
Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything? - anderspitman
I was reflecting today about how often I think about Freakonomics. I don&#x27;t study it religiously. I read it one time more than 10 years ago. I can only remember maybe a single specific anecdote from the book. And yet the simple idea that basically every action humans take can be traced back to an incentive has fundamentally changed the way I view the world. Can anyone recommend books that have had a similar impact on them?
======
nikivi
One book that changed me was reading Master and Margarita in Russian for the
first time.

It was the first book I started reading I could not put down until the end.
Gained a lot of appreciation for literature at that time.

The other book that I enjoyed and changed me was ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ by
Alan Watts. I was a fan of Alan Watts works through his lectures already and
it was wonderful to hear his ideas in writing for the first time.

The book is available to read for free online
([https://antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/wisdom-
of...](https://antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/wisdom-of-
insecurity.pdf)).

I wish everyone read or watched Alan Watts lectures and books. The world would
be a much nicer place if that was the case.

My favorite quote is by him:

‘We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a
serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or
whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the
whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to
dance while the music was being played.’

~~~
saberience
Thanks for mentioning an amazing book of literature. The Master and Margarita
is my favorite fiction book! I've read it in two translations and I prefer the
Burgin & O'Connor to the Glenny, but both are great.

Everytime I read it I gain more insights. I absolutely recommend reading this
book alongside a readers guide which gives more background and depth, there
are many biblical, historical, and author-related references that won't be
understood otherwise. The author's own life is massively relevent to the
events of the novel. I recommend this guide:

[https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-Critical-
Companion-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-Critical-Companion-
AATSEEL/dp/0810112124/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549396109&sr=1-1&keywords=the+master+and+margarita+criticism)

~~~
Tomte
My experience with secondary literature about MaM is negative. I went to the
University Library and checked out a massive commentary on it and a book about
its interpretation.

The latter argued that, contrary to a common notion, Woland is emphatically
not the Devil. I did not get far in trying to understand it, but this and the
similarly non-understandable commentary really took away some fun out of
reading the book, because I constantly felt I was too stupid to get it.

Reading commentary is good, but maybe on a way lower level than literature
professors trying to make a name.

~~~
ak217
I just wanted to point out the hilarity of this in the context of the book's
literary critic thread :)

------
scrumper
Animal Farm was a really important book for me. I picked it up aged about 10
or 11 and I remember being really struck by how easily the pigs were able to
exploit the other animals' grievances with humans to secure their own power.
It felt like a grown-up story with some quite powerful, disturbing meanings
under the covers. So I told my English teacher about it and all she told me in
response was to go look up the Russian Revolution. I didn't understand why,
but did it, and then the book had a second, much bigger impact on me. And of
course what a way to learn about allegory!

It was the first time I realized books could be dangerous, subversive, and
truly educational as well as simply informative or entertaining.

~~~
news_hacker
Does anyone have any recommendations for reading up on the Russian Revolution?
Books, videos, or otherwise.

~~~
uabstraction
It doesn't exist yet, but when Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast* wraps up the
Mexican Revolution, the Russian Revolution is the next stop. I'm really
looking forward to it. Duncan does an incredible job of tying together the
precursors, politics, social situation, and military campaigns into a coherent
serial narrative.

* [https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/](https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/)

~~~
sah2ed
iTunes link
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772?mt=2)

------
nindalf
* Factfulness and Thinking Fast And Slow. The latter helped me internalise that my thinking, like most humans, is biased. Even being aware of those biases doesn’t always help. We need to go above and beyond to overcome our biases. Factfulness goes into detail about what those biases are and how they lead to a distorted world view. Rather than taking the easy way out by blaming journalists/politicians/rich people, he turns the focus onto us and our biases and speaks about how to look at the world in an objective fact based manner.

* The Dictator’s Handbook. One simple axiom - leaders do what is necessary to stay in power. Using that idea they explain the basis of all political systems, whether autocracy or democracy or somewhere in between. I didn’t really understand politics before I read this. CGPGrey has a video where he summarises the book. [1]

* (Only for Indians) India After Gandhi. You can’t really understand your country if you don’t know it’s history. History stopped in 1947 according to our history books, and most people are blissfully unaware of what came after. They don’t know how close India came to losing democracy or how easily it could happen again. They don’t understand the dangers of promoting one language at the expense of others because they don’t know that it’s been tried before. Every Indian needs to know so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past over and over.

[1] - [https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs)

~~~
luminati
>>They don’t know how close India came to losing democracy or how easily it
could happen again.

Would it have been a bad thing? Well, China is doing swimmingly well. And
please don't give the oh-India-is-very-diverse argument. Those who claim China
is not diverse, doesn't know China.

Democracy was not something that originated out of India. It got shoved upon
and lapped up by the very white-washed freedom-fighting leadership back in the
day. No other alternative has/was ever been considered ["A political system
with Indian characteristics"]. Also, for a country with a very high illiteracy
rate, I never figured out how democracy actually works.

>>They don’t understand the dangers of promoting one language at the expense
of others because they don’t know that it’s been tried before.

So let's just promote English and ensure there will always be animosity and
division amongst the intellectuals (since by definition, they'd already know
English) and the rest who only speak a "regional vernacular". The thing that
has shocked me most on my interactions with the Indian English-speaking
(elite) is on how unoriginal they are. I could have well been speaking with a
Brooklyn hipster and wouldn't have been able to tell the difference (other
than the appearance and context). Well with none of their "regional
vernaculars" being developed and growing up on just a diet of American and
British books and (liberal) ideas, can't quite blame them.

ps: I do a lot of business travel to India. Let's just put it that I have a
love-hate affair with the country.

~~~
spdebbarma
I was just thinking about our government in India earlier today and how the
illiterate population play a role in sustaining a bad functioning government.
My concern was mostly with the environment and how those in power seem to be
doing nothing to fix what needs to be done urgently. I do not know how to
explain the craze that the common people have for politics, but it is very
active here. They get riled up very easily and this has let people who have
the ability to trigger the thoughts of the masses into power. Very often,
those who get into power do not join politics to bring change but only because
they see how easy it is to be corrupt.

On the flip side, I think most of the modern generation has a better
understanding of what needs to be done and where our priorities should be but
it's gonna be a long time before those in power go away for good. But it might
be too late by then, and I'm afraid we'll be stuck in this cycle.

------
hn_throwaway_99
OK, it might be a bit embarrassing to post this, but I'm going to say Marie
Kondo's "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up."

Not so much for the tidying part (though I did find that extremely helpful),
but the whole idea of only keeping things in your life that "spark joy" (not
an exact translation by the way - "spark excitement" or "spark meaning" are
other ways I like to think about it) has had a profound impact on me.

I realized there were lots of things in my life (much more than just physical
objects) that I had just sort of accumulated without thinking about what I
really like or if something was good for me. I found the benefit of
"practicing" this concept without mundane household objects allowed me to have
a stronger sense of what I really enjoy in the more important aspects of my
life.

~~~
mabbo
My wife started watching that Marie Kondo TV show. I came to realize that
there are few possessions I own that I would really be upset about losing.

"Only keep it if it sparks joy"? Yeah, just burn the house down, I'm fine.

~~~
tokyodude
My experience is kind of opposite. I decide one day to discard everything I
own and live out of a suitcase for a while (had plenty of savings so was not
living poor).

I had bookshelves full of books I never read, architecture books, art books,
children's books, clothing I never wore, toys and figures I didn't play with,
stuffed animals, framed posters, and entire household of stuff.

5 years later I miss some of that stuff. For lack of a better word I think it
was part of my identity. Of course not all of it but lots of little things,
even if I didn't use them they served as anchors for memories. Even if the
only anchor was when I bought them that would remind me of other things that
happened around the time I acquired the item etc..

I'm still mixed on if it was the right thing to do.

~~~
iamwpj
I think you went too far. The mindset is never about minimalism -- or what you
can do without. It's about ensuring that what you have is good. You should
have stuff. Books, toys that are memorable, clothes of different kinds. What
you have needs to be important though!

------
freedomben
"Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. Not an easy read, but it deeply changed
the way I think about incentive structures and the law of unintended
consequences. It's a tough pill to swallow for people (like myself) who cling
to utopian ideas, but the older I get the more I realize we must live in the
world as it exists, with human nature as it really is. Dreaming of a better
world is counter-productive if one does not engage with reality. We can build
a better world, but only by being honest about the current state of things.

~~~
porsager
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt is amazing too -
[https://mises.org/system/tdf/Henry%20Hazlitt%20Economics%20i...](https://mises.org/system/tdf/Henry%20Hazlitt%20Economics%20in%20One%20Lesson.pdf?file=1&type=document)

~~~
freedomben
Downloaded :-)

I also went looking for an audiobook version. Looks like Downpour has it DRM
free: [https://www.downpour.com/economics-in-one-
lesson](https://www.downpour.com/economics-in-one-lesson)

~~~
stephen_g
Just a heads up - the theory explained in that book (Austrian school) is 100%
fringe economics. It's very popular with libertarians, but not really
considered to produce very useful outcomes by pretty much any other school of
economics.

~~~
patricius
Have you read the book? There’s really not much about it that’s fringe or
controversial.

~~~
stephen_g
Yes. It’s all very plausible sounding, neat, and internally consistent, but
you can’t derive a useful macroeconomic model from it that matches real-world,
empirical observations. (Of course, the same could be said for a lot of
mainstream stuff).

Part of it is probably just the historical context - monetary systems in the
modern economy are very different than the gold-standard, fixed exchange rate
kind of environment the book was written in, for example, which changes a lot
of how things operate. But even then I think it still would have suffered from
the fallacy of composition, where you can’t start from a description of
interaction between two people and just scale it up - the emergent behaviour
is almost always surprisingly different.

~~~
patricius
Could you provide a concrete example where it breaks down?

With regards to Austrian economics, as far as I remember, the school is not
even mentioned in Hazlitt's book, but you are right that he was heavily
influenced by it. But the book and its propositions stand on their own, I
think.

------
bit1
Definitely "The Machine That Changed the World" by Womack, Jones, and Roos
[0]. This is "the first book to reveal Toyota's lean production system."
Before reading it, I had never imagined just-in-time production or value chain
mapping, or vehicle assembly lines that can profitably produce quantity one of
a product before being reconfigured to produce a different model (SMED: single
minute exchange of die).

Now I see muda everywhere and cringe when I overhear people talking about
applying kaizen and how they think they're practicing "continuous improvement"
while repeating the same rote, industrial, mindless processes that they have
been for the last 40 years. We can do so much better. Toyota tried very hard
to teach GM how at their NUMMI[1] plant, but it wasn't the right location
relative to their suppliers for JIT to fully work and "It is difficult to get
a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
understanding it." -Upton Sinclair

[0]
[https://www.lean.org/Bookstore/ProductDetails.cfm?SelectedPr...](https://www.lean.org/Bookstore/ProductDetails.cfm?SelectedProductId=160)
[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI)

~~~
drieddust
In software people use agile as an excuse to not think through the core
architecture.

I believe agile was invented to incrementally improve an already well thought
production process. Once the assembly line was setup, agile was used to
eliminate the unproductive activities. I am not sure agile will be helpful to
build the assembly line itself?

In most scenarios that's what people try to do with agile.

~~~
pm90
I don't think that is a good comparison.

Setting up a mechanical assembly line is very different from setting up a
software pipeline, although, as you can tell already, they use some of the
same words and metaphors.

It isn't possible to build a mechanical factory in weeks with readily
available tools [0]. We just don't have that kind of concentration of
knowledge, we don't have the skills, the know-how etc. to accomplish that.
Whereas with software: you have OSS, you have the Cloud, and all kinds of
numerous tooling that helps you get started immediately, and iterate on that
until you get to the final product. That kind of iteration, debugging etc. is
just not possible with manufacturing. Which is why in manufacturing you need
great designs and processes: bad decisions are very costly. They are costly in
software too, but... your MVP will still churn out value, even if its not
efficient. Once you prove that your product satisfies a need, you then make it
better, you make it more efficient, scale it out, yadda yadda. But getting
started is absurdly easy. And thats why lean works.

The designers of lean realized that all that worry about scaling, about
automation, planning, QA... while its important, it doesn't provide the most
value for everyone. For a smaller company, its more important to get out a
product that solves a problem even if its janky. Once you prove its
usefulness, you attract more money, more people etc.

So lean solves two problems: * gets you started quickly and fails bad ideas
fast * lets you justify bad design if it provides more value

One could argue that the technical debt built up by this kind of process has
to be paid down someday. If your product survives for long enough, you will
have enough resources to do that. And then you have a core product that brings
in revenue, and you repeat the same lean method for other products. Rinse and
repeat, ad infinitum.

[0]: where this assumption fails, you see a lot more manufacturing. e.g. in
China, the fruits of this kind of aggregation in manufacturing skill is
visible, and that's why Chinese manufacturers are so adept at responding to
changing market conditions.

~~~
drieddust
I agree with your points above.Having said that knowledge and experience is a
critical factor and I am fine with using agile for MVPs and startup scenarios.

My issue is with the way agile is evangelized and implemented in the
Enterprise. These Enterprise people simply rationalize that if Toyota can do
it then why we can't without realizing where it fit and where it does not.

Personally I think it does not fit with the culture of thousand approvals and
beating the dead horse i.e. endlessly cross examining any design or
implementation failures.

This happens because Enterprise people love the buzzwords. Agile and cloud are
the latest buzz in Enterprise so they watch a ppt or two somewhere starts
pushing agile into a culture where it does not fit at all. This results in
sufferings and frustration.

------
LyndsySimon
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius.

Bottom line: judge your success in life by how well you make your decisions,
not by your outcome. You have full control of your decisions, and often no
control at all over their results.

~~~
Balgair
A similar line of thinking is Annie Duke's _Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter
Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts._ A good discussion on the book
can be found here: [https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-make-
better-d...](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-make-better-
decisions/)

Amazon link: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-
listing/0735216355/ref=tmm_h...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-
listing/0735216355/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1549391677&sr=8-1)

~~~
personlurking
The idea of "Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts"
reminds me of this TED Talk:

"If you ever struggle to make decisions, here's a talk for you. Cognitive
scientist Tom Griffiths shows how we can apply the logic of computers to
untangle tricky human problems, sharing three practical strategies for making
better decisions -- on everything from finding a home to choosing which
restaurant to go to tonight."

[https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_griffiths_3_ways_to_make_bette...](https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_griffiths_3_ways_to_make_better_decisions_by_thinking_like_a_computer)

------
ehsanu1
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg is an amazing eye-opener.
It's a book about how how to interact with your fellow humans in a way that
enriches the lives of everyone around you. It's full of things that should be
obvious, but in practice are not. You can think of it as a more advanced
version of Dale Carnegie's "How to make friends and influence people", with
more focus on conflicts, and a specific communication methodology.

~~~
Tomte
It drove me up the wall and I didn't finish it.

All this "if you answered c, e and f, we are not of the same opinion" feels
passive-aggressive to me.

The whole thing feels manipulative to me. It makes me think that people try an
insincere way of talking to me, in order to manipulate my feelings and
reaction.

I've had huge discussions with friends who try to live the book, and neither
of us could make the other see their point.

One of their examples was "My boyfriend likes to go DJing, but sometimes I'd
love for him to stay home and cuddle with me. So I clearly tell him that him
leaving makes me feel alone and that I would like some warmth. But I don't
tell him what to do, to stay at home, for example. I only talk about my own
perception and feelings." – "Yes, that's great, but in communication there is
the level of pragmatics above pure logical semantics. And you telling your
boyfriend that him leaving makes you feel very alone is just another way of
saying 'please don't go'".

~~~
karmelapple
This book was extremely influential to me and changed my outlook. If you’re
reading the book and sense insincerity, I’m not sure how to address that
beyond encouraging you to read it with a lens that it is completely sincere.

Since reading it, I have been amazed at how unclear many people communicate.
They say things to express some basic emotions - anger, frustration, etc - but
so many people do not express in clear terms the root of this feeling.

In your example, the woman does indeed want the boyfriend to stay at home. But
saying you want someone to do something, at a minimum, doesn’t explain why you
want that. It also doesn’t give them much recourse to either object, or come
up with alternative solutions.

I’d be happy to discuss it more!

~~~
saberience
I can't agree with an idea that encourages you to not say what you want, for
me, this is the opposite of good communication. If you want your boyfriend to
stay at home, you should say so and then explain why. Not actually saying it
is likely to make the situation more confused and lead to conflict.

~~~
karmelapple
Saying why you feel the way you do is key to NVC.

Importantly, saying it without coming down with harsh judgment on the other
person is also key. You truly don’t know what’s going on in their mind, or
what motivations they may have had in doing something. NVC encourages
realizing this and avoiding assigning feelings or intent to the other person,
since you don’t know if that’s accurate.

“I feel lonely much more than I want to when you’re gone DJing Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday. I don’t like feeling lonely. Can we figure out something
to help me feel lonely less often?”

And yes, you could say “I wish you’d stay at home,” but is that really the
desire? The desire is to feel lonely or ignored less of the time in this
scenario I think; maybe I’m wrong!

Maybe the DJ said she couldn’t come with thinking she would be bored. Maybe
she’d love to come, but thinks he doesn’t want her there.

Saying clearly the why, without judgment on the other person, certainly seems
to be pretty NVC to me.

~~~
saberience
So, the problem I find is this.

It seems natural if asked: "Can we figure out something to help me feel lonely
less often?”

To respond: "Ok well, what do you want?"

If you're not willing to give actual things you want, then the other person
has to "mind read." And from my experience in relationships, when people are
trying to mind read what the other actually wants, this always ends up in
issues/problems.

~~~
karmelapple
Mind reading is not the goal of this conversation.

The response you said might happen - "OK well, what do you want?" \- would
indeed be a desired response. The reason is that the response leads to a
conversation, where they can both talk about possible solutions. And the
solution doesn't have to be "don't go DJ tonight," although that could be one.

Imagine if the conversation instead was this:

Girlfriend: "I don't want you to DJ at the club tonight."

DJ thinks: "What? She knows this is really important to me, but she just wants
me to stop going. What the heck. She doesn't want to support me in this now,
after I've done it for so long?"

DJ says: "This is really I important to me. Stop trying to control me, I don't
try to control you!"

Girlfriend: "I'm not trying to control you, I just want you to stay home
tonight!"

DJ: "Sounds like control to me!" _huffs out of the room_

Giving the DJ some amount of context can help avoid anyone feeling accused,
and can help someone misinterpret _why_ someone wants something.

------
borski
“The Design of Everyday Things” changed the way I see literally everything.
You’ll never look at doors the same way again, and prepare to forever be
frustrated by poorly designed objects, and delighted by incredibly well
designed ones.

There is no better book on the philosophy of UX, imho.

~~~
tokyodude
I haven't read the book but I feel like it would make me even more grumpy from
noticing even more poorly designed things than I already do.

~~~
kochikame
Have you heard the old design joke?

If you really hate someone, teach them about kerning

------
putzdown
Maybe trite, but the Bible. For a mind-blowing experience, read Matthew
chapters 5–7, and have in mind that the topic is: “what it means for a person
to be righteous, or good.” The analysis of the role of moral rules, the place
of worry and anxiety in driving us to short-sighted compromise, the tension
between “secret” good-doing versus good-doing for public recognition, are all
potent, helpful, and life-changing.

~~~
bashwizard
The bible is a great book for anyone in doubt about their beliefs.

It made me turn from an doubtful agnostic theist into an agnostic atheist 1/4
through it.

Amazing read. Will definitely not read it again!

~~~
GrumpyNl
After reading a part i had to scratch my ahead and ask myself, am i the only
idiot in the room who cant take this in?

~~~
schwurb
You have to keep in mind that this was written by multiple authors 2000 years
ago in a different culture using different ways of putting things. It is also
a good exercise to entertain a mental position that is not yours; read a hindu
verses assuming hindu gods exist, read the bible assuming God exists. That way
you are not in danger of loosing out on valuable concepts just because the
supernatural is alien to you.

------
3minus1
* The Selfish Gene - our bodies are vessels for DNA as they travel through time. Also colony insects and birds are fascinating.

* Thinking Fast and Slow - study after study shows that we exhibit so, so many cognitive biases, as our minds take shortcuts. there are some things you can do to recognize and mitigate these biases.

* Imagined Communities - the notion of a "nation" is only 300 years old and has no objective basis, only the fact that a group of people agree that it is a thing.

~~~
a_bonobo
>* Imagined Communities - the notion of a "nation" is only 300 years old and
has no objective basis, only the fact that a group of people agree that it is
a thing.

The Penguin History of Europe series is _great_ for this, especially _The
Pursuit Of Glory_ , which details the time when states switched from being
based on their king, to states being based on a 'unified set of people', i.e.,
an imagined community.

There's also the amazing _Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten
Europe_ , which is a bunch of essays, one on a forgotten European kingdom that
ceased to exist, and no-one claims it as their heritage. It shows you how
easily your identity of a citizen of a state can get lost and forgotten - your
great-grandparents may have seen themselves as Etrurians, but that state is
gone and now you think of yourself as an Italian, but nothing much changed
about your family

~~~
barry-cotter
> Imagined Communities - the notion of a "nation" is only 300 years old and
> has no objective basis, only the fact that a group of people agree that it
> is a thing.

The Lombards, Saxons, Franks, Magyars, Mongols and many, many others would
disagree. And the Khmer, Mon, Viet and Tai.

[https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/03/26/communities-
only-e...](https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/03/26/communities-only-exist-
only-in-the-minds-of-europeans/)

> Overall it is worth reading Imagined Communities because of its purported
> cultural significance. But much of it is so garbled and unclear I’m not sure
> what people are taking from it, aside from the proposition that the modern
> nation-state was invented in the last few centuries due to modernity. In the
> end the book is kind of a long tautology.

Azar Gat’s Nations is a far superior book.

------
TheAceOfHearts
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this one yet: "The Righteous Mind: Why Good
People Are Divided by Politics and Religion", by Jonathan Haidt [0]. This book
fundamentally changed how I think about religion and politics. It helped me
understand a lot of behaviors which I'd previous considered absolutely
incomprehensible.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-
Relig...](https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-
Religion/dp/0307455777)

~~~
Regardsyjc
Have you read any of his other books? I loved his TED talks and few lectures
that are up on YouTube.

~~~
krrrh
_The Coddling of the American Mind_ which he co-wrote with Greg Lukianoff is
an important book about problems faced by the current college-age generation
and the effects that social media, helicopter parenting, and certain
ideologies have had on them. The Atlantic article it started as is also good,
but the book expands and improves on the argument.

It’s less of a classic as the Righteous Mind because it’s more focused on a
topical issue. I think it pairs well with Laura Kipnis’s _Unwanted Advances_.

------
akinsketch
"Deep Work" by Cal Newport. It completely changed how I view my work, and how
I spend my time, more than any other generic self-help book I've come across.
It isn't the usual "delete Facebook, and everything will be fine" blog post.
The main take-away for me is making a well-defined separation between
"busy"/"shallow" work and "deep" work. This takes the form of spending long,
uninterrupted periods engaged in deep work (e.g. academic research), with
shorter periods allocated for shallow work (e.g. checking and responding to
emails). I have managed to allocate one day per week for myself where I
completely turn off WiFi, allowing me to focus on whatever task I choose. This
means not accepting the temptation to respond to interruptions from instant
messaging apps, email, news websites, etc., and it has worked wonders for my
productivity! For me, it serves as a weekly reminder of the insane amount of
content I consume while online, along with the (highly expensive) constant
context-switching I must perform to do this.

~~~
Nerada
I'm actually reading through his "How To Become a Straight-A Student" right
now. Nothing particularly profound, but the task tracking method is definitely
helping me stay on-top of college work while having a full-time job at the
same time.

------
jpollock
Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" \- it changed how I
approach teamwork and conversations. It made me aware of how my behaviour was
limiting outcomes. :)

Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should
change.

However, it wasn't necessarily the book, but the course that I found really
useful.

~~~
Kalium
I read that book. It definitely changed how I look at people.

It also made me a lot more cynical. I realized around halfway through that the
author was (very skillfully) deploying his techniques in the direction of the
reader. Further, the author is long-dead. We cannot possibly have a genuine
emotional connection.

This helped me understand that genuine empathy is irrelevant. All that matters
to convincing people is that they _feel empathized with_. How you actually
feel isn't important, though for many it's likely to be by far the easiest and
most reliable way to get there.

Dale Carnegie provided me with a very useful set of tools that I can use to
achieve the outcomes I want. For that I'm appreciative.

~~~
amerine
It’s been my experience that people can tell genuine empathy from fake.

~~~
Kalium
I agree! It's been my experience that people genuinely believe they can
reliably tell real empathy from fake.

It may be possible that the detection heuristics a given individual relies
upon might, upon occasion, be a bit less reliable than could be hoped for.
I've witnessed both false positives and false negatives.

Again, you're right. People do earnestly and honestly believe in their ability
to detect genuineness.

~~~
GavinMcG
I wasn't even the person you responded to, and I still felt the warm fuzzies.

------
air7
"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari.

Hands down the book that most influenced me. The book had (for me) not one but
several simple-yet-profound ideas that were forever inserted into the
foreground of how I make sense of the world. For example, the existence of
shared myths that allow humans to cooperate on a large scale. Or how I too, am
religious, though I was sure I wasn't.

Can't recommend it enough.

~~~
MrsPeaches
If you enjoyed this then I highly recommend Ideas: A History by Peter Watson,
a far superior book in my opinion.

I found Sapiens to be shallow and full of useless waffle after reading Ideas.
It really highlights the fact that Harari presents one particular version of
history and there are many great thinkers that have an opinion on the things
he discusses. E.g. Harari speculates on how and why money came to be used
where as Watson presents a plethora of ideas on the origin of money and
discusses the merits of different views.

~~~
secfirstmd
I would argue "Guns, Germs and Steel" is actually better than Sapiens. I felt
Sapiens was a bit biased in a number of points.

~~~
air7
Ha. My gut reaction to reading your and your parent post was "What?! How can
they criticize the book. It's pure truth!" Guess I _really_ took a liking to
that book. :)

But seriously, can you elaborate on where you thought it was biased?

~~~
MrsPeaches
It’s not so much that it was biased, more that it presented a particular view
on history as if it was the truth. Harari view would have been a data point in
“Ideas”, which is more a (very detailed) survey of the ideas about history.
Gun, Germs and Steel is actually discussed as are Jared Diomonds other works
in relation to his ideas of the grand narratives of human evolution and
thought.

Harari often speculates about what people in the past were thinking when we
have actual written accounts from the time. The point of “Ideas” is that
imposing modern ideas on the past doesn’t really work or is at least difficult
because the ideas of the time were so different. An example would be the
modern conception of an “artist” being a concept created during the romantic
period. Before that people doing painting or music considered themselves
craftspeople. So trying to read intent into what they were doing based on the
modern conception of an artist is a fools errand. Harari seemed to do this
kind of thing all the time.

There were some interesting facts in Sapiens but there was so much fluff as
well. Maybe this is just me but do we really need a page of speculation about
what society would have been like if we used seashells as currency?

Maybe it’s the editors fault but I though Sapiens could have been a cut down
to a third of its length by removing (to me) useless, unreferenced speculation
about what people may have thought. A don’t get me started on the poor
referencing.

Anyway this has turned into a bit of a rant so I’m going to stop here.

Highly recommend Ideas: A History. It’s denser, a little drier but definitely
far superior to Sapiens.

~~~
secfirstmd
Hey all of these are great points and thanks for the book tip, I just bought
it. Looks amazing!!!

------
Saturdays
The Design of Everyday Things makes me rethink every user interaction or
problem I face, and not just at work. Every time I open a door, I begin to
think about that experience.

Recently, Educated by Tara Westover, and in the past The Glass Castle by
Jeanette Walls, both have taught me to approach individuals with the true
ignorance of their lives that I have. You don't know where people come from
and what life led them to where they are when you meet them. Try not to make
assumptions. Additionally, I have to remind myself that I grew up loved, cared
for, and privileged compared to so many other people.. the fact that I could
read their story and post here is a testament to that, helps me try to stay
down to Earth and that I had some advantages growing up that others did not.

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker... I used to be a chronic advocate for sleeping
less until I read this and did my own scrappy post-research. I'm much more
conscious of my health and my sleep now.

I could go on and on..

~~~
vesky
I have forever changed my sleeping habits ever since before I even finished
reading Why We Sleep. Best time/money investment I made in 2018.

------
superpermutat0r
Antifragile: How to live in a world we don't understand by Nassim Nicholas
Taleb.

I realized that my bad relationships are mostly the result of my lack of skin
in the game. That indifference is not an advantage but that it is paralyzing.

That I have to feel to be able to risk and do something.

In addition to applying the concept of antifragility to many external things.

It has motivated me to start a business and to connect more with my loved
ones, changed my perspective on research, what's important and the power of
the passing of time. It definitely impacted my life.

~~~
david927
Nassim Taleb, not Massimo

~~~
superpermutat0r
Yeah, autocorrect.

------
beat
Most recent: _Factfulness_ , by Hans Rosling. For the past year or so, I've
been trying hard to understand why people act the way they do, when those
actions and beliefs are often irrational. This book brought so much of that
together.

Very first: _The Song of Wandering Aengus_ , by William Butler Yeats. I read
this when I was six or so. I found it as an illustrated children's book in
children's section of the public library of the very small rural town. Someone
decided this very adult poem, about an old man who wasted his life chasing an
unattainable magic dream, was a good children's story. It introduced me to the
idea that poems and stories could express sadness and failure and other
negative feelings, not just the happy silly stuff of the other age-appropriate
things I read.

~~~
quest88
A book I enjoyed on understanding people is The Elephant in the Brain. I'll
check out yours. Thanks!

~~~
beat
Do! I want every person who thinks they're smart or aware of what's going on
with society to read _Factfulness_. It's... sobering.

------
dmux
"Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson changed how I thought
about language and how I use it to orient myself in the world.

"Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by Donella Meadows changed how I approached
designing/troubleshooting software systems as well as changed how I think
about political policy decisions and their results.

"Object Thinking" by David West dramatically altered how I approach designing
OO systems. I especially liked the chapter(s) where he used different real-
world metaphors for designing systems. For example, asynchronous communication
(email) is often more appropriate than synchronous communication (calling
someone on the phone). Delegation of tasks without "micromanaging" (i.e tell
don't ask).

"Ever Wonder Why?" by Thomas Sowell gave me an insight into some of the
underpinnings of Conservative thought. I'd never had the opportunity to hear
any of the arguments he brings up in college or in my own liberal social
groups.

~~~
markdog12
Why is that you never hear about Sowell and his work? I consider myself fairly
well read, but I've only discovered him the past few years. I wish I had found
him earlier!

~~~
kiliantics
Past few years have led to a rise in conservative/right-wing ideology in the
mainstream discourse and he is pretty influential in that world.

------
MikeCapone
So many, and I wish I could write a long paragraph on each, but I'm
unfortunately short on time. I'm posting any in case just one person who
hasn't heard of those checks them out and gets value:

-Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hosfstadter)

-The Mindbody Prescription (John E. Sarno, completely cured my long-term crippling RSI that kept me from using computers and was ruining my life)

-Feeling Good (Dr. Burns, cognitive therapy mostly centered on depression, but I want to learn about this _before_ I have depression so that I can avoid it and do 'maintenance' on myself)

-The 5 Love Languages (Gary Chapman, made me understand a lot more about how people express and receive love, and the problems that arise from mismatched languages in relationships)

-Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman (you guys probably already know this)

-The Blank Slate (Steven Pinker)

-The Snowball (Warren Buffett biography)

-Influence (Robert B. Cialdini)

-Your Money or Your Life (Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin)

-When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace (Le Ly Hayslip)

-The Halo Effect (Phil Rosenzweig)

-The LessWrong.com sequences on rationality

~~~
saberience
The 5 Love Languages is not supported by any scientific research, basically,
it's a load of bollocks. It's just the latest self help book to be in vogue.

~~~
MikeCapone
Lots of things that work aren't supported by scientific research (yet?). It's
your choice not to use it, but to claim that something is bollocks probably
means that you will never follow what most people tell you about lots of
things (where are all the double-blind peer-reviewed studies about how to bake
a good cake or write a good novel?).

~~~
saberience
Yes, but claims about a "good cake" are not making generalized claims about
human behavior. The only downside of a "bad cake" recipe is someone trying it
and it's not a great cake.

There are massive consequences for releasing a book claiming to be a factual
model for how human brains work and how people should behave towards each
other based on this model. If the book becomes popular, this sort of model can
become the defacto truth to most people and live on in public consciousness
for years as pop psychology.

As an example, look at things like Meiers Briggs (ISTP, ENFJ etc), "Type A vs
Type B personalities", DISC personality testing, etc. ALl of these are based
on old, flawed, and straight up bad research. Yet companies across America
(and the world) are still giving people training and hiring people based on
these studies. Note, DISC, for example was based on William Moulton Marston's
work, a guy who DIED in 1947. The "research" which became DISC is from 1928!
Businesses are still dressing up this old and flawed research and selling it
to businesses for huge profits.

------
sriram_malhar
"Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much" \- by Sendhil Mullainathan,
Eldar Shafir.

Access to scarce resources induces a particular scarcity mindset, which the
authors -- both behavioural economists at Harvard and MIT respectively -- show
with a large variety of well-chosen examples.

The kicker is that time is one of those resources. In other words, I may be
economically well-off, but if I'm short of time, I adopt the same scarce
mindset that poor people (poor in money terms). I fritter away my time, I
don't save it and so on. This book really showed me to deal with my time as
carefully as I deal with my money. Great read, of the Freakonomics kind.

~~~
aswanson
Read that one a few months ago. Definitely recommended.

------
gglitch
I imagine I’ll take heat for this, but the first answer that comes to mind is
A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari. It has been justifiably criticized
by many people on many grounds, but as with OP and Freakonomics, certain of
the concepts in that book frequently appear in my thoughts 20 years after I
worked through some of it. I don’t associate it with truth; but some of the
mental models have really stuck with me.

Edit: also Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse. It’s slim and user
friendly to a fault, and would be easy to underestimate at first glance, but
imho contains great wisdom and beauty.

~~~
richardjdare
I've wanted to read A Thousand Plateaus for a few years. The first time I
tried it, all that stuff about wolves and geology just lost me. I will have to
try again. Honestly, I found it harder than Heidegger's Being and Time, which
I worked through while listening to Hubert Dreyfus's lectures on iTunes U a
few years ago.

Whenever I read about Deleuze and Guattari I get this feeling they are on to
something - I just don't know what!

~~~
frereubu
Perhaps try reading Freud's account of his treatment of the "wolf man" first -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Pankejeff#Der_Wolfsmann...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Pankejeff#Der_Wolfsmann_\(The_Wolfman\))
\- then read the chapter "One Or Many Wolves", bearing in mind that it's
dripping in sarcasm. That chapter had me laughing out loud.

------
nkrisc
The book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

After I read it, I felt like I could see the world for what it really is: just
a bunch of fallible humans all pretending they knew The Way Things Should Be.
Popes, CEOs, tech gurus, presidents, the lot of them all desperately clinging
to their beliefs lest their followers abandon them.

That book made me realize that all the truths everyone "just knows" and takes
for granted aren't necessarily truths. They're beliefs, or myths. Even so,
there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that: a culture or civilization
needs beliefs or myths to function, but what those beliefs are can determine
the ultimate fate of that civilization and whether it's sustainable.

What I really took away from it is that I no longer really believe anything.
Or perhaps more accurately, I recognize when something I hold true is actually
a belief and not truth, and am willing to question it or understand that I
continue to hold it despite any supporting evidence. I learned that beliefs
are choices people make, for reasons their own.

I was always an atheist, but I realized religions are just more beliefs like
any other belief people hold as true.

I learned that some beliefs can be beneficial ("If I'm good to others, others
will be good to me") and others destructive ("Humans are the pinnacle of
evolution"). Ideas don't need to be true to be helpful (which is why the
relentless drive in tech communities, often, for the objective truth or a
logical ordering and categorization for everything rubs me the wrong way).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_\(novel\))

------
ndiscussion
The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. The gene is the unit of replication, and this
affects every process in this universe.

~~~
onychomys
Note, of course, that he was wrong about the gene being the unit of selection.
Selection happens at an organismal level. As we've come to understand the
interconnectedness of the genome, this has become even more clear. Dawkins'
ideas generated a lot of debate among evolutionary biologists in the 1980s,
but have largely fallen out of favor. They're just too simplistic to reflect
reality.

~~~
nabnob
I thought the modern view of natural selection is that it occurs at multiple
levels - gene, individual organism, group selection, etc.

~~~
onychomys
There's evidence that selection happens at the organismal level (duh) and at
the species level, but nothing else. There's some weak evidence that it can
happen at levels above species (genus, family, etc), but it's not super well
supported.

The question of population-level selection (what you've called group
selection) is more contentious, although it shouldn't be. The grandpa of our
field, E.O. Wilson, whom we all adore and wish we could constantly hug, loves
the idea. Sadly, evidence doesn't love it. Like, there's basically none.
There's no real theoretical underpinnings that would make it possible, either,
because there's just too much gene flow between demes (...partially isolated
breeding populations) to allow selection to happen.

------
p0d
I read through the bible every year and each time it shapes my thinking. For
example, I was reading Exodus this morning about how we should care for the
foreigner. I imagine several thousand years ago this was pretty radical. It
also seems very relevant today.

~~~
vicmanster
I second that. For a book that's the foundation of our entire Western
Civilization it's amazing that so few read it these days. No wonder our
civilization is breaking down. Not to mention how mythologies in so many
cultures have embedded remnants of its first book, Genesis. Also the
inspiration of countless masterpieces of literature like the novel by Mikhail
Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1989), mentioned at the top of this list.

~~~
nicoburns
> For a book that's the foundation of our entire Western Civilization

That might be putting it a bit strongly. "western civilization" derives from
ancient greek society, which wasn't christian, but contained many concepts
that are considered foundational to our society (such as democracy).

~~~
jacques_chester
It may be putting it a bit strongly, but biblical references and allusions
permeate the Western canon and Western culture pretty thoroughly. For the last
500 years it was the only book that nearly everyone had read. Before that it
was for over a thousand years the only book everyone knew at least some of.

Few books have ever had such penetration of a culture. The Koran, the
Analects, the Pali Canon are perhaps the only meaningful comparisons.

~~~
unmole
I think you're greatly overstating the literacy levels of Medieval Europe.

~~~
jacques_chester
The 500 years figure I chose was not a coincidence. The printing press and the
Reformation are connected. If a person in Europe or the New World could read,
they would have read some or all of it.

Before that familiarity came from weekly readings at Mass, which is why I
talked about partial familiarity for the thousand years prior.

I'm an atheist, but there's a difference between dismissing the book's
contents and dismissing the impact and influence of the book's contents.

------
robotron
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This helped me understand the duality of the logical/mechanical and the
creative/artistic. Then merging the two.

~~~
Townley
My go-to vote as well. Some of my favorite passages pertain to the awareness
of-and management of- one's internal motivation and thought process when
attempting to do good work.

"So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to
cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one's
surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows
naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right
thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work
which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the
center of it all."

~~~
pure_ambition
Excellent quote. Thank you for sharing.

------
aphextron
Ulysses, by James Joyce.

It will change your whole conception of what language is and how it can be
used. It’s not about the characters or plots; they are recycled from
antiquity. It’s about the absolute mastery of interrelation between words and
imagery. It is something that has a meaning entirely emergent of its’ own self
referential structure, rather than what is being _described_ , in a sense that
is almost mathematical. Realizing that was possible with writing really blew
my mind.

~~~
iandanforth
Reader beware, this book can eat smart people. I've known multiple PhDs who,
after reading Ulysses, could never get through a party without talking about
it.

~~~
scott_s
A friend once _ended_ a party at his place by reading Finnegan's Wake out loud
to get people to leave.

~~~
hguant
'Joke' from my mother (an English Lit. professor):

If someone tells you they enjoyed Ulysses, they're either pretentious or mad.
If someone tells you they enjoyed Finnegan's Wake, they're a liar -- because
no-one has made it through that book.

~~~
oska
This is a silly joke.

A good number (I won't say plenty) of people have read _Finnegans Wake_ and
enjoyed it. At the risk of being branded a liar I can say that I've read the
whole thing (out loud) and found it a very worthwhile experience. Some of the
language play is very enjoyable.

~~~
marxfits
n.b. reading _Finnegans Wake_ out loud is fundamental to the purpose of the
book and it's enjoyment as a reader. I find myself laughing regularly and not
knowing exactly why; maybe just because of the surrealist nature of the
language.

James Joyce actually advised people to read it out loud and there is a nice
recording of the man himself reading an exert
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8kFqiv8Vww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8kFqiv8Vww)).

It also helps to read it in an Irish or Scottish accent!

side note: patiently waiting for all lorem ipsum to be replaced with random
bits of finnegans wake :)

------
felipelemos
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan.

It changed the way I see the world, how to have a sceptical mind and not only
how but why one should question.

And also, it shows to me that, if you don't have a answer for something,
doesn't mean that it can not be true. It's just that you don't know. And for a
lot of things, this is the correct and only answer that we can have now.

~~~
DubiousPusher
I read this book at a time when I had lost my religion which had been very
dear to me and the foundation all of my thinking. I was reading lots of
different religious texts. This was the first thing I read that said that how
we know what we know is more important than what we know. It was the first
philosophy I had encountered that would challenge even evidence in favor of
itself on the grounds that that evidence didn't meet a certain bar of quality.
That was huge and this book helped me understand that concept. Which really
made scientific skepticism stand out from other belief systems.

------
pmoriarty
The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

[https://www.amazon.com/Illuminatus-Trilogy-Pyramid-Golden-
Le...](https://www.amazon.com/Illuminatus-Trilogy-Pyramid-Golden-
Leviathan/dp/0440539811/)

~~~
corbet
Fnord!

~~~
a3n
And with your accumulated downvotes, it makes the Fnord appropriately
difficult to see, unless you take conscious steps to see it.

------
sudosteph
1) "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch - This book allowed me to
embrace a sort of rational optimism in my world view. Also I was convinced by
this book that the true test of a good government is not about whether you can
pick the right leaders every time, but about being able to remove the bad ones
relatively quickly.

2.) Candide by Voltaire - contributed to my personal sense of humor and belief
that we live in neither the best nor worst of all possible worlds, but simply
the most absurd of them.

3) The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Helped me understand the power of small
effeciencies in large systems and the importance of metagaming.

------
fancyfish
I second the recommendation of Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. He
takes this simple concept and expands and applies it to modern tech, politics,
the workplace, education, etc:

"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other
infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game
for the purpose of continuing the play."

The player in a finite game actually wants it to end, where the play itself is
just a means to this end. He is "playing against play." The player in an
infinite game wants it to continue, and revels in the game itself.

"Although it may be obvious, it is worth stressing that “play,” as it is used
here does not mean merely “playing around.” Play, in this discussion, is a
metaphor for any number of complex human engagements whenever they take on a
competitive, or cooperative, character. Corporations, for example, not only
compete with each other but are in themselves populations of strivers, each
trying to supplant another, each struggling for higher incomes and titles. The
same applies to schools and colleges where attaining superior grade averages,
degrees, and honors absorb the lives of students. Sexuality and marriage are
often finite battle grounds with winners and losers. In fact, the features of
play–finite and infinite–are essentially the same whether we are children
playing jacks or soldiers caught up in a war between nations."

To me it is a concise and broadly applicable way to see the world.

[https://jamescarse.com/wp/?page_id=61](https://jamescarse.com/wp/?page_id=61)

Goodreads:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/189989.Finite_and_Infini...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/189989.Finite_and_Infinite_Games)

~~~
jodrellblank
Jordan Peterson describes something like this, but as if one is embedded
within the other, as the game itself which can be wonr or lost, and the meta-
game of all future games which means you get to continue playing; and uses it
to discuss why cheating in games is so bad, especially when teaching children
about cooperation.

Cheating might win you the game, but it means nobody will trust you and nobody
will want to play with you in future and you're out of the meta-game, you lost
the more important thing. It's important to lose fairly at a game, so you get
to play again long term.

Something that comes up in HPMOR where a dark lord can't submit and be humble
to learn a lesson, instead fighting and killing everyone but losing the larger
goal, and something which surely comes up every time someone is "technically
right" on a mailing list or forum argument but in such a way that nobody wants
to engage with them in future.

------
40four
I can't belive nobody has mentioned "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau.

To be fair, I'm not a big recreational reader. But this one will always stick
out to me. When I read it in college, it had such a profound effect on me, I
belive it literally helped shape who I am as a person even to this day

Maybe it was right place, right time. It is certainly an impressionable age,
but I have read it again as an older man, & it was just as powerful.

I've read "Guns, germs & steel", "How to win friends & influence people",
"Freakonomics" & some of the other stuff that pop up in the comments, they are
all fine. But none of them influenced me like "Walden" did.

A true American classic.

~~~
xyzwave
When I initially read this thread I had precisely the same reaction.

Emerson and Thoreau weren’t just naturalists preaching justice. Their Nature
is the same Nature Marcus Aurelius refers to in Meditations. Once you put
their work in the context of the Trinitarian/Unitarian debate of the early
19th century, you see how deeply they thought about not just civilization, but
science and philosophy together.

I’d add to Walden, Emerson’s Nature, and especially his essay Man, the
Reformer. In today’s ultra-specialized and mostly-capitalist society, this
piece has the power to simultaneously shatter and solidify your identity and
sense of worth.

The Transcendentalist practically gave young America its voice following
independence. They’re certainly worth revisiting if you only remember Walden
as a reclusive pond.

~~~
40four
Well said. I've read some of Nature, but not the essay. Thanks I'll check it
out!

------
afandian
"Difficult Conversations: How to discuss what matters most". I bought this on
the strength of an HN suggestion.

It's like Design Patterns for human conversations: the result of studying how
people interact, common patterns that work, and how things break down. Really
crystallised a lot of insights I'd perceived but never thought about
systematically. I highly recommend it.

Word of warning - there are a few books with this title. Look for the one by
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen.

Also Thinking Fast and Slow, recommended elsewhere in this thread.

~~~
godelmachine
What is _Difficult Conversations_ about?

~~~
afandian
On the surface, it's about how to have conversations about difficult topics.
Often these are conflict resolution type conversations. These range all the
way from "you never take the bins out" to marriage breakups to large
international political conflicts. These conversations can often go off the
rails and conflicts are made worse, not solved. Whatever the scale, these
kinds of conversations tend to follow familiar routes.

If you dispair at the way that conversations tend to devolve into personal
attacks in national politics, office politics or your day-to-day interactions,
this book is a very insightful handbook.

The book is the result of a big study at Harvard Business School of a large
number of case studies. It spots the patterns that humans tend toward. In each
case it identifies the pattern, why it happens, what the result can be
(usually negative) and how to spot it coming and mitigate it. It also has
snippets of conversation as case studies.

It's been a while, so I can't remember each item. But one example is that
people tend to connect their identity to the point they are trying to argue.
You challenge the point but to your conversation partner it feels like a
direct personal attack. If you can find a way to acknowledge that connection,
gently separate it from the identity, you have a much better chance of
resolving the conflict.

I find a particularly strong parallel in the Gang of Four Design Patterns
book. These are the broad problems that people try to solve with software, the
structures that tend to emerge as people solve problems.

And, like design patterns, some things are deeply insightful and some things
are obvious. E.g. of course 'iterators' are a thing. But development is so
much better for having vocabulary to talk about them.

~~~
godelmachine
I am looking for a book that will help me talk about abstract topics. Have you
any suggestions?

~~~
crdrost
I can give one tiny little bit of advice from several years about tutoring and
teaching mathematics and physics...

 _Always start with examples_.

If I am trying to teach the fundamental ideas of complex analysis, I want to
show folks how to take derivatives of complex functions with several worked
examples and then show them how to do line-integrals on the complex plane -- I
want them to have a big repertoire of things that they have worked out. I want
them to have done for themselves several "closed loop" integrals that have
come out to zero, and some that have come out to one, before I ever imagine
putting the residue theorem underneath their noses. When I explain that
analytic functions are these conformal maps which preserve angles, I want them
to understand that how we defined analytic functions _requires_ them to
locally look like scaled rotations, and to understand that neither scaling nor
rotation can change an angle.

Same thing in computing. I wouldn't dream about explaining what a monad is
until I've explained what a functor is, and I wouldn't dream about explaining
what a functor is without thinking through how lists and maybes and functions
and eithers and pairs are all "outputtish" in a certain hard-to-describe way,
maybe even discussing how a `forall z. (a -> z) -> z` is actually outputtish
in `a` too, before I could finally define some bad definitions ("can get an
output out of it" \-- well no, I can't do that with the function!) and then
alight on "okay so here's a good definition of outputtish as _mappable_ , you
can take a function and map it over the output" and then the fact that this
has a specific jargon name at that point is no longer of any consequence, "we
call this a functor" \-- great, some name to memorize, but the concept is "not
hard."

In other words, abstractions are patterns in concrete topics. The Dewey
Decimal System organizes a library. It is _incredibly difficult_ to convince
someone to use the Dewey Decimal System to organize a pile of five books:
"What's the point in having this big abstract unifying theory about book
contents? I only have five of them!". But what you do if you want to teach
someone the Dewey Decimal System is to make sure that first they have a whole
library that is in some mess of a state, they can't find what they need to
find and they can't see where to file new "books" (examples, pieces of
information) and then you come over the hill with this Dewey Decimal System
and you look like a righteous force for justice, "aha! everything can be well-
organized!"

I have tried _so_ many times to lead with the "Here's how you want to think
about this sort of problem!" theory for all of my tutees, and it _always_
leaves them looking at me with that "what abyss of hell did this crazy tutor
crawl out of?" face. By contrast if I am just encouraging about "okay, what do
you know about this system?" and am very careful to snip the premature theory
of "Uh, F = m a?" that they have been exposed to, we can often work through a
problem in words and then work through it in numbers and then I can suggest
that _here_ is a different way to think about it in terms of, say, momentum
conservation.

~~~
godelmachine
Thanks for such detailed response! Valuable indeed

------
shadykiller
Mine would be "Why we get fat and what to do about it" by Gary Taubes. Not
only it changed my life (overweight to my healthiest ever), it also led me to
challenge everything about our dietary dogmas. I further read "Art and Science
of Low Carbohydrate Living", watched a lot of lectures and saw studies which
question our current notions. Overall I am more skeptical of studies which
have links to those benefiting from it commercially.

~~~
StacyC
This is the book that switched on the light for me. It’s no exaggeration to
say that it put me on a path to the best levels of health and fitness I have
ever known. I am 56 and feel like I’m in the prime of life.

------
gtsteve
About 10 years ago I read a book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". In summary, it
describes a different way of thinking about money and wealth and the mindset
of a successful person versus one who struggles with money.

For a long time I had wanted to start a business but after reading that book I
truly believed I could. It was a long journey but I now run my own software
business and I honestly would not have started on this path had my friend not
recommended it to me.

To be honest, I'm almost embarrassed to admit it. It is not high-brow
literature, and I don't even think it's considered to be a good book on being
an entrepreneur, but it was a very important part of my story.

~~~
bayesian_horse
There are also at the very least rumors about the Author being somewhat
fraudulent. At the very least the story is not genuine. Doesn't mean it
doesn't have valid points to teach.

------
sinkpoint
"Debt: The first 5000 years" completely changed the way I view money, society,
and relationships.

"The selfish gene" changed the way I define life, opened my eyes to virtual
life, and morality of selfishness vs. altruism.

"Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life" changed the way I view
the life and material existence. Whereas before I viewed them as two separate
domains, after I see them as a spectrum.

Chinese classic taoism treaties: "Dao De Jing", and "Zhuan Zi", offers a via-
negativa way of thinking and view of existence, the values are beyond words.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
My pick is "Tao of Pooh," which is kind of a westerner's ELI5 of Taoism. I
can't overemphasize how useful Taoism has been for me as a lens through which
to understand and participate in the world. (And there really isn't much
mysticism to it)

~~~
nindalf
I second Tao of Pooh. It’s genuinely insightful and I plan to read it again.
However no one I recommend it to seems to take it seriously. They think it’s a
parody of some sort because it seems unlikely that a “serious” text would
involve Winnie the Pooh.

------
ericskiff
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss \- As someone who doesn't want to
"negotiate" and be a hard bargainer across the table, this book taught me how
to bring empathy to every negotiation, and to use that get both parties what
they really want most. It's also a fascinating read that details a number of
his negotiations as chief hostage negotiator for the FBI.

------
motohagiography
"The Dictator's Handbook" by DeMesquita and Smith is a popular take on their
academic work that describes a metamodel for reasoning about power and
politics that bypasses how things "may" or "should" work and talks about how
they "must" work.

[https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-
Pol...](https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-
Politics/dp/1610391845)

And a general +1 for GEB. If you read that as a teenager, you are different
for it.

~~~
Theodores
I am giving it a listen to now whilst I get on with other things.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4aBFDhWpP8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4aBFDhWpP8)

------
jcranberry
The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky. At the time I didn't realize that
it changed me, but looking back on it, the perspectives I learned from it
fundamentally how I viewed and understood other people.

~~~
robin_reala
It’s so good. I just finished reading the Constance Garnett translation and
it’s just gripping all the way through. Well, I guess apart from Zossima’s
life story in the middle, but that definitely has its place.

The Gutenberg HTML of it is definitely a labour of love and extremely high
quality:
[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html)
. I converted it to a nicely formatted epub for Standard Ebooks and it’s in
review now, so hopefully will be available this week.

~~~
FabHK
Thanks for contributing to Standard Ebooks. It's a great resource. Since you
modestly didn't plug it, let me:

An excellent source of carefully formatted and corrected free ebooks (mostly
classics).

[https://standardebooks.org](https://standardebooks.org)

~~~
robin_reala
Ah, well if we’re plugging I also did the SE production of Dostoevsky’s Crime
and Punishment, with bonus incredible cover by Edvard Munch:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-
an...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-and-
punishment/constance-garnett)

------
erd0s
Thinking fast and slow had the biggest impact in changing how I think about a
lot of things, epic study of how you’re predisposed to think and make
decisions in a particular way. Coincidentally I read it at about the same time
as freakonomics!

~~~
petters
Would really like a second edition for that book. The replication crisis has,
unfortunately not been kind to some of the things in the book.

~~~
FrojoS
This keeps me from reading it. Reading something that is wrong but changes the
way I view the world is not something I want.

~~~
sah2ed
Kahneman did in fact personally respond to some of the criticisms in a blog
comment [0] at [https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-
of-a-...](https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-
wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/#comment-1454)

HN discussion at the time
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228712)

[0] Archive link to the original comment by Kahneman
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190206160415/https://replicati...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190206160415/https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-
of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-
page-1/#comment-1454)

------
jesusofsuburbia
War and peace by Tolstoi.

It made me aware that someone as successful and powerful as Napoleon himself
was by a large extent only a product of the people and the mood at the time.
What I mean is that it wasn't him who inspired the people; it rather was just
the Zeitgeist he was the perfect person for. I'm not a native speaker and
can't really put it into words, but it completely changed my view of the
amount of influence we really _can_ have in this world, and how much we are a
product of our time.

Narziß und Goldmund by Hesse.

Again a lack of words from my side. Whoever is looking for meaning in life
should read this book. The last sentence of this book is (at least in German)
the literary most perfect and awakening phrase I've ever read. I couldn't
sleep for days afterwards.

~~~
sramsay
_War and Peace_ came immediately to mind for me as well, but mostly because I
do not think I have ever read a more magnificent novel.

I'm a literature professor, and in academic literary study, we don't spend a
lot of time talking about which books are "better" than others. But
personally? I'll just never get over that one.

I suppose I'd have to add Aeschylus' _The Oresteia_ (the oldest of the ancient
Greek tragedies we possess, and the only complete trilogy). I was a truly
_terrible_ high school student, who I think just barely got into college.
Reading _The Oresteia_ as a freshman made me decide that one way or another, I
would have to figure out how to read and study literature for the rest of my
life.

~~~
asdffdsa
I'm about halfway through "War and Peace" right now, and am amazed at how much
life Tolstoy packs into the book. So many amazing scenes, and pithy
characters. What's striking me now is both the characters' greatness mixed
with their weakness. There's something to me inexplicable about my admiration
of Pierre, Natasha, Count Rostov etc., but interesting how as the book
continues their faults are revealed. Also, the timeless
conflicts/themes/impetus of money, politics/social hierarchies or groups,
marriage, etc.

------
citilife
I always viewed reading a book as collecting a soul. If you fully grok a book,
you grok the authors thoughts. Being able to put yourself in another persons
mindset is crucial.

Speaking of "groking", _Stranger in a Strange Land_ , _Time Enough for Love_
and _The Fountain Head_ have probably had the most impact on my mindset.

Each book is rather different, but in general the idea of all three is

> You have to be in life for yourself, and only you can define who you are /
> want to be.

That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be mean, but the idea that "greed is
good", or that it's okay to be selfish, provided you think long term. It's
about coming to terms and accepting you are greedy. But with that insight you
can do introspection and learn about what drives you and make decisions
yourself.

It's almost as if another layer of consciousness, learning about ones self.

~~~
dbingham
Welp. And this is why I think Ann Rand was deeply evil and _The Fountain Head_
was a horrible work of propaganda.

It's not okay to be greedy, nor is it okay to be selfish. And these ideas are
responsible for much of the harm in the world.

It is okay to know what you need and advocate for your needs, to take care of
yourself. But that is not being greedy or selfish. And to do it effectively
means you have to be able to recognize the difference between a "need" and a
"want". You also have to be capable of balancing your own needs against the
needs of others.

A mindset of "greed is good" and "it's okay to be self" does not even try to
understand the difference between "need" and "want" and provides ample
justification for screwing over everyone else in pursuit of greedy (unneeded)
wants.

~~~
darkerside
There are many people, like a younger version of myself, who think it wrong to
advocate for your own needs and wants. And who are smart enough to realize
that every "need" truly is a want when you take a large enough perspective.
And that holds them back from expressing themselves. The Fountainhead is
essential reading for anyone who thinks in that way.

On the other hand, for well-adjusted folks, taking the book literally, is a
recipe for overcompensating.

~~~
FabHK
Ayn Rand's two tomes should be read and then, after some more reading,
recognised as simplistic garbage by every teenager.

------
RoboTeddy
'The Power Broker' by Robert Caro is ostensibly a biography, but it's actually
about how power works. The protagonist starts out employing idealistic
methods, but falls flat on his face, and comes to delight in any means of
achievement. I found that once I understood the protagonist's raw goal-
seeking, and the dynamics that emerge from it, I started to recognize similar
dynamics at many levels of society and government.

Barack Obama read it at 22 and said it was mesmerizing and that it shaped how
he thinks about politics.

------
megaman8
The book "1776" changed the way I thought about many many things. It's about
the military presence and the early years of the US Colonies and the British
presence as well. Everything was so different back then. Getting all those
details shows how life was different in almost every way imaginable: people
only had 1 or 2 outfits, income taxes of 2% were considered unimaginably high,
military only had 9 bullets per soldier, stage plays were the main means of
entertainment, bitter cold affected everyone, no communication meant lots of
confusion, etc. Lots of great details in that book.

~~~
oska
I probably won't read the book (more interested in other countries' histories)
but your comment certainly makes the book sound interesting.

------
keb_
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns helped me get out of a
hole of anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. Not to say I'm all the way
there, but I'm far better than I used to be, and perfectly functional. His
list of 10 cognitive distortions was tremendously enlightening, like I felt a
huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I realized how I could combat my
bad thoughts with rationality.

~~~
germinalphrase
Second this. Don’t be turned off by the simple sounding title: there’s some
good stuff in this book!

------
andrea_sdl
I'll be in the minority then, but to me these are my best books.

The Power of Vulnerability by Brenè Brown and Quiet by Susan Cain.

The first is not a real book since it's audio only, there is no written
counterpart but it changed the way I see, connect, live in the world entirely.
I _never_ found something along those lines.

While the second book, Quiet, although a little boring in some sides, made me
accept my introversion (although I don't appear like an introvert).

If I had to pick only one then it would be the power of vulnerability, such a
shame it hasn't a paper counterpart (you could read all brene brown books
probably and get the same message, but that audio book is so great).

~~~
superdeeda
Brene Brown's Daring Greatly made a huge impact on me! From what I understand
it's very similar to The Power of Vulnerability.

~~~
andrea_sdl
yes, they share many of the topics about vulnerability, but if you didn't
listen to the power of vulnerability I strongly advice you to give it a try.

------
codegrappler
Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom ([https://www.amazon.com/Closing-
American-Mind-Education-Impov...](https://www.amazon.com/Closing-American-
Mind-Education-Impoverished/dp/1451683200)) was a book I had to read multiple
times. It gave me a new understanding of how deep culture and environment
really do influence your opinions of the world. I spend a lot more time
reflecting on my own opinions about the world and I'm much more mindful of the
opinions I declare publicly because of this book.

------
kvee
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky - introduced
me to the rationalist movement

The First Immortal by James Halperin - introduced me as a sixth grader to
things like cryonics, nanotech, etc. Got me thinking about a realistic
ambitious nearer term future for humanity, rather than a more fantasy-like one
in the other sci-fi I'd read at that point, like Asimov and Heinlein

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen - gave me much greater agency in life. Made
me realize “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be
tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”

------
shookla
Antifragile by N N Taleb. Additionally also the black swan by the same author.

All said and done I feel like it's made me look at and evaluate a lot more
possibilities at all important junctions in my life (if not all junctions).
It's helped me channelise my mind better to understand signals I care about in
an otherwise extremely noisy world. It's also made me a stronger individual
being able to do more for people and look at things sometimes as just a series
of outcomes, and making everyday life and outcomes more tolerable for me
emotionally as well.

~~~
kkwteh
Antifragile has changed the way I've thought about many things. A couple key
concepts in the book are like lenses that gave me entirely new ways of viewing
the world.

The Lindy effect: The strongest systems are usually the ones that have been
around the longest. Accordingly, there should be a healthy distrust for any
recent invention or practice.

The world is too complex to understand: Complex systems are mostly not
designed, but exist and thrive by virtue of natural selection. This includes
human societies. Even leaders and managers of these systems do not understand
why they work. In particular you can't predict the outcome of tampering with
complex systems, and you should avoid doing it in a wholesale centralized way.

Stress makes antifragile systems stronger: In particular a certain amount of
stress, challenge, and variation is necessary for a person to remain strong.

Extreme tails: Fragile and antifragile systems often have payouts where a
single event dominates the outcome. As an individual, there are two takeaways.
There are only a couple of opportunities in life that count. They will only
count if you maintain the optionality to take advantage of them. A single
tragedy can ruin you. You have to look out for it constantly, even if
everything has been pretty rosy up until now.

------
pokler
Two come to mind for me.

The first is Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky. This was the first political
book I had ever read and it completely rocked my world. I knew the US was
involved in some nefarious stuff, but never to that extent. Completely changed
the way I read news / history & how I react to current events.

The other book is Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

~~~
obelos
Your description of that Chomsky book reminds me of my experience reading
Foucault and his exegesis of power.

------
wildermuthn
“The Kingdom of God is within you,” by Leo Tolstoy. It changed the lives of
Ghandi and MLK as the essential primer and exposition of Christian anarchism
and its consequent pacifism. It led to my discharge from the military as a
conscientious objector just as the war with Iraq (pt. 2) heated up.

Second, Wendell Berry’s many essays and short-stories. His skepticism about
technology can be taken to Luddite extremes, but his questioning of the full
human impact of technology has profoundly affected how I think: that
technology not only enables new human possibilities, but more importantly,
shapes the very meaning of what it means to be human.

Finally, Paul Graham’s essays, especially his one on wealth. It’s the clearest
explanation of “Make what people want” that I have read, and has a liberating
affect on a mind that has been conditioned by society to be just another
employee. I wouldn’t have jumped head-first into the startup world were it not
for PG’s influence.

------
sksareen1
For what changed my outlook on life? Xenocide - Orson Scott Card. The 3rd book
in the Ender's Game saga, it spend a lot of time exploring how people with
fundamentally different perceptions and interpretations of the world around
them led them to conduct themselves in ways that conflicted with each other,
but were virtuous and the right thing to do according to them.

Was a big help in helping me understand how empathy can help to resolve issues
and how fundamentally different we all can think - be it medieval humans or
alien beings.

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

------
TrinTragula
I know it may sound silly, but The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meant a
lot to me. It taught me not to take life too seriously and to just embrace its
weirdness.

------
Wistar
I had to think deeply about this and particularly about a book changing the
way I think about things and how often I think back to things in the book. For
me it has to be Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain. It made me realize
that I am more creatively skilled than I thought I was — a realization which
has enhanced my life greatly. To some lesser degree The Artist's Way has
influenced me as well.

Perhaps the most nuts-and-bolts useful of books for me has been John Saxon's
Algebra 1 and Algebra 1 1/2 textbooks. After coasting through high-school
algebra without gaining any real mastery, in my early 20s I sat down with
these two masterworks of clarity and re-taught myself algebra in the space of
a couple full weekends. I use this (re-)learning every day of my life.

~~~
kayfox
A related book, and the basis for much of whats in Drawing on the Right Side
of the Brain is The Natural Way to Draw, by Kimon Nicolaïdes. It is a text
book and has structured lessons in it, so if you need formal structure its
helpful. Following the lessons is not required to gain a lot from this book.

------
akkartik
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fates_of_Nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fates_of_Nations)
(I started that Wikipedia page.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evolution_of_Human_Nature)

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_the_Highly_Improbable)

------
haohmobile
To me, it’s “in search of the lost time” by marcel Proust. In this hustle and
bustle world where people build startups for high evaluation, money and
reputation, reading this book is an oasis in the desert experience to me. It
inspires me to rethink of my simple day, to pay more attention to details, to
figure out why little thing become what it is, to cherish small achievements
and to appreciate people. And more importantly it inspires me to be alone and
use the mind to think about the world and rebuild it.

Similar book is “Stoner” by John Williams

~~~
rashkov
Just want to chime in that Stoner is indeed a gorgeous work, and thank you for
reminding me of it.

~~~
haohmobile
Love it so much. Especially the last few pages with Rachmaninov piano concerto
2, the 2nd movement.

~~~
rashkov
Again, I'm glad you reminded me about this book. About to introduce it to some
friends through our book club. I'll be re-reading it soon, so maybe I'll put
on that movement while I read the end :)

------
homosaphien1
Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection by Dr Sarno litreally gave me my
life back. Suffered back pain which I thought was from sitting and coding for
11 years. I had no idea emotions can have an impact on physical pain. real
excruciating pain that went away almost 3/4th of the way through the book.
this sounds so sales pitchy but mind body connection is real I think how now
we wonder how doctors in 1950s said smoking tobacco isn't bad for you, we will
wonder in future on how doctors denied the mind body connection.

------
doctorcroc
Ishmael
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_\(novel\)))
- it changed how I view the planet from a species-centric perspective to one
focused on maximizing the potential for sustainable life for all creatures

~~~
nickbauman
I went on to read more than a half dozen books by this author, all of them
were equally amazing and thought-provoking. I wish I could like this entry
times a thousand.

------
crowdpleaser
The right to earn a living: [https://www.amazon.com/Right-Earn-Living-
Economic-Freedom/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Right-Earn-Living-Economic-
Freedom/dp/1935308335)

and the concept of the political:
[https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo54...](https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo5458073.html)

I used to think of laws and society as just arbitrary things. However, I now
see that they reflect thousands of years of wisdom / improvement and are
critical to creating the conditions for people to flourish. The right to earn
a living helped me understand the common law system and why we should care
about unenumerated rights and how to create a more just society.

The concept of the political helped me see how nihilistic egalitarianism and
feckless bureaucracy isn't a bug but a feature of liberal democracy and how it
doesn't have to be that way.

------
juddlyon
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (I don't know which translation I read).

Imagine the plot of three or four excellent movies woven together. It struck
me how little human nature changes over time and across cultures. It also
features some fascinating Russian history as a backdrop. As a person who
almost exclusively reads non-fiction, it changed my view of how powerful
fiction can be. I can't fathom what must've been in Tolstoy's mind to have the
ability to create something like this.

Honorable mention to The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I'd like to learn more about Russian literature - I don't know if it's these
authors and books that grabbed me, or if it's something larger.

~~~
gnulinux
19th c Russian literature is awesome. It might be personal, but Russian
literature has a very special place in my heart. I recommend reading other
works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. I also strongly recommend Gogol and Chekhov.

~~~
juddlyon
Thanks, I’ll definitely check out Gogol and Chekhov.

------
lpolovets
Most of the books that changed how I think were effective because of the
subject matter and not the specific book or writing style. I suspect other
books on the same subject would've been equally perspective-changing. Here are
some examples:

1) "A Guide of the Good Life." This is an approachable intro to stoicism and
helped me become more conscious of which things are within my control and
which things are outside of my control. I now spend a lot more time focusing
on the former and a lot less time being anxious about the latter.

2) Books like "Traction" (by Gabriel Weinberg) and "Cracking Creativity" that
take a fuzzy subject like marketing or being creative and show that you can
get very far by following recipes/algorithms/heuristics. Skill like creativity
are not purely innate; they can be learned.

3) "Economics in One Lesson." (Spoiler: the one lesson is: "economics consists
in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or
policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for
one group but for all groups.") After this book, I now think much more
carefully about proposed policies/rules/business strategies/etc. "Subsidized
child care" or "charge businesses per seat" can sound great on the surface,
but specific proposals often have so many unintended or negative consequences
that are not discussed, and it's important to weigh those consequences against
the benefits.

4) A statistics textbook. I don't remember the specific book that was my first
stats textbook, but learning about statistics made me a lot more skeptical and
inquisitive about data. Now when I see a graph or number reported in the news,
I think "are there ways that this might be misleading?" instead of "omg cool
this is a graph in a popular magazine so it must be true."

------
callinyouin
Seems most of the books recommended are for non-fiction, so I'll add some
fiction to the mix.

The Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons. It is deeply philosophical and
caused me to think about life in a way no other science fiction has before or
since. I found myself really sympathizing with the characters in these books,
and found the overall plot incredibly fascinating.

Another good one is the Commonwealth Saga series (and others set in the same
universe) by Peter F. Hamilton. It's a very _big_ space opera with lots of
engaging characters, interesting technology, exciting descriptions of
interstellar war, and a good reminder of just how unlike humanity an alien
species could be. It really opened my mind to possibilities of humanity in the
future in terms of how we might progress, both in terms of progressing out
into the galaxy and how we could progress as a species.

------
davnicwil
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.

Presents a compelling case for being optimistic that economic growth really
will keep making the world continually better on average, and in particular
explores the reasons why the contrary position is often so prevalent in the
media, popular opinion etc.

Regardless of whether you agree with the thesis of the book _per se_ it's a
fascinating read which will definitely give you a lot of new perspective on
debates on big topics - things that come up often on HN such as AI, climate
change, international relations etc. I thoroughly recommend it.

------
libso
The Fellowship of the Ring. JRR Tolkein

"Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had
happened. Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for
them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is
given to us."

Resonates with me in real life a lot.

------
fpoling
“Fooled by Randomness” by Nassim Taleb. It is hard to compress it into a short
summary, but it can be something like “be very aware about unknown unknowns”.

~~~
flazzarino
It is highly compressed! but not in a dense way, distilled might be a better
term.

He writes my favorite books.

------
apo
_Start with No_ by Jim Camp.

Maybe it didn't change my mind about "everything," but it did change my mind
about everything related to negotiating.

The premise is that "no," is not an answer to be feared and avoided - it's an
answer to be sought out. Getting a "no" is a key part of understanding the
other side's position.

Many of the techniques he teaches can be used in non-negotiation settings.

For example, consider the seemingly simple problem of asking good questions.
The author advocates interrogative-led questions over leading questions:

\- interrogative led: begins with "who," "where," "what," "when," and "why."

\- leading: binary answer, and usually begins with "do" or "does"

Consider the difference between the answers you're likely to get by asking
"Did you like the movie?" vs. "What did you think of the movie?"

When you ask someone an interrogative-led question, you acknowledge their
agency and challenge them to think. When you ask a leading question, more
often than not, you're trying to manipulate the other person. Worse, you will
get much less helpful answers.

Works great for job interviews, and many other professional settings.

One oddity: I've seen interviews/presentations with author, but he's a
surprisingly bad speaker. As a how-to writer he's one of the best I've read.

~~~
asavadatti
That reminds me of Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. Getting a "no" in
a negotation is not the end but the beginning

------
elpakal
Guns, Germs and Steel by Diamond. Also Foundation Trilogy by Asimov because of
the incredible creativity needed to tell that story

~~~
wooly_bully
Strongly disagree. The geographic determinism theory of GG&S is frustrating
and ignores significant factors in the rise of the West.

This review is something I generally send out to people after they've read
GG&S, and strongly recommend Eric Wolf as an author. He puts many of the
points I would make significantly more eloquently:

[https://www.livinganthropologically.com/eric-wolf-europe-
peo...](https://www.livinganthropologically.com/eric-wolf-europe-people-
without-history/)

~~~
LyndsySimon
I would argue that “changing the way you think” doesn’t require the book to be
factually accurate. The idea that external factors like geographical starting
conditions can have a huge impact and shape things as complex as human culture
is a powerful one, regardless of the conclusions drawn in the book.

If anything, the way it has been challenged and shown to be flawed is a lesson
on and of itself - that complex systems have emergent properties, and that
those starting conditions are not as deterministic as it might appear at first
blush.

~~~
wooly_bully
Good point.

If GG&S changed the way you think, I'd highly recommend following it up with
either the book from that review (Eric Wolf's "Europe and the People without
History") or Ian Morris's "Why The West Rules, For Now".

~~~
elpakal
Yes, not meant to be accurate. Just changed my perception and continues to
linger.

------
dalbasal
1984, and the book-within-a-book in it.

Sapiens, recently. It had a profound effect on how I think about people,
history and progress... Particularly, the points about group size and all th
cultural clockwork required for and limiting our ability to function as large
groups.

Paul Graham's essays, which are kind of a web book.

Practical Ethics, by Peter Singer influenced me a lot (made me study
philosophy) but I was a lot less expensive impressed by my decades-later re-
read.

~~~
sputknick
Paul Graham's essays aren't just "kind of" a book, they are a book. (A very
good one BTW)

[https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-
Computer/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-
Computer/dp/1449389554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549393151&sr=8-1&keywords=paul+graham)

------
donatj
Honestly, Anthem.

While I think it's a pinch silly oversimplification of things, it makes good
arguments against central planning and for individuality and liberty.

It really struck a chord in an impressionable 16 year old.

~~~
compiler-guy
Ayn Rand is reasonably good at diagnosing certain problems, but for her
solutions, its hard to tell the poison from the cure.

Also, she has no sense of "Standing on the shoulders of giants", and how an
eco systems make some things easier and harder.

------
henriquemaia
As a book lover, and a very frustrated one at that (for I never seem to have
time to read all the books I would love to have already read), I've found
Pierre Bayard's _How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read_ both inspiring and
liberating.

The title sounds it's appealing to some kind of self-help shenanigans on how
to fake your knowledge on books, but in truth is a very coherent metaliterary
theory that delves into memory, psychoanalysis, honesty, and creativity.

Because of this, and since it correctly argues that the line separating what
you have read from what you haven't isn't as clear or obvious as it appears,
it's _inspiring_ because it shows you a way through the seemingly endless
human library; and _liberating_ because it allows you to reconcile yourself
with your limited knowledge of any particular set of books.

Since it's impossible to know even a fraction of all that has been published,
and because your memory is fallible, whenever you are talking about books,
whatever book it may be, in some sense you are always talking about a book you
haven't read.

That being so, it's far better to own it as it is and to take advantage of
that fact, talking confidently about any book. And this is where this book can
really come handy.

Ever since I first read it some years ago, I felt I had a weight lifted from
my shoulders. I'm not as bold as Pierre Bayard is, and I still find myself
awkward for not having read so many important books. But now I'm more at ease,
knowing that others, whoever they are, are also in a somewhat similar
situation. Instead of feeling an ignorant sod, I now know I'm surrounded by an
endless throng of likewise ignoramuses.

~~~
pergadad
One more book I won't have time to read :-)

------
alexis_fr
The Boy Crisis, Warren Farrell.

I discovered the dire situation of men, with health and social conditions that
top women’s problems by a factor 50, but we’ve never heard about. Funny thing
is the guy is still a feminist in his approach (give men what used to be only
given to women), but finally seeing men in a society where we really carr a
lot when women face a problem... it changed my vision of life and humanity.

------
torgian
"Enders Game" for me, I think. By Orson Scott Card.

I was in my first couple years of military service when I read that. I can't
really say how it changed my outlook on life, other than the fact that I liked
how realistic the writing was, in regards to how children can adapt to an
extreme situation (and how quickly naivety and innocence can be lost).

Lead me to read other books by Orson. I like many of them.

------
franze
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603580557/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603580557/)

I read it once a year. It changed how i think about everything. My career is
based on this book. My interaction with people and groups of people is based
on this book.

~~~
mseo
I just read that one and found it interesting, but also a bit shallow. Do you
have any recommendations on what to read to dive deeper into this topic?

~~~
franze
Yeah, it's a starting point, but still the best one with the most clearest
thoughts. Every other System Thinking Book is more specialiced to one domain
and seem to drive additional agendas.

I can recommend everything else she has written. I go back to "Thinking in
Systems" once a year and analyze my life, my projects again with her
framework. There is always something new to discover.

~~~
franze
My book [https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-SEO-Systematic-
Approach...](https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-SEO-Systematic-Approach-
Optimization-ebook/dp/B07L3BSQHG) is based on her framework, well her and some
Jerry Weinberg and Marshall McLuhan sprinkled in.

------
manifestsilence
Chaos, by James Gleick. It's somewhere between biography and science for
laypeople. Almost a biography of an idea. What he wrote about the edges of
science and how scientific rebels think about their fields blew my mind when I
read it in my teens, and it started the closest thing to a religion that has
taken hold in my mind: a kind of Pantheist vision of how a fully deterministic
universe can lead to an infinite, confusing, and beautiful world, with
mathematical inevitability and precision rather than by some kind of magic.

------
hibee72
The first book that changed my life was "The Second Sex" by Simone De
Beauvoir. Is not an easy book to read, with many philosophical and historical
references, but it really shaped me. It changed my perception of women and
also my awareness as a man. Another thing that changed my life was not a book
by a record. It's not the same thing, I know, but I must name it because I was
influenced more by its literary part (the lyrics) than by its music. The album
is "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" by Genesis.

------
larrywright
"Getting Things Done" by David Allen didn't change the way I think about
_everything_ , but it definitely changed the way that I looked at a lot of
things. It's often panned today as being "common sense", but I think that's a
mischaracterization - at the time it became popular, it ran counter to the
conventional wisdom of how to manage your time and attention. Reading it made
a profound and lasting impact on how I approached my work.

From a technology standpoint, "The Pragmatic Programmer" changed the way I
looked at programming. When I read it the first time, I was a Visual Basic
programmer, with only a passing familiarity with the world outside the
Microsoft ecosystem. After reading that I began to explore Perl, then Python,
and installed Linux and learned it. For my career as a developer, then team
lead, and then manager, that book changed me more than any other book I've
read in the field.

------
asdff
Every couple of years I reread Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It is a short read,
but it really grounds me and I always interpret it slightly differently based
on what is going on in my life.

------
reidacdc
Charles Perrow's "Normal Accidents". It's sort of the beginnings of a general
theory of systemic risk in technology, moving away from the particulars of
various technologies or management strategies. There are several technology
areas he fits into his model, including civilian nuclear power, jet aircraft,
chemical processing plants, and cargo ships. The model focuses on what kind of
energy density is involved, how complex the actually-existing engineered
system is to be in order to achieve its objective, and how bad the situation
is when unexpected interactions (arising from the complexity) lead to the
energy being released.

This kind of clear, higher-level thinking about technology is rare and
valuable. In the IT world, there's presumably a way to use the model,
substituting "data" for "energy", but I've never seen (or come up with) one.

------
nameless_wicked
Charles Duhigg "The Power of Habit" and Kelly McGonigal "The Willpower
Instinct" both greatly impacted my perception of people's actions and ways of
life. Currently reading "Thinking Fast And Slow" and it has the same effect on
me.

Jordan B. Peterson "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" made me more
proactive and helped to summarize some past experience.

Richard Feynman "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" awesome book, about
awesome life of awesome person.

------
ElijahLynn
Mostly all about life, not technology, but all the books below have science
behind them and many references and studies. I have read every one of these
books, some multiple times. These are the books I would make required reading
if I gave a class on life, they cover sleep, nutrition, exercise, brain health
(depression/happiness), memorization and learning.

* Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

* Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

* Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (evidence based, ~1,000 references)

* The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's Sleep (sleep debt)

* Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

* Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

* Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

~~~
markdog12
Highly recommend Spark! If you like the topic of Sleep, check out Why We Sleep
by Matthew Walker: [https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501...](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501144316)

~~~
ElijahLynn
I have my eye on Why We Sleep and want to read it soon. I did ask Matthew
Walker once about the fact that he says you cannot pay of Sleep Debt whereas
William Dement (Promise of Sleep) says you can pay off up to 1-2 weeks but no
more. In my experience, I can pay off some sleep debt in a week but it levels
out after that.

I haven't heard back on that, probably should message him outside of Twitter,
but was hoping for a public dialogue.

[https://twitter.com/ElijahLynn/status/922599108950368256](https://twitter.com/ElijahLynn/status/922599108950368256)

------
Roelven
A book I keep coming back to (re-read every two years or so) and recommend
others is "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

It has shaped my thinking on 'what is good' or 'what does quality' mean. As an
engineer it is easy to appreciate the author slowly going insane about the
details he keeps coming back to, and as a human it is invaluable to have an
understanding yourself of when something is 'good'.

Highly recommended.

~~~
plogik
+1 for this. I read it every 5 years or so

------
pavelrub
Ludwig Wittgenstein - mainly Philosophical Investigations, Blue and Brown
Books, and On Certainty. It gradually changed how I view the entire world
around me, and dissolved my interest in philosophy, as well as in many other
"sciency" things that - I realized - I was only interested in because of
implicit metaphysical interpretations that ultimately stemmed out of
conceptual confusion.

~~~
davidivadavid
I would also nominate Wittgenstein for similar reasons. To this day I still
consider him the "deepest" philosopher I've read, paradoxically because he
managed to stay on the surface of things and not get tricked by alluring (but
ultimately nonsensical) word constructs. The subtlety of his thought is both
mindblowing and very pleasing aesthetically — has anyone matched his talent
for metaphor yet?

------
SomaticPirate
One book that had a large influence on me was "How to Argue & Win Every Time:
At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday" by Gerry Spence. The portion
of the book which spoke to me the most about arguing in relationships.

The author poses the idea of intentionally losing when arguing with a loved
one since the victory will usually be a hollow one. It might seem like simple
advice, but I found it extremely influential in my life.

There are many times when being right is actually the worst thing to be and
made me consider if winning an argument was worth (potentially) damaging a
long term relationship. When it was, this book gave some good advice about
quickly repairing the damage and minimizing the consequences.

~~~
octygen
Love that this came up. He is the type of man one wants to emulate. This had a
huge positive influence on my romantic relationships and will probably help
with my family one day.

------
hackernews2
Reading Ender's Game as a child instilled a sense of agency at a young age.

~~~
nhn_account
I experienced the same thing reading that book. It gave me a powerful feeling
about the things a teenager can do in an adult world. And a great story for a
video game addict.

------
rubidium
Society and Money: _Debt the first 5000 years_ by David Graeber

Society and structure: _Leisure: The Basis of Culture_ by Josef Pieper

Business: _Crossing the Chasm_ by Geoffrey Moore

Life: _The Gospel of Matthew_

------
jaxbot
The Power Broker. I picked it up out of urban interests, but it gets into so
much more of how our political system has been shaped over the last 100 years,
and it's scary (or reassuring?) how little it has changed. But also all the
insane things Moses did to reshape how cities were built in the USA and how
hard it will be to fix his urban sprawl motivation.

------
mawise
Crucial Conversations. In my educational upbringing there was never any
exploration of emotional intelligence and how to communicate. Since reading
this book I notice elements it describes in basically every meaningful
conversation I have.

~~~
laughinghan
I cannot help but view every single thing involving humans through this lens.
Humans physically cannot choose to ignore emotion and think or communicate
"rationally". That's why people who think they're "logical" have no immunity
from motivated reasoning, and "rationalist" can turn so toxic and so divorced
from reality.

That's why some of the most "logical", mathematically intelligent people are
so susceptible to religious ideas:
[https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm](https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm)

------
baselined
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl changed how I viewed most of the
world, especially as a counselor. Learning how experiences change how a person
views the world and its impact on their life.

Reading about how he experienced time in a concentration camp with endless
hope to be reunited with his wife kept him going and surviving each day
hungry, cold, and doing his best to take care of the ill. He learned the
positive impact of hope and when individuals lost it, they quickly fell ill or
died. It gave me perspective and to challenge my way of thinking in addition
to helping clients learn there are multiple ways to interpret anything.

------
fsloth
I am skeptical a _single_ book can change how a person thinks about the world
- at least on a practical level.

Actually transformative concepts are usually not simple, and they need to
mature in the thinkers mind.

Most important subjects are ao large it would be impossible to cram them into
a single book.

Books can be insightfull and amazing, and there are several that are so vivid
I find chapters from them popping into my head. A few recent books I feel have
been very enligthening to me:

Notes on the synthesis of form by Alexander. Skunk works by Ben Richie.
Influence by Cialdini. Skin in the game by Taleb. Isaacson's biographies.

~~~
mindfulgeek
I think when someone is on the brink of a new understanding and read a book
that speaks to the topic in just the right way, it can create major shifts.
Though I do think the foundation of that transformation is usually the work of
many years of life experience.

------
identity_zero
Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia

I'm only a quarter of the way through but it's already giving me vast amounts
of insight into the roots of western civilization. It's also equipping me with
mental models to analyze modernity and determine where we are in the history
of civilization. It looks like we're in the decadent period.

My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knasgaard

An auto-biographical novel that's over 3600 pages for the entire series. It's
really just the most accurate literary experience of modern man. I'm finding
it quite useful to analyze my own conscious experience through life.

------
nathias
Plato - Meno, Symposium, Parmenides, Gorgias, Protagoras

Plotinus -Enneads

Markus Aurelius - Meditations

Descartes - On method

Descartes - Meditations

Spinoza - On the improvement of Understanding

Leibniz - Monadology

Leibniz - Grace

Voltaire - Candid

Diderot - D'Alembert's Dream

Kant - How to orient oneself in thinking

Kant - Critique of Pure Reason

Kant - Critique of Judgment

Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit

Hegel - Logic

von Kleist - Marionette Theatre

Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death

Heidegger - Being and Time

Sartre - Being and Nothingness

Sartre - Flies

Sartre - Nausea

Deleuze - Difference and Repetition

Kafka - Metamorphosis

Kafka - The Castle

Lem - Magellan Nebula

Lem - His Master's Voice

Cioran - A Short History of Decay

Pessoa - Book Of Despair

Wolfe - New Sun tetralogy

~~~
Udik
You seem to have changed "the way you think about almost everything" quite a
number of times!

------
_hardwaregeek
Between the World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Reading about the abject fear
and death in which he grew up really helped me get a tiny insight into
institutional racism's effects. I can't fully comprehend the entirety of the
black American experience, but that book helped me gain a small glimpse.

------
jodrellblank
The short story of how, if you're rowing a boat over a river and you hit
another boat, you shout at the person in the boat how careless they are and
why aren't they paying attention, and you're incensed and annoyed at their
stupidity. Then you turn and look, and the other boat is empty and drifting,
there isn't anyone in it.

I don't think I've ever stopped thinking about that story and how, even if
there was someone in the other boat, I could react as if there wasn't, and
things would be better.

Not a book, but once I'd read and re-read enough
[https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/) articles
to start to understand his view on narcissism and how it's an epidemic problem
in the West.

Something like
[https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdow...](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdown_relate_t.html)
from 2013 about the government shutdown, or
[https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/01/randi_zuckerberg.htm...](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/01/randi_zuckerberg.html)
from 2014 about why people are really so obsessed with Facebook and why we
fill our home lives with work.

------
koonsolo
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh completely changed how I
look at life, death, etc. Basically how I perceive the world and myself and
others.

I think any atheist rational person should read this, to get a more realistic
view on himself/herself and the world around you.

Our society is too individual and self-centered, which is actually a wrong
view on how the world works. I recommend this to anyone, especially when you
lose someone or something big in your life.

------
cjauvin
Recently: Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker, and The Elephant in the Brain
(by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson), two books which share the quality of being
bold and courageous in their claims, which go against huge parts of the
"common discourse".

------
moultano
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

It's mindblowing just as a work of history (prehistory really) but it also
entirely changed how I viewed environmentalism. It made me realize that
untouched wildernesses don't exist. Every single landscape on earth has been
irrevocably and entirely reshaped by humanity. The Earth is a garden and we
are its gardeners, now we just need to get good at it.

------
ericdykstra
_The Theory of Poker_ by David Sklansky

Studying and playing poker in high school changed how I thought about problems
of incomplete information and how to gather the most information possible to
make a decision. This book, in particular, for introducing The Fundamental
Theorem of Poker and its use and application, gave me tools of reasoning and
analysis of complex problems that I have built on and still use to this day.

------
metta2uall
"Opening the Door of Your Heart" by Ajahn Brahm
[https://books.google.com.au/books?id=R0sMB9qk890C](https://books.google.com.au/books?id=R0sMB9qk890C)

This book consists of over 100 very short stories that are inspired by
Buddhist teachings. It's contributed quite a bit to making me wiser, happier,
less anxious and having better interpersonal skills.

------
rdl
Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Democracy, The God That Failed. I believed democracy was
the "ideal" (basically the secular religion of the USA), and just flawed in
implementation. This book does an excellent job of presenting the argument for
ownership of the state, limiting the scope of those who could possibly own,
and the short term vs. long term interests of different kinds of government.

------
tomxor
Two tiny books by Stephen Wolfram (Actually transcribed lectures):

    
    
       - "Computation and the Future of the Human Condition"
       - "On the Quest for Computable Knowledge"
    

And by extension his proper book - "A new kind of science". The two above
books might require you have at least played with (and enjoy) cellular
automata to latch on to the concepts he is talking about with enthusiasm.

These tiny books in combination with some other similar books and ideas
transformed the way I think about the world, physically, biologically,
technologically - all from the perspective of computation - in terms of
computational reducibility, kolmogorov complexity, emergence and entropy (RE
maxwells demon - the meaning of life? more like the universal property
resulting in the emergence of life like patterns and fluctuations in energy
and matter)... sorry all a bit vauge, but difficult to articulate succinctly,
read the (very short) books and maybe you will latch on to the same train of
thought, it was mentally transformative for me.

------
muzani
33 Strategies of War. It taught me to not fear conflict, but to plan in
advance for it.

A lot of warfare is not about violence even. Violence and attrition are bad,
to be avoided. The goal is to win before the first shot is fired.

A lot of things that can be applied to life. For example,

Holding the high ground - don't lower yourself to someone's level just because
they're taunting you. If you maintain the high ground while others try to drag
you down, you'll have a large advantage.

Counterattack - sometimes the best offense is to stay on the defensive, to tip
the enemy off balance and counter.

Sometimes you have to be intimidating as a form of defense. Sometimes you
envelop/surround and destroy. Sometimes you want to draw attacks to decoys and
straw men. Sometimes you hammer them down with suppression fire to advance.
Sometimes you want to lose battles to win wars. Sometimes you have beaten and
humiliated an enemy, but instead of destroying them, you recruit them to your
side.

All skills useful in business, work politics, and anything that involves
conflict.

------
greensoup
Siddharta - Herman Hesse

Sometimes when I feel a bit sad I remind myself to read a few chapters. It
reminds me what I find important in life. What I can ask from myself and from
other. It gives me joy in a good way.

------
nhumrich
Peopleware

Totally changed how I view budgeting/team management, etc. Helped me learn
about my own productivity and how to improve it. Introding flow and such to
me. A lot of other books say similar things but they are generic, so its easy
to write off with "oh, well software os different". But peopleware is
specifically about software development.

------
DyslexicAtheist

      - Jacques Ellul "The Technological Society"
      - N.N.Taleb "The Black Swan"
      - Danny Kahneman "Thinking Fast & Slow" (also his papers with Amos Tversky)
      - Thomas Ligotti "The Conspiracy against the Human Race"
      - Peter Wessel Zapffe "On the Tragic" & "The Last Messiah"
      - Sokal, Alan D "Intellectual Impostures"
      - Simon Herbert "A The Sciences of the Artificial"
      - Herbert Marcuse "One-Dimensional Man"
      - Schopenhauer "Parerga and Paralipomena"
      - Lewis Mumford "The Story of Utopias"
      - Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punish"
      - Edward S. Herman "Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media"
      - Franklin Foer "World Without Mind The Existential Threat of Big Tech"
      - Ben Goldacre "Bad science"
      - Emil Cioran "The Book of Delusions"
      - Gracian "The Art of Worldly Wisdom"
      - Heidegger Martin "The Question Concerning Technology"
      - Jacques Ellul "Propaganda The Formation of Mens Attitudes"
      - Mumford Lewis "The Culture of Cities"
      - Orwell "1984", "Down and Out in Paris and London", "Animal Farm"
      - Huxley "Brave New World", "The Doors Of Perception"
      - Michael Pollan "How to change your mind"
      - Jeff Hawkins "On Intelligence"
      - Fyodor Dostoevsky "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "Notes from the Underground", "The Brothers Kasamarov", "The Gambler", "The Idiot", "Crime & Punishment"
      - Peter Smith "Teach Yourself Logic"
      - Thomas More "Utopia"
      - Emil Cioran "The Trouble With Being Born"
      - Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago"
      - Nietzsche "Complete works"
      - Bulgakov "Master and Margarita"
      - Gerald M. Weinberg "The Secrets of Consulting"

------
robabby
I was introduced to the book "The Illuminatus Trilogy", by Robert Shea and
Robert Anton Wilson in High School and it turned out to be pretty impactful on
how my worldview developed. It pushed me towards questioning things, as
opposed to falling into some Conspiracy Theory rabbit-hole which the book
could easily nudge you towards.

------
liquidcool
"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini

This explains so much of human behavior, but I hesitate to recommend it to
people because it is so easily weaponized. To borrow from Harry Potter, it's
the closest thing I've seen to a book of charm spells, but was written as a
defense against the dark arts. Better everyone read it rather than just the
marketers.

What I really love about this book is how much of politics it has explained
for me, including the downfall of the USSR and the American civil rights
movements, but also newer events like Schwarzenegger's poltiical career.

If you like this, I'd also recommend:

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman "Predictably Irrational" by Dan
Ariely "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg

All are in a similar vein. For more focused book on human behavior, I
recommend first time team leads/managers read:

"Switch" by Dan and Chip Heath

A solid guide to changing organizational behavior.

------
nostrademons
Thomas Kuhn's _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_. Before, I'd thought
of science as absolute truths about the universe which we could only discover,
linearly. Afterwards, I learned that science is as much a political process as
any other major institution, that scientists are not immune to human
psychological biases, that the process of getting scientific theories accepted
is just as subject to selection bias ("the old generation dying out") as the
things it studies, and that science is effective to the extent that it
acknowledges these biases in a way that faith does not.

For a real mindbender, read Kuhn (history of science), Carlota Perez
(economics), and Stephen Jay Gould (evolutionary biology) in rapid succession.
There're very similar ideas there around paradigm shifts, selection bias, and
responses to environmental change there, appearing in many disparate domains.

~~~
FabHK
Kuhn needs to be put into perspective, though (just as Feyerabend). See
Chalmer's _What is this thing called Science?_ for an introduction and much
more material. And Gould has some good stuff ( _The Mismeasure of Man_ is
challenging), but he's controversial, and some of his ideas (NOMA, ie the
notion that religion and science are "non-overlapping magisteria") are, dunno,
not convincing.

------
AkshayD08
"Extreme Ownership" \- Jocko Willink and Leif Babin : This is an amazing book
which will make you stop complaining no matter what. It's all on you to make
it better. Such an amazing book which changed my perspective on external world
dependencies. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848190-extreme-
ownersh...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848190-extreme-ownership)

"Tools of Titans" \- Tim Ferriss : This book can be seen a summary of 15 most
popular non-fiction books. There are a lot of guests in this book with a
diverse back ground. There is wide wisdom you can pick on every page of this
book. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31823677-tools-of-
titans](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31823677-tools-of-titans)

------
tentam
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/178734.Summerhill](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/178734.Summerhill)
\- changed the way how I think about society. Very good book for parents.
Explains why people are prone to manipulation and following a bad leader.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2053923.What_Every_Paren...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2053923.What_Every_Parent_Needs_to_Know?from_search=true)
\- a very nice book about neuroscience for parents

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26329.Emotional_Intellig...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26329.Emotional_Intelligence?from_search=true)
\- changed the way how I think about emotions and interactions with people

------
jammygit
I read a book about personality types (Myer's Briggs) and wanted to learn
more, which led me to Carl Jung as a teenager. This opened up the whole world
of classical books to me and I somehow ended up mixed up with the ancient
Greeks (Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, some stoics, some skeptics) on a daily basis
for over a decade after that. I didn't agree with much of it, but it turned my
world upside down and gave me some amazing thinking tools.

Then Nietzsche did the same years later - he truly can't be appreciated until
you've spent 5-10 years reading philosophy searching for 'truth' and being
frustrated.

Finally, engineering school really twisted things again and made me confront
the difficulty of maintaining fundamental skepticism in the face of reliable
scientific law (or even the occasional deterministic program).

Its been quite the trip

------
bosslee
The book that have an impact on me is “so good, that they can’t ignore you”.

I started reading this book after my startup failed. I was looking for a job
and I have this mindset that I need to find this perfect job to fit my
passion. So the job hunting took sometime.

Picking up this book helps me understand there is not much need for passion
but more on the development of my talent and skills. It’s listed as a self-
help book so some might dislike it.

However the book did shed a different light on me. I’m in my new role for
about two years now and within this period I gotten a double promotion.

Do I love the work I do? Not really, it’s product ops mainly so people find
you to fix “issues”. However it does improved my skills a lot especially in
the area of managing cross functional teams .

I think this book is great for people going through career transition. And it
changed the way I view passion.

------
bosco2010
The Lessons of History written in 1968 by historians Will Durant and Ariel
Durant. They distill a lifetime of research into a small 100 page book. The
result is a survey of human history, full of dazzling insights into the nature
of human experience, the evolution of civilization, the culture of man.

------
go_blue_13
Annals of the Former World by McPhee. It's a geologic history of the United
States, from Precambrian time to now, as well as a history of human
understanding of geology.

The intersection of billions of years of history, a scale where ice ages come
and go like thunder storms, where mountains go up and down in quick
succession, with the human timescale of scientific progress, really altered my
perspective on a lot of things. We didn't have plate tectonics until the
1970's. My grandfather went to high school and college learning the classical
theories of orogenies, and just two generations later, a blink of an eye
relative to the movements of our Earth, human understanding of what shapes our
world is massively advanced.

It's made me think about every human endeavor differently. Everything we do
and are is so ephemeral.

------
cusack
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, by René Girard.

Girard was a professor at Stanford and writes about the idea of 'mimetic
desire'. His overarching idea is humans are fundamentally creatures of
mimesis, and whether we realize it or not all our desires are born out of
mimic the desires of those around us. We don't think critically about what we
actually want, we just sub-consciously mimic each other's desires - which
ultimately leads to conflict.

[West World Spoiler coming]

Reading his book, and theory on mimetic desire, felt like when Bernard
realizes he's a host in West World [https://www.amazon.com/See-Satan-Fall-
Like-Lightning/dp/1570...](https://www.amazon.com/See-Satan-Fall-Like-
Lightning/dp/1570753199)

------
g_sch
Reading Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell changed my views of human
nature and expanded my imagination on how societies can be organized.

The book is a series of histories of disaster events, natural and human-made.
It shows how traditional ideas of what happens to people in crisis - i.e. that
it brings out the worst in human nature and people need to be managed, by
force if necessary - are wrong and that disaster and hardship create temporary
communities that are peaceful, egalitarian, and supportive. In many cases, the
experience of working in common to support others was so powerful that it led
to profound individual and even structural political transformations.

All in all, it's a deeply optimistic view of human nature, one that you rarely
see these days.

------
theodor_shi
The Denial of Death
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death)

" Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work,
The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the
"why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school
of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to
acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature
of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more
than twenty years after its writing. "

------
dlbucci
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The lesson on the surface is that you need to
practice/work to become good at anything, but the deeper message for me was
that everything is basically preordained. People are acting based on what's
logical to them, which is the sum of their experiences. Since we can't control
what happens to us, we aren't really in control of what we do either. I mean,
the future is still wide open, but looking back, everything happens for a
reason, and those reasons are pretty much out of our control. I'm not entirely
certain that was the message Gladwell was trying to portray, but that's how
I've viewed life ever since I read that book.

------
MichaelEstes
Measure what Matters by John Doerr had a similar effect on me to what you're
describing with Freakonomics. I don't remember a lot of details from that
book, but the way I set and measured goals after reading it changed almost
overnight.

~~~
ismail
Have not read the book. Could you elaborate?

Here is what I have figured out regarding this topic.

1) most times what really matters to you is impossible to measure. When you
drill down to core motivation/drives.

E.g how does one measure “happiness”, relationship quality, friendship,
quality of life, learning etc.

2) Due to 1. we measure a proxy for the outcome we seek.

3) if we get this proxy wrong, and we optimise/improve it we have no effect on
the outcome. Maybe we even have the opposite effect.

4) We often import/take-on other peoples definitions/proxy metrics for the
outcome. Not our own.

Think it was Russel Ackoff who said “rather do the right things wrong then the
wrong things right”

In other words. Start with what you actually value/want and make sure the
metric will get you there.

~~~
MichaelEstes
That's great input/insight, I think I agree with with most of what you're
saying. What I really got from this book is that I was not managing my goals
correctly. As a programmer when I'm given a problem the first thing I do is
break it down into small, easily achievable pieces that then build up into the
final solution.

I wasn't doing this with my goals and a byproduct of that was that I wasn't
able to measure to progress of my final goals.

It's really more about how you manage your goals, not what they might be, but
even with something as broad as happiness I think this is still possible. If
you set "being happier" as your final goal, you can start to set daily,
monthly, yearly... goals that fold into happiness. Happiness may not be
strictly measurably, but if you know that working out 3 times a week makes you
happier you can set that as a weekly goal. You then can set monthly and yearly
goals around what working out steadily will improve (lifting more weight,
running further and faster) and those things will usually be easily
measurable.

There's edge cases for sure, as with most things. I will say it works better
in a work environment where most progress can be easily measured (Even though
it often isn't), but I think a good goal system is something that can be
beneficial for any goal you may set.

However I do agree with #3 & #4, if your final goals are not in the right
direction any adjustments to the daily, weekly, monthly goals will not improve
that and may have a negative overall effect, but I think that resolves to a
much larger issue than your goal management system.

------
juvoni
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine

------
spaceknarf
There are lots of books that changed the way I think. An example that may be
of special interest to the HN community is "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by
Cal Newport ([http://calnewport.com/books/so-
good/](http://calnewport.com/books/so-good/)). I have spent lots of time
finding the perfect career, until I learned from this book that you must
_stop_ finding the perfect career. Just do something that you like enough to
spend lots of time on it. Everything else will come. It was very liberating.

------
gcheong
Better Never to Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar
. The best argument I've read as to what it means for a human being to be
brought into existence, why it does that person more harm than good, and why
we should consider the question. While people generally find the idea
distasteful, especially if being or becoming a parent is a primary focus of
their life, I have yet to see any well-reasoned refutation to his argument
that isn't addressed in the book. The only problem is it can leave you with a
somewhat constant feeling of "well, what now?".

------
incidentist
"The Image" by Daniel Boorstin. It's kind of about what living in a world of
mass-produced images does to our sense of space, time and reality. So much of
our experience is of things that were created by other people to persuade us
to do something, and that's a pretty recent thing. More here:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/12/th...](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/12/the-
image-in-the-age-of-pseudo-reality/509135/)

------
gigapotential
Factfulness by Hans Rosling - it tells you about our world with actual
numbers.

~~~
grecy
I can't believe how far down the page I had to scroll to find this.

Absolutely opened my eyes to the realities of the world we live in.

------
dwighttk
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster

Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

------
eslaught
I'm surprised no one in this thread has mentioned _Hacker & Painters_:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449389554](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449389554)

This is the book that really got me into programing. I'd tried programming
before, and had even studied a C++ textbook and written some simple programs.
But it really hadn't clicked. Graham's points about the fundamental
expressiveness of different programming languages really blew my mind. This
started a chain of "learn language X and try to build Y" for different values
of X and Y.

Part of what I realized is how much I had been hampered by how difficult C++
is to pick up (especially with the IDEs of the early 2000s, which would give
you an "empty" project with a couple hundred lines of code in it). When I
realized that to write a Perl script, all I needed to do was open Notepad and
start from an empty file, it was just so unbelievably liberating. That and
also, obviously, just how much easier dynamic languages are to work with in
general. Of course I eventually came back to C++, but that was the spark which
kicked off a journey that lead to me flying through CS in college and
eventually ending up in a PhD program.

Edit: Fixed link. Note also that the essays are available online for free,
though you have to reverse engineer the reading order from the table of
contents.

------
onemoresoop
Seneca - Letters from a stoic; Herman Hesse - Steppenwolf , Siddhartha and The
glass bead game (Magister Ludi)

------
syndacks
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

It was the first/only book that put into words feelings I've had for my entire
teenage-->adult life around the complexities of a dysfunctional middle class
family.

------
doyoulikeworms
A manager at work (not mine) gave me a sliver of a book called "What Does it
All Mean?" by Thomas Nagel. It prompted me to appreciate and learn more about
philosophy. It also helped me learn to enjoy things like philosophy for their
own sake, outside of an academic setting. The book itself is a nice read and
very short. That gift was a much appreciated positive spark, and it affected
how I think about almost everything, though not so much directly.

I think about "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell a lot directly. Over time I've
appreciated it as a way to both motivate me to work towards success, and also
to cope with feeling not successful enough. The fact reflecting on that book
is helpful for both sides of that coin is part of its staying power for me, I
think.

"The State" by Franz Oppenheimer was also impactful. It was the first kind of
political theory that really gripped me. The idea that the State was something
to analyze and scrutinize in the way that he did was exhilarating. Touched a
nerve that resulted in significantly more questioning of authority and
critical thinking about power, generally.

"why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby" made a difference, too. The book itself is
great and it helped me to learn Ruby, and it also introduced me to _why. His
work made me view programming as not just a craft, like building a chair, but
also as an art form, like writing a book. It can be a way to express yourself
and be creative, and programmers can, indeed, be creative, too!

------
dsaavy
Due to its simplicity and truthfulness for me: Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi.

Not only did it help me see that no matter how accomplished/famous/old someone
is, there is the demystifying shared thing that we all do, but also humbled me
when I get too full of my skills or experience with anything in life. It’s a
pretty silly thing but always pops in my mind and changes my behavior almost
instantly.

Obviously it didn’t change the way I think about _everything_ but changed the
way I think about everything with people and social situations.

------
dkoston
Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations/Accountability

I read these books when I first got into management and they changed so many
things about the way I communicate with others. Everything in the books is
obvious but things I was never taught growing up.

Learning how to understand others' intentions by the totality of their body
language along with what they say is incredibly important. It's helpful for
diffusing tense situations, understanding whether or not strangers pose a
threat, easing tension in a relationship, etc.

------
mcraenich
I've been studying history privately for about 8 years now, and 'Maps of Time'
by David Christian has fundamentally changed the way I look at the progression
of mankind. Essentially, he's described from the highest possible level how
modernity has come to be. There is too much detail in the book to go into
depth, but it's a fascinating, and more than worthwhile read for the
knowledge-seeker.

Another I'd add is 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins. I have a Bachelor
degree in science and never thought I'd be able to add to my understanding of
evolution, but this book accomplished it. Almost everything I've studied can
be broken into two periods - that I studied before reading the Selfish Gene,
and what I studied after.

Lastly, I'd add Hume's 'Treatise on Human Nature', specifically his theory of
substances. The basic idea was that as you learn more information about a
substance, how you define that substance changes. First you see an orange
ball, and you think it's just an orange colored ball. Later someone tells you
it's a fruit, and your understanding of it changes.

How this is relevant is that I realized this can be applied to the world at
large. Our understanding of any given phenomena is intrinsically linked to
what we know about it. So there is no such thing as 'enlightenment' 'self-
awareness' etc, there is only ever increasing awareness as we move through
life, and we can also make a point to be intentional about increasing our own
awareness.

~~~
kulahan
>Our understanding of any given phenomena is intrinsically linked to what we
know about it

Duh? I don't understand what alternative could possibly exist. Do some people
somewhere think that the less they know about something, the more they
understand it, or that the very first look you take at anything in the world
is all you'll ever need to know about it?

~~~
mcraenich
For me I think it was more about making the process of learning explicit, and
the corollary that there is no such thing as 'complete knowledge'.

Where I think for a lot of people they learn about a thing, or a group of
things, until they come to accept something as absolutely and definitely true
- "what I know IS reality". Then the learning process just kind of stops there
because they think they know, when really they just know slightly more.

I see it all the time, people with the illusion of knowledge when there is a
ton more to the story.

------
rapht
I have seen Harari's "Sapiens" and Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" in the
comments.

Both are nice reads but Harari's book is shallow from multiple respects, and
Diamond's book omits important counter-examples.

To me the book that made everything fall into place with respect to political
history (and at some point, political philosophy) - and that I actually read
before Harari and Diamond - was Francis Fukuyama's "The Origins of Political
Order". An absolute must-read.

~~~
vitaminCPP
> To me the book that made everything fall into place with respect to
> political history [...]

Could you elaborate ? I would like to understand how it made everything fall
into place for you.

------
o2l
The Science Of Yoga by I. K. Taimni - A commentary on Yoga Sutras of
Patanjali. This might fall more on the religious side for many people but the
author as well as the original scripture has nothing to with Gods in Hindu
religion and describes how we perceive our reality and how should we proceed
to understand it and ourselves further. I have read a lot religious scripture
commentaries but this original scripture and author's interpretation of it is
something next level for me.

------
alphadevx
I think most books I read should impact me, given the time invested in
selecting and reading them.

My most recent example is Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, it made me realize how
difficult it would be for us to communicate with, or even comprehend the
motives of a sentient alien. I wrote a full review here:
[http://www.alphadevx.com/a/519-Review-of-Solaris-by-
Stanisla...](http://www.alphadevx.com/a/519-Review-of-Solaris-by-Stanislaw-
Lem)

------
john2x
The Little Prince. I read it when I was younger, so I wouldn't say it changed
how I think, but it shaped how I think and view the world to this day.

The most memorable part was around the fox.

------
rthomas6
* The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It introduced me to an entire world I didn't know was there before. Straight up Vipassana meditation is better, but it's less accessible, and this book started me on the path. Parts of it cross the woo threshold for me, but the book can fundamentally alter how one sees reality. We are not really how we appear to be. It is possible to greatly attenuate suffering. There is no taking his word for it; you can see it for yourself.

------
drjesusphd
"Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" by David MacKay - available for
download
([http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf](http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf)).

It really illustrates the enormity of the energy problem and the changes that
are needed to make sustainability a reality, especially for densely populated
regions like Europe and Japan.

------
orsenthil
I read a lot. But no one book has changed the way I think about almost
everything, persistently. It will be foolish to assume, some book will
magically do that.

All good ideas help, and we test those theories and decide our ourselves to
keep the idea or ignore it. We are sum total of our ideas and behaviors, and
it constantly evolves. Good books help with forming good ideas, and clear
thinking. It varies from person to person. It could be Quran, a psychology
book, or a puzzle book.

------
jccalhoun
History of Sexuality part 1 Michel Foucault puts for the repressive hypothesis
which I find myself thinking about a lot
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Sexuality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Sexuality)

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Erving Goffman uses the metaphor of
theater to explain how we perform roles
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Ev...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life)

I would say How to Do Things With Words by JL Austin which talks about the
power of words to bring things into existence but it really gets into too much
detail for me.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin#How_to_Do_Things_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin#How_to_Do_Things_with_Words)

Similarly Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty really influenced me
but it is really really really long and dense.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_of_Perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_of_Perception)

------
war1025
I don't know that any of them changed how I think about everything, but some
books I liked that I think are somewhat less well known:

\- Thanks for the feedback [1]. How to give and receive feedback well.

\- Start [2]. Sort of your run of the mill self help book. Thought it had some
nice insights in it.

\- Glass House [3]. Talks about the deterioration of industrial towns and the
society that used to be built around them.

\- Thinking in Bets [4]. Approaching situations from the perspective of a
gambler and how to choose what to do when you don't know all the facts.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114120-thanks-for-
the-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114120-thanks-for-the-feedback)

[2]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17249189-start](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17249189-start)

[3] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939240-glass-
house](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939240-glass-house)

[4] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957157-thinking-in-
bet...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957157-thinking-in-bets)

------
lars512
"The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson

It inspired me to think about the role technology can play in improving
someone's life, enhancing their development, helping them thrive.

------
gzell
Hold my beer ... "The Bible (KJV)"

------
fillskills
For me it was some books and some other media.

Books: 1\. Sapiens - It finally connected a lot of dots on how things work in
the world (money, governments, religions, companies etc) and how humans
communicate at scale.

2\. On intelligence - Gives you a decent perspective on how brains work. How
they are like learning centers that are continuously trying to figure out what
is going on around us. How they store and recall that data and finally how
they use our senses to put a lot of context around different concepts like
objects, ideas, poems, people etc. Also it shares some examples to prove that
our brain is not limited by its senses. Those examples just blew my mind wide
open.

3\. Biography of Einstein - I always imagined that people like Einstein are
lone geniuses and worked in a silo. But it was pretty clear from the bio that
even Einstein learnt and practiced his science by bouncing off ideas and fine
tuned his explanations through many many different and equally brilliant
people. And the role that his parents played in constantly keeping him
challenged.

Non book: Blue planet 2: You think aliens would be different than us? Check
out some of the species on our own planet and no animal will ever seem alien
to you anymore.

Some ideas that got triggered outside of a particular book: 1\. All non
natural things around us that I thought were super complicated were actually
built by humans like me. Rules, bridges, planes, rockets, buildings, religions
etc. This opened my mind that even I am capable to contributing in a
significant manner.

2\. Happiness is not the goal. It is an incentive to get the goal. This keeps
me motivated to think beyond the current issues and focus on the future.

------
SaintGhurka
The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias. It inoculated me
against a lot of potentially bad financial decisions. Also a fairly quick and
entertaining read - which helps in a dry subject like personal finance.

Poland by James Michener - or any other of Michener's historical fiction. Not
all of them are great literary works, but because they span thousands of
years, they caused me to start thinking generationally.

~~~
octygen
Every Michener impacts you differently. Also, his style of writing is
unmatched in my opinion. He is a master storyteller and can take any topic to
make it interesting.

------
luisehk
Principles by Ray Dalio. It provides a good principle-based decision making
framework, and I also found his own principles to be interesting and
insightful.

------
xaedes
I recommend George Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". This is about
comparative mythology, aka comparative story telling. He works out the core
elements and common concepts that appear in story telling across cultures and
time.

It opened my mind to be able to understand all kinds of storys on another
level.

In school I always hated literature. It was like they tried to make me do
something I just didn't understand at all. Literature was just random stories
for me and all interpretation and attribution of meaning was fruitless and had
I to just guess/fake it. Yea maybe my education was just bad who knows,
doesn't matter now.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces changed that. Now I was open for all the
literature and saw everything in a new light. I could recognize common
concepts in stories and human life in general.

It also opened my mind for later Alan Watts reads on the interconnected-ness
of everything. Someone already recommended Alan Watts. Which I can only
approve of! I'd also like to add "The Way of Zen" and "The Book - On the Taboo
Against Knowing Who You Are", also by Watts.

(self-copy from previous similar discussions)

------
otras
A _Mind for Numbers_ by Barbara Oakley (and her corresponding _Learning How To
Learn_ course) absolutely changed my approach to learning and studying.

Applying the lessons made my studying many times more productive. After
getting Bs and Cs in many of my undergrad classes, I recently finished a five
course post-bacc CS program with all As. While Dr. Oakley isn't the only
reason, it absolutely helped!

------
admirethemeyer
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

I know this is a recent book but it got me to think about personal, religious,
and government motivations from a different perspective.

------
leroy_masochist
Jaynes's Origin of Consciousness -- not only because it's a fascinating
argument in itself, but because it really makes me wonder, if Jaynes was
right, is there another population-wide "upgrade" in store for humanity. If
so, what it would look like?

Also, now that we know more about epigenetics, that's another really
interesting framework in which to contemplate Jaynes's thesis.

------
timtas
The Law - Frédéric Bastiat, 1850 [1]

Bastiat was a great French Economist and liberal political philosopher. He
been considered as more of a popularizer than an original thinker, but that's
unwarranted. The Law is the greatest work of classical liberal political
though that I have encountered. In school we all read Locke's Second Treatise
of Government, but we should have first read The Law. It's very short--more of
a long essay than a full length book--but it packs an earth shattering wallop.

Bastiat is also an intellectual ancestor of the Austrian School of economics.
The famous Hazlitt book, Economics in One Lesson, is an extended meditation on
Bastiat's classic essay, That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen [2],
which is the origin of the Broken Window Fallacy.

[1] [http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html](http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html)

[2]
[http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html](http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html)

------
uf
Sick Societies by Robert Edgerton changed my view on pretty much all aspects
of mankind.

By giving vivid examples of failing or badly functioning and "maladaptive"
(processes in) various (indigenous) societies he made made me value our
current state of existence very much: Government, rights, laws, police,
infrastructure, jobs, and all that really are a great achievement of mankind.

------
rsmets
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe Food of the Gods - Terence McKenna

~~~
bishop74
Food of the Gods was an amazing read but IMHO the audio lectures of Terence
McKenna completely changed the way I look at the world.

------
peteforde
I read a lot of books. I also listen to a lot of books. Listening to
Audiobooks in the shower is a true power move if you haven't tried it. I was
sceptical until I realized that my medium-term memory was as good or better
than for books I'd read.

Anyhow, few books have made as significant an impact on my life in both
personal and professional circumstances than "Difficult Conversations" by
Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen.

A learned habit to stop and empathize with the motivations behind people's
emotional upset has completely changed the way I interact with everyone in my
life. I used to think that I was rational and a great communicator. I've come
to understand that I've missed countless opportunities to comfort those I care
about while saving myself literally years of stress.

Many of my regrets are based on retroactive realizations of how avoidable some
of my communications failures actually were, given the long term damage that
they helped to cause.

Please, read Difficult Conversations and give copies to people that you love.

------
justfor1comment
For me it was this free book available on [https://www.core-
econ.org/](https://www.core-econ.org/) It is an easy to approach economics
book. It helped me understand how a few simple ideas like free markets, firms
and technological innovation led to the creation of the amazing prosperity of
our civilization.

------
stirfrycats
The Bible and Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon

~~~
beginrescueend
The Bible, definitely. Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan.

Those are the two most published books in history and have changed more
people's thinking than any two other books.

------
dm03514
Principles by Ray Dalio, completely changed the way I think.

Currently in the middle of thinking fast and slow, and I think it may be
happening again :p

~~~
war1025
I think I got about halfway through Principles and just could make myself
finish it. I get that the guy is super methodical, but it seemed too much for
me.

------
nicodjimenez
The Goal (by Eliyahu) - changed the way I thought about business operations
and about how efficiency can be detrimental to throughput

------
tdhz77
Of Mice and Men. Clear and concise sentences are the best sentences. Pain and
suffering is worse than death. Quality of life matters.

~~~
plants
Plus, you can read this one in about a day or two. Picked it up for the second
time about a year ago. Cried again at the end.

------
chuckgreenman
Dale Carnegie's Winning Friends and Influencing people is so simple, but the
technique really works.

Become genuinely interested in people, make them feel good, they will
appreciated it. The advice is essentially don't be a jerk and do talk to
people about the things they are interested. When you start doing that it's
like playing life on easy mode.

------
KuhlMensch
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Little_Piggies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Little_Piggies)

 _In his latest collection of essays originally published in Natural History
magazine, paleontologist Gould examines diverse and diverting topics. The
title piece refers to toes, and we learn that five is not necessarily the
optimum number. Gould re-examines the work of astronomer Edmund Halley and
16th-century Irish Archbishop James Ussher, who pinpointed the moment of
creation (Oct. 23, 4004 B.C.);_

Edit: I see _The Selfish Gene_ listed here quite a bit. It might be of special
interest to you to read Dawkins "rival" on the other side of the pond -
Stephan Jay Gould. His "punctuated equilibrium" resonates with me more than
Dawkins take on evolution, simply because it involves something less "neat".

Plus, even as a child I found Gould made me laugh out loud sometimes.

------
TravelTechGuy
1984 changed the way I perceive language and culture permanently. The notion
that if certain words no longer exist in the language, then the associated
idea will disappear from the culture was Earth-shaking to me.

Another idea that book drove home was the power for the media and the utter
control of your life a government can exert when it completely controls it.

------
dbrgn
"Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. The claims are hard to
prove and I'm not sure how much actually is true (although most things sound
plausible), but it changed the way I think about geopolitical events. I
usually try to find out what the economic incentives there are behind an event
(e.g. wars and oil).

------
misiti3780
1\. All of Nassim Taleb's Books - They changed the way I thought about tail
probabilities and risk taking + bar bell strategies in general

2\. Thinking Fast and Slow - made me think about all of the biases that my
mind has that I dont even realize

3\. The organized mind - This book gave me a lot of ideas about how I can
change my life to live with less distractions and maybe do thinks more
efficently

4\. The Vital Question - Made me realize how lucky we as humans and complex
cellular beings are to even exist.

5\. Misquoting Jesus (and all of Ehrman's other books) - Gave me talking
points I use against any/all overzealous Christians in my life. The stories of
the bible are not remotely close to the stories that where handed down by the
people that were with Jesus when he died. Over 100s of years and many errors
(and a lot of luck), people decided Jesus was the son of God. Unfortunately
for them, the chances of that being true are very very close to zero.

~~~
jorangreef
Bart Ehrman is not the most conservative scholar. He's also been known by
peers to have two faces, depending on who he's dealing with, whether his
audience is academic or pop.

Bruce Metzger is a far more reliable (and recognized) guide, regardless of
religious inclination. At worst, you will have a more balanced perspective
after reading Metzger, and at best you will see where Ehrman has let you down.

"Over 100s of years and many errors" is pseudo-science. It makes for a Dan
Brown novel for the uninitiated, but it doesn't fit the facts. Few mainstream
scholars today would deny the accuracy of the New Testament documents, nor
their 1st century authorship and dating.

~~~
misiti3780
I'll check him out. Im not sure what your definition of mainstream scholars is
but most evangelical christians i speak with in the US don't doubt the
accuracy - and they compose a large group of people.

~~~
jorangreef
"I'll check him out."

Fantastic. Would be great to hear how you find him.

"most evangelical christians [...] don't doubt the accuracy"

By "mainstream scholars" I don't necessarily mean evangelical Christians, just
non-fringe ancient historians or textual critics.

In this respect, Ehrman himself is interesting, because he's not actually the
most extreme liberal, and you can find Ehrman himself correcting the fringe
scholars when he wants to. When Ehrman is writing for the masses, however, you
almost want to say to him "you should know better". After all, he had the
privilege of sitting under Metzger.

------
sandreas
The book Momo by the German author Michael Ende is fantastic. It has
completely changed the way I think about time, patience and listening to other
people. It is a children's book, but also highly recommended for adults -
there is also an English version available, but I don't know how good the
translated version is.

------
Tomminn
Oh man, this is such a pretentious answer, but Philosophical Investigations by
Wittgenstein. Seriously.

The basic idea of the book that you cannot think straight until you understand
the hard limits of thought, and respect it can never be more than a supplement
to performing useful actions in the world, is a lesson I've never unlearned.

------
grawprog
Farenheit 451. It made me look at the things we have in the world today
differently. I personally think it came closer than 1984 at predicting the
future. The attitudes of the general society in that world reminded me of the
way certain topics, information and discourse have become taboo and society
has become the arbiters of what information is deemed allowable. The way
everyone is expected to numb themselves with drugs, their giant tv screens and
their ear buds and anyone that would rather learn is looked at with suspicion.

I never actually read it until around the time the iPhone came out and
everyone was walking around with those white earbuds. I remember sitting on
the bus reading and I looked up and stared around at the people on their
phones with their white earbuds and all I could think was holy fuck Ray
Bradbury was right.

------
Insanity
The psychology of computer programming.

I recently read that one and it made me see my profession as a software
engineer in a new light.

At work, I catch myself using possessive pronouns about code a lot for
example. It really shone a nice light on the human element and how we reason
and think about code and programming.

Really recommend reading that one!

------
stblack
Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business

[https://www.amazon.ca/Riding-Waves-Culture-Understanding-
Div...](https://www.amazon.ca/Riding-Waves-Culture-Understanding-
Diversity/dp/0071773088)

Literally rethought everything following this read.

------
yawaramin
Not a book but a graphic novel, _Lucifer_ by Mike Carey. It was a spinoff of
Neil Gaiman's _Sandman_ which explored the Devil's life after quitting his job
as ruler of Hell. In case you were thinking about the TV show–no, it's nothing
like that. Lucifer in the GN, i.e. the fallen angel Samael, is a complex
character but in a way he's driven by one simple desire, to be free from his
Father's Plan for Creation. To not be controlled by predestination in a
clockwork universe. To escape from a controlling parent.

Mixed in with the magical fantasy and high adventure, there are major
philosophical themes of what it means to be free–and for Lucifer it is to
absolve oneself from all concept of or involvement with worshipping a deity.
It was a big influence on my thinking about religion and philosophy.

------
thaw13579
One book not already mentioned is Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity. It
makes fairly broad and sweeping analysis, so there is plenty to disagree with.
That said, this book opened my eyes to important concerns about language and
cognition that, only in retrospect, seem glaringly obvious.

------
MediumD
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

------
sparasur
Inner game of tennis - Timothy Gallwey classic on sports psychology. unpacks
ego and its role in learning and performance. from amateur to elite levels.
introduces concepts like 2 "selfs". reading this book was a very religious
experience and dare i say improved my weekend tennis too.

------
sksareen1
Flow fundamentally changed how I look at self improvement, optimization and
how you can work on yourself

[https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mihaly-
csikszentmihaly...](https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mihaly-
csikszentmihalyi-father-of-flow/)

------
chadcmulligan
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows

I'd done a lot of computer systems and engineering control courses but this
book put systems into perspective for me. They're everywhere and we're
embedded in them. If you want to change the world this is the book to read.
Its also a quick read.

------
RandomNick
The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard

------
smaddox
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown revolutionized my understanding of anxiety,
guilt, shame, vulnerability, courage and trust. For most of my life, I could
not distinguish between the feeling of anxiety and the feelings of guilt,
shame, and vulnerability, nor did I understand or see all the different forms
of armor I donned in order to avoid feeling vulnerable. This book clarifies
the distinction between these feelings, describes the different forms of armor
we wear, and discusses how building shame resilience and daring greatly are
critical to forming deeper and more meaningful connections with the people
around us.

The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples by John Gottman
revolutionized my understanding of trust and relationships. Reading it was
like flipping on the light switch after stumbling around in the dark for
decades.

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson revolutionized my
understanding of myth, faith, suffering, evil, meaning, and responsibility. It
illuminates the underlying ailments that plague our modern societies and
describes what we can and should do, as individuals, to improve our lives and
the lives of those around us. It reaffirms the basic tenant of many world
religions that suffering is real, and that the intentional creation of
unnecessary suffering is evil. And finally, it makes a case that meaning is
derived from responsibility.

------
james_s_tayler
Why Nations Fail really helped give me deep intuitions around politics. It
taught me that political stability is immensely hard to achieve and very rare.
I've since come to see every situation as a political situation. This helps me
reason about my environment much more clearly.

------
CJKerr
* Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K. Anders Ericsson

Much of our upbringing and education is underpinned by the assumption that
"talent" is a real thing. Peak dismantles that assumption pretty thoroughly.
The implications are far-reaching and I recommend it to everyone.

------
JDDunn9
How to Measure Anything, by Douglas W. Hubbard.

When he says anything, he means anything. How to measure the value of a human
life, how to estimate things you know nothing about (like the gestation period
of an African elephant), and how to get better at measuring things with
limited information.

------
retreatguru
‘Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect’ by Ian Stevenson.

This book radically changed my understanding of reality, consciousness and the
nature of self. I’m a very skeptical and scientifically minded person; this
book looks at the subject of life after death from an evidence based approach.

------
legohead
The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner. It's about Bell Labs and the people behind
it.

The idea that a company would have some kind of special research division
where people can pretty much do as they wish (just "improve the product")
feels like something in a fantasy world. But it existed, and it gave us
amazing inventions that fast forwarded technology and improved the lives of
everyone, and barely anyone even knows about it! Lasers, the transistor, fiber
optics, UNIX, the cell network, even friggin information theory.

Even the [eventual] HQ building was designed in a interesting way. They had
purposely long hallways of offices, so whenever you had to go to lunch (or the
bathroom) you would inevitably be 'caught' by coworkers, forcing interaction.

~~~
readhn
> I know Google has X-labs or whatever, but I don't really know about the
> politics behind it or how free their engineers are allowed to be.

i think one of the echoes from this idea at google is the "20% of your time
you work on a project of your choice"

not sure if there is anything else at google like that.

------
matt_j
"The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916" by Alistair Horne

Details the battle of Verdun (France v Germany), one of the longest and
bloodiest battles of WW1 with around 700000 dead, more than 1 man killed every
minute for 10 months. A slaughter of men by machinery. I've read a bunch of
books about the great wars and they are all affecting, some of them deeply,
but this one showed me in stark relief the mindless brutality and utter
futility of war. People talk of wars as necessary, of actions as heroic. It's
sad that a civilized species, capable of high reasoning, can still resort to
base violence so easily. It wasn't very long ago, and there's been a lot of
violence since, some of it on comparable scales. We don't learn much.

------
ziotom78
The book that changed my life is "The Brothers Karamazov," by Dostoevsky.
Nowhere I found such a great depth and insight into the nature of human
freedom, and the reading questioned many beliefs I had at the time about human
nature and the meaning of life.

I distinctly remember reading and re-reading the chapter telling the tale of
the Grand Inquisitor. Only after two or three readings of the whole novel I
began to grasp Dostoevsky's answer to the Inquisitor's objections, which are
not stated plainly in the text but are instead suggested by the way the
narrative unfolds.

I have read many other books by Dostoevsky (my other favorites are "The
Devils" and "The Idiot"), but "The Brothers Karamazov" is still my favorite.

------
Wildgoose
I was blown away by Erwin Schrödinger's "What is Life?".

Just using pure reason and inference he not only made accurate predictions
about DNA he also inspired a whole generation of physicists to switch to
molecular biology and discover the fundamental building blocks of Life.

------
Maultasche
One book I remember well is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
([https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-
Rober...](https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-
Cialdini/dp/006124189X)).

That really made me aware of all the things people do to try to influence
other people. I probably read that book 15 years ago, but I still recognize
sales tactics based on principles in that book. It helped me to be more aware
of attempts at manipulation when people are trying to sell things. It had a
big effect on what I noticed going on in the world.

It's really more about human psychology and how people attempt to influence
each other than it is a book about selling.

------
goqu
There is one book that finally made me to do some work and it's called "The
Midas Method". Some of it describes a set of rules (methods) we should live by
to make the luck leaning towards us.

Simple things as "Watch your language! Never say “I can’t do that”" or "Never
blame anything or anybody else for your misfortune" And my favorite is "Grab
every opportunity which is going" You'll keep yourself busy and open for the
world.

[https://hundredfoot.com/bookstore/the-midas-
method](https://hundredfoot.com/bookstore/the-midas-method)

It's a little dated but the stupid thing is the basic principles if you can be
bothered to understand them really do work.

------
a_bonobo
Some books:

Two books by Erich Fromm, a German/American philosopher of the 50s/60s: _The
Art of Loving_. Some points: To him love is a skill that has to be practiced
and learned, love in a relationship is constant hard work, love of another is
only possible if you first love yourself, and you cannot love another human
being if you do not love mankind. A little bit later he published _The Sane
Society_ , a Marxist critique of capitalist society, how consumerism leads to
self-alienation etc.

>Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism have in common that they offered the atomized
individual a new refuge and security. These systems are the culmination of
alienation. The individual is made to feel powerless and insignificant, but
taught to project all of his human powers into the figure of the leader, the
state, the "fatherland," to whom he has to submit and whom he has to worship.
He escapes from freedom and into a new idolatry. All the achievements of
individuality and reason, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century
are sacrificed on the altars of the new idols. ...built on the most flagrant
lies, both with regard to their programs and to their leaders.

Sounds familiar?

\- Donna Meadows' Thinking in Systems, how to model anything as an
interconnected system, and how unseen positive and negative feedback loops
cause unintended consequences in any system

\- Anne Lammott's Bird by Bird - I have to write a lot for my work and this is
the best primer on getting things out the door

\- For the Australians: Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu, on how early white European
settlers completely misunderstood indigenous agriculture, all the things that
were lost when Europeans settled Australia, and what we can use today. Gives
you a VERY different look at Australian history.

\- Ha-Joon Chang's Economics: The User's Guide. Just came out, an absolutely
amazing intro and look at modern economics, the flimsiness of neoliberalist
thought, and how we need to use the tools of each economic school of thought
to think about the economy, not getting stuck on one school

------
eugene2012
Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

------
kregasaurusrex
Surprised not to have seen it elsewhere, but I remember telling my mom that we
began studying astronomy in grade school (5th or 6th?) and she gave me Cosmos
by Carl Sagan. I didn't know there was a TV series for it at the time, where
reading it truly blew my mind that there were other galaxies and stellar
objects beyond the Milky Way, and how happenstance humanity's origin story
began. It also provided a great foundation for understanding what future
missions would explore: finding habitibility zones outside of the earth,
probes zooming to the edges of our galaxy, radio telescopes designed to listen
for signals from far away, and space telescopes expanding our map of the
cosmos just to name a few.

------
Meekro
"Dumbing us Down" by John Taylor Gatto. The author is a decades-long
schoolteacher. Throughout this book, I got to know the history of compulsory
government-provided schooling as we know it and began to question whether such
a system is even necessary.

------
tim333
The Moral Animal had a big influence on me. "a 1994 book by Robert Wright, in
which the author explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary
biology" (wikipedia).

I'm not sure it's the best now but it was my introduction to it at the time.

------
koolhead17
One book that has changed my way of seeing every aspect of my life is: The
Enchiridion By Epictetus [1]

1:
[http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html)

------
aethertap
Resilience Thinking, by Walker and Salt, is a concise and clear presentation
of what makes complex things resilient, and how it can go wrong. I see the
ideas from there everywhere from ecosystems to business. This one really made
it much easier to think about the big picture and the long tail of
consequences in otherwise messy systems.

Complexity, by Mitchell, is an introductory look at complex systems that
changed the way I see the systems in the world and sent me off on a long
tangent to learn more.

Life's Ratchet, by Hoffann, is just plain mind-blowing, or at least it was for
me. It's about the inner mechanics of living cells, and does a really good job
of conveying how insanely complex life is.

------
rocky1138
The Chalkbox Kid, because I read it when I was 10 and it was the first real
book I read from cover to cover which wasn't a small children's book. It's a
good story, too.

More recently, the short novel The Machine Stops blew me away with its
prescience.

------
colvasaur
An old statistics professor recommended I read The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb.
The book's voice has some ego and it's unnecessarily verbose at times, but it
changed the way I think about modeling, forecasting, and day-to-day
assumptions.

------
habosa
A few fiction choices:

    
    
      * The Alchemist - the closest thing in my life to a religious text.  Just a beautiful story that I can recall at any time for some calm.
    
      * Desert Solitaire - just read this recently and it gave me an entirely new outlook on the relationship between humans and nature. 
    
      * Don Quixote - I was blown away by how a book that is ~600 years old could make me laugh and keep me interested.  Changed how I think about people 'a long time ago' since they could enjoy the same books I do.
    
      * House of Leaves - this one just split open my brain in an irreversible way, sort of like how you hear people describe certain drugs.

------
covercash
From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp is one I haven’t seen posted yet.

[https://www.aeinstein.org/from-dictatorship-to-
democracy/](https://www.aeinstein.org/from-dictatorship-to-democracy/)

------
Kagerjay
I only read 10% of a book called "Ego is the enemy". I don't intend on reading
it anymore. It was recommended by a few developers I respect.

There was one specific anecdote that rung true. Jackie Robinson, the first
African American baseball player. It took a lot of guts to actually make in
the MLB. First to get in athletically. Second to not lose his cool, because of
racial segregation. Third, to actually be recognized as Rookie of the year. He
had a lot of opposition against him but never got triggered. And he was a role
model for many.

There's some other good books, like the "Toyota Way" and "Thinking fast and
slow"

------
earino
I have a masters degree in Negotiation & Conflict Resolution. There's two
books that give you negotiation superpowers:

1\. Getting to Yes 2\. Getting Past No

Those two books by themselves are enough to truly learn how to become an adept
principled negotiator.

------
miltondts
Science and human behavior - BF Skinner PDF available for free from the
Skinner foundation: [http://www.bfskinner.org/newtestsite/wp-
content/uploads/2014...](http://www.bfskinner.org/newtestsite/wp-
content/uploads/2014/02/ScienceHumanBehavior.pdf)

Skinner's views on human behavior evolved a bit after this book was publish
until he died but this book was my first contact with his ideas.

This book changed the way I view humans (myself included). It made me more
empathic. It allowed me to unified many concepts of human/animal behavior and
AI.

------
Regardsyjc
This is crazy but Peter Thiel and Blake Masters' book Zero to One changed the
way I thought about everything. Thiel's thoughts were so contrarian to
everything I had learned or thought I knew that it literally changed my
reality.

It was kind of like when I learned how to program - what I read in his book -
gave me a new lens to interpret how or what I saw in the world. It created a
crack that made me wonder what else I wasn't seeing or able to see.

There was a page in there about secrets in plain sight and it bothered me for
years because I couldn't understand what he meant until I finally read
Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday.

------
unlivingthing
One book that changed my perception about things is "Commentaries on Living by
J. Krishnamurti". I used to have pretty rigid belief about things and ways of
living. This book really helped me identify and break down the walls I had
built for myself that prevented me from growing.

Link: [https://krishnamurti-teachings.info/book/commentaries-on-
liv...](https://krishnamurti-teachings.info/book/commentaries-on-living-first-
series.html)

Archived page: [http://archive.is/mp9W6](http://archive.is/mp9W6)

------
linguistbreaker
Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Fankl

------
beefman
_A Farewell to Alms_ by Gregory Clark. It changed my mind about the nature of
industrial civilization.

 _Surely You 're Joking, Mr. Feynman!_ and the sequel, _What Do You Care What
Other People Think?_

 _Mindstorms_ by Seymour Papert

------
hammock
Stephen Covey 7 Habits. Not so much the habits themselves, but rather the
ideas presented. Specifically: principle-centered life, character ethic vs.
personality ethic, circle of concern and circle of influence, etc.

------
jameane
There are 3 for me: I agree about Freakanomics - it definitely got me thinking
about how economics rules the world in one way or another.

The New Jim Crow - this gave me a way to frame structural racism and its
impact now, in today's society.

The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football - I read this in high
school. And it really gave me an understanding on how sports reflects our
society's structure and values in the narrow sense. And got me thinking about
how, more broadly, pop culture is a really good lens to use to understand our
culture whether it is sports, tv, music or mass media.

------
xyzzy99
Sounds nerdy and specialized, but Abelson & Sussman's SICP; 1st read an early
draft in a CS class ~1985 and it changed the way I thought about computers,
programing, science and problem solving forever...

------
danieloj
The Better Angels of Our Nature - Steven Pinker. A mammoth book but this is
because it covers so much. Everyone time I put it down I was left with
something to reflect on human nature and how far we've come!

------
jonstewart
Louis Menand’s _The Metaphysical Club_, from 2001. It is a combined history of
William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and their
later acolyte, John Dewey, as well as of their related ideas, which go by the
shorthands Pragmatism and Pluralism. Although a formal history, Menand is a
fine writer and there’s much practical philosophy in here, much of which
serves as the wellspring for other contemporary books cited in comments here.
It was a great book for understanding America, strains of American thought,
and how not to be wrong.

------
MisterOctober
"The Apple Grower" by Michael Phillips [Chelsea Green] - its technical
insights aside, it showed me that it's possible to attain proficiency and
maybe even excellence at something, no matter how daunting it may be, though
sheer fanatical dedication.

"Old Southern Apples" by Lee Calhoun, as above but more about the potential
wisdom and benefit in pursuing the quixotic.

"Beethoven's Letters" by LVB trans. Kalischer [Dover] - made me realize it's
OK to struggle mightily with everyday difficulties even if you're shooting for
the loftiest goals.

------
onemoresoop
Arthur Clarke's Childhood's end. I know it's fiction but it left me
speechless. And aside from the descriptions of technology foreseen at that it
was written, I think it's timeless.

“No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their
material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented
with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest
dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still
remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart.”

------
rcarmo
I can name

\- The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy (there is absolutely nothing quite
like it, and it taught me to laugh - or at least giggle - at anything)

\- Dune (the notion of mental discipline, at least as idealized by Frank
Herbert, made an impression on me)

\- Sherlock Holmes (focused awareness and logic)

\- Godel, Escher, Bach - The Eternal Golden Braid (multiple takes on
awareness, logic and creativity)

There are more, but I tend to avoid Malcom Gladwell style books (and
Freakonomics uses a lot of the extrapolation-by-slingshot-logic approach) and
the like because they play upon our biases and are often quickly disproved.

------
city41
So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo.

It really opened my eyes to many issues about race I was not aware of and did
a great job explaining the real problem is systemic racism. It had a pretty
profound impact.

------
NikolaNovak
Of all the books I read - fiction and non fiction, wonderful ideas in SF and
Carl Sagan - I'd have to single out Selfish Gene, as it single-handedly
changed my perspective and mental/internal framework of the universe. I
struggled philosophically with questions of consciousness and our place &
meaning in the universe.

Note that I cannot always wholeheartedly, universally recommend all his later
philosophical / atheism books to a wider audience, Selfish Gene is a no-
brainer to me. \--- Close second is Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

------
xutopia
My top books:

\- The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan - It gave me the tools required to
cut through bullshit and helped me free myself from the shackles of a
religious upbringing

\- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - Gave me the courage to look at things
differently when everyone thinks we know it all

\- Zero to One by Peter Thiel - It made me question what I was doing
professionally and I now have a list of questions to answer whenever I am in a
startup to help guide me

\- Compersion by Hypatia From Space - It help remove limits to how I can love
and care for the people that are important to me.

~~~
lolcat5e
I'm reading 'The Demon Haunted World' at the moment - "Finding the occasional
straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires
vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practise these tough habits
of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us
and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, a world of suckers, up for grabs by
the next charlatan who saunters along." From 1997. Very prescient. We've a
mountain of suckers... a Suckerberg.

------
juliend2
"Start with Why", by Simon Sinek.

Everything from leadership to how your mission needs to speak to people's
reptilian brain first, because that's how people ultimately make their
decisions.

It helped me think about the deep motivations that should drive me to build a
successful company. Apart from making money. And all the benefits that comes
with thinking from Why, to How and then to What.

It was an eye-opener for me. And it's full of real-world stories to really
make you understand his points.

I highly recommend the audiobook narrated by Simon Sinek himself, on Audible.

------
a3n
No specific book changed my thinking on "almost everything." Mostly old age
did that, and the process of attaining old age. Some of that process included
books, and some of those are listed here.

> every action humans take can be traced back to an incentive

It's not enough to know that an action traces back to an incentive. You also
need to know which of multiple possible incentives might be _the_ incentive.
The obvious incentive is often not the actual incentive, as we're seeing
demonstrated in current American and British politics.

------
HNLurker2
What I find mind blowing was the amount of classical literature there is:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLghL9V9QTN0jTgA1qrhWr...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLghL9V9QTN0jTgA1qrhWrBCB_Ln4xlVlB)
I recommend this video sequence because it can give you (a bit of cheating) a
map of classical books and for people like JP who quote Dostoevsky novels
like: Notes and Three Brothers, at least have a glimpse of which one are
worthy diving deep into.

Also appealing to children

------
yogeshp
1\. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps,
and the Tenth Dimension [1]

2\. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in
Less Time.[2]

[1]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33426.Hyperspace](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33426.Hyperspace)

[2]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_)

------
avetisk
Bhagavad-Gita as It is:
[https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/](https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/)

Made me see the world, my life, my code and my desires, everything in a total
different way.

It's like when you want to an apple then someone points out that a hole the
worm's head can be seen out of it, or that actually the painting you're about
to throw is masterpiece worth millions.

Gives light were it's all darkness.

It's really life changing, at least, it was for me.

------
arkaic
"But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past"
by Chuck Klosterman was very influential in getting me to step back and
question all my assumptions.

------
MattyRad
Grendel - John Gardner

It is the story of Beowulf, told from the monster's point of view. It
underscores the constant internal struggle between nihilistic despair and
finding meaning in life (for yourself and others). It strikes a chord with
_Ozymandias_ [0].

It is primarily responsible for me abandoning my strong Catholic upbringing
(and, ironically, despite John Gardner himself being a Christian).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias)

------
andersthue
I read the book “The anatomy of peace” 16 months ago, and it has impacted my
life in more ways than I ever would have thought possible.

It helped me understand how I created all the trouble I have experienced in my
life, why I never became “succesful” and why I had felt so stuck most of my
life.

I now understand how my mindset, how I see the person in front of me, either
as a person or as an object, has a greater impact on my results than anything
else.

Even on my abillity to be unstuck, to change my mind, to moce fast and break
things.

10/10 would recommend it to anyone.

------
sb1752
Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. I used to think of the world mostly in
terms of dramatic events, heroes and villains. I now mostly see systems and
incentives, patterns and trends.

------
kolleykibber
The Selfish Gene by Dawkins, back when he was more young and idealistic. It
changed my relationships with people. Recently reading Sapiens I recognised
the same qualities in the writing.

------
johnjones4
I highly recommend Jean Case's book "Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of
Breakthroughs and Purpose." It's packed with some incredible stories (some
you'll know of, others will be new to you) about people overcoming their fears
to create change. (Full disclosure: I work for Jean so this is somewhat of a
shameless plug, but I promise the book is amazing!)
[https://readbefearless.com/](https://readbefearless.com/)

------
3minus1
* The Selfish Gene - our bodies are vessels for DNA as they travel through time. Also colony insects and birds are fascinating. * Thinking Fast and Slow - study after study shows that we exhibit so, so many cognitive biases, as our minds take shortcuts. there are some things you can do to recognize and mitigate these biases. Imagined Communities - the notion of a "nation" is only 300 years old and has no objective basis, only the fact that a group of people agree that it is a thing.

------
ByThyGrace
Marvin Harris' theories of material anthropology. I can't one-line the meaning
behind his findings and theories, because it's wonderfully complex.

It's an explanation that makes sense out of otherwise nonsensical human habits
of cultures (tribal, ancient and modern).

If you're curious and want to read something enjoyable—he's a decent
writer—check out "Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches" (preferably one of the later
editions), or for something a little denser: "Cannibals and Kings".

------
ratbr
Not a book but the novella “the machine stops” by E. M. Forster. I read this
in the late nineties and it still pops up in my head frequently — especially
in our age of the internet.

------
contingencies
The Pali literature preserving the philosophy of early Buddhism:
[https://accesstoinsight.org/](https://accesstoinsight.org/)

------
Simulacra
Atlas Shrugged

~~~
LyndsySimon
Me too, but The Fountainhead struck me more.

Reading Rand’s essays both made me appreciate her views more and made me
cautious to accept her epistemology as a whole. I don’t consider myself an
Objectivist, but I still consider her work to be a strong influence on my
life.

~~~
mindcrime
_Me too, but The Fountainhead struck me more._

Likewise. In addition, _The Fountainhead_ was, IMO, better written... and it
has the additional perk of being shorter than _Atlas Shrugged_. If anyone was
thinking of sampling Rand, I'd almost always suggest starting with _The
Fountainhead_.

~~~
Simulacra
Fair points. After about 75% you can stop reading Atlas Shrugged. I just found
the whole idea of the railroad, and the battle between Mooch, Boyle, and Jim
Taggart, versus Dagny, Reardon, and Eddy Willard to be fascinating.

~~~
greensoup
Agreed, Fountainhead was the first book I read, thouroughly enjoyed it. Atlas
Shrugged, I was looking forward to bury myself in it, but it was hard to
finish.

------
karlello
A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander. This is the original "pattern"
book. About architecture and living spaces and exactly what makes a good place
to be in so good.

------
lqet
Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation" [1]. This book basically
shaped my views on science, philosophy, art, literature, religion, music,
politics and architecture, in a very profound way. The first volume is
incredibly accessible, highly entertaining and deeply original.

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

------
whitepoplar
All of Nassim Taleb's books, particularly _Antifragile_.

------
bsrhng
The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. This is a non-popular
example, I found it because I like the series.

The book introduces the context of the scientific revolution and the thinking
from which the ideas that we think of as science developed. It tells a very
different story than the "dark ages to enlightenment" narrative and shows the
seriousness and depth of thought at the time and also of subjects that many
dismiss even without thinking, such as astrology.

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

Ancient human's may have more in common with schizophrenics of today than
history would indicate. Religion may be a result thereof.

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

US History can be considered a function of large scale popular movements
rather than decisions made by individuals (leaders).

Gun's Germs & Steel - Jared Diamond

Civilizations' success can be considered a function of base resources (edible
grains, farmland, metals).

------
tvladeck
The Selfish Gene & The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins

Evolution is the reason we exist! Understanding how it happens and why it can
lead to counterintuitive outcomes is very important. He also narrates his own
audiobooks and is excellent at it.

The Blank Slate & The Better Angels of our Nature by Pinker

Both books counter much accepted wisdom. The second book, in particular, will
make you think of humanity in a fundamentally different light.

The Black Swan & Fooled by Randomness by Taleb

The role of chance in everyday life! It plays a big role!

~~~
FabHK
I was going to suggest a some of those.

Dawkins: A lot of really interesting things in life are really weird and
puzzling, such as sex. Literature and religion try to elucidate it, but fail
to get to the bottom of it. The insights popularised by Dawkins really make a
lot of sense of it.

Pinker: Absolutely. There is this notion that things were much better in the
past. These books shred it to pieces. It's also worth looking at Pinker's
_Enlightenement Now_ , and Julian Simon's _The State of the World_ , though
that has a lot of libertarian propaganda in it. However, the statistics are
sound.

Taleb: Not a huge fan of Taleb. The point about the role of chance is much
better made, in my view, by Robert H. Frank in his _Success and Luck: Good
Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy_.

------
gashaw
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, A Guide to Rational Living by Albert Ellis,
Feeling Good by David Burns - changed the way I see and cope with things and
people that used to "cause" me lots of stress in the past.

Behave by Robert Sapolsky, The Social Animal by Elliot Aronson, Thinking Fast
& Slow by Daniel Kahneman - we are animals shaped by evolution. The human
brain isn't perfect and makes lots of silly mistakes. I learned not to belive
everything I think.

------
wotwot42
"Pragmatics of Human Communication" by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas,
and Donald D. Jackson followed by "How Real is Real?" by the same author.

------
dovetailcode
"American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North
America" by Colin Woodward.

The illuminating thing for me was the history of different groups, where they
were from, where they settled, where they migrated and basically how these
cultures remain in those areas for the most part.

Maybe I had a naive view before, but after moving from one region to another,
it was enlightening to see things described this way and help understand
aspects of southern culture.

------
ereyes01
For me it was The Art of War by Sun Tzu. It made me see how human conflict is
a part of our nature that I needed to know better, and perhaps embrace a
little at times. The book of course is about how to win in ancient warfare,
but it explained this in universal terms that get to the heart of how humans
engage in any sort of conflict. I've then gone on to read other great books,
but this began a major evolution in my thought process about many things.

------
zamkam
"Lack and Transcendence" by David Loy.

We've all asked the questions: "What's life all about? Who am I?" This book
won't give you the answers but it will show you why all the "solutions" given
since the beginning of time are probably wrong. The author blends Eastern Zen
with Western Psychology in a mix that will have your mind spinning right from
the first page. Fair warning: You may lose your-self after reading this book.

------
neeleshs
Richard Dawkin's "The selfish gene", and "The blind watchmaker". Profoundly
impacted and reinforced my thinking about God and religion. "Atlas Shrugged",
while very verbose, the utopia it presented was exciting and some aspects of
such meritocratic community has rubbed off. Immensely helped with shedding
many biases, and focus on ability, specifically in the workplace. I also think
it somehow made me less empathetic.

------
tiglionabbit
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. I love this simple framework. It's
all about how to enjoy learning and improving at things. The author applies it
to a wide variety of things, from art appreciation to surviving the holocaust.
It really resonated with me. I believe learning anything can be fun.

Atlas Shrugged: I like this book because it attempts to show how things some
people think are virtuous can be bad, and visa versa. The protagonists have a
sort of honor code to them that defies common ideas of morality.

Don't Shoot the Dog: Describes how to do positive reinforcement training on
dogs, horses, and even your children. People don't seem to realize how similar
we are to other animals. Also, it's nice to know that positive methods can be
more effective than punishments and dominance tactics.

------
arzt
Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop. An exploration of complex adaptive systems and
emergence and how they relate to everything around us changed my worldview
permanently.

------
binarymax
For me, when I was a teenager in the 80s, "The Tao of Pooh" really shaped how
I think about the nature of the world and how rebelling against so many things
was really holding me back and making me frustrated. Given my current
disposition, it probably needs another read after 25 years :)

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

------
bargl
One of the great courses.

Your Deceptive Mind - A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking

[https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/your-deceptive-
mind-...](https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/your-deceptive-mind-a-
scientific-guide-to-critical-thinking-skills.html)

This course helped me find places where i was allowing my own mind to run the
show by default without thinking critically about my own motivations,
thoughts, memories.

------
artificialLimbs
The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot when I was in my late teens. I had
never heard about Buddhism before or anything like the ideas he presented.

Grant Cardone's Be Obsessed or Be Average last week.

Finally, but mostly, Maurice Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries on the
Teaching of P.D. Ouspensky and G.I. Gurdjieff, though I recommend reading what
is widely considered the "introductory" text, "In Search of the Miraculous" by
P.D. Ouspensky.

------
clay_the_ripper
Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Wayne Dyer

Although it sounds like a self help book, it’s actually a fascinating
interpretation and explanation of the Tao de Ching which was written 2500
years ago by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.

It really helped me understand the wisdom of that text, which without the
accompanying interpretation by Dyer is a bit like reading Shakespeare without
the notes.

I think about this book almost every day, and it truly did change my life.
highly recommended.

------
Udik
One that I haven't seen mentioned is "The hidden persuaders" by Vance Packard.
It's old and some say it's exaggerated in parts, but some of the mechanisms
and tricks explained are everywhere. We swim in a sea of marketing.

Practical effect: you'll start seeing your favourite cereals as an entirely
indistinct product, with a cardboard box around, with coloured print over it
which has no connection whatsoever with the content.

------
viddo
"Feel the fear and do it anyway" by Susan Jeffers. Read it while end of my
university studies and a big reason to why I moved and now lives abroad (over
a decade ago now).

"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. Lots of life wisdom in there.
[https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/](https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/) I
recommended to watch the video _after_ you read the book.

------
ehosca
Finite and Infinite Games

[https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-
Carse/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-
Carse/dp/1476731713)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

[https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-
Inquir...](https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-
Inquiry/dp/0060589469)

------
marvindanig
Siddhartha by Hermann Karl Hesse [1]

It's an outstanding book though I also liked his 'Beneath the Wheel' and
'Steppenwolf' a lot. Siddhartha has an unusual depth for the topic it tackles,
namely achievement and meaning. Highly recommend, and the best part—it is
free!

[1] [https://bubblin.io/cover/siddhartha-by-hermann-
hesse](https://bubblin.io/cover/siddhartha-by-hermann-hesse)

------
glial
"Science and Sanity" by Alfred Korzybski was a good one for me. It's where we
get the phrase 'the map is not the territory.' It's been a decade since I read
it so I really need to pick it up again. It's a very insightful tome about the
relationship between our use of language and the reality is supposedly
describes, and the implications of this imprecise relationship on the quality
of our thought.

------
mrmondo
Probably the two that I find myself thinking back to most often are Stranger
in a Strange Land (Robert A. Heinlein), The Phoenix Project (Gene Kim), The
Great Shark Hunt (Hunter S Thompson), Several Bukowski short stories and most
recently The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real
in a World Increasingly Full of Fake (Steven Novella, Bob Novella, Cara Santa
Maria, Jay Novella, Evan Bernstein).

------
tzhenghao
Josh Kaufman's How to Fight a Hydra [1].

Says a lot about risk taking and potential rewards. It's short enough to read
in one sitting, but more importantly, picking up a book like that reminds me
why the world needs more risk takers.

[1] - [https://www.amazon.com/How-Fight-Hydra-Ambitions-Destined-
eb...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Fight-Hydra-Ambitions-Destined-
ebook/dp/B07J57YF47/)

------
jcroll
"The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal". Looking at humans as
just another animal through the lens of a zoologist is eye opening

~~~
novia
I started reading this book because of your suggestion. Unfortunately it is at
best a product of its time (1967) and at worst actively antagonistic towards
the naked apes who are not straight, white, and male. I got halfway through
before I had to quit. If anyone is still reading this thread, I recommend
passing on this book.

------
maxxxxx
Design Patterns by the Gang of Four and Power Negotiating by Roger Dawson.
They both showed me that there are advanced levels to things that can be
learned.

------
jdegag
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Great book about our how humans think. He breaks our slow, logical reasoning
as system 2, and our fast, automatic visceral processing. He points out we
might think we have control over our thoughts and actions (system 1), but more
often than not our System 1 is intervening or providing the true reasoning for
our decisions. Great book to introspect your decision making and that of
others.

------
catwell
\- NKS (Wolfram), among other things for the idea that sometimes reasoning
backwards from what you observe cannot work.

\- I read Brave New World (Huxley) when I was young, and it didn't have such a
strong impression on me at the time, but it has strongly influenced some of my
political takes over my whole life.

\- The four steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank) showed me that there can be
method to the apparent madness that is entrepreneurship.

------
genjipress
"Silence" by John Cage. Before it, I thought of Zen as an abstraction; after
reading it, I saw how it could be (and ought to be) a way of life.

------
Nevermark
"The Dictator's Handbook" by Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.

It lays out the inevitable power dynamics behind any political system,
democratic, autocratic or corporate. The rules for the players are the same,
despite different terrain.

If anyone thinks politics can ever really be about policy (for politicians)
here is the cure. What has to be done to get power, hold on to it, and why,
regardless of motives or competence.

------
ahartmetz
"Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky really changed how I see the media and
everything related to the media.

Like many "radicals" (it's the same for libertarians), he has great
observations about the way things are, but umconvincing ideas for solutions.
Oh well.

~~~
thundergolfer
You are at least somewhat misrepresenting Chomsky, as he is notable for
constantly saying that he won't offer grand plans and possible solutions.

He's one of the few public intellectuals with the humility to step away from
saying "do this", and constantly speak to the power of "countless small deeds
of unknown people" in creating a better society.

~~~
ahartmetz
I guess you're right, but at least when asked about a "solution", he will
speak in favor of anarcho-syndicalism. Which has an okayish track record - it
usually didn't last very long but it also didn't seem to kill or subjugate
anyone in its name.

------
elamje
I completely agree with Freakonomics and incentives.

I would add Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman. It too follows the thread of
incentives, but also more interesting aspects of human psychology like memory,
and the 2 parts of the brain. Understanding how the 2 parts of the brain are
often at odds with other, has vastly changed the way I think and helped me
realize times I'm susceptible to bias and misunderstanding.

------
djtalia
Replay, by Ken Grimwood. It made me look at my life and think about how I'd
replay it if I could. It's about as introspective as I ever get.

------
devit
For personal development, social behavior and relationships these two sets of
books are the best theory available, and significantly better and more
fundamental than anything else I found written on the topic.

\- Models: Attract Women through Honesty + The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck
by Mark Manson

\- The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy + More than Two by
Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert + Opening Up by Tristan Taormino

------
odyssey7
Theory of Harmony, by Schoenberg

The book takes music theory as its subject, but explores perception, culture,
the meaning of art, innovation, and other related ideas in its lengthy
footnotes and tangents. It shows a world of practical considerations that go
into art, which many would assume is primarily subjective.

Schoenberg is known as a composer for exploring atonality, and for having many
students who became important composers.

------
SHANNONRAD
I've got one: OF, BY, AND FOR THE HANGED MAN.

New author, new view of the world - literally hanging yourself upside down to
see a new viewpoint.

[https://www.amazon.com/HANGED-MAN-M-
PFEFFER/dp/0960055118/re...](https://www.amazon.com/HANGED-MAN-M-
PFEFFER/dp/0960055118/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549478283&sr=8-1&keywords=am+pfeffer)

------
mattdeboard
"I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Legacy of Male Depression" by
Terrence Real, a relational therapist.

The ideas in this 20-year-old book are just starting to catch traction, but
basically it's that depression manifests differently in men than in women.
This is because, the book's thesis goes, of the differences in social
conditioning between men and women.

I recommend this book all the time.

------
okaleniuk
This:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Political_Order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Political_Order)

There are a few anecdotes there as well, but it's less fun than Freakonomics.
Still, it explains so much about institutions, governing, and generally how
societies work. It does make you rethink everything.

------
runevault
So this is technically to language, but as someone who writes on top of codes
it gave me so much to think about I feel it still counts. Writing Better
Lyrics by Pat Pattison. The way he explores using senses, how to build
metaphors, how to construct things gave me new ways to look at a lot of
different things. I reread the book pretty regularly and glean something new
every time.

------
roganp
The Armchair Economist by Steven Landsburg. Explains some pretty deep ideas in
economics in an engaging and entertaining way, and has invaded my thinking
since. [https://www.amazon.com/Armchair-Economist-Economics-
Everyday...](https://www.amazon.com/Armchair-Economist-Economics-Everyday-
Life/dp/1451651732)

------
cosminscaunasu
Daniel Dennet's books - explains how complex designs like our mind can appear
out of very simple rules without the need of a designer or what consciousness
basically is - a high level view i.e. how can we understand it in simple terms
- or what is the purpose of humor. Some examples: "Darwin's dangerous idea",
"From Bacteria to Bach and Back".

------
gvajravelu
The Millionaire Next Door.

I was raised in a culture where if someone has luxury items, a big house, and
an expensive car, then they were rich.

The Millionaire Next Door defined wealth in a different way for me. Wealth was
no longer how high your income was, but wealth become how long you could live
without working. You can increase your wealth by saving/investing more and by
lowering your expenses.

------
josht
Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz was one of the most profound books I've
ever read. It combines cognitive behavior techniques with cybernetics
(developed by Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann) to help manage ones minds
and to cultivate a healthier, more beneficial thought garden. Upon further
reflection, this book is steeped in stoic principles and practices.

------
davidgl
* Elephant in the brain - the hidden motives we all follow, should be required reading before people come up with policy improvements to the world

* Sapians - great for a global view of our history, and an understanding of how important myths and religions have been for us being successful (as protocols for getting on)

* Thinking in Systems - toolchest of mental models for dealing with complex systems

------
FailMore
The Tao Te Ching was very important to me. Every time I feel I learn something
about life, I check the book and it's there already!

------
coverband
I have a couple: \- The Gulag Archipelago & Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn \-
Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut \- Autumn in Peking by Boris Vian

------
time0ut
On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins changed the way I see myself and the world in
a big way. I don't necessarily see his approach as a pathway to AI (though I
don't dismiss it), but I thought it had some easily understandable insight
into how our minds work.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries got me thinking about applying the scientific
method to things I never thought of before.

------
nickspacek
The Unpersuadables by Will Storr.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114379-the-
unpersuadab...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114379-the-
unpersuadables)

I found there were some very interesting and useful insights into the way our
brain works. Disclaimer, I am only 2/3 the way through it.

------
anderspitman
Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I'll throw in several more favorites
that have changed the way I think over the years, in no particular order:

* The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt

* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey

* The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee

* The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

* Getting Things Done - David Allen

* The Worthing Saga - Orson Scott Card

* The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss

* The 5 Love Languages - Gary Chapman

* The Total Money Makeover - Dave Ramsey

------
dkatri
Happy by Derren Brown altered the way that I choose to approach a lot of
things in life. It's essentially an intro to stoicism. Something I had never
really read about before.

It was really an attitude change for me, and realising that I can only control
what I can. I can't control people's reactions to that. It set me off on a bit
more reading into stoicism.

------
peoplerreading
"The Culture of Critique" \- Kevin MacDonald

Very challenging book. Not recommended for the feint of heart, easily
offended, or closed-minded.

------
joveian
A River Sutra by Gita Mehta.

Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People by Thurman
Wilkins

Also the NVC book and Walden that have been mentioned.

~~~
joveian
Also Life on Earth by David Attenborough

------
a_rahmanshah
The Quran! - [https://quran.com/23/115](https://quran.com/23/115)

------
didip
The millionaire next door.

It changed my mind completely on the fact that being a millionaire is actually
attainable. And these are all average Joes!

------
Dowwie
"The Gun" by C.J. Chivers ([https://www.amazon.com/Gun-C-J-
Chivers/dp/0743271734](https://www.amazon.com/Gun-C-J-Chivers/dp/0743271734))

I read it not so much as a historical text but as a story about dramatic
shifts in power attributed to technological advancement and strategy.

------
PeOe
Oh I loved Freakonomics!! What an excellent question. I want to propose 2
books: 1\. Getting Things Done by David Allen. It really changed how I
approach not only my workday but pretty much everything that could constitute
"work" in my daily life. It's a bit of a learning curve to start, but once you
implement GTD in your life it becomes second nature. You can learn about it
here: [https://gettingthingsdone.com/](https://gettingthingsdone.com/) and
there's a good intro to it here: [https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-
guide-to-getting-thin...](https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-
getting-things-done/). 2\. How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger. When you
start thinking of plants as medicine it really changes your whole approach to
food and life in general. I've started following his 'daily dozen' and I've
got to say that I feel absolutely incredible. (Check out his website here:
[https://nutritionfacts.org/](https://nutritionfacts.org/))

Amazing works of fiction that I come back to again and again include Anna
Karenina and The Three Musketeers

------
dluan
Game Theory and Strategy, Straffin ([https://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-
Strategy-Mathematical-Lib...](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Theory-Strategy-
Mathematical-
Library/dp/0883856379/ref=sr_1_27?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540449604&sr=1-27&keywords=game+theory))

A great introduction.

------
zachrose
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker. It’s a slim, experimental novel with a
narrator who spends every second of the book noticing smaller and smaller
details about the world around him—such as the burrs on the underside of a
soda can tab opening and how they can grasp a plastic straw that would
otherwise float—-and what this all reminds him of.

------
harshulpandav
"The Compound Effect" by Darren Hardy

One of the most practical books I have read which you can easily implement in
your real life to see positive outcome.

[https://www.amazon.com/Compound-Effect-Darren-
Hardy/dp/15931...](https://www.amazon.com/Compound-Effect-Darren-
Hardy/dp/159315724X)

------
richardw
Guns, Germs and Steel. So many types of thinking and areas of science that I
wasn't aware of. Not every part of it has to be correct for it to be
incredibly interesting.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel)

------
wonder_er
"The Problem of Political Authority: The Right to Coerce and the Duty to
Obey".

I'm wrecked after this book. Hated that I couldn't find a good way to disagree
with it. Feels like so many nice things I thought about the world were ruined,
and will never come back.

The implications permeate so much of our daily life.

I... wouldn't really recommend reading it.

------
coverclock
"Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations" by Robert D. Austin,
Dorset House, 1996. Changed my entire world view. The basic idea - which
Austin arrives at using an offshoot of game theory - is that all incentive
systems will be gamed by the people to which they are applied, and there is no
way around it.

------
pnutjam
"The Big Change - America's Transformation 1900-1950" by Frederick Lewis
Allen. It's a financial history of the first half of the 20th century.

His other books are very good as well, "only yesterday", "since yesterday",
and "the rise of the 1%".

This book really helped me see the cyclical nature of economics.

------
alarge
In addition to books others have already mentioned, I'd put "Lies My Teacher
Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong".

It made me understand just how much of what I was raised believing about the
history of the US was just plain mythology. It also explained why I always
hated US History in school...

------
SHANNONRAD
I've got one. OF, BY, AND FOR THE HANGED MAN.

[https://www.amazon.com/HANGED-MAN-M-
PFEFFER/dp/0960055118/re...](https://www.amazon.com/HANGED-MAN-M-
PFEFFER/dp/0960055118/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549478283&sr=8-1&keywords=am+pfeffer)

------
forkandwait
Steps to an Ecology of Mind by Gregory Bateson. Almost convinced my wife and
me to get dolphin tattoos ; read the book and you will understand.

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

------
billwear
Gibson's "The Peripheral." Not just a prescient story, but a veiled commentary
on how easily we're using technology as a proxy for being there, and all the
psychological changes that come along for the ride. "Neuromancer" was meh for
me, but this one really reads well on all levels.

------
king07828
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry. Two people had to recommend it
to me independently before I finally read it. Reading and deeply contemplating
this book dramatically increased my ability to understand and predict
emotionally driven behaviors. Drama in movies and in life started to make
sense.

------
Theodores
Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire.

There are plenty of good reads here already but for posterity I am going to
add Edward Abbey to the list. His work is a primer on what freedom is really
about rather than this 'freedom' word bandied about by politicians. His work
was also important to the environmental movement.

------
gaborlenard
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
[https://www.amazon.com/Book-Taboo-Against-Knowing-
Who/dp/067...](https://www.amazon.com/Book-Taboo-Against-Knowing-
Who/dp/0679723005)

Realizing who you are not changes everything.

------
dekhn
The Ophiuchi Hotline, by John Varley (and all the books that followed in the
Eight Worlds Saga). Cloning, brain transfers, photosynthetic humans floating
for millenia around saturn. I dedicated a significant fraction of my work
career to implementing this (unsuccessfully, as you might imagine).

------
nprateem
The Red Queen. After reading it I was like "Oh, so that's why men and women
are like they are"

~~~
projektir
From what author? I've seen this mentioned a few times but it's never clear to
me which book this is.

~~~
neurocline
Matt Ridley - excellent science writer, highly recommended.

------
daphneokeefe
You have to include Robert Greene's '48 Laws of Power'. Whether you choose to
participate in power plays and scheming and maneuvers, it is exceedingly
valuable to understand them and their perpetrators. This is the modern version
of Macchiavelli, full of historical examples.

------
lolc
"Darwin's Cathedral" by David Sloan Wilson allowed me to come to peace with
religion. Now I have a framework to understand why religions do what they do.

Reading "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer and "Private Truths, Public Lies"
by Timur Kuran prepared the ground for it!

------
stefanv
The latest one for me was "On intelligence". It made me understand that
intelligence is not that hard to understand on a conceptual level. The book is
about machine intelligence, but the most impressive thing for me was the
simplicity of how Jeff Hawkins defines intelligence

------
lcuff
Modern Physics and Anti-physics by Adolph Baker. Understanding what science is
as process and theory helped me distinguish science and pseudo-science in a
major way.

Also: A Pattern Language, The Design of Everyday Things, and An Introduction
to General System Thinking, the latter by Gerald Weinberg

------
brownbat
Foucault's Pendulum can be a bear to get through, though lots of delightful
language.

People could get different takeaways, but it made me think very deeply about
falsifiability, the limits of persuasion, and the thin lines between
plausible, reasonable, and likely theories about the world.

------
sudoaza
Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
[http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/More_Books_and_Reports/O...](http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/More_Books_and_Reports/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America.pdf)

------
sys_64738
Programming the Commodore 64 in 1986.

~~~
tomovo
Are you Ron Gilbert?

~~~
tdhz77
Yes that is him.

------
egypturnash
The appendices of _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_ , followed by some of Robert
Anton Wilson's other work.

Doing the experiments contained within some of his books will take you on a
very rational, sensible journey to some very strange places, and may break
parts of your worldview.

------
keshav92
Mindset, by Carol Dweck. Highly Recommended. The fact that any skill can be
learnt provided you work hard for it really impacted me. Also, it was one of
the first books I read, which normalized the importance of hard-work - forever
different after reading that book.

------
chb
"The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion" by Joseph
Campbell

------
anm89
Possibly a controversial choice but "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek
has had at least a subtle influence on almost every political economic belief
I hold.

As I side note I now have 10 books in my amazon shopping cart. This thread
proved to be pretty dangerous.

------
sharadov
Too many but I can list authors Michael Pollan - all his books

Jiddu Krishnamurti - a freethinker, who said we need a revolution in the
psyche of the individual

Paul Theroux - prolific travel writing

Oliver Sacks - his insights into brain disorders

Salman Rushdie - his early works, when he was in his prime, a giant in
literature.

------
noumenon
1491, and 1493 by Charles C. Mann. These books completely changed my worldview
about the scale and complexity of human development in the Americas before
European contact. They also opened my eyes to how much older globalization is
than we normally think.

------
dgellow
“Our Mathematical Universe” by the cosmologist Max Tegmark.

[https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-
Re...](https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-
Reality/dp/0307599809)

------
bookofjoe
1) Carlos Castaneda's first three "Don Juan" books: read them while I was in
med school in the early 1970s and they ALMOST made me drop out, they were so
powerful (then). I looked at one recently and thought "meh." People change.

~~~
bookofjoe
"The Power of Positive Thinking" — I read this when I was in junior high and a
real jerk. It instantly ended my jerkitude and put me on a much better path.

------
bashwizard
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by
Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

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

------
ohaideredevs
Martin Eden by Jack London. Really stressed why education actually matters.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Same.

------
randren1
The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox, by Richard Fobes. The brilliant
description of radial outlines in this book gave me a repeatable process for
coming up with creative solutions which I have applied to countless problems
for over 20 years.

------
gasg0d
I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and the Inside Story of
the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride of Jimmy Hoffa

Amazing insights on the corruption of the USG/Nixon And the ties between the
unions/cia/and the mafia.

------
soft_shortcut
Mindset by Carol Dweck mixed with one or 2 quotes from Steve Jobs. That’s
really it.

These made me realized how much control I can have on my life.

To sum all that up for you using my own words: If I die tomorrow, I’ll make
today the most meaningful day of my life. Rinse and repeat.

~~~
egjerlow
The thing is, if I were to die tomorrow, there are a lot of things I would do
today that I would not do today if I expect to die in 40 years. So what is
'meaningful' depends entirely on your expectations. If you keep living your
life as if you might die tomorrow, you'll never go to school, never have
children, etc. etc.

~~~
soft_shortcut
"meaningful depends entirely on your expectations".

Totally. That's what I meant. To me personally a meaningful day means no
complaints, good connections with people, have at least a positive impact on
people, etc. This doesn't have to be extreme. It's a strategy to push away
negative thoughts and to focus on what really matters every single day.

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

Beautiful book, full of wisdom. It's short but I had to read it multiple times
(and I'll probably read it many times more, each time discovering something
new and deeper and relevant to my current state of play).

~~~
lolptdr
Awesome, was hoping this book would show up. I only had to read the first 2
pages to know the whole of my philosophy summed up. It is not easy to read
since it requires many analogous references to really apply it, but worth the
effort. Definitely re-readable.

------
ilamont
"Why We Sleep" is the most important book I have read in many years. Helped me
understand how my brain works and the nature of memory.

When I was younger, On The Road and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
opened my mind to travel and wandering.

------
ARandomerDude
Not a full book, but one of the documents that had the most profound impact on
my life was _The Heidelberg Disputation_ by Martin Luther. It's no
exaggeration to say it completely changed how I think about a wide range of
topics.

------
gao8a
How to win friends and influence people: It's a book of common sense; and made
me realize how little common sense I had.

Stranger in a Strange land: "Love is that condition in which the happiness of
another person is essential to your own."

------
vkaku
A long time ago (2006), I picked up 'How to simplify your life'. I bought it
off a store because it had pictures in it and I thought it would be easy
reading. _chuckle_

It turned out to be better than it looked. I highly recommend it.

ISBN: 0071433864

------
ianrentsb
The book that changed me was All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr.
This book was so beautiful and haunting.

Set in occupied France during World War II, the novel centers on a blind
French girl and a German boy whose paths eventually cross.

------
manicdee
Bruce Pascoe, "Dark Emu"

This book really highlighted for me how we literally rewrite history to suit
our own prejudices, and finally taught me what "history is written by the
victor" actually means (including claiming victory).

------
inoop
Self organization in biological systems

It explains with many examples how stable, global structures arise from
simple, local interactions.

It changed the way I think about economics, politics, society, evolution,
computer science, and a whole host of other things.

------
xpil
Most of Stanisław Lem's work, starting with "The Cyberiad". Some of it may be
70 years old now but universal books don't age, really. For English readers, I
strongly recommend Kandel's translations.

------
anthony_franco
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” is a good one.

It’s a nice reminder on how to treat people.

~~~
FiveSquared
For me, it’s How to Lie With Statitics. It opened my eyes to how much lies are
in numbers. Also, another good one is 1984. It really made me think about my
online life depending so much on Google.

------
Singletoned
Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller.

It's written by someone who lives violence on an everyday basis, and his
insights are amazing. Particularly for people who rarely experience violence,
but when they do it will be catastrophic.

------
mfoy_
"Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow"[1] by Yuval Noah Harari

[1][https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-
deus/](https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/)

------
Shihan
I think one book that changed a lot was the Qur'an - it made me an atheist. I
don't come from a muslim background but it made me realize, how some religions
(well at least the abrahamitic ones) came to be.

~~~
fxfan
I am not a muslim and see multiple sides of islam but you cannot just say-
Qu'ran you have to mention the editor as well. (Unless you read the original
arabic version).

It matters a lot since I've seen eastern books having hugely varying
translations.

For example, an Indian friend of mine tells me that 'I am become God ... ' is
a very inaccurate representation of the original hindi text

~~~
Shihan
I read various translations, scientific editions by (german) islamic schoolars
- I know there are other versions out there which are more white washed. I can
especially recommend Bill Warners "An Abridged Koran", if you believe there
are errors in his translation, please let us know.

------
lordofuniverse
Hackers and Painters. PG gets a lot of hate, but his ideas are pretty
original.

------
throwaway201902
1984.

Changed my perception about the state, our society, people's beliefs and
media's influence. I was fascinated how Orwell was able to accurately portray
the characteristics of totalitarian and authoritarian states.

------
johnx123-up
1\. _Dare to Be Different: Dealing with Peer Pressure_ by Fred A. Hartley -
made me not to compromise on _values_

2\. _How to stop worrying and start living_ by Dale Carnegie - made me to
survive few odd situations

------
tamal
"Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered" by E.F.
Schumacher.

Completely changed my mind on economics, how it relates to people, and what
fulfilling work is. I can't recommend it enough.

------
mwfunk
When I was a teenager I read "The Story of Philosophy" by Will Durant. I
hadn't had much exposure to philosophy before, but it sparked my interest in
philosophy at a relatively young age. It covers the most widely known Western
philosophers, one philosopher per chapter, and was written for a mass
audience. I don't recall a whole lot about the book itself (other than
thinking it was fascinating at the time), but it was very influential to me
because of the foundation it established, and all the other stuff it inspired
me to read and learn and think about later in life.

The other book that feels most influential to me is "Godel, Escher, Bach" by
Douglas Hofstadter. I read it many years ago when I was in college and
studying CS. Maybe I just read it at the right time in my life, but I remember
loving everything about it and being fascinated by all the different topics
from math/science/CS/AI/history that it touched on while exploring its central
thesis. In really broad strokes, the book is an exploration of logical
paradoxes and the insights we can draw from them. It ultimately leads to a
focus on the concept of recursion (in nature, in the human mind, in
mathematics, in CS and AI, etc.), and how certain patterns of recursion found
in math, nature, and the mind could form the basis of creativity, inspiration,
natural diversity, human intelligence, etc.

But that's selling it short. It's a huge book that ranges over so many topics
that it can seem overwhelming. I devoured it at the time, and it fired my
imagination for many years later.

It's been 20-30 years since I read either book, so I can't say if they would
hold up for me now. Maybe. But they introduced me to so many different ideas
that led to so many more ideas and lines of reasoning throughout the rest of
my life. For better or worse, I would be a different person if it weren't for
those books.

------
geogra4
'The Toyota Way' is the suggestion I give to anyone that asks me.

------
winrid
1\. First, Break All The Rules 2\. The Richest Man in Babylon 3\. In The
Company of Others 4\. The Algorithm Design Manual (when I was 19 I went from
consulting to FTE and this gave me a jump in knowledge)

------
yakshaving_jgt
_Culture and Empire_ by Pieter Hintjens (he also created ZeroMQ, among other
things and titles).

That book offers excellent insight into the stupidity of crowds and how that
plays into geopolitics, and more.

------
bunderbunder
_Essence of Decision_ by Graham T. Allison

In a nutshell: The mental models we typically use to think about and
understand the behavior of organizations such as corporations and governments
are deeply wrong.

------
astrostl
Corny AF, but: The Five Love Languages.

1) love is a verb and 2) people want appreciation in different ways and 3)
people give what they want to receive

It applies to every kind of relationship: lovers, parenting, business, etc.

------
Antoninus
The 4-hour work week. It's not that it had very powerful ideas or that it was
well written. It opened up my 19-year old impressionable mind that _time_ is
the most valuable asset.

------
alexryan
“The selfish gene” by Richard Dawkins

Once I came understand that human beings are survival machines built for the
single minded task of gene survival, everyone’s behavior become much more
predictable.

------
orangemanta
[https://www.ronimmink.com/the-ongoing-war-for-your-
mind/](https://www.ronimmink.com/the-ongoing-war-for-your-mind/)

------
shove
A People’s History of the US

A Pattern Language

The Alphabet Vs The Goddess

Aloud: Voices From the Nuyorican Poets Cafe

The Fire Next Time

~~~
angel_j
2nd "The Alphabet vs The Goddess"

------
grondilu
* The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins ;

* Human, too human, by Frederick Nietzsche ;

* The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris ;

* La Femme est le propre de l'homme, by Rolf Schappi ;

* Biologie de la mort, by Frederik Revah ;

* The Manipulated Man, by Esther Vilar ;

------
hi2
TBH, Proverbs by Solomon (A Jewish King). It speaks about being a human & the
repetitive behavioral patterns of humans, regardless of whatever century they
were born in.

------
delapot
"Baghavad gita" and "A new kind of science"

------
greencore
"Dropping Ashes on the Buddha" by Zen Master Seung Sahn.

I read it when I was a teenager and it helped me to overcome everyday drama
and widely extend limits of my personality.

------
glitchc
Non-fiction: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is a book I think
about time and time again.

Fiction: Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut and Ender’s Game by Card have been
transformative.

------
sbdmmg
The Lessons of History, by W. & A. Durant changed my view on several "big
topics" of history and society, such as biology, religion, economics, and war.

------
Toine
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World - René Girard

------
swamy_g
Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae.

The first chapter especially blew my socks off. I never have been able to see
nature and man's relation to it in the same way after that.

------
dharma1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)

------
amai
Laozi:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching)

------
SmushyTaco
I recommend you give the book named The Giver a read. It shows the flaws of a
perfect society and how our experiences make us who we are. It's a great read.

------
yoodenvranx
For me the answer is any random book from Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchet.
Both authors basically shaped my understabding of humour and the state of the
world.

------
hackerbabz
For me it was Catch-22. I read it at around 14 and it taught me that sometimes
the truth is the complete opposite from what it seems, or what you're told.

------
CapitalZhu
Sapiens, definitely Sapiens...

Now everyone I look at reminds me of a monkey.

------
whoisjohnkid
I have quite a few:

\- The Structure of Magic

\- The Game by Neil Strauss

\- Antifragile

\- How to win friends and influence people

\- 48 Laws of Power

\- E-Myth

\- Field Guide To Lucid Dreaming

\- Turtle Trader by Michael Covel

Structure of magic may be the most impactful one out of all of them, but they
are all hella good.

------
bgroat
The Power Broker by Robert Caro, and The Dictator's Handbook

Practical Primers on Political Power - now I think of EVERYTHING in terms of
selectorate theory and cartels

------
sbayeta
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell really changed the way I perceive how money
works, and furthermore it drove me to take a chance at a new business project

------
bill-lumbergh
The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib Totally changed my view of running a
business and gave me real structure and clarity about marketing is and how to
effectively do it as a small business.

Highly recommend if like you are like I was - wondering when and how the next
client was going walk in the door

[https://www.amazon.com/1-Page-Marketing-Plan-Customers-
Money...](https://www.amazon.com/1-Page-Marketing-Plan-Customers-Money-
ebook/dp/B01B35M3SM/ref=zg_bs_154970011_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=H360D6BERFZQY3NQ1WAS)

------
abakker
The end of alchemy, Mervyn King. There are several very interesting points and
mental models in there. Eye opening for someone that did undergrad Econ.

------
geuis
Anathem, Neal Stephenson, for me. I’ve read it multiple times and while only a
work of fiction has changed how I think about the world over the years.

------
hypertexthero
The First and Last Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti.

It changed how I think about identity by showing me the danger of labels, and
made me appreciate the beauty of life.

------
Agnosco
I have chosen three books:

1\. The first book I read that changed my view of my own mind, that is, taught
me to "think about thinking", was Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I truly
felt like my view of myself and the world I live in changed dramatically.

2\. The second book that had a huge impact on me was Manufacturing Consent by
Noam Chomsky.

3\. The third book has to be The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Alexander
Solzhenitsyn (the abridged version by Edward E Ericson, Jr). When I mention
this book, I meet a lot of people instantly debating the death toll numbers
presented by Solzhenitsyn, but for me, the main point of the book is about
complicity in the context of the Stalinist regime and complicity in evildoing
more generally.

------
andrepd
May be a bit unpopular, but Harry Potter, if nothing else because it hooked me
on reading (a gateway drug, if you will) at a very important age.

------
checkyoursudo
My worldview-changing book was probably Stranger in a Strange Land, when I was
maybe 15. I also ready Brave New World around then.

I was raised in a super religious house; for whatever reason, that one or two
books started my down a path of materialism/skepticism and away from
religiosity/dualism/spiritualism. It was just the start, mind you. I was
probably already primed and heading that way anyway, and that just happened to
be the spark. I don't mean that there were any huge insights or great
revelations for me there.

~~~
hcoyote
Mine was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, read around the same age (took me
awhile to get through SiaSL).

The ideas around TANSTAAFL were what really drove me to believe in the value
of hard work and being wary of the easy path to "success".

------
scrumbledober
the second through third book of the ender's game saga dealt a lot with how to
communicate with aliens that may not communicate in any way we could really
even understand, and whether or not there were beings that we would never be
able to communicate with. It may sound pretty autism spectrum but it's
something I often think about when communicating with other people.

------
zby
"Violence and the sacred" by Rene Girard.

------
throwaway415415
The game. It might have made me a douche at some point but it made me
understand and then read a lot about social interaction in general.

------
IloveHN84
The Bullet Journal Method.

It helped me think about my time spent in relationships and how should I
address my sorting problem under constraints of time

------
thrifter
I read 100 books last year and there were five books that changed my outlook
of life in some significant aspect. The list here:
[https://mailchi.mp/8ff9bef428e2/want-to-know-someone-
better-...](https://mailchi.mp/8ff9bef428e2/want-to-know-someone-better-ask-
this)

Of those five books, "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with
Addiction" by Gabor Mate changed me the most. I actually re-read portions of
the book last night.

------
abhiyerra
Science, Strategy, and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd,History of
Sexuality by Foucault, Methophors to Live By by Lakoff

All of these portray the world as a series of systems. First deals with
interconnected systems like war, business, conflict, the second the notion
that culture itself is a series of systems of power and sexuality has been
used as a system of power, and third that most of our thought can be made from
simpler set of blocks i.e metaphors from which we construct almost all of
existence.

------
jonbaer
Prisoners of Geography: Ten maps that explain everything about the world (Tim
Marshall)

The Feynman Processor (Gerard J. Milburn)

Strategy: A History (Lawrence Freedman)

------
IMAYousaf
As a child, Roald Dahl had a profound impact on me. His autobiographies Boy
and Going Solo made me want to explore the world more.

------
HugoDaniel
"A colher na boca" from Herberto Helder. A poetry book that challenged my
perception of the world and our place in it.

------
ChicagoBoy11
On the Evolution of Cooperation. Unbelievably simple and yet conveyed one of
the most powerful ideas I've ever come across.

------
alexashka
Tao Te Ching. It hasn't changed the way I think - it's made me reconsider the
place and time for thinking altogether.

------
aszantu
Babel 17 - different language enables us to think, looked into ithkuil for a
few weeks, helped a lot with analytical thinking.

------
rosstaylor90
Philosophical Investigations - Wittgenstein. Just stunningly thoughtful and
changed the way I interpret most things around me.

------
nickysielicki
In order:

1\. The Technological Society - Jacques Ellul

2\. The Sickness Unto Death - Kierkegaard

3\. Dubliners - James Joyce

4\. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World - Cal Newport

------
blueprint_for
I'm about 6% in to The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and I am certain that it
has already changed my life. It presents the friction between the corporate
optimization function (increase dividends and share value) and the basic human
right to privacy and freedom that is continually being tipped in favor of the
corporation. Our data has been spun to be this inconsequential means to make
our life easier when in reality it is exploitable resource able to be crunched
into manipulation for a profit. It has changed my life because it has
realigned my career aspirations as a software engineer.

------
cutler
"Das Kapital" by Karl Marx is still the most accurate analysis of the causes
of economic crises. His labour theory of value gets to the root of what's
going on behind the smokescreen of market forces presented as fact in western
Economics courses.

"On The Road" by Jack Kerouac was a liberating, mind-expanding experience with
no drugs involved. Kerouac's free-form style and open-ended approach to life
made a great impression.

"Cosmic Loom" by Dennis Elwell debunked the narrow-minded, reductionist
attitudes of scientists towards astrology and opened up my mind to the value
of symbolism.

~~~
Mikhail_Edoshin
I think it was "The Fifth Discipline" by Peter M. Senge that described a
business-style game (retail, wholesale, and production of beer) that in 95% of
cases resulted in massive overproduction crisis, very much like what Marx has
described. Of course, the cause was very much unlike what Marx suggested; the
book is about systems thinking and this particular system was an example of a
system with _delays_ in signal passing.

------
aerovistae
Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I had never really thought about investments before, or
the difference between assets and liabilities.

~~~
jyriand
I think this link was shared on hackernews before, but you need to read
this[0]. Gives you some background and pain-points.

[0] - [https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-
invest...](https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-investment-
blog/61651011-john-t-reeds-analysis-of-robert-t-kiyosakis-book-rich-dad-poor-
dad-part-1)

~~~
aerovistae
That's worth knowing for some readers maybe, but for me personally after
looking through the bullet points in that post, I found it didn't really apply
to me.

None of the things he's criticizing were things I took away from the book.
Examples, "If you're gonna go broke, go broke big"\--> obviously stupid, just
disregarded it; "Convinces people that college is for suckers" \--> already
was completing my degree, am well aware of the value of a higher education and
also how it isn't for everyone, this had no impact on me whatsoever;
"Advocates committing a felony: have rich friends for trading stock based on
non-public inside information, he says "That's what friends are for." \--> I
am perfectly aware of what insider trading is and that it's a felony, again
not exactly what I took away from this book.

And so on. What I took away was assets vs liabilities and using your money to
make more money. That's it. And that's all I needed, that was the golden key.

------
stanfordkid
Thus Spoke Zarathustra -- Friedrich Nietzsche

------
valerij
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. i has become a much calmer person after
reading that, taking hardships way more relaxed

------
shams93
Robert Anton Wilsons Cosmic Trigger had a lot of powerful stuff about
combining technology consciousness and creativity.

------
lazyeye
The Elephant in the Brain - Hidden motives in everyday life (Kevin Simler &
Robin Hanson)

Finally human behaviour makes perfect sense.

------
monocasa
Mutual Aid by Kropotkin

Was brought up in a very toxicly pop-libertarian household, and it really
opened my eyes to how much all of nature (including human culture more
specifically) depends on working together towards common goals.

~~~
kjdndisneinj
Along those lines, "The Conquest of Bread" by Kropotkin exposed me to a new
way of thinking about liberty and political self-determination.

------
fatiherikli
The Logic of Scientific Discovery — Karl Popper. It helped me to draw a strong
line between Science and Pseudoscience.

------
keiferski
“Beyond Good and Evil” by Nietzsche. Will completely transform the way you
look at morality and its role in culture.

------
dunefox
Honestly, the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

------
auvrw
these changed almost everything i think about:

misc. Forrest Mims notebooks, the Python Tutorial, Practical C Programming

first chapter of Sound and the Fury, snippets of Naked Lunch, wide swaths of
Ulysses

The Universe in a Nutshell, French's Special Relativity

The Gamma Function, a graph theory text whose name i don't remember, baby
Rudin

Brain Structure and Its Origins, The Form Within

------
duality
David MacKay's "Information theory, inference and learning algorithms" was a
huge eye opener for me.

------
lorenzk
Michael E. Gerber - The E-Myth Revisited

Changed my view on business and reproducible business systems forever. Fun to
read, too.

------
safeerm
Amusing Ourselves to Death - Neil Postman

------
zimablue
The pig that wants to be eaten.

I was very young and impressionable and I think this book is like
philosophical crack cocaine.

------
lkrych
Non-Fiction (Science)

    
    
      - *The Selfish Gene* by Richard Dawkins
    
      - *The Righteous Mind* by Jonathan Haidt
    
      - *Thinking, Fast and Slow* by Daniel Kahneman
    

Non-Fiction (Social)

    
    
      - *The Art of Not Being Governed* by James C. Scott
    
      - *The Unwinding* by George Packer
    
      - *People's History of the United States* by Howard Zinn
    

Fiction

    
    
      - *East of Eden* by John Steinbeck
    
      - *Sometimes a Great Notion* by Ken Kesey
    
      - *The Brothers Karamazov* by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    

edit: formatting

~~~
xutopia
What can we expect to gain from these books? What did you get from them?

------
6cd6beb
Slightly off topic but I deeply wish I was half the man my library suggested.

Then again I've got no excuse not to be.

------
iamjdg
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I read it first year of university and at the time I
was very influenced by it.

------
robbyoconnor
George Ritzer's "The McDonaldization of Society" \-- Read it for an intro
Sociology class.

------
ar1n
Brief Answers To The Big Questions by Stephen Hawking, both inspiring and
terrifiying at the same time!

------
shapiro44
'A Little Life' by Hanya Yanagihara and 'In Order to 'Live' by Yeonmi Park

------
mikestermeister
“Causing death and saving lives” by Jonathan Glover. My introduction to
utilitarianism philosophy.

------
_Microft
_David Foster Wallace: This is water_

It's even more easy to watch the speech itself on Youtube, ofcourse.

------
qwerty456127
The new inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson Wonders of the Natural Mind by
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

------
anastalaz
"The Dawn of Day" by Nietzsche. It turned me into an atheist at the tender age
of 15.

------
nickvanhoog
Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky

------
mazer_r
Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky

------
kyberias
Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene.

------
Dawny33
"how to make friends and influence people"

A lot of my managerial lessons have come from that book.

------
rohithasrk
Can someone make a Show HN link composing of all useful books discussed in
this thread? :P

------
ZeroFries
"I Am That" by Nisargadatta Maharaj. It changed how I think about "I".

------
Protostome
Everything from Yuval Noah Harari

------
komali2
1\. Cory Doctorow - Walkaway. A near-future realistic fiction that takes the
concept of Wiki, Open Source, Free Software, anarchy, and post-scarcity to a
very exciting conclusion. Dramatically radicalized my conception of the
economy, the establishment, politics, engineering, and my own life goals.

2\. Dale Carnegie - How to Win Friends and Influence People. The definitive
guidebook to interpersonal relations. Taught me empathy.

3\. Thornton Wilder - Our Town. A play about a little girl who gets one more
day after her death to visit her memories. I read it at 16 and it brought me
to my first understanding of mortality.

4\. Peter Watts - Blindsight. A romping and intellectually trusting sci-fi
involving space vampires. Good biology. Made me seriously question the nature
of consciousness.

5\. Eric Hoffer - The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.
Dense and hard to get through old book on what it says in the title. Helped me
better understand the Trump movement and similar nazi/alt-right movements that
were beyond my ability to grasp before.

6\. Douglas Adams - The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Helped me
understand that though I may die (or the universe may end), that might be OK.

------
jmpman
Guns Germs and Steel. Anything from Jared Diamond helps broaden your view of
societies.

------
KerryJones
So many!

\- Never Split the Difference

\- From Zero to One

\- Way of the Peaceful Warrior

\- Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

\- Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

------
joshfraser
\- How to Win Friends and Influence People

\- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

\- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

~~~
tdhz77
Interesting mix. Going to check out Sapiens I’ve only heard good things.

------
sopooneo
Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges.

------
sr138soldier
The Bible and The Book of Mormon

------
trumbitta2
Jonathan Livingston Seagull

No limits, Jonathan? he thought, and he smiled. His race to learn had begun.

------
eucryphia
Prescribed reading for Australian English secondary school classes in 1972-5:
Animal Farm, 1984, Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. I
didn't get very good marks in English but I really enjoyed reading the books.
The clear warnings of the evils of socialism are just as valuable today.
Surprisingly our teachers were all hopeless socialists; 'just hadn't done it
properly'.

------
faaabio1618
Infinite Jest. I read it one year ago and I still think about it almost once a
day.

------
loons2
Restoring The American Dream by Robert Ringer I read it in '80 or '81.

------
howard941
The Magus by John Fowles, and No Exit by Sartre. Changed the way I viewed
myself.

------
packeted
I recently listened to The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and feel that it has
changed the way I think. As an entrepreneur who has been in the trenches, I
felt a lot of empathy for Roark's uncompromising ideals, his pursuit of
excellence, his wanting to leave the world a better place with his work even
if he wasn't able to claim credit and his continual battles with the status
quo.

------
momentmaker
The Surrender Experiment

Autobiography of a Yogi

~~~
justshashank
+1 to Autobiography of a Yogi. Made lasting impact on my life. This book has a
lot of magnetism to it, some agree and some disagree but here are some of my
favorite quotes in the book:

"Wisdom is the greatest cleanser."

"Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of
an undigested knowledge"

"In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic
minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle."

Other notable books that had an impact on the way I think are:

On The Shortness of Life - Lucius Seneca

Steve Jobs Biography - This was way back before I moved to states and gave me
an intro to states as well as S.V

------
azhenley
Brave New World.

The Design of Everyday Things.

------
mmaunder
Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Made me realize being different is a superpower.

------
Yizahi
I understand the point author of the question makes (which I suppose is "to
recommend one book you liked" essentially), but if I would take it literally,
as written, then - no single book ever changed the way I think about
everything, or even about majority of things.

~~~
jodrellblank
The point of the question is not books you like, or books which changed
everything, but books which changed _you_.

If you grew up, as most people did, your world view was shaped by a child's
world view seeing a small slice of local life and some nationwide lowest-
common-denominator TV/media.

If you haven't read anything which has shaped, changed or distorted that brain
you see the world with, you either had an unusual upbringing or you haven't
read anything very interesting.

------
ct520
Art of war. Litterally apply it to things in life successfully every day.

------
dirkk0
Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks The Unreasoning Mask, Philip José Farmer

------
briandear
Rich Dad Poor Dad along with Zero to One. Also Economics in One Lesson.

------
kerkeslager
How about some essays:

 _Tense Present_ by David Foster Wallace: [https://harpers.org/wp-
content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...](https://harpers.org/wp-
content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf)

This really changed how I think about communication and language, which is
used for everything.

 _Abolition of Work_ by Bob Black
[http://www.primitivism.com/abolition.htm](http://www.primitivism.com/abolition.htm)

This essay persuaded me to change a belief which was previously core to my
belief system: that work is an inherent good. I don't think that his view of
an ideal society is entirely realistic now, but as technology replaces jobs, I
see Bob Black's vision of productive play to be a lot more palatable than
slavishly continuing the capitalist obsession with work as work becomes more
and more unnecessary.

------
vermaden
There are two such books:

* Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

* Discipline Equals Freedom by Willink Jocko

~~~
asavadatti
I am reading these two right now! Why we sleep is quite insightful

------
noir_lord
Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.

Completely shaped my worldview from 13 to now.

------
Wootah
Voltaire's Bastards - The dictatorship of reason in the West

------
joe_the_user
Society Of The Spectacle, Guy Debord

One can't really summarize the argument. It essentially describes the
structure of modern society as it's existed since, say 1960 or early. The text
may seem opaque but if you read it closely, you actually need any explanatory
texts, though they exist.

Honorable mention: Game Theory Evolving, Herb Ginitus Biochemical
Individuality, Roger J. William The Working Brain, Luria Using Your Brain For
A Change, Bandler The User Illusion, Norretrander How The Beattles Destroyed
Rock And Roll, Elijah Wald Mathematical Logic, Manin The Ascent Of Man,
Bronowski The Book Of Secrets, Osho

[1]
[https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.ht...](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm)

------
lkrubner
Fernand Braudel had the biggest impact on how I think about history and the
creation of the modern world:

In particular his focus on the structures of every day life:

[https://www.amazon.com/Structures-Everyday-Life-
Civilization...](https://www.amazon.com/Structures-Everyday-Life-Civilization-
Capitalism/dp/0060148454/)

And his focus on the importance of trade among the different parts of the
world:

[https://www.amazon.com/Perspective-World-Civilization-
Capita...](https://www.amazon.com/Perspective-World-Civilization-
Capitalism-15Th-18th/dp/0520081161/)

More here:

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

------
miguelrochefort
Getting Things Done - David Allen

Writing thoughts down changes everything.

------
EGruzdev
I like books of Victor Hugo. They really change my mind.

------
Wootah
Voltaire's Bastards and the dictatorship of reason

------
pjc50
Programming: _C Traps And Pitfalls_. Most programming books are focused on the
happy path; in reality we spend most of our time in the unhappy one, trying to
fix or debug something. That book made it a lot more hospitable to be in that
state.

General non-fiction: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of
Crowds;
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518)

It's surprisingly relevant today and many of the anecdotes are fun. Helps you
have a healthy skepticism but also acceptance of fads.

Fiction: Pratchett. Hilarious and deeply humanist at the same time.

Fiction _and_ politics: Ian M Banks; fully automatic luxury space anarcho-
liberalism. With lasers.

------
joddystreet
1\. Bhagavad-Gita 2\. Sapiens 3\. Behave 4\. Why we sleep

------
iajrz
\- Rationality: From AI To Zombies \- 12 Rules for Life

------
thegabez
1) Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

2) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

------
agensaequivocum
Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, and De Anima.

~~~
sramsay
Hear, hear! But not the Ethics?!

~~~
agensaequivocum
Yes also the Ethics.

------
iamjdg
Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

------
turbo_fart_box
The Better Angels of Our Nature by Stephen Pinker

------
jtr_47
"The Impersonal Life" by Joseph Brenner

------
mxvanzant
"Your Erroneous Zones" \-- Wayne Dyer.

------
yotamoron
"Deschooling society" by Ivan Illich.

------
credit_guy
"Dictator's handbook" by Alastair Smith and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and "Coup
d'Etat" by Edward Luttwak. I read them both around the same time, in this
order. It changed the way I look at politics in the world. In particular it
completely changed the way I perceive a so called "Revolution" that happened
in my country when I was a teenager (in 1989, the fell of communism). I had
some hunches it was actually a coup, but was never sure. After reading "Coup
d'Etat", I know it was indeed a coup (among others, it was listed as such in
an appendix).

------
true_tuna
I just finished Sapiens. It changed my world.

------
armagon
"Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error" by Kathryn Schulz. I
especially loved the bit where she explained that if people see things
differently, we 1) think they are uninformed. If we know they are informed, we
think 2) they are stupid. If we know they aren't stupid, we decide 3) they are
evil.

I also read another great book that talked about differences between
conservative, liberal, and libertarian viewpoints, with a notion of different
taste buds that are active when observing the world that was really
interesting, but unfortunately, the name escapes me.

~~~
armagon
Ah. The second book I was thinking of is mentioned in this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19089362](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19089362)

------
jessaustin
_Critique of Religion and Philosophy_ , by Walter Kaufmann. I went into the
desert with this book and my Christian faith, and when I came out I had this
book.

------
jacobcammack
Black Elk Speaks

------
jelder
The Clock of the Long Now by Stewart Brand

------
jdegag
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

------
david927
Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

Les Miserables, Hugo

Several stories by Kafka

Dubliners, Joyce

------
cmrdporcupine
Marx's "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844" and "11th Theses on
Feuerbach", Spinoza's "Ethics", and Adorno's "Negative Dialectic."

------
novalis78
How to get what you want by Raymond Hull

------
jim_bailie
"Side Effects" by Woody Allen

------
DubDouble
"Liar's Poker" M. Lewis

------
afomi
The Universal One, by Walter Russell

------
aboutruby
"Don't make me think"

------
sanatgersappa
Tao Te Ching.

------
gareth44
Can't Hurt Me - David Goggins

------
orangemanta
Masters of the Far East, Spalding

------
darkhorn
The Price by Niccolò Machiavelli.

------
onewhonknocks
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius.

------
cpfeifer
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan

Walden by Emerson

Godel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter

~~~
yyyymmddhhmmss
Conveniently, I can just tack onto this list two more books and there we will
have the 4 most important books on my life so far.

 _Sexual Personae_ By Camille Paglia

 _Capital: Volume I_ By Karl Marx

------
BentFranklin
Robert Caro. The Power Broker.

------
zurg
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

------
zerubeus
صيد الخاطر ، ابن القيم الجوزي

------
zengid
_Godel_Escher_Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter made me realize how everything I've
found interesting in Art-music-math-science-nature-etc have interrelated
features that can be explained from a logical/computational perspective. It
planted some ideas in my head that would later blossom into a deep passion for
computer science and particularly programming languages.

~~~
jjcc
Along with articals he wrote for Scientific American as a columnist

------
dawson
Jonathan Livingston Seagull

------
crdrost
My biggest one would be that about two years ago I read _The Goal_ by Eli
Goldratt, who is a physicist-become-industry-consultant.

I cannot write a glowing praise of it. On paper, it is an awful book, because
it _contains_ a textbook but it is _trying to be_ a novel, and so you have to
roll your eye when the main character takes the physicist's advice and
suddenly his business life and relationships are all sailing smoothly. Even
worse: the mathematical derivation that it provides is performed in a context
of a _steady demand for named products_ , a manufacturing context, and so it
has almost no value in the software engineering "project context" that most of
us face, where everything we produce is essentially different from everything
else we produce. To understand that you have to read a sequel called _Critical
Chain_ , but that sequel is written even worse: at least with _The Goal_ you
could imagine yourself as a brave manager finding "Herbies" and putting them
"at the front of the troop." But the sequel is just a textbook that has been
artificially forced into anecdotal form.

Nevertheless, the points covered by the textbooks _deeply_ changed my view of
my purpose at my company and beyond. The essential thesis is that we commit a
fallacy: everyone knows the basic accounting knowledge "profit is revenue
minus cost" and that the point is to generate more profit, but the fallacy is
to assume "there's nothing that I can do to change revenue, that's the job of
sales, so the way to maximize profit is to reduce cost, so we will cut costs
across the company and then we will be extremely profitable." And it doesn't
work! At least, not consistently. What follows is a failure of the greedy
algorithm: to improve the efficiency of the system, the greedy algorithm says
that you make every single part more efficient, and this is also precisely
wrong. The result means that you lose a certain sort of robustness against
catastrophe that anyone who has gotten good at backgammon can tell you all
about: beginners, who play every move safe, systematically make "good luck"
impossible and "bad luck" inevitable: and so they are routinely beaten by the
masters who seem to have bad luck all the way until some run of amazing luck
causes them to make up their loss and more.

As a consequence you create a circumstance where, as Eli puts it, the entire
shop has three priority levels: "hot, red hot, and DO IT NOW". You create a
circumstance of "end of the month syndrome": you start every month cutting
costs and then you end every month throwing away these lofty ideals in order
to meet overdue deadlines and save some customers who are getting mighty irate
with you.

All of these are failures to understand that what we'd now call _velocity_ in
fact just _is_ profit. With a bit of help from my econ course back at Cornell,
most systems can be described with an "order queue" and each order can be
associated with its marginal revenue and a marginal cost. You may have to be
creative to uncover these in some contexts, for example marginal revenue for a
software team at a mechanical contractor may be "paid for" in some "cost
savings" for the contractor as a whole in an informal "this is why we keep you
programmers around!" type of situation. Marginal cost, similarly, requires
being very careful to say "no, I am not going to count my programmers' time in
that, unless I really intend on hiring them specially like contractors for
this order and only this order." Generally labor, like the building that you
are occupying, is a fixed cost.

The velocity of something in the order queue is just the reciprocal of the
lead time that it spends in the order queue, and each item in the order queue
represents a marginal profit, and your profit comes from creating as much
marginal profit as fast as possible -- hence from increasing velocity as much
as possible. Furthermore the only reason to prioritize things in that order
queue is if you are accepting orders of negative marginal profit and you
intend those orders to eventually get cancelled by their recipient -- in the
typical case you can mostly ignore all scheduling optimizations and just take
orders first-come first-served.

So what you're looking at is a sort of physics about how your organization
makes money, and about through my second read-through I started to see how
that needed to change my own professional behavior and how I could help my
companies to do better. And it's just gone beyond my professional life into
thinking about how to increase my throughput of things that make me happy, how
to increase my throughput in household chores, how to increase my spiritual
throughput. There's a sort of nice ubiquity to any sort of physics.

------
sidcool
It may sound corny, but the Fountainhead had a big impact on me in my early
twenties. As I have grown older, I have unsubscribed to many of the
philosophies of Ayn Rand, but there are elements in it that still resonate
with me.

I also recently discovered Stoicism and there seems to be a relation (albeit
weak one) between Objectivism and Stoicism.

------
maksa
Gerald M. Weinberg books.

------
joddystreet
Siddhartha- Hermann hesse

------
312556
Writing On Water by Mooji

------
andrewxhill
Let my people go surfing

------
sunsu
Incerto series by Taleb

------
wsgreen
Prisoners of Geography

------
erikpukinskis
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Leguin.

Before I read it, I thought anarchism was just punk-ish people who want to run
around Mad Max style with no rules. Reading The Dispossessed helped me to see
it's actually a fully fleshed out political system, with many rules, that
could work well.

------
amichal
Brief history of time

------
shubidubi
rich dad poor dad - changed how I think about money.

------
vnorilo
Quark and the Jaguar by Gell-Mann; emergence and complexity.

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter; recursion.

In fiction, Gene Wolfe (Severian) and Doris Lessing (Shikasta) have rewired a
considerable number of my synapses. To this day they tug at my subconscious.

------
Procrastes
For me:

* Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

* The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

* Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman

* Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz

* Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

* Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

* The Culture novels by Ian M. Banks

* Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

* Not a book, but Gene Roddenberry's vision in Star Trek shaped who I want to be and the world in which I prefer to live.

Although, I would say that it's hard to choose because just about everything I
read changes me in some way. Here I've tried to stick to the ones that changed
me for the better, rather than sending me off on an amusing if useless rabbit
trail, e.g. Real Magic by Isaac Bonewitz, Illusions by Richard Bach, The
Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson, H.P. Lovecraft's works.

------
jandyy
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, made me realize that almost 50% of jobs in
captialism are not really nessasary. Made me an anti-capitalist and despise
most of the users in hackernews.

------
ospider
definitely _Sophie 's World_.

------
Peter_Franusic
Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe, by Simon Singh

------
zerubeus
The holy Quran

------
a-dub
letters to a young poet ~rilke

------
mindcrime
_The Selfish Gene_ by Dawkins was very influential on me.

Another was _Nineteen Eighty Four_ by Orwell.

I'd also cite _The Fountainhead_ by Ayn Rand as having influenced me, although
I read it when I was older and found that it mostly reinforced ideas that I
was already sympathetic towards. Similar situation with _Atlas Shrugged_ ,
also by Rand.

I could probably also call out _The Soul of a New Machine_ by Kidder, as being
a primary influence that pushed me in the direction of getting involved with
computers.

------
juskrey
Taleb

------
mikekchar
The biggest one for me was Richard Wilhelm's translation (with annotations --
the annotations are really important) of the Tao Te Ching. Following that, the
same translator's work on the I Ching. (Sorry for the potentially weird
transliteration -- I never know what to do for Chinese!)

My own interpretation is that while we can say "I think therefore I am" you
can't really prove anything else. The tao takes it some small step further:
There exists you, but there also exists everything which isn't you (even if
that's nothing). So, in other words the existence of A implies the existence
of not-A, even if that's the empty set. Between A and not-A there is a
boundary where you transition from A to not-A. In other words, by implying the
existence of one thing, you imply the existence of 3 things, even if 2 of them
are the empty set.

This turns out to be really handy. If you say "tall", it implies "short" (not-
tall) and it even implies that there is a point between "tall" and "short"
where it transitions from one to the other. This is actually a tautology,
based on the definitions of the words, but it can be used as a base of
reasoning. The classic example is that a cup can be empty or it can be full. A
cup that is always empty is not useful, and neither is a cup that is always
full (for the normal definition of "useful" when applied to a "cup"). It has
to transition between empty and full for it to be "useful". Similarly, a spoke
in a wheel is defined as much by the places where it isn't as it is by the
place where it is. You can't have a spoke without a space and when you think
about spokes, you should also think about the spaces between the spokes
because they are just as important. Or if you don't want criminals, one easy
way of accomplishing it is by getting rid of laws -- no laws, no criminals.
More laws, more criminals. This is just reasoning based on the tautological
definitions of words, but it can lead you to pretty interesting insights.

The I Ching is interesting because it documents 64 states that you could
possibly be in. It then describes all the transitions between the states.
There are consequences for moving from one state to another. The consequences
are described in those transitions. It is surprisingly apropos! Though it was
supposed to have been written by the Yellow Emperor thousands of years ago, in
reality I think it's been tweaked over and over again for thousands of years
and the 4096 different possible transitions have just been worked out by
exhaustion.

Many people think of it as a fortune telling thing and you can roll dice (or
draw straws) to pick a starting condition and the transitions, but my
impression is that this was originally a study mechanism. In fact, it's not a
book you can easily read through. Randomly selecting a starting condition and
transitions allows you to study one thing at a time. I still haven't gotten
through everything :-) Basically, I think of the I Ching as design patterns
for life. I'm here. I want to go there. What is the best way to go about it
and what are the likely consequences of those actions? Very useful.

------
jimmy1
Reading the "Holy Fathers" and their understanding of the Scriptures,
particularly St John Chrysostom. St Ignatius of Antioch and St Justin Martyr
as well -- the wisdom of the men who was merely a generation or two removed
from the very Jesus Christ himself. I also find reading the second-hand non-
Christian sources of Jesus and his followers fascinating as well, such as the
works of Josephus and Tacitus.

The Bible being profound to people isn't anything new to people, but it was in
particular the writings by these men that deepened it for me, solidified it, I
don't know what was it. Maybe it was because I was a functioning agnostic the
entire time I was brought up, it just made it that much more real to me. I
can't really put my finger on it, but that was the experience I had.

For my non-cliche picks, starting with "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. Particular
the a-ha moment here was the dichotomy between the "fixed" mindset and
"growth" mindset. Shedding the notion that we were "fixed" in our ways. The
particular example that resonated the most with me was the one about Michael
Jordan. How I used to remember so many people saying "he was born with that
talent" or "it was a gift from God"

No the gift was not his talents, it was his work ethic and determination. To
find out he was actually cut from his high school varsity team at 15. To hear
the stories of how he practiced so determined (and took great offense if his
team mates didn't take practice as seriously as he did, sometimes to the
detriment to some relationships), it just changed my whole perspective. I was
going through a tough time of my own at work, and this book allowed me to
realize that the feedback I was getting wasn't attacks against my character or
meant I wasn't smart enough or good enough, they just were what they were, and
they were opportunities to grow. Everything can be malleable with enough time,
energy, focus, and most importantly, the right mindset.

A follow up to this in a tangential way was "The Obstacle is the Way" which
really helped me learn how to roll with the punches, and turn everything into
an opportunity, a challenge. If something wasn't fair, wasn't right, seemed
impossible, it didn't become my destruction, it became my motivation.

Finally, for leadership, and kind of along that same theme of rolling with the
punches and stop buying into the "life isn't fair" or "I got a unfair shake"
was Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Lief Babin. The book details the
stories of the Navy Seals that fought in the Battle of Ramadi in 2005-2006.
Most people will be particularly interested in the chapter about Chris Kyle of
"American Sniper" fame, as he was part of this Navy Seal unit.

Besides the awesome stories, the book details a great mindset for ownership
and leadership in general. Teaches you how to ditch the word "they" when
referring to other people in your organization (I found myself often
complaining that things were more difficult than they needed to be, often
using the word "they" when describing who exactly was making my life
difficult). It helps you realize your part of the bargain when it comes to
your organization's success.

------
HeavyStorm
Sapiens.

------
wilgertvelinga
80000hours

------
_____bee_____
fooled by randomness

------
nimmen
I Am a Strange Loop, 2007 book by Douglas Hofstadter

------
HAL9000Ti
saving

------
U597418
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand.

------
stevenalowe
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

------
vishnugupta
All the books below have shaped my thought process to a significant degree. I
started reading late but I'm fortunate enough to have stumbled upon these
gems.

"Debt: The First 5000 Years": This is truly a magnum opus. Until I read this I
had taken money, economy, market etc., for granted. And I had held onto the
widely accepted, but naive, view that economic systems somehow grew out of
barter systems. The range of topics discussed, and the way author shows how
seemingly independent concepts are intertwined, is truly astonishing. I'm on
my 2nd read.

"Thinking, Fast and Slow": This book made me truly appreciate the value of
psychology. I didn't even know the existence of a vast domain called
behavioral science until I read this book. Now I'm deliberately conscious
about the decisions I take and retrace my thought process multiple times just
to make sure that I haven't fallen pray to some of the cognitive biases.

"The Tell-Tale Brain": While I did know that human brain is a unique organ
this book opened my eyes to its layered complexities. For instance, how
"seeing" is not a single step but a multi step process. From image formation,
to identifying the object, to evoking emotional response.

"QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter": The book with the highest
signal to noise ratio. I finally understood what science is about, a way to
model nature and to keep refining it to fit the observation. There are no
true/false theories/models only those that explain nature's behavior better or
worse. Nature is agnostic to all our theories and models. She's just the way
she is. For details read about double slit experiment.

"How the World Works": This one along with "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism
& Global Order" has greatly shaped my mental model about the workings of
contemporary world. I now understand why does military gets all the funding,
why do powerful governments tend to keep its subject under perpetual fear, why
is it that the cost of education has been sky-rocketing.

"The Hanging of Afzal Guru and the Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian
Parliament": A glimpse into the working of Indian justice system.

"Broken Republic": This is by far the most accurate description about current
affairs in India. How India is being hollowed out and how its most vulnerable
section is the one fighting against it.

"Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life": I'm currently
reading it (20% through) and it has already made a big impact. The meaning of
information is deep and subtle and pervades not just human being but the life
itself.

"The Order of Time": The book that well and truly shook the foundation that I
had taken for granted for my entire life. That space and time aren't something
absolute and are personal has had a profound impact on me.

"The Upanisads": A truly remarkable work of human mind. Just to think about
some of the concepts uplifts my mood.

------
otakucode
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. My parents had a Vic-20 and I'd learned to
write some BASIC by reading the books that came with it (which conveniently
failed to mention that programming was supposed to be hard or was something
some adults did as a job). But it wasn't until I read Microserfs, specifically
the Wired Magazine excerpt of it, that I knew computers and creating software
would definitely, without a doubt, be the driving force of the rest of my
entire life. I haven't regretted it for a moment.

Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche. I picked it up knowing nothing but Nietzsche
was the progenitor of the saying 'that which does not kill you makes you
stronger' (which is a radically misunderstood saying that is supposed to sound
naive and stupid). Then I read the chapter titles. "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I
Am So Clever", "Why I Write Such Great Books". I had to read it. It sounded
ludicrous from the table of contents alone. And so it was. I later found out
that he wrote the book while in the end stages of syphillis, mostly insane. It
did, however, clue me in to a whole different kind of thinking by introducing
me to philosophy and how problems could be tackled that can't be addressed
through more analytical means. Plus, it is full of a great many laughs simply
due to the absurdity. The only thing I can recall actually making sense and
being true was a bit about how to be most like ones parents is the greatest
disgrace because it indicates that humanity has stagnated and not advanced for
your generation at least.

And though I don't care for it now, Ayn Rand's works, Atlas Shrugged and The
Fountainhead, had great impact on me at the time I read them. I went on to
read all of Rand's non-fiction philosophical writings as well. It was thanks
to her that when I attended college, I majored not just in Computer Science,
but also in Philosophy. And I credit that education with granting me a
tremendous amount of insight and philosophical confidence. Today I would
vigorously disagree with many of Rand's shortsighted conclusions, and even
with her physically incorrect epistemology, but she did have a grand idea
after all, to derive all of philosophy from first principles. Shame she
started with the wrong principles and A is indeed often not A but a
superposition of A and B. Beyond that, the modern Objectivist community seems
to lack a great deal of the intellectual mettle that I think she herself had,
and they seem incapable of letting go of the seemingly helpful flawed evidence
of the past and embracing the more sound modern evidence of the benefits and
evolutionary advantage of empathy and such. I could go on for hours about how
Rand actually DID account for things like charity and supported them, but it's
a nuanced discussion and not for a thread like this.

Also, the hardest book to read I have ever read, Comprehensive Mathematics For
Computer Scientists. It derives mathematics from set theory on up. It is
written like a single books-long (there are multiple volumes) academic paper
and if you're not accustomed to reading such information-dense material, it
might well be impenetrable. It took me days per page to fully comprehend,
often with breaks in between. But it gave me interesting perspectives on at
least functional programming and infinity and how to prove things.

------
porpoisely
I read Freakonomics and Guns, Germs and Steel in college and was initially
'amazed' by it. Now, I see it as mass market rubbish used to influence a
particular demographic.

But that goes for pretty much everything really. Catcher in the Rye in high
school. Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People".

I think books can "change the way you think about almost everything" when you
are younger, naive and idealistic. As you grow older, wiser and understand the
world more, you leave those childish things behind.

Also, as einstein said : "Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too
much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own
brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."

I'm sure I'm not the only one that used reading as a crutch and a form of
escapism and to waste time.

But if you want a book that left an impression on me, K&R's C Programming
Language is one. It showed me that a technical book can be concise, well
written and enjoyable to read.

~~~
carlosyasu91
I've found that most of the Einstein quotes I've seen online don't have a
valid source, where did you find that one? Just as a heads up, since Walter
Isaacson never mentioned anything similar to that on his biography of him.

~~~
Torien
'He loves quiet chats over his own dinner table with such friends as Gerhart
Hauptmann and Professor Schrodinger. He reads only little. Modern fiction does
not seduce him. Even in science he limits himself largely to his special
field. "Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from it's
creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too
little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much
time in the theater is tempted to be content with living vicariously instead
of living his own life." In his own field of thought Einstein follows every
development with keen interest. He has the gift of reading at a glance a whole
page of equations. Einstein can master a whole new system of mathematics in
half an hour.'

[http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-
content/uploads/sateve...](http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-
content/uploads/satevepost/what_life_means_to_einstein.pdf)

Not really the total repudiation of reading that this quote is being implied
to be

~~~
carlosyasu91
Yea, there's more to the context of why he said that, thanks for sharing!

------
auslander
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman. You realise
that nothing makes sense anymore.

------
coleifer
The Hero with 1000 Faces, by Joseph Campbell.

------
PavlovsCat
"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, "To Have or to Be?" and "Sane Society" by
Erich Fromm, "Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt, and before that
several books by Sebastian Haffner about the Nazis, who also had a very keen
eye for the things that truly mattered, as unflattering as they are.

------
tosca
The Holy Bible

------
cynicalbutt
A rant.

The question itself is kind of absurd if you think about it. But it leads to a
nice parade of skimmed and unread books. Sorry, if I'm too cynical. I just
have seen these questions about books thousand of times and every time I have
the same feeling: that people are grossly overestimating the impact of the
books they have read and they are just approval junkies. Surely, no book can
change your thinking about almost everything.

It's quite interesting that people love the concept of "favourite books". Any
time there is a question about our favourite books we feel the urge to share
and tell everyone what great books we have read. It's not important what
others have read, main thing is to shout out our title.

I still haven't figured out why we love to discuss books so much. Is it egoism
or need for approval? Is it because we have to somehow justify hundreds of
books we have bought and never actually read? Books become elements of
decoration, just to show off and appear smarter perhaps. If they are stacked
on the edge of your desk, that's even better, it portraits you as a restless
intellectual adventurer. And when your guests arrive you make sure that they
get a glimpse of your amazing "library". And some of the guest who kind of
dabble in books themselves, are happy to look at your books, skim them, and
make some general remarks. Win-win. I'm sure you guys can relate.

~~~
chadcmulligan
Hmm, not every one is like that, there are some no doubt, I remember seeing an
add for books by the meter many years ago to fill up your shelves.

For me, I love books, have since I was a kid. I used to love having books on
my book shelf and looking at the books every now and then, and remembering the
stories. When having friends over looking through the books was something we
did (that and CD's/LP's), likewise going to friends places and looking through
their stack was always fun. I'm always keen to discuss books I've read and
recommend books I enjoyed, or in this case changed my view of life, there are
a few.

Now they're all on my ipad and I can carry my library round wherever I go. In
many ways I think people are made of stories, we all have our stories about
ourselves and people we know, and the stories we read and share are just an
extension of that. The stories are about people we may never know and things
that we may never see, or never even exist, to want to share these with others
seems natural to me.

------
bodzio2019
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Changed my point of view on ... everything.

------
dominotw
the selfish gene

~~~
dominotw
wtf. downvoted?

------
navyad
Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand It has a strong character which put work above
everything else in life, highly idealist one.

------
dougdonohoe
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion)

This led me to read other authors like Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet. Helps me
identify the influence of religion in nearly every aspect of life.

------
porsager
For a New Liberty[1], and Ethics of Liberty[2] by Murray Rothbard

[1] [https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty...](https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.epub?file=1&type=ebook)
[2] [https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/The%20Ethics%20of%20Lib...](https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/The%20Ethics%20of%20Liberty.epub?file=1&type=ebook)

------
pcprincipal
"Free Will" by Sam Harris. A buddy told me to read this after we got in a long
debate about free will at a bar. Basically, he told me I wasn't even grasping
_what_ free will is, and that the hour to read the book would totally change
everything for me. Lo and behold, he was right and the next conversation we
had about free will was much deeper and largely framed by the insights in this
book. It convinced me that the real question isn't "Do we have free will?" but
rather "What is free will?"

"The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch. It's difficult to pinpoint this
book as being about a thing or a set of things, but my best attempt is to say
it's about attaining knowledge and the non-existent limits to human knowledge.
I've never felt more inspired than when I finished reading this book and
reflected on the infinite lengths humankind has to go on technological
progress. Overall, it's an incredible argument for optimism about what is
possible.

------
laughinghan
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

"Wait a minute--this Snow Crash thing, is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?"

"What's the difference?"

This was the original definition of a "meme" as coined by Richard Dawkins:
instead of humans choosing what to think, what if ideas self-replicate using
human minds as hosts? Religions, languages, agriculture, chemistry, the word
"like", uptalk, literally any thought or behavior pattern can be framed this
way.

See also: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-
rage...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/)

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martinraag
Free Will by Sam Harris had a great affect on how I view the people and by
proxy the world around me.

He argues that anyones decisions are a direct result of the physical structure
of their respective brain, which in turn is moulded by their genes and
experience so far, rather than a by an unexplainable free will.

The book made me reconsider how people treat each other because of their
beliefs and actions - from harbouring negative feelings towards somebody due
to their opinions to locking up people for committing crimes.

At the very least it has helped me in personal relationships and encouraged me
to try to understand where another persons opposing viewpoint is coming from
rather than feel negativity or superiority towards them because I feel they
are wrong.

