Ask HN: What book(s) changed your life? - luisvictoria
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muzani
Robert Greene's 33 Strategies of War.

Before that I'd avoid conflicts, especially by more aggressive people. After
reading that book, I started actively finding ways do deal with conflicts. A
good deal of the book is not simply 'combat' but also dealing with starting
conflicts, extended conflict, unconventional strategies, when to withdraw, and
so on.

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phobosanomaly
Imperial by William T. Vollmann

It is an almost stream-of-consciousness dissection of the social, cultural,
geographic, and hydrologic history of an area that most would write-off as
desert wasteland. It gave me a portal into the complexity of an ordinary place
and how it is viewed through the lens of a genius.

The Places In Between - Rory Stewart

An introduction to how radically different and complex societies outside-the-
fold of the Western world can be, and how ancient many of their traditions and
way of life are. It also reminded me that real adventure necessitates risk.

The Great War for Civilisation - Robert Fisk

Taught me that whatever I know about foreign conflict, I know nothing about
foreign conflict.

The Best and the Brightest - David Halberstam

Provides a template for how the US government embarks upon adventures abroad.
Taught me how stupid tremendously smart people can be when you get them all
together in one room.

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newswasboring
The goal by Goldratt. I read it last year and it completely changed the way I
think about work and life. Once I have figured out the goal, the actual goal,
not just deliver the project, stuff like speed up the app by 50% not
"implement memorization" I realized nobody cares how I achieve the actual
goal. It helps that I work with smart people who also understand this. Unless
I am adding to the cost massively (like a few million dollars) all solutions
are acceptable.

It also helps massively to figure out the goal first, because most of the time
the goal is hidden in management speak or cryptic customer feedback due to
language barriers or legal ones.

~~~
Rainymood
I agree. I got very close to shaving a lot of yaks when I just wanted to write
faster blog posts. I wanted to improve my blog writing workflow by seamlessly
pasting images from my clipboard to my .md file (which jekyll turns into a
blog).

I was on the verge of writing my own plugin for that. Then I took a step back,
took a deep breath, and realised that my goal was to write faster blog posts,
not to write my own f*cking plugin. So I googled for a bit and found an
existing plugin and modified it to my likings, making it do exactly what I
wanted to achieve.

Engineers are often too fixated on building, and not explicit enough about
what problem they are solving. They just want to build shit because it's fun,
but often this is not optimal.

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rusticpenn
1\. Gödel,Escher and Bach: It made me love programming and recursion.

2.Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan: Made me love biology

3.Brief History of Time: Increased interest and self confidence in Science.

4\. Phantoms in the Brain : How complex problems can be solved by out of the
box thinking.

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yesenadam
Emerson's _Essays, First and Second Series_.

I came across it aged about 19. He speaks about 10,000 things I'd experienced
but assumed couldn't be put into words. And he's always very inspirational. I
read in him daily for 10 years or so, this and his other writings, and still
never go long without, although by now it's in my blood. John Jay Chapman said
it well:

 _It is nothing for any man sitting in his chair to be overcome with the sense
of the immediacy of life, to feel the spur of courage, the victory of good
over evil, the value, now and forever, of all great-hearted endeavor. Such
moments come to us all. But for a man to sit in his chair and write what shall
call up these forces in the bosoms of others – that is desert, that is
greatness. To do this was the gift of Emerson. The whole earth is enriched by
every moment of converse with him. The shows and shams of life become
transparent, the lost kingdoms are brought back, the shutters of the spirit
are opened, and provinces and realms of our own existence lie gleaming before
us._

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chadcmulligan
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows

This is a very short book, but it's an introduction to systems involving
people, not just engineering.

------
50
I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj. The Complete Mystical Works by Meister
Eckhart.

They both turn my world upside down and yet, they keep me grounded.

~~~
zanecraw
I have read both of these great books and I agree, they are very inspiring.

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domod
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.

Being an extravert the book inspired me on how to get energy from my inner
world of ideas and images during quarantine. Beautiful metaphors and
philosophical inquiries into values.

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photon12
History and Class Consciousness, György Lukács

I got it at a bookstore one day because the shelf note on it from one of the
staff members made it seem interesting, didn't really know what I was getting
into.

Apparently I had bought a book full of real Bolshevik philosophy essays from a
Hungarian "Orthodox Marxist" philosopher, like what Zero to One would be in
the USSR.

It was written in the 1920s before the whole Soviet project imploded, and what
was fascinating about it for me was how precise it tried to be about the
nature of how human processes and how they change. In hindsight, we know that
the Soviet vision was bound by a ton of contradictions, but this book was like
an inside view of a part of history I didn't really know much about, and kinda
made me realize how easy it is to find some new wrinkle to history you had
never considered before. Got me reading a lot more interesting histories of
places.

Here's an excerpt from the book, the whole thing and all the essays are
actually free online. On "Orthodox Marxism" (something I didn't even know
could be classified that way lol)

[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/orthod...](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/orthodox.htm)

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aligray
How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie.

Going through life you naturally learn more and more about dealing with people
and situations, but reading about the why is fascinating and definitely gives
you a fresh perspective on things.

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retouchup
Books by Tony Robbins prevented me doing something worn out. I have read his
books a few times, and the way I get something else is always interesting for
me ... Feels like I'm making things much easier.

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anankou
The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord.

~~~
alltakendamned
While these books can offer interesting perspectives, I'm now wondering how to
find more modern works of philosophy, as this book is already 50 years old
really.

