Norman

This book ruined my life. I highly recommend it. Every engineer, manager and
designer should read this. Maybe every human. I think of this book every time
I try to pull a push door, every time I reach the bottom floor of a stairwell
and notice the design that might save my life one day, and every time I try to
struggle to operate a television or a microwave.

2) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

This book helped me understand myself and everyone else. For example, I now
understand why I double down on dumb ideas. I also catch a lot more marketing
and sales tricks.

Edit: Sorry, just now realized that I broke the 1-book rule, but it's probably
too late to correct this and it's really hard to choose between these two
anyway.

~~~
leobueno
Both are great books. Influence helps me a lot to deal with my 3 year old.
Should be on the parenting section on bookstores.

I also like The Soul of a New Machine, The Prince, The Art of War and On Human
Nature.

~~~
vram22
>I also like The Soul of a New Machine

Me too. Fascinating read. I still remember the part where one of them compares
their work to the pinball game - where the reward for winning is that you get
to play again.

------
kabdib
"Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter, which I read when I was 17. I was
just getting into serious programming (I would learn C later that year). I had
only an inkling about things like recursion, had little appreciation for music
outside of Pink Floyd, and lacked any kind of spiritual philosophy that didn't
end in simple atheism or nonsense that I stole from science fiction
paperbacks.

GEB got me wondering about a lot of things, and showed me how hard science and
engineering and art can coexist. It's not a perfect book -- frankly, I find it
rather dull reading now -- but it was an eye-opener when I was just starting
out.

~~~
Nekorosu
I tried to read it in my middle thirties and felt like I wasn't prepared
enough to understand it. Should I just go through it without trying to get
everything?

~~~
notsrg
I think the greatest part about GEB is he'll talk about a topic (that
sometimes went over my head) for a chapter and then revisit that same topic in
a more approachable way using a dialog between Achilles and a tortoise. Some
of those dialogs were some of my most entertaining reads ever.

~~~
dionidium
I must be broken, because everybody seems to think these are the best parts of
the book, and I couldn't stand them. I just wanted to _get on with it!_

I was quite young last I read it. Perhaps it's time to see if I still feel
that way.

~~~
ajmurmann
You are not alone. I've tried to read the book three times in the last twenty
years and I always stop reading in one of those Achilles and tortoise
sections. I find them utterly silly and boring and always feel like I'm
missing the deeper message. I never had a problem understanding the non-story
parts though. I don't dare skip the stories though because I'm afraid to miss
out on some incredible insight.

------
icey
Meditations, originally written by Marcus Aurelius, but translated many times
over. More as an introduction to stoicism; choosing the translation that works
best for you is ideal. Hays and Hicks translations are most often recommended
but if you can peek inside the book to see what language resonates the best
with you.

Stoicism helped me build the ability to care about the things in my power to
change, and not stress about things that aren't. Very useful in any job or
personal situation that includes a lot of ambient stress.

~~~
medius
This book has had a great impact on me. My favorite quote (Dover Thrift
edition)

"To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and
what was yesterday a speck of semen tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass
then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end your
journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing
nature who produced it and thanking the tree on which it grew."

It makes me appreciate everything so much more and I feel like a fool for
worrying over little things.

~~~
yulaow
It is also my favorite quote, very happy to see I am not the only one with
which it resonates pretty well.

------
hollander
The Four Agreements by Don Ruiz. It's a short and simple book about four rules
of life which you can use anywhere.

1\. Be impeccable with your word. You can read this as "don't swear", but it's
not about that. It is about the constant and continuing things we say to
ourselves that make us feel bad. We don't even know we do this. And it's not
about big things, it's about the thousands of small reprimands we give
ourselves that hold us back living our life.

2\. Don't take anything personally. When someone else says something to you,
good or bad, it shows how they feel. What they say is about them, what they
think is important, what is relevant for them. It's not about you. This
doesn't mean that you can ignore it, but it shines another light on things
other people say about you, or about others to you. This applies to "good
things" as well. If someone gives you a compliment, it tells something about
them. And of course it works as well for the things you say or do - they tell
something about you.

3\. Don't make assumptions. Don't think you know what other people think, or
that you know why they do the things they do.

4\. Do your best. You can't always live your life following rules. Do your
best, and if you break a rule, bad luck, next time better! That means that you
can forgive yourself. And it means that you should not give up after a big
fuck up. Or a small fuck up, or many fuck ups. You can start over again at any
moment.

The book is much better at explaining. It's about 60 pages, worth the effort.

~~~
cJ0th
I've only read it in a hurry but it had some rather odd bits

For example, re 1. :

> Every human is a magician, and we can either put a spell on someone with our
> word or we can release someone from a spell. We cast spells all the time
> with our opinions. An example: I see a friend and give him an opinion that
> just popped into my mind. I say, "Hmmm! I see that kind of color in your
> face in people who are going to get cancer." If he listens to the word, and
> if he agrees, he will have cancer in less than one year. That is the power
> of the word.

~~~
jonmb
The Four Agreements is one of my favorite books, so I was glad to see it
already listed, but yeah it does have some nonsense mixed into it as you have
pointed out. With that said, the fundamentals are very sound, and for some
reason the way the book talks about it makes it all _click_ nicely in my mind
even though the fundamental advice is all "common sense".

------
1ba9115454
How to win friends and influence people.

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

I have to keep reminded myself to apply the rules, but very sound advice.

~~~
mywittyname
I occasionally revisit this book every few years as a refresher. Every time I
do, I end up making close, life-long friends by applying the techniques in
this book.

I'd say this is a must read for just about anyone.

~~~
swah
The book actually tells you to read it 3 times ;)

~~~
mywittyname
The fact that I have read this book three times and don't remember this fact
is a testament to the importance of this statement.

------
tyurok
Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

He puts into words concepts of life so close to us yet so foreign sounding
that makes us rethink everything in our lives.

When you ask people "What is the opposite of fragile", they usually answer
robust, which Taleb proves to be incorrect by introducing a new concept, the
Antifragilty. It entangles so many things in economic, academic, science,
finances and other systems with several tales from the past revisited with a
new lens.

~~~
skdotdan
Which Taleb's book should I read first?

~~~
drallison
_Fooled by Randomness_ ,first; and _The Black Swan (2nd edition)_ second.
These are books about statistics and decision theory. They might not meet some
people's expectations about "non-technology" which usually means no equations
and no mathematical reasoning. While not written by Taleb, _How to Lie with
Statistics_ by Darrell Huff makes a good introduction for Taleb's books.

~~~
thomasthomas
taleb says himself in antifragile the answer is antifragile

------
adgasf
There are many, but one is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I read it as
a child, and it was the first time I thought about logical thinking.

Here is the section:

“Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at
these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is
telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't
tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and
unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the
truth. ”

What I didn't realize at the time was that Lewis was pushing his theistic
argument:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis%27s_trilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis%27s_trilemma)

I don't think that detracts from it, however.

~~~
0x445442
Lewis was instrumental in helping me understand that faith can be based on a
foundation of logic and reason versus pure emotion and my guess is he helped
many others struggling in that same area.

~~~
continuational
Lewis' argument isn't sound; if Jesus indeed claimed divinity, that sole
conviction could be a delusion, without rendering all of his other statements
delusional.

This kind of reasoning is typical of apologists in my experience; it sounds
right, but it doesn't hold up to scrunity.

------
mtreis86
Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl

The book was written by a psychologist who survived the Holocaust camps. The
paragraph that always sticks with me goes something like "for sure, the best
amongst us never left the camps - they (the guards) would need to pick (kill)
a dozen people, and the best wouldn't let it be their friends or family, even
if it meant their own death."

~~~
rbg246
I also was influenced by this book, it opened my mind on existentialism and
challenged my thinking about what is happiness / contentment and being able to
find these things in difficult circumstances.

------
inerte
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy.

We know the "rich", people who spent $10M on a Yacht as a parking space for
their 1M private jet which they use as a cellar for their $10k wines.

And we think millionaires are like that but on a smaller scale. ACTUALLY...
most folks who have $1M liquid are hard working, cheap, frugal (still cutting
coupons from ads). The reason why this book is so good is not only because it
shatters the perception about how millionaires live, but if you take the
description of their lifestyles as a lesson, it will make you manage your
money better.

Most people in the US have tons of debt, don't have $500 to use for an
unplanned spending. Probably this forum full of well-paid high-tech
professionals less so, but still, the principles are all the same. In fact,
there are parts of the book talking about how big earners also spend big (and
fast), so it's a good reminder of how not spending money is as good as earning
it, and also usually easier to do.

~~~
dakrootie
Yes! This book changed my life. Keep trying to convince friends and family
that you get rich by saving money, not spending it.

------
simonbarker87
Sapiens - there's a section in there about how everything (well, most) in our
world is essentially a figment of our collective imaginations that enough of
us believe is true and as such it is reality. If enough people (like
everybody) decided tomorrow that every company's articles of incorporation
actually don't count then companies as we know them could simply cease to
exist since the documents that make them exist only have meaning in our
collective imaginations.

Once I accepted this everything became a lot more fun, arguments about
politics/religion etc are enjoyable as you realise that no one is
fundamentally right.

Also, the explanation of fractional reserve banking and how debt came to be a
thing was like the matrix being revealed.

Good book, highly recommend it.

~~~
rexpop
If you want a pretty dry, technical and exhaustive exploration of collective
intention, I got a lot out of John Searle's "The Construction of Social
Reality".

------
kemiller2002
1984\. I read this when I was around 13. It profoundly changed how I view the
government and technology. It gave me a strong respect for what a government
can do, and how our reality is not just our naked perception, but it is what
others want us to perceive.

~~~
bythckr
I was just watching a nice documentary on George Orwell,
[https://youtu.be/s6txpumkY5I](https://youtu.be/s6txpumkY5I).

------
Spooky23
"The Power Broker" by Robert Caro.

Nobody has ever captured the nature of power on an individual level to the
depth and breadth that Caro did on this book. (except perhaps his epic
treatment of Lyndon Johnson)

Over something like 1,100 pages you get to track the career of an aspiring
reformer as he transitions to skilled and trusted government official, to
someone who manages to grow to the point that he is more powerful than the
Governor and Mayor of New York during NY's economic peak -- despite never
having been elected to anything. Then you get to witness his decline and
ultimate fall.

This is probably the best biography ever written. It may take you six months
to read, but its time well spent.

~~~
Nav_Panel
I adore this book. It also took me 6 months to read. I think about it often
while wandering around the city, imagining the areas before and after Moses'
steel-and-concrete hand, imagining the old neighborhoods, trying to envision
what could be next, what could have been, what could be.

Lately I've been reading Foucault and I find that many pieces of The Power
Broker are incredible examples of Foucault's post-modern/post-structuralist
theory of power: power relations as a sort-of amorphous "lines of force" that
move between people through society, occasionally emergent as structural
domination/power, rather than as some sort of antagonistic relationship
between rulers and ruled. This conception of power makes sense when you
consider Moses operating at an intersection between (and attempting to
leverage) many different "fields" of powers: government politicians, wealthy
private estates, union high-ups, the news media, etc.

~~~
achompas
Where would you suggest someone begin with Foucault?

~~~
Nav_Panel
I started with History of Sexuality because the topic interested me most. I
think Discipline and Punish is the canonical starting point.

------
VLM
You can buy Lord of the Rings as a single bound hardcover roughly 1200 pages.
The paper is thin, its only about 2 inches thick. I'm thinking of the 50th
anniversary edition. In terms of total amount of lifetime "wasted" playing
DnD/Pathfinder and derivatives offline, plus infinite hours of computer
fantasy RPGs plus perhaps the whole concept of RPGs in general, it probably
has the largest impact in terms of hours spent thinking about the concept.

I can't provide a specific link but something only 70s/80s kids will
understand is when I was about five and I finished reading every Tom Swift
book ever written (as of that decade, anyway) I spent most of a week reading
an entire single volume encyclopedia, trying to figure out how it all works
together, or not. Before wikipedia, before "multimedia cdrom" encyclopedia,
there were multi volume collections and large single volume collections. I'll
push the limit and claim reading an encyclopedia entry about Kant or
Impressionism or Bach or the american civil war isn't technical in the sense
of "programming C" is technical. I admit there were technical articles in the
book. It was weird reading a 60s liberal arts article about computers when I
had an early TRS-80 home computer on my dad's desk.

~~~
johngossman
Wow. I could have written this. We had a Commodore instead of a TRS-80...

I still have the Tom Swifts in my office.

------
jMyles
I can't immediately find it right now, but if memory serves, the last time
this came up, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Stranger in a
Strange Land" seemed to be the strongest answers.

I have since read, enjoyed, and been influenced by both.

Neither are properly regarded as "non-technology," but I think from your point
2 it's clear that you are just looking to exclude training manual type texts.

 _Hitchhiker 's_ in particular imparts a lot of great advice for creativity in
technical fields, and software in particular, but does it using a
fictionalized world with comedic logical oddities.

Another book I'll add, which has some of these properties, is "Jitterbug
Perfume" by Tom Robbins (although take note that this book is highly erotic
and explicit).

------
noir_lord
Not a single book but the Discworld series of books by Sir Terry Pratchett.

In particular the Watch sub-series.

I grew up reading them from the late 80's on-wards and I actually can't
separate my worldview from them anymore, his outlook on life became my outlook
on life.

Hope, Cynicism, politics, mortality (Death is a literal character),
practicality and absurdity all feature in the series strongly.

Some of my favourite quotes

> Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought. (The Last
> Continent).

> Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from
> its hands and the blood has been cleaned up. (Thief of Time).

> I believe in freedom, Mr. Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will, of
> course, protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be
> complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the
> freedom upon which all the others are based. (Lord Vetinari - Going Postal).

> What sort of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of
> government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

> Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the
> same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been
> somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of
> democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by
> reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari. And yet it does work. This has
> annoyed a number of people who feel, somehow, that it should not, and who
> want a monarch instead, thus replacing a man who has achieved his position
> by cunning, a deep understanding of the realities of the human psyche,
> breathtaking diplomacy, a certain prowess with the stiletto dagger, and, all
> agree, a mind like a perfectly balanced circular saw, with a man who has got
> there by being born… A third proposition, that the city be governed by a
> choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give
> themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn, was instantly the
> subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.

~~~
GedByrne
The same here.

I so wish that Sir Terry could be here now, helping us to make sense of what
is happening with some silly little stories.

~~~
rcarmo
I can see it now: Lort Vetinari (temporarily) ousted by Hairy Don Trumpet,
former magnate of the Spinward Swamps who muscled in on the sausage-on-a-stick
business and promised to "Make Ankh-Morpork Great Again". Having built his
electoral platform (literally) atop basalt trolls, he spends his weekends
golfing on the Unseen University grounds, to the marked dislike of the
Librarian...

~~~
GedByrne
Meanwhile there is Berixit: Berilia decides to leave the other 3 elephants.

------
Tarrosion
The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker.

It's a history of macro trends in violence - wars, homicide, rape, etc. The
burden of violence in the modern world is much, much lower than it was
historically, even fairly recently.

The book catches a lot of flak from people who reject the claim that the
future will automatically be more peaceful than the past. I think this is poor
criticism because that's not what the book says; it is explicitly a
descriptive history and not predictive.

I love this book because it presents remarkable evidence from multiple fields
that the world has gotten profoundly better (at least, regarding violence).
The realization that the world can improve and has improved is...liberating?
Surprisingly many people don't believe this, though I expect on HN belief in
progress is not uncommon.

Having such evidence that the world has improved so much is powerful
motivation to try to continue - you know it's possible. It's the antidote to
incorrect zero-sum thinking, which is not just damaging but also wrong. And
perhaps it's a moral call to action: our grandparents' and parents'
generations left us a world which is much more peaceful than the one they were
born into. Do we not owe future generations the same gift?

~~~
d215
Not a book of anything, but a animatated story inspired by the subject matter
of the book: [http://www.fallen.io/ww2/](http://www.fallen.io/ww2/)

Just see and be humbled by the staggering, staggering losses of Soviet Russia
in relation to other allies or Nazi Germany during ww2.

------
thewhitetulip
Sapiens by Yuri Harari

The book is simple mind blowing. It seems as if the entire history of homo
sapiens which we learned in school was wrong. There was no slow progression,
homo Sapiens and Neanderthals existed in the same time as did many ither
species like homo erectus, but the perished before Sapiens.

It seems that our ability to form fictional entities (like money, state,
society, country, religion etc) made us superior to other species. It seems
that the basic ability to gossip helped us beat other species!

Completely mind blowing.

~~~
aa5a
Completely agree. The book is full of ideas and questions the fundamental
assumptions we live with.

I just started reading it and am through the first 100 pages. Was reading it
last night when I hit upon : US Declaration of Independence document is an
imagined reality - a myth. It talks about equality of all men ( was hoping to
read word human there but anyway ). And then he goes onto blow away the fact
how all men are not equal - biologically - evolutionary and so on.

I do not necessarily agree with a lot of things he says but the book is a
riveting read and does questions some of fundamental assumptions we have made.

I can't wait to discover what the book has to offer next. It is very thought
provoking.

~~~
thewhitetulip
I always thought of it as irony that US declaration of Independence says all
men are born equal (Except slaves and women).

Coming to a serious note: yes, the book opened my eyes, all this concept of
nationality, money, everything is imaginary. Just a few days ago, I was
writing something on HN and it was downvoted for some reason, I thought to
myself, "so what if my imaginary internet points reduced by one".

The other day, I read this. Woha, money, countries, everything is imaginary!!
The ability to gossip and form bonds on imaginary things saved up from other
human species.

------
sharkweek
Infinite Jest - it's just such an absurd book, and arguably way too long, but
it's the funniest/saddest thing I've ever read. There are some passages that
absolutely shook me.

This section is one of my favorites, about things he learned in a halfway
home: [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/966304-if-by-the-virtue-
of-...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/966304-if-by-the-virtue-of-charity-
or-the-circumstance-of)

~~~
Fripplebubby
Infinite Jest destroyed me, in various places. It has picked up a stigma
nowadays for being pretentious (well, sure, it is) and unfinishable, but it is
if anything a work of genius, and if you give it a chance, it may destroy you
as well. Have yet to find a piece of fiction to top it.

~~~
nappy
It's brilliant. My favorite.

------
ericskiff
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

[http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Never-Split-the-
Differenc...](http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Never-Split-the-Difference-
Audiobook/B01CF5O89G)

As someone who never wanted to read negotiation books because I was worried I
would try to "win" all the time, I can't tell you how much this book changed
my way of thinking. It's affected how I deal with my kids, how I seek
resolution in confrontations, and how I listen to people in general.

For anyone with empathy as a strong facet of your personality, I highly
recommend reading this book. It's also a fun read, with each chapter's lesson
following the events of a hostage negotiation that the author took part in as
his role at the FBI.

------
LyndsySimon
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

There were many other books that influenced me, but the concept of a "Fair
Witness" stuck with me - specifically, the idea that one should be aware of
what is known versus what is inferred.

> Fair Witnesses are prohibited from drawing conclusions about what they
> observe. As a demonstration, Harshaw asks Anne to describe the color of a
> house in the distance. She responds, "It's white on this side". Harshaw
> explains that she would not assume knowledge of the color of the other sides
> of the house without being able to see them. Furthermore, after observing
> another side of the house would not then assume that any previously seen
> side was still the same color as last reported, even if only minutes before.

~~~
inputcoffee
But why not go further with some radical solpsism:

1\. Why assume it is a house at all and not a facade?

2\. Why assume that your eyes are not defective as to color?

3\. Why assume your memory of the word "color" and "white" are correct?

4\. Why assume that you heard the question properly?

5\. How do you know the meanings of words haven't changed since you learned
them many years ago?

~~~
LyndsySimon
You know it's a work of fiction, and that Fair Witnesses don't exist, right?
:)

In real life, this is neatly addressed by Ayn Rand:

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a
contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

------
Findeton
Me thinking: please don't say the Bible, please don't say the Bible!

The Bible.

Because when I was young and I tried reading it I realized that even though
millions and millions of perfectly functioning adults believe in something, it
might be absolutely wrong or based on basically nothing.

~~~
Balgair
I'll leave The Bible out of the discussion, but echo the point made.

As one human race, we can all come together, try very hard, regardless of
class or race or creed or sex, in earnest support of one another, and can
collectively make terrible decisions like Daylight Savings Time.

~~~
btschaegg
> As one human race, we can all come together, try very hard, regardless of
> class or race or creed or sex, in earnest support of one another, and can
> collectively make terrible decisions like Daylight Savings Time.

With proper attribution, I think this statement would be worthy of framing and
public display. Keep that in mind in case you get famous :)

~~~
Balgair
This is a high complement, you have made my Monday that much better. Thank
you! =).

------
carsongross
'Orthodoxy' by G.K. Chesterton, because it shocked me out of self-absorbed
materialist nihilism.

 _“Fairy tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten
moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only
to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”_

------
mcone
The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, a professor at MIT.

Some might call it a business book. It focuses primarily on teaching readers
to use "systems thinking" to turn companies into learning organizations that
respond and adapt to change. That's useful advice to those in management
positions, but I have to be honest and confess that the chapter on personal
mastery changed my life in a big way. It put into words something that I had
been thinking and feeling for a long time: namely, that we have the power to
change the systems that influence us.

~~~
dano
This is a great and worthwhile read. His exposure of positive and negative
cycles and methods of interrupting the negative was eye opening. I've used his
words on many an occasion to "wake up" the audience and break a negatively
reinforced conversation.

------
ud0
Think and Grow Rich.

It totally turned my life around, no I didn't get a ton of money but it
completely shifted my mentality, changed the way I saw the world, opened my
eyes.

The strongest lesson the book had on me was that it made me realize that a man
if he is willing can change his life, change what he doesn't like about his
life and make it right. I just finished high-school when a family friend gave
the book to me.

I learned about goals, how to set goals, it gave me the audacity to dream big,
I learned that the man can influence the mind which influences matter.

I just started learning to code at the time, fast-forward seven years later, a
kid from a humble background living in the lower-middle-class Africa who
couldn't afford a laptop had no access to stable electricity and could not
even afford to pay for internet connection, is now a Software Engineer in a
big Co. in Europe.

With all those challenges and even more faced by a poor African, I was able to
scale through, motivation and drive that was ignited over 8 years ago still
burning strong.

------
rcarmo
Definitely the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy.

I only read the rest of the series years later, but Douglas Adams' humour had
a (very) lasting impression on me, and inspired me to write (and communicate,
to this day) using a similar kind of humor and lateral thinking - because if
you're not having _some_ fun, then you're not really accomplishing anything...

~~~
Eyght
Many of the problems he describes keeps coming back with each iteration of
technological evolution. Like the Ident-I-Eeze card[1] and the inherent issue
with providing reliable identification.

[1] [http://epeus.blogspot.se/2002/12/douglas-adams-on-digital-
id...](http://epeus.blogspot.se/2002/12/douglas-adams-on-digital-id.html)

------
aakash58
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.

The restlessness and questioning (epitomized when he leaves Buddha) that
results in a fascinating journey of self-discovery and openness to experiences
has been inspirational.

------
f1gm3nt
Atlas Shrugged

A book I revisit every few years. It's taught me to be honest with myself even
if the social norms aren't in alignment with I'm doing.

It's also gave me a deeper understanding of my fellow man and why some are
fine with handouts from others.

It's also where I learned the $ symbol is made from the U and S from United
States.

~~~
johngalt
It showcases some interesting dynamics regarding businesses becoming involved
with politics and power. It's a good walk through of how "we just want the
government to make companies give their fair share" can easily turn into
something darker.

I certainly wouldn't promote objectivist an-cap policy writ large, but there
are truthful elements in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. I
specifically like how Ayn Rand draws a link between collectivism and racism,
which was truthful in the era she was writing in. A rare perspective.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> objectivist an-cap policy

Objectivism and Anarcho-Capitalism are distinctly different, though they share
much.

Objectivism accepts that a government is necessary, and places in it the
legitimate use of force.

Anarcho-Capitalism holds that government is not necessary, and that no
individual or organization may legitimately initiate force against another.

------
cponeill
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. [https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-
Creative-Battles/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-
Battles/dp/1936891026)

I have re-read this book constantly since purchasing it well over 10 years
ago. The chapters on facing resistance and how to deal with it constantly
resonate with me when working on my own projects.

------
arcanus
The Foundation, by Isaac Asimov.

Great sci-fi, but also cast science and technology in a way that made me
realize it could enable or destroy civilization.

Introduced me to the concept that we can approach modeling and predicting
human behavior with mathematics.

Very instrumental in pushing me towards hard sciences and computer modeling.

------
mvindahl
"Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. When I read it in the late 90s, I
had already read complete accounts of world history and thought myself well-
informed on the topic, yet virtually every chapter blew my mind.

The book is about the patterns that drive human history, both the written
history that we know and the vast period of prehistory which we have a pretty
good idea about these days due to genetics and linguistics. A recurring
pattern has been people moving around, displacing less fortunate people.
Further, Diamond looks for root causes to explain why some tribes or nations
would gain an edge over their neigbours, and a lot of the explanation is
ultimately found in technology and animal farming.

Before I read "Guns, Germs, and Steel", I had been under the impression that
the world was a fairly static and ecologically stable place until the European
age of discovery started uprooting everything. In reality it was nothing like
that. Almost every strip of land is inhabited be people whose ancestors fought
off other people, and cultures expanding beyond ecological sustainability and
suddenly collapsing is a common event.

Runner-up: anything by Hunter S Thompson

~~~
lazy_gator
Yes, that book completely changed my world view. I still think about it
consistently almost 6 years later. He took a very empirical approach to a
problem that is often discussed using less than thorough methods.

------
bshimmin
_American Psycho_ , Bret Easton Ellis. I learnt everything I know about
fashion and business cards from this important book.

~~~
king_panic
Amazing book that seems more relevant as time passes. It's absurdly hilarious
and profound. The movie captures the former, but not the latter.

~~~
bshimmin
I like the film a lot too. I'm not certain whether the impossible-to-film gore
of the book would've changed the message of the film had they somehow been
able to include it (for those who haven't read it, the book has passages which
are far nastier I think than any film that's ever been made), but I think the
film still has a strong message, and is undeniably beautifully shot and well-
acted.

Anyway, I have to return some videotapes.

~~~
king_panic
The book is entirely first person. The more I read from Patrick Bateman's
point of view the more I related to him in a deep and horrifying way. I've
heard the unthinkable gore in the book described as 'language as violence',
which puts it in a new perspective. It represents the pain and hatred within
him more than it's literal content. I agree with that. To me, the book is
about a man lost in a world he doesn't understand. As a young person, I
related to that deeply.

------
CalChris
_My 60 Memorable Games_ by Robert James Fischer.

I worked through the whole book, tore it to shreds. Bought another copy
recently (English notation, please). I was in a bookstore the other night
(Moe's) and saw Botvinnik's Gruenfeld book and I just had to look up his notes
on the _Botvinnik v Fischer_ game. It was exactly as Fischer quoted it in his
side by side commentary; I remembered it from memory. Botvinnik mentions a
student of his, Kasparov, finding a new analysis.

Fischer went nuts, completely racist conspiratorial Alex Jones nuts. But MSMG
has a clarity of thought that will always be his hallmark. The brutal
objectivity. If only he'd applied it to himself.

I suppose this book gave me an appreciation of really low level thinking and
how far you can go. Yes, the computer era hasn't been completely kind to
Fischer. But that's like comparing Haswell to the 6600. I use Haswell but I
still learned things from the 6600.

Well, that and _1984_.

------
SwellJoe
Animal Liberation by Peter Singer.

I read it over 20 years ago. I've been a vegetarian/vegan ever since. There
were probably other things I read or saw that contributed to the decision, but
that was, I think, the primary catalyst.

~~~
scandinavegan
I don't know if I ever started reading the book, or if I never gave it a
chance, because I was so put off by Singer's utilitarianism.

I turned vegetarian in the mid-nineties because my first girlfriend was
vegetarian. It coincided with media focusing on unnecessarily long animal
transports in the EU, and I quickly realized I didn't want to take any part in
factory farming. My wife turned vegetarian after meeting me, and we're both
vegan since 2007. I joke that vegetarianism and veganism is transferred from
partner to partner. Both our kids have been vegan their whole lives.

I came in contact with Singer's ideas in articles, and was both put off by the
utilitarian ideas as I couldn't see them coexist with ideas of inviolable
human and animal rights, and also that he used mentally disabled children as
an example of the absurdity of using mental capacity as a measure of whether
you can be used to make food and clothes. I agree, of course, that you
shouldn't use human children or animals, it was just that the examples and
arguments didn't speak to me at all.

Do you remember what it was by Singer that spoke to you?

~~~
SwellJoe
Well, the utilitarianism has _also_ stuck with me, and I lean that way on a
lot of philosophical/ethical questions. I didn't really realize it until a few
years ago while dating someone relatively well-known in
utilitarian/rationality circles and had some eye-opening conversations with
her and her friends about rights and the like (lots of things I'd never really
thought through to their logical conclusions led to a softening of my stance
on some stuff).

I spent a lot of years being a natural rights libertarian, but when it comes
down to it, I can't figure out where "rights" derive from. What's the first
principle that says anyone has a "right" to anything? That's not to say I
don't believe in civil rights as a just cause, or that human rights should be
upheld, I just think they are a construct of sentient beings...not endowed by
a creator or by nature. Utilitarianism has some reasonable answers on the
question of rights, among other things.

I understand the discomfort people feel in comparing humans to animals, but I
found it challenging in a good way. I've always had serious doubts about the
arguments people make about humans being unique; I haven't believed in a soul
since I was a child. So, Singer's arguments, even the uncomfortable ones,
weren't such a huge leap.

~~~
ExactoKnight
Check out A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. Best challenge to Utilitarian
thinking I know of. (E.g. slavery is wrong not because bad outweighs good, but
rather because it is _inherently_ wrong when seen from the perspective of the
original position)

~~~
Nomentatus
It's not uninteresting but it's a fast "argument" that really just dresses up
George Moore's Intuitionism IMHO, which itself remains in disrespect. Google
it, don't buy the book. It has many followers not because it's a great
argument (assuming it qualifies as that) but because there simply aren't
better arguments for Moore's side of the debate.

I am biased though, I've met the man and we _really_ didn't like one another,
our values were far too opposed when we met. From my brief exposure, in life
he seemed to be a mandarin who played the academic system expertly for his own
benefit, with a public persona crafted to help with that. His private and
public opinions could diverge to a staggering degree, but at least he did
sometimes share some of his private opinions with youngsters, even if he
wouldn't own them in any other context. A conscious hypocrite, I give him
that.

------
emidln
"The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson"

I found this book (or a very similar collection of Emerson's works) bound in a
small red hardcover the fall of my freshman year at a catholic high school.
The essays "Self-Reliance" and the "Divinity School Address" were both
important. "Self-Reliance" provided fuel to sit in a room of antique x86 parts
to follow the blueprint that ESR's "Hacker Howto" laid out (install and learn
FreeBSD; learn Python, Perl, C, Lisp; write software). "Divinity School
Address" started me away from Catholicism.

------
convexfunction
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander.

He's an architect/philosopher who coined the term "design patterns". Beautiful
book, got me thinking very hard about how to create artifacts and environments
that make the people who interact with them happy.

~~~
stblack
This book gets my vote as required reading for everyday life. Don't buy a
house before first reading this.

~~~
germinalphrase
Or actively avoid it because you will be spoiled for standard architectural
elements.

The gap between the house I want and what I will find is not based on fine
materials and craftsmanship - but a simple, non-standard layout that is
specific to my lifestyle.

------
jyriand
"Prometheus Rising" by Robert Anton Wilson.

This is the book that tied together lot of things that I was wondering about
previously and it opened up few doors into new mazes of research that I'm
still trying to traverse.

Also, started reading books that he suggested:

[http://www.rawilson.com/bookstore.html#rec](http://www.rawilson.com/bookstore.html#rec)

Edit: Added Wilson's suggested reading list

~~~
egypturnash
I was thinking of mentioning Wilson and Shea's _Illuminatus!_. It touches on a
lot of the same themes in _Prometheus Rising_ but via fiction; it's full of
not-so-subtly-disguised lectures and parables on How Brains (Fail To) Work.
And a bunch of cheerful sexism but what're you gonna do, it's from the
sixties.

And then there are the appendices, which eventually pointed me towards...
yeah. "New mazes of research" is a good way to put it for the HN audience.

------
vinayan3
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The main character Siddhartha experiences many different lives in search of
true enlightenment. The book is so well written and way certain things are
described are incredible.

------
arethuza
"The Demon-Haunted World"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-
Haunted_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World)

Sagan at his most passionate awesome best.

------
kwhitefoot
Impossible to pick just one because they are all intertwined.

But consider Primo Levi's Periodic Table even if only for the flash of insight
regarding onions.

Ever after reading it I see onions everywhere but most people seem unable to
see them even after I point them out.

There is an HN comment on the subject:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9746723](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9746723)

------
jonstewart
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck. There are probably better
novels that I liked more, although this one is good and I liked it and it's
kind of silly to pair off great works of literature Highlander-style, but I
think this one has the most to say about a person's own approach to American
capitalism and morality, and therefore has had more of an impact on me day-to-
day.

------
falsedan
_Neuromancer_ was the first book to get me really excited about the future and
how computers would change our lives.

~~~
VA3FXP
Very surprised given this crowd that it isn't mentioned more.

------
pokler
Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky. I knew the United States was complicit in
some nefarious things, both domestic and abroad, but wow, that book really
blew my hair back.

~~~
neves
Which Chomsky book do you all recommend to read first?

BTW, I'm talking about the politic ones. I've studied him in computer science
and physicology, but just saw interviews and read articles about politics.

~~~
pokler
Understanding Power is a great place to start. Its a collection of past talks
given by him and I found it to be a great primer for more focused Chomsky
books.

------
macca321
Catch 22. I use Yossarian's behaviour to justify my own.

~~~
arethuza
I read Catch 22 when I was about 14 or so - it was literally the first "grown
up" novel that I read that wasn't dry science fiction and it completely
enthralled me.

What did I learn from it? Possibly this:

 _" The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side
he's on"_

------
johngossman
Lord of the Rings. I read a lot, so it is hard to pick any single book as most
influential. LotR is not the first nor the best book I ever read (though I do
love it). It has limited real life applicability. LotR is influential for me
because I read it when I was 11 and it was the one that got me hooked on
reading, which has been a huge part of my life ever since.

------
AngeloAnolin
The Little Prince

Always have had a profound impact on how I view and understand things.

Read it with an open mind like a child and see the wonders.

------
MithrilTuxedo
_The Myth of Sisyphus_ by Albert Camus

Back in college I had that spinning around in my head along with a computer
science foundations course (automata, computability, complexity, Turing
completeness) and a bunch of AI/AL light reading that was already rather
dated. Kitzmiller v. Dover was being covered all over Slashdot and here I was
looking at all these examples _from the 80s_ of complex emergent behaviour
evolving from simple rules applied to randomness and then simulated over time
in computers.

Something clicked in my head and everything made as much sense as it needed
to. Life, the Universe, everything. I started to think of the sciences as
being just a continuum of studies that describe behaviour at increasingly
higher levels of abstraction: math -> physics -> chemistry -> biology ->
psychology -> sociology.

Computers made life without specific reason or meaning demonstrable. Camus
made life without specific reason or meaning acceptable.

------
erikpukinskis
The Disposessed, by Ursula K. Leguin.

Before I read it, I thought capitalism was the only way to organize people and
resources on a broad scale. I couldn't imagine anything else working
particularly well, and I thought anarchists were people who want to break
things and cause chaos.

The Disposessed showed me how anarcho-syndicalism actually works, and gave me
a framework for understanding its benefits and challenges and why it hasn't
taken off broadly yet. My whole life is more or less oriented around those
ideas now.

------
brogrammernot
The Inner Game of Tennis.

My tennis coach gave me his copy, from the mid 80s, which was tattered and had
clearly been read many, many times.

It taught me so much about life, and how to be successful.

My tennis coach was also my life coach when I reflect back on those days. He
grew up in south central LA, rode his bike to the closest tennis courts and
sometimes as far as Beverly Hills. He'd wait outside the courts until someone
came along and ask if he could play.

He turned that into a full ride scholarship for tennis, became a senior level
member of a huge telecom and then left to coach tennis to give back to the
sport that gave him so much. He credited this book for teaching him how to
focus on the important elements in life and most of all, the grit required to
succeed.

Anyways, it's a great read. I haven't read the revised edition but I'm sure
it's just as compelling.

~~~
hornbaker
Vintage 60 Minutes TV coverage of TIGoT (12 min):
[https://youtu.be/ieb1lmm9xHk](https://youtu.be/ieb1lmm9xHk)

------
thomasreggi
The Autobiography of Malcolm X

It's a deep dive in understanding and empathizing with another human being,
and reflecting and finding the things one is grateful for in their own life.

~~~
BeetleB
Years ago I was going on a cross country road trip (solo), and needed
something to listen to. I decided to download all of his speeches, sort them
in chronological order, and listen to all of them.

His continual evolution was nothing short of amazing. While the book is
awesome, I appreciated him more when I listened to him directly.

This is also a great book: [https://www.amazon.com/Malcolm-X-Reinvention-
Manning-Marable...](https://www.amazon.com/Malcolm-X-Reinvention-Manning-
Marable/dp/0143120328/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

It essentially makes him more human, exposing his flaws which you rarely hear
about.

------
brudgers
_Bhagavad Gītā_ [0]

Miami's airport, Autumn 1983, a shave head Krishna pushes a copy into my hand
on the concourse. Says he wants me to have it. Then asks for money. Here's a
five. Most people give twenty. Still have the book. Still cheap.

Began my intellectual interest in religion. I've come to think of religion as
just another way of explaining the world alongside storytelling and science.

[0] _: as it is (abridged edition)_

------
kevlar1818
Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner (authors of Freakonomics)
was a recent read that I liked a lot. It distills much of their economic
thinking into a collection of meaningful practices. You could read it in a
day.

------
s_kilk
I think the "His Dark Materials" series by Philip Pullman had the greatest
impact on me as a youngster. That series opened my mind to some really
interesting ideas, and lead on to reading Milton, then taking up a general
interest in philosophy.

I don't think I'd be who I am now without having read those books.

------
mattnewton
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Blew my mind out the back of my head in
high school. Changed the way I looked at the world. Made evolution make some
sense, and to some degree, paired with the extended phenotype, helped society
make more sense. So much of altruism, racism, and tribalism have roots in game
theory of you accept the hypothesis of the gene as the unit of natural
selection.

But, perhaps more importantly it taught me by example how to make a good
argument that can be rooted in multiple deep disciplines but accessible to the
masses.

~~~
VA3FXP
You might want to check out: Y: The Descent of Men by Steve Jones

It's a humourous and insightful look at evolution and the stupidity that us
men sometimes exhibit.

------
cickpass_broken
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

This just may be my imagined takeaway. But..

There's a theme around creativity existing on, let's call it a plane, and this
plane is accessible to anyone. I've yet to think much on if this plane (or,
perhaps way of thinking) is the same for everyone or actually shared in some
way.

This idea massively shaped my understanding, or feelings towards, the brain,
and the immense ability for our own brains to limit or enhance our potential.

This was a very literary way for me to form the advice that could be boiled
down to: "think positively"

~~~
calebm
Haruki Murakami is the only living author who, if he writes a book, I will
read it. The only other author for me in this category is C.S. Lewis (except
that he's not still living in this world).

Also, I would have answered the question with "Hardboiled Wonderland and The
End of the World", except that, by the time I read it, I was already so much
on the same page in my thinking, that it didn't have a huge impact on me...
but if I hadn't already been thinking as I do, I'm sure it would have been
immensely impactful.

------
NumberCruncher
The 48 laws of power by Robert Greene and How I Found Freedom in an Unfree
World by Harry Browne. The two sides of the same coin: how the game of power
is played and how to get immune to it.

------
jshawl
The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins)

tldr; our bodies are just a side effect of the gene's greater plan

~~~
kwhitefoot
I think your tldr is overstating the case a little.

------
eli_gottlieb
The _Manifesto of the Communist Party_. It's not that it's greatly-written, or
that everything in it is right. It just manages to achieve the feeling that,
truly, "another world is possible."

------
wowsig
This has turned out to be an amazing thread. While the first 50 books were
something I was expecting, Selfish Gene, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy et
all, the suggestions went interesting as I kept scrolling.

In the spirit of all things books, I've compiled the answers into a list (You
were expecting someone to do this, weren't you?)

Since, I've done this manually, this is what I've included.

1\. Have only included the first level comments and the books mentioned in
them.

This means the comments that said, if you liked this, you'll also like this
aren't included.

2\. Have included books from comments that have provided good answers to the
'why'.

Haven't included just book mentions without explanations of why that has been
the most influential book.

Which book is mentioned most?

Haven't counted, but I think it is Selfish Gene and the Bhagwat Gita!

And here is the list --> You guys can go ahead and add these to your reading
list.

[http://shelfjoy.com/sia_steel/non-technology-books-that-
have...](http://shelfjoy.com/sia_steel/non-technology-books-that-have-
influenced-hn-readers-the-most)

------
test6554
"The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World
Economy Bigger" by Marc Levinson

This book is an amazing breakdown of the shipping container and the impact
that seemingly insignificant details can have on the world. But more
importantly for me were the examples of non-automated labor required to move
cargo in the past. It demonstrated the sheer amount of human effort that is
poured into profitable tasks. It made me consider some of the tasks/projects I
decided never to bother with out of laziness and think about what it would
take in terms of tools and resources/manpower to actually get those tasks
done. Instead of thinking about whether I wanted to do some task, I began
thinking about whether the outcome was desirable regardless of the work
required, and if it was, I thought about what it would take to get it done. If
I had to list a second book it woul be "The Age of Intelligent Machines" by
Kurzweil

~~~
tcopeland
You're in good company with liking this one - "The Box" was on the 2017 Navy
reading list
([http://navyreading.dodlive.mil/](http://navyreading.dodlive.mil/)).

------
hanumanthan
Thinking fast and slow -

This book deals with lot of experiments on human decisioning and explains how
impulsive and irrational our decisions can be

------
erehweb
Stumbling on Happiness. The best insight here is - people are very good at
rationalizing / being happy about bad results, when they result from a
decision to do something (e.g. change job / move ...) - less so when they
decide not to do something (stay in the current job etc.) Using this as a tie-
breaker rule has been a great help.

------
pagutierrezn
1- The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Specially the edition commented by
Napoleon Buonaparte.

2-Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers. This book makes "Crossing the
chasm" a simplistic introduction for laggards

3-The Art of War by Sun Tzu

4-If Nature Is the Answer, What Was the Question? By Jorge Wagensberg

5-Sacred hoops by Phil Jackson

6-Fear from freedom by Erich Fromm

7-Michelangelo biography of a genious

8-Blindness by Jose Saramago

9-On writing by Stephen King

------
mindcrime
_Nineteen Eighty Four_ by Orwell. I read it in high-school and it helped seed
(or at least exacerbate) a strong sense of distrust for government and its
agents.

A close second might be _The Fountainhead_ by Ayn Rand. That might actually
have been first on my list, had I read it when I was younger. But I only first
read it about 8 years ago.

------
sandworm101
Is sci-fi "technology"?

I've taken much from Dune (see the name) but also Clark's books. Comics and
the bible have also helped me understand much of US pop culture in a way that
i wouldn't without. Realizing the religious overtones in the marvel movies, or
the STD metaphor in HarryPotter, is great fun.

------
magic_beans
The Bhagavad Gita continues to challenge my notion of truth, self, and the
path to happiness.

------
socialist_coder
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

~~~
UncleSlacky
Freely available online here:
[http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html](http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html)

------
j0e1
Epistle to the Romans.

Helped me wrestle and come to rest with many conflicting thoughts and ideas
that were ultimately attributed to my lack of knowledge in those. I highly
recommend reading in a modern translation like ESV.

------
sixstringtheory
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Documents a year of her and
her family living in Appalachia, totally self-sustaining. Changed the way I
think about consumerism and industrialization.

------
wazoox
"Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco.

There is some hacking, and a strange battle against people wanting to believe
their own truth (does that ring a bell?). Extremely contemporaneous, alas...

~~~
osullivj
Loved Foucault's Pendulum, but I think Name of the Rose is a better novel. The
characters are more convincing, the narrative momentum more propulsive, and
the intellectual pyrotechnics just as satisfying. The film, with Sean Connery,
is pretty good too...

------
rajesht
Bhagavad Gita - translated by Eknath Easwaran
[https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Easwarans-Classics-Indian-
Sp...](https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Easwarans-Classics-Indian-
Spirituality/dp/1586380192)

Eknath has a deep understanding of Indian spirituality, in first 75 or so
pages he explains it beautifully. He also explains how Bhagwad Gita is a map
of how to live a life. These teaching can be applied even today to live a good
life without too much stress.

------
osullivj
IMHO the best 20th century novel in the English language: Brideshead
Revisited. A cursory reading, or viewing of the TV series or recent film, can
leave the misleading impression that it's a eulogy to aristocratic privilege.
But that's because it wears its more profound themes so lightly. Those themes
are life, love, the quest for happiness & acceptance, the nature of art, and
the Catholic faith. As a work of apologetics it's extremely reticent; only
Catholics will notice its Catholicity. All should read at a gentle pace to
savour its wisdom. Some quotes...

“But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiosity and
the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that
low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened
on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by
any window, in the heart of that grey city.”

“To understand all is to forgive all.”

“... To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.”

“Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and
quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her
autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days -
such as that day - when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high
and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of
youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and
carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamour.”

And finally: "beware charm!"

------
xherberta
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

The takeaway that's quickest to explain is that the best things in life are
priceless. You might be surprised how few $ you can happily live on.

------
scandinavegan
Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) by Lao-tse (Laozi). This is my favorite translation:

[http://www.wright-house.com/religions/taoism/tao-te-
ching.ht...](http://www.wright-house.com/religions/taoism/tao-te-ching.html)

The text gives advice on both how to behave on a personal level and how to
lead (and therefore what to expect from a good leader). It promotes the idea
that ambition leads to strife and conflict and that the path to happiness is
to be content with what you have. It also promotes the abandonment of pride
and ego: Do your work and walk away, do not concern yourself with getting
credit for what's been achieved. Be like water and flow around problems
instead of butting your head against them. Be malleable, do your thing, and
don't worry about what others are doing around you.

When it comes to how to lead, it says you should micro manage, and that the
best leader is invisible. They make the group members think that they achieved
it all themselves.

A lot of the things go against the current climate of ambition, greed, and
always being visible in social media. How can you increase your salary without
taking credit for all the good things you do? How can you be productive, and
show others how productive you are, if you abandon ambition and are content? I
still find that it calms me to think about the ideas, and that it feels like
someone has my back when I don't want to become the center of attention. I
just want to do my work and my hobbies, being happy with what I have, and not
trying to maximize my salary or social standing.

------
queirozfcom
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing who you are, by Alan Watts.

------
netnichols
_All Quiet on the Western Front_ by Erich Maria Remarque.

It might not actually be my first choice, but this one of the few on my short
list that no one else has mentioned.

I read it in my mid teens (not too long after we stopped playing Rambo in the
back yard) and it profoundly affected the way I view war, violence, and
suffering. I've only read it the once (almost 25 years ago), and I hardly
remember the story at all, but I vividly remember the _feeling_ that it gave
me.

------
cowpig
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Somehow Rick & Morty really reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut. Similarly dark sense
of humour about our meaninglessness in a vast, chaotic universe.

------
BatFastard
1) Jonathan Livingston Seagull. 2) Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
3) Illusions.

------
crazybigdan
The Once and Future King by T H White is likely my favorite fictional book. A
modern (1940s) retelling of Arthurian legend, it really struck me in how it
was able to captivate my imagination and my emotions. In that story I found
White was masterfully able to discern when to be serious and when to be
playful - by which he reanimated, for me, the legend of Arthur - parts of
which I started to find stale, or outright did not enjoy.

~~~
pge
I would add that he also does a wonderful job capturing and describing human
nature. He is writing right after WWII, and the Arthurian legend is just a
vehicle for his observations about humanity (and the war).

Wonderful book - I just finished reading the first section (the Sword in the
Stone) out loud to my daughter, and I hope as she gets older, she will read
the rest on her own.

------
btschaegg
Although somewhat obscure, Filip Filander[1] by Jörg Hagemann left me with
quite an impression at the time I read it (I must have been about 14).
Hagemann tells a story that reminds very much of Michael Ende (who wrote the
Unending Story and many other excellent books) and tries to highlight the
contrast between knowledge and wisdom (Wissen und Weisheit in German) and the
importance of having a good amount of both (as opposed to fanatically only
searching for one). That idea resonated quite well with me - and I'm still
reminded of the book whenever I'm witness to an overly technical argument that
leaves out other aspects (people, practicality, etc.).

[1]: [https://www.amazon.de/Filip-Filander-das-geraubte-
Wissen/dp/...](https://www.amazon.de/Filip-Filander-das-geraubte-
Wissen/dp/3800028069%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q%26tag%3Dduc02-21%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D3800028069)

------
cgrubb
The Rock Warrior's Way:

[https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Warriors-Way-Training-
Climbers/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Warriors-Way-Training-
Climbers/dp/0974011215)

Nominally about rock climbing, but really a study of the ego, why we invest so
much effort in protecting it, and how little we get for that investment.

------
ssijak
Little Prince. Read it a few times in my life. As a child, teen, adult and
always got different but beautiful things from it.

------
gentleteblor
"The Malazan Book of The Fallen" by Steve Erikson

It's supposedly fantasy, but it contains some of the best (fun and insightful)
examinations of political systems, economics, religion, the environment,
military culture and more. If it sounds like everything, it's because it is :)

My favorite work of art in any medium.

PS. It's a series (and a long one at that).

------
thunderbong
Mister God, this is Anna By Fynn[0]

Physics, Religion, Philosophy, Life, all rolled up into seeing the world
through a child's eyes.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/Mister-God-This-is-
Anna/dp/B004MO511I...](https://www.amazon.com/Mister-God-This-is-
Anna/dp/B004MO511I/ref=sr_1_3)

------
rchen8
"The Road Less Traveled" by M Scott Peck.

By far the best self-improvement book I've read. About discipline, love,
growth and religion, and grace. I don't consider myself to be religious, but
it's made me apply traditional values and spiritual growth from religion to
help me become a better person.

~~~
Mikhail_Edoshin
Came here to write about it. Also "Abounding Grace". I'm going to read all his
books.

------
peacetreefrog
Moneyball. Will affect the way you (strive to) make decisions. Worthwhile even
if you've seen the movie and/or don't like baseball.

The End of Faith. Definitely don't agree with all of this, but if you're at
all on the fence about religion this book has the potential to be very
influential.

~~~
Nomentatus
re Moneyball - the big takeaway (clearer in the movie) being that most people
who experience tremendous success don't actually realize it, particularly, at
the time.

------
djkrudy
Atlas Shrugged. For its dogged adherence to finding out and practicing a
morality. Rand's fault is that she ignores this cannon in creating entirely,
unbelievably optimistic characters, but remembers it well in their decisions
and formation of plot. This book challenged, nearly destroyed, and then
strengthened my faith and hope in Christ because of its' logical progression
toward the necessity and worth of truth and fairness, and then being unable to
act out those principles without the use of God-like character(s). I was left,
after studying Islam in the Koran and separately, mindfulness and others,
unable to turn to anything else, except the Gospel of John and Romans. A
Reason for God, by Tim Keller was also a necessary step in the tempering of my
morality.

------
notacoward
Does "The Evolution of Cooperation" count as technical? It's kind of CS-ish,
but the real points are about how cooperation and "good behavior" can (a)
occur without explicit communication and (b) be predictably self-beneficial in
the long term even though exact paths to those benefits are unknown. True
enlightened self-interest has to account for ecosystem effects and something
akin to karma.

If that's disqualified, I'd go with something like Lewis and Allison's "The
Cheating of America" or just about anything by David Cay Johnston. Knowing who
really pays and who really profits from government, and how, can really shine
an interesting light on what might otherwise by inexplicable behavior from our
so-called leaders.

------
crawfordcomeaux
"Nonviolent Communication" (NVC) by Marshall Rosenberg

I was emotionally disconnected from people and myself from ~10~33 years old
via information addiction (compulsively doing everything up to the "doing"
parts of creation).

My disconnect kept me from learning how to communicate my empathy to others,
as well as kept me from fully considering/respecting their needs. Around a
year ago, I broke through denial over sexual trauma I experienced as a child
and was able to largely come to peace with it in 12 hours thanks to the
principles and practices of NVC. That was huge and only the start of the
book's impact on me.

Essentially, this book has been teaching me how to human for the past year.
I've read it 5 times and may read it again this week. I'm willing to send a
used copy from Amazon to anyone who can't afford a copy and thinks they could
benefit from it. My contact info is in my profile for those who wish to take
me up on the offer. Here are more ways the book has changed my life.

\- It taught me how to emphatically connect. The communication framework it
teaches is simple, yet highly structured. It was perfect for my systematic way
of thinking.

\- I gained a new understanding of fundamental human needs and how they relate
to emotions we experience.

\- I began practicing it with a friend, who I fell in love with through our
mutual ability to connect and was briefly engaged to them last year.

-I've introduced the book to my family and the entire dynamic has changed dramatically. Passive aggressive and/or codependent behaviors are slowly starting to shift.

\- The book inspired me to practice abandoning my judgments. All of them.
After a few weeks of this, I realized I was enjoying foods I used to hate. And
then I started enjoying music I used to hate. And then children became
adorable instead of obnoxious.

\- I've always known something was wrong with the US justice system, but had
no idea how to fix it. I learned about restorative justice through the book
and my entire worldview has shifted as a result. I'm now slowly developing
ideas for how to shift systems in that direction.

\- I developed a model for how humans work I use to program my brain in very
intentional ways. NVC principles serve as optimization techniques in it.

\- An example of one such optimization was so profound it's worth noting by
itself. I realized I can view every moment as meeting some needs of mine. The
shittiest of moments can specifically meet a combination of 4 needs: learning
to better meet my needs, learning to better empathize with others, gratitude
for both of those things, and gratitude for the opportunity to learn. I began
processing the world this way on New Year's Eve and it's changed practically
everything I do. My reality is not at all what it once was and I love it.

\- I have a concern about creating a programming language for human brains and
giving it to the world. Specifically, I'm worried about people using it to
exploit others. If I don't abandon my worry, I'll first encode NVC practices
in it and release it as a sort of mental antivirus.

\- In preparing to test an hypothesis my model generated about gender
identity, I accidentally spawned a seemingly conscious second voice in my
head. NVC is incredibly helpful when it comes to us communicating with each
other.

~~~
gotrythis
I second this.

I think NVC is on of the most important books that exists and should be taught
in all schools, at all levels. Most of what we do is communication, and this
is how to do it in a way that connects with people.

I listen to the 8 hour lecture on youtube a couple of times a year and have
read the book easily a dozen times.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
I've listened to the lecture a few times, too. Great stuff! Here's the link
for anyone interested:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4tUVqsjQ2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4tUVqsjQ2I)

------
type0
Surely you're joking, mr Feynman

------
pcsanwald
A River Sutra, by Gita Mehta.

It's a book I've re-read many times over the years, and drawn something
different and new from each reading. It's hard to articulate why it's so
important to me, but I've learned a tremendous amount from it. Highly
recommended!

------
padraigf
\- Mastery by Robert Greene & The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

I had to name both, because it was the combination of the two that influenced
me. Essentially reading both of these moved me from the fixed mindset to the
growth mindset (to borrow Carol Dweck's terms).

Mastery provides the historical examples (including incidentally, our hero,
Paul Graham), and The Talent Code provides the science behind it, what deep
practice does to the brain.

These books aren't the only to deal with the growth mindset (others...Carol
Dweck's Mindset, Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, Anders Ericsson's Peak),
but where I first encountered the idea. In changing the way I learn, and my
motivation for learning, they changed my life.

------
dedalus
Ardor by Robert Calasso

[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/books/review/ardor-by-
rob...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/books/review/ardor-by-roberto-
calasso.html)

------
rndmize
The Hard SF Renaissance

So many of the stories in this collection impacted me heavily or changed my
thinking. Some of the ones I felt stood out:

"Understand" \- Ted Chiang

"Reasons to be Cheerful" \- Greg Egan

"Bicycle Repairman" \- Bruce Sterling

"The Good Rat" \- Allen Steele

"Beggars in Spain" \- Nancy Kress

------
skdotdan
The Art of War. Honestly, I re-read it every year!

------
andrei_says_
I am That -- transcribed talks with Nisargadatta Maharaj

Shifted my sense of self in ways I cannot describe. It is logical but not
intellectual and transformative in a strange way.

Enlightenment is Not What You Think by Wayne Liquorman, a contemporary Advaita
teacher.

Ishmael by Daniel Queen.

------
ckluis
the tao of physics - I read it in high school for a dual-enrollment course and
it was profoundly entertaining (if difficult to read in high school). It
provided a glimpse into parrallels between eastern mysticism and western
science.

------
stepbeek
Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov

When frustrated by technology, it's pretty cool to read some things in this
collection of short stories and think "We're actually in the future. We just
aren't great at making robots walk yet."

~~~
Nav_Panel
Asimov's "Complete Stores Vol. 1" was probably the book that most influenced
my childhood. As I get older and see more of the intersection of life and
technology, I find myself drawn back to his stories. Lately, the stories
"Franchise" (politics and technology) and "All The Troubles Of The World" (an
AI that, gasp, isn't trying to destroy humanity) have appealed to me, but I've
had many favorites come and go over the years.

------
Slumberthud
The Disappearance of the Universe, by Gary R. Renard. It is a very
approachable explanation of another book, A Course in Miracles. It is the
first thing that has ever succeeded in budging me from my fundamentalist
Christian views.

------
W4n
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Written by a senior researcher at
MIRI, it distills all the cogsci and pop psychology books you can think of
(Kahneman, Freakonomics, Gladwell) into a smart, funny, engaging, book-length
book-quality fanfic. Plus it's available freely online. Seeing these methods
applied by a protagonist helped me internalize them far more than any number
of rereads of other books could have. If that's too frivolous for you,
Rationality: From AI to Zombies is the textbook format of all this
information, from the same author.

------
amorphid
You've Only Got Three Seconds by Camille Lavington

The book taught me the importance of making a good impression, how to improve
my situation, to focus on being effective, and not hang on to things that are
holding me back.

------
nhod
A Wrinkle in Time, and to a lesser extent rest of the L'Engle Time Quartet.
Taught me very early on about physics, time, creativity, nonconformity, love,
and the mystery and wonder of the universe.

------
pjmorris
'The New Whole Earth Catalog', Stewart Brand, editor. Browsing the great,
independent, Goering's bookstore just across the road from UF was my pastime
of choice in the early 80's. TNWEC became my card catalog for the rest of the
store, and turned me on to an attitude of practical self-improvement. Just one
of the many finds inside was 'How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life'
by Alan Lakein, which, almost single handedly, saved my college career through
a little simple prioritization and organization.

------
jmartini
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't - Jim
Collins. His concept of "bullets before cannonballs" has stuck with me for
every project/job/company.

------
jlg23
"La transcendence de l'ego", by Jean-Paul Sartre[1] - I read it when I was 14,
by sheer accident, and it provided all the backing for intuitively
understanding Sapir-Worf and finally for being able to navigate in a multitude
of cultural environments without getting looked upon/shot at or being killed
(depending on where the world I am ;)

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

------
Gnarl
"The Body Electric" by Dr. Robert O. Becker. An amazing journey into the
electromagnetic workings and sensitivity of biology to electromagnetic fields.
Details early but little known discoveries like de-differentiation of cells
(return to stem cell) by weak electric fields and also commonly known
mechanisms like accelerated bone-healing by electrical stimulation. Ends with
a warning against uncontrolled proliferation and use of EMF/EMR in society.
But who listens to that kind of stuff anyway?

------
michaelsbradley
_Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues_

by Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., 1609

as translated into English from the original Spanish by Joseph Rickaby, S.J.,
1929

[https://archive.org/details/PPCV-Manresa](https://archive.org/details/PPCV-
Manresa)

I found it to be a mirror of my soul, in which I saw more clearly than ever
before my many faults and areas for improvement; at the same time, it held out
to me the prescriptions necessary for the cure... a work still in progress, to
be sure.

------
jensnockert
"The Twelve Kingdoms", by Fuyumi Ono. We'll count all the volumes as one.

Maybe I read them at just the right time in just the right place, but if you
are in the right mood it tells you a story about leadership, a kernel of
intersectionality, and most importantly why it's so hard for leadership
figures to change the way they are headed even if they can clearly see that
they are heading straight into an iceberg.

There's also an animated TV-series by NHK that I can recommend.

------
beat
You mean for how it influenced my work as a software engineer?

"How Buildings Learn", by Stewart Brand. It's about architecture over time -
how buildings change and evolve (and eventually die), to suit the needs of
their owners and occupants, and how they deal with the three enemies of al
buildings (time, money, and water).

This book really fueled my interest in legacy software, and how the software
lifecycle actually works. I recommend it highly to all software professionals.

------
0x445442
Shibumi - Trevanian; I've read the book three of four times now and I'm not
sure why but the characters and the characterizations just resonate with me.

~~~
vram22
Read that years ago. Some good lessons in it.

Another one on similar lines is Taipan by James Clavell. Also King Rat by
Clavell.

~~~
0x445442
King Rat looks interesting.

------
tmaly
4 Hour Work Week

it gave me the idea that you could start something on the side while doing
your day job. The productivity tips have been super useful in all aspects of
my life.

------
emmelaich
Almost all these books mentioned I love; GEB, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, 1984 are my favourites.

Not my actual favourite but worth mentioning as a marker in my thinking is

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

For me it was the catalyst for the transition from the heart centric youth to
the head centric adult.

------
golemotron
'The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements' by Eric Hoffer.

It helps you understand all mass movements from Trump-ism to Social Justice.

~~~
everybodyknows
Comforting, too, to an American who fears Trumpism. Although indeed a mass
movement, Trumpism is not yet a personality cult. More like Putinism rather
than the Kim dynasty.

------
walsk
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

Especially one episode, and if you've read the book, you probably can guess,
which one.

(The rest of the books were already mentioned above.)

------
jbeckham
Chosen by God from R. C. Sproul.

It explains the sovereignty of God in salvation very well. It is one of the
best explanations of Reformed Theology that I've found that is meant for a
non-seminary student.

[https://www.amazon.com/Chosen-God-R-C-
Sproul/dp/0842313354/](https://www.amazon.com/Chosen-God-R-C-
Sproul/dp/0842313354/)

------
typhonic
Invitation to Love by Fr Thomas Keating. While teaching about contemplative
prayer, Fr Keating describes clearly the emotional programs for happiness
(security, esteem, control) which we develop before maturity and which
distract us as adults from knowing our true selves. I long ago picked my
nickname from his description of our journey: reptilian, typhonic, mental
egoic, unitive.

------
brightball
Psychology: Themes and Variations (textbook for my Psych 101 class in
college). That class and book completely changed the way I think because it
made me so much more aware of things happening around me everyday.

There were a lot of things but learning about Diffusion of Responsibility was
huge. Knowing about it has made me feel almost like it's my responsibility to
take action in a crowd.

------
JSeymourATL
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns - clinically depressed,
the impact of learning & practicing cognitive behavioral therapy was life
saving >
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46674.Feeling_Good](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46674.Feeling_Good)

------
oblib
That would have to be Grapes of Wrath.

Or maybe Animal Farm.

Both of those books gave me an insight to politics and human nature in a way
that made it clearer to me.

------
2snakes
Snow Crash had a big influence on me. Siddhartha too, and most recently,
Reality Begins with Consciousness by Neppe and Close.

------
caballo7
The YC partners surprisingly recommend a lot of non-tech books on Twitter. You
can see their recommendations here:
[http://parrotread.com/bookshelf/y-combinator-
partners](http://parrotread.com/bookshelf/y-combinator-partners). You can
filter by genre, too.

~~~
baraah
It has Sapiens as one of Paul Grahams suggestions, but his tweet says he
didn't finish it.

------
busterarm
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.

"Shared pain is lessened, shared joy increased." It's really that simple,
folks.

------
VA3FXP
Illusions - Richard Bach

It's about choosing the identity you want, and accepting all the beauty that
the choice allows.

------
screwgoth
"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I read it a couple of years after I hit my teens
and was going to go to Junior College. It validated all my beliefs about
meritocracy, atheism and recognition of self. To this day, I read it ( or
parts of it, anyway) just to maintain my sanity

------
Entangled
"Anatomy of the state" by Murray Rothbard.

Eye opener about overall politics and why the sheeple is what it is.

------
davemel37
Who moved my cheese. Its not my favorite book but its influenced me the most
and I read it atleast once a year. It is a powerful parable about making
things happen for yourself and focusing on things you can control and not
blaming a bad hand or rough circumstances.

~~~
mysterydip
You might be interested in Peaks and Valleys, by the same author. This one
focuses more on how to plan for good and bad times that will come.

~~~
davemel37
Will buy it asap. Thanks.

------
pugio
The World of Null-A

I found a yellow-paged first edition on my parents' shelves as a young kid,
and was heavily shaped by the idea of a character (and society) that trained
themselves to think clearly.

This included years of training on how to channel (and ground) one's emotions,
and a constant and deep understanding of "the map is not the territory". Or,
in other words, our mental models are just that, and should be discarded or
updated as soon as reality differs from them.

This allowed the character to respond with almost superhuman speed when
confronted with otherwise traumatic emotional revelations, and the society as
a whole to reorganize in response to an incipient alien invasion.

I've been trying to train myself to think like that ever since, and it has
probably contributed to the large gap I felt between the thinking of my peers
and me as I grew up.

I'm not sure how well the book holds up now, without my nostalgia colored
glasses, but I still reread it every few years to remind me of the direction
of my thoughts.

~~~
FiatLuxDave
Interesting, I didn't expect to see this book on this list. I also read it as
a kid, and I do see what you see in it. I don't think I would credit it with
as big of an influence on my thought, though. Did you ever follow up with
reading any Korzybski?

------
leconteur
"Jacques le Fataliste" by Denis Diderot.

I found that this book illustrates perfectly well the underlying way that I,
as a materialist and scientific man, perceive the world around me. It also
illustrates the contradiction and idiosyncrasies of this way of thinking.

------
saturnian
"Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" from former ad-exec Jerry
Mander

------
senjindarashiva
The Call of the Wild translated for children by the Swedish translator Maj
Bylock. This book opened the world of classical literature for me and without
it I probably would have missed about half of the books I've read in the last
15ish years

------
agentultra
In what way? I'm a human being full of intertwined contradictions and personal
mythologies. I have many ways in which to be influenced.

I've read so many books and they've all left their impression on me one way or
another; even the most boring drivel!

If by _influenced_ you mean to imply, _as a programmer_ , then I would say
perhaps _Programming in the 1990s_ if that counts as "non-technology." It's a
book about maths and using logical proofs as a tool for creating
specifications of computer systems. Prior to reading that book I had treated
"software specifications," with the same reverence as a sketch on the back of
a napkin. As far as I was concerned the only specification that mattered was
the source code and the tests that exercise it. I feel as though that book has
greatly changed the way I approach problems and how I think when I'm thinking
about software.

------
mlinksva
"The Retreat to Commitment" by W.W. Bartley III. Not what the book is about,
but in addition to being a thrilling read, it eventually helped me deal with
the shortcomings of the world and culture I find myself in, and my own.

------
kstenerud
Can't leave it at one book, because there are four which all tie into a whole:

1\. The Book of Five Rings (how to manage yourself)

2\. The Art of War (how to manage your campaign)

3\. The Prince (how to manage your domain)

4\. Proverbs (the wisdom of generations of people in positions of power)

------
motxilo
"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan
Cain. This book made me think about my own thinking and social behavior
patterns.

------
selimthegrim
I'll put in a vote for one I haven't seen so far - Children of Gebelaawi by
Naguib Mahfouz. Has a lot to teach about revenge and generational cycles.

------
chaostheory
The Max Strategy. It's a simple fictional parable like the Richest Man in
Babylon with a simple message: do/try something different every day.

------
jgrahamc
Slaughterhouse-Five

------
mattbgates
Easily my favorite childhood book that I read for the helluvit every few
years: The Ellimist.

I was a huge fan of Animorphs, but one of my favorite characters was the
omniscient being.

 _spoilers_ (Book is now 17 years old as of this post)

Just a brief summary if memory serves me correctly: They were a bird-like race
called the Ketran, and although the planet surface was inhabitable, the
atmosphere was, so they spent time keeping up a perch. To deal with their
boredom, they created a game-like system of virtual reality. This gaming
system allowed them to play things like chess or play characters or entire
species in virtual simulations.

They had learned to broadcast their network gaming system across the planet to
other Ketran and expanded their networks. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them,
they accidentally broadcast this virtual simulation across the galaxy to a
war-like species, who thought they were being threatened.

The species came to their planet and wiped out nearly all the Ketran. The
survivors were able to use one of their ships to escape and spent millenia
searching for a planet like their own, but were unable to do so.

They eventually found a planet they thought they could inhabit, but the entire
planet was like a sponge (known as father): absorbing anything on it and
within it. So Father would basically capture and absorb the memories of
anything that landed on the planet. Father could look into the memories of the
creatures it absorbed. The last of the surviving Ketran were no exception.
However, Father kept one of the Ketran alive, named Toomin, realizing he was a
gamer and companion adversary, and did not want to be alone. Toomin and Father
spent centuries playing "virtual video simulated games" with each other, but
Toomin would always lose, because Father ALWAYS knew what Toomin would do,
having his memories and thoughts. There was absolutely no way to win.

Fortunately and eventually, Toomin figured out a way to defeat Father. With
his victory came the knowledge of every being that Father ever knew, so Toomin
was able to create and know of technologies beyond what he could have ever
known, and in a way, he was able to eventually figure out and understand
immortality, which he may have achieved by accident.

With immortality comes a lot of purpose and lack of it, and that is what I
will leave you with. Great read and only 25 cents on Amazon Kindle (
[https://www.amazon.com/Ellimist-Chronicles-Animorphs-K-
Apple...](https://www.amazon.com/Ellimist-Chronicles-Animorphs-K-
Applegate/dp/0439217989) ).

Why does this book continue to influence me? Even in the moment that Toomin
lost hope, losing everything he ever loved, being the last of an extinct
species, and seeing no reason to go on living, he knew he had to keep going,
for the sake of his own species, and he would eventually become one of the
greatest beings to ever exist. In a way, I do seek to be like the Ellimist.

------
kiflay
Seven habits of highly effective people. In there I quit learn a lot about how
to manage my time, prioritize my to do list

------
rm_-rf_slash
_The Fountainhead_ , by Ayn Rand.

I was never that into Rand-branded libertarianism - even as I read through TF
and _Atlas Shrugged_ I considered it a limited and self-blinding ideology -
but I was certainly influenced by a story where the protagonist forges his own
path even as the entire world sets out to prevent and undermine him.

Nowadays, I point to a far superior example of this inspiring and uplifting
theme in the 2007 Japanese anime series _Gurren Lagann_.

------
palerdot
The Slight Edge - Jeff Olson.

Interesting take on how consistent little things matter and how they can make
or break things.

------
ArielBarack
Tools of titans, Tim Ferris.

Body and mindset hacking from leading thinkers and experimenters, in a concise
format

------
dotcoma
I'm reading "Habits of a Happy Brain", by Loretta Graziano Breuning.

Fascinating to say the least.

------
abbottry
"The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness" by Todd
Rose.

------
hannahhoward
Octavia Butler - The Parable Series (Parable of The Sower & Parable Of The
Talents)

------
westonplatter0
The Illiad & The Odyssey.

------
nommm-nommm
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.

The why is because it's extremely enlightening.

------
lurcio
Archaeology of the End. Can't elaborate 'til I finish it.

------
niceperson
"The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand.

------
octref
The Alchemist.

~~~
ashark
Just read this recently, on loan from a neighbor. If you like that, you may
like the works of Richard Bach, especially _Illusions_.

------
test-accout-0
Anthony de Mello - Call to Love

------
g051051
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Amazing book, and Roarke's whole philosophy is
really inspiring.

------
laktek
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

------
somethingsometh
the brothers karamazov

------
eruci
The Naked Ape

------
sonabinu
The alchemist

------
branchless
Henry George, Progress and Poverty.

[http://www.henrygeorge.org/pdfs/PandP_Drake.pdf](http://www.henrygeorge.org/pdfs/PandP_Drake.pdf)

His ideas are fabulous, but that aside reading it is a joy. He truly has a
love for his fellow man that transcends all the usual pity-via-charity and
sees real value in all.

A forgotten favourite of many great thinkers. Forgotten for a reason!

~~~
germinalphrase
I see the ideas of Henry George pop up in discussion occasionally, but reading
the first few sections of "P and P" here is the extent of my exposure.

Are his ideas taken seriously by mainstream economists?

~~~
branchless
Yes they are. Many famous economists have said they agree with George. I think
he is most useful as a way of informing ourselves of the utter mess we have
now. Read it and you will see the entire world in a new light. You just cannot
"unsee" afterwards. Rentiers abound and it's truer now than ever.

------
nether
Visions of a Flying Machine by Jakab. About the Wright brothers. Basically
emphasizes how they were consummate _engineers_ , not scientists. In a field
where there were not yet any textbooks, they zeroed in on what was necessary
to build a practical airplane. They figured out each aspect (aerodynamics,
controls etc.) to a satisfactory level, then moved onto the next without
getting bogged down. They didn't fully understand the physics (they were by no
measure aerodynamicists), but they knew enough to predict how their craft
would do on paper, which is all engineers need.

------
marcgcombi
Being Digital by Nicolas Negreponte. Published just before the massive
Internet boom and got me rev'ed up about the potential for technology to
enhance the lives of humans.

