

Tell HN: I'm giving away a few non programming books for free - oscardelben
http://www.freestylemind.com/personal-development-books-giveaway

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AnHonestCoward
Wow - impressive list of personal development books.

Your bookshelf looks a bit like my own, the numbers in yours certainly
eclipses mine.

I'd be keen to hear, after digesting all that information, what’s changed? -
are you "personally developed", more confused or exactly the same?

I usually find that these books feel very "samey" after a while and feel that
there is certainly a limit to the number of things these books can tell you.

~~~
oscardelben
That's a very good question. For me the biggest thing has been motivation. I
now work mostly from home (doing programming consulting) and I'm starting to
create my firsts products (iphone and ipad apps).

Some of those books have helped me in different areas like sport, but also for
my inner self. For example until some months ago I had a psychological problem
where I would be very sick when I was facing uncomfortable situations. Now I
solved it.

I have to say tough that books can only inspire, but if you do nothing,
nothing changes.

~~~
AnHonestCoward
Glad to hear these have worked for you, certainly seems like you have put some
of the lessons into practise and have come out the other side better for it.

Another question - which books are you not giving away? - which ones are
staying firmly on your bookshelf?

~~~
oscardelben
First, my programming books, because they are generally very heavy and I like
to read them very often. Then I have books like GEB which I still have to read
and understand completely. Lastly I have a couple of books which are on other
topics such as code breaking, math and similar.

Nowadays I read most books on the kindle tough, because it's very expensive to
ship from amazon to italy.

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carnevalem
Wow I'm surprised to see "The Mind Map Book" on that list. I was just about to
buy that book from Amazon when I decided to read Hacker News first. Now I'm
going to wait until Sunday to see if I need to buy it. Thank you for your
generosity, this is a great idea.

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roundsquare
Very cool. Its great that you are doing this.

One question about Triple Your Reading Speed: Did you find you can increase
your speed and still retain the information? I've heard that a lot of speed
reading techniques end up decreasing retention.

~~~
keefe
He's certainly much nicer than me, I'm doing well if my cast-offs end up at
goodwill.

I decided to respond to this because of the speed reading comment. I spent a
lot of time doing "metawork" on my text processing speed. I rewrote this
paragraph like 5 times trying to properly express this idea, so bear with
me...

I find I can read very quickly and get a certain impression of the text, sort
of like an impressionist painting version of the content That's the fastest
and it's the most useful for quick scanning - a stupid example of the
usefulness of this is when I was recently rereading stranger in a strange
land, I scanned through Heinlein's political diatribes looking for the bits I
actually want to read. Next, if I slow down a bit I can read every word and
get most of the ideas at an intellectual level, but I'm not bothering to call
up a mental image of what the author is trying to convey, so there's no
enjoyment in it. Finally, I can read and reread every word, try to picture
everything the author is saying in my head and really grok it, which takes
much longer still.

I guess I'm trying to make a point that reading speed is like a throttle and
learning to speed read is very useful in terms of becoming aware of how much
attention you are paying.

~~~
roundsquare
Thanks. Good point. I tend to read something and only understand it a bit.
Later on, when my mind wanders, I'll run through it again and really get it.

Problem is, I'm going to law school soon so I need to improve my ability to
read quickly and understand pretty well. I was wondering if a book like this
would help me in that way, but it seems like it would only be marginally
useful. Oh well.

~~~
keefe
I actually think speed reading techniques should be pretty effective for law
school. The big trouble is imagining the scenes and trying to feel what all
the characters are feeling. AFAIK, law books are just lists of facts. The way
I get around that kind of learning process is to prepare the information in
multiple formats (flash cards, the textbook, my notes, somebody else's notes)
and scan each one quickly. I'll have to defer to the opinion of people less
allergic to the legal system on this one.

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RyanMcGreal
If you haven't read _Your Money or Your Life_ , I highly, highly recommend it.
It transformed how I think about time and money and led to some real changes
in my decisions about life and work.

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edeion
Too sad he keeps "The Secret".

~~~
oscardelben
I don't have that book ;)

~~~
stretchwithme
even the fact that he has it is a secret :-)

~~~
edeion
Don't reveal Benjamin Franklin owned this book anyone!

