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Ask HN: What is one book you would recommend everyone to read?
166 points by mach1ne on Feb 7, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 353 comments
HN produces better book recommendations than any other place I know of. People at HN have recommended such books like Chimpanzee Politics, which are so basic yet eye-opening that everyone would benefit from reading them.

If you would get to recommend a single book for everyone to read, what would it be?




Okay at the risk of being offensive, all the comments before mine are made by overly intellectual fools.

I'm not usually so insulting--but as a father of two, if my 3 year old and 1.5 year old could only read one book, it would have to be "Oh, the places you'll go" by Dr. Suess.

Sorry to stomp on Das Kapital and its ilk, but if you get only one book, I can't imagine a better first message to convey than the endless possibilities inherent in each of us.

The world is your oyster! Even if you're old and have wasted most of what you were given. Especially today, in some of the most amazing times that have ever existed (even if you didn't draw the long straw). Today is SO much better than most of history.


It sounds like you have read the question as "if a person could only read a single book in their whole life, what should it be?"

But I think the question actually meant: "for actual real life people here on HN, who have all probably read some books already, what extra book would you suggest reading?"

For us adults, there are probably books that would have more value than Dr Zeuss, excellent though it may be.


I agree kids should be read books that open their minds, that are written for the young mind.

For international audiences I would perhaps suggest books with a large number of translated languages as kids usually prefer to be read in a language they speak. One such "universal" book could be "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. For me it's magical at every age you read it.

At least in my native language (Finnish) Seuss is completely untranslated.

Hence in general, for this topic, "english books for adults" is maybe the safer categorization as I presume the intended audience is happy reading text in english, even though their kids don't speak english.


If you squint enough, Das Kapital is the extended version of "Oh, the places you'll go" :)


What’s amazing about Dr. Suess is how much creativity and fun he packs into a very simply written book. Most children’s books are so asinine. “Sally went to the farm. She saw a pig. Sally can drive a tractor. Etc. etc.” There is rarely a point to the book. Dr. Suess uses similarly simple language: “You can think about red. You can think about pink.” While simple, the underlying message is usually profound, and that makes it so much more interesting.


You will probably agree that the hidden recommendation here is to have kids :)

With small kids, the world is your oyster and everything is a great wonder, and that's the real treasure.

So perhaps we can say the advice is to learn from kids and stay hungry and foolish? And that can of course apply to reading as well!


Which is rather insensitive, given that large percentage of HN readers have never seen the place where children come from!


I agree with OP. Even though it may be a book for children, it is worth reading.


Dr. Seuss is a great start for kids. Smart advice.


Definitely The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. If only so they would understand The Answer and the latent absurdity of our civilization.

Although the bit about the plague from a dirty phone might be a little too close for comfort these days (but that just goes to show how fascinatingly “complete” the book is).


Douglas Adams seems strangely forgotten, considering how great he really was -- or maybe he isn't forgotten, in the British Isles and elsewhere?

As a grammar and syntax nerd, I was a huge fan of his puns on rhetoric.

"The mere thought," growled Mr Prosser, "hadn't even begun to speculate," he continued, settling himself back, "about the merest possibility of crossing my mind."


Not for everyone, but those who it is for very much should read this - but not without understanding that it can be quite triggering at times. :

  The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma   
  -Bessel van der Kolk
It's not an easy read for said people, but very worthwhile. Was introduced at a friends place and got a little ways in, waiting to pick up my own copy now.

Edit:

Also "The Art of War" is fun. It mostly boils down to common sense, but it's interesting to see application of first principles to ancient warfare.


I read it recently and didn't like it that much. 1/3 of the book is author praising himself for what he had accomplished, another 1/3 are success stories from his patients and one-sided presentation of research that agrees with his points. The rest 1/3 of the book I found interesting.

As many modern books - it suffers from lack of focus; my opinion.


If you don't mind me asking, do you suffer from any of the things he discusses in the book?

I'm just curious to know how our context differs if any, not trying to imply anything else.

For me at least, there were things he talked about which felt like there was someone/something that understood and that there was a chance to work forward through things. There were also a few things I read which... well, lets just say I added the warnings for a reason.


> If you don't mind me asking, do you suffer from any of the things he discusses in the book?

Yes, the book was recommended by my therapist. There were interesting and helpful parts to the book, in my case specifically the idea that it's hard to be anxious in a relaxed body, the yoga part, and the chapter about psyche being composed of different parts that protect one another and you can ask them to "step aside" were the most influential.

So I took useful things out of it, but I cannot say it is well written. In particular a lot of "meta" conversation would have been better left out. Like coming back to the DSM classification and ranting how it doesn't include childhood traumas even thou the author feels he demonstrated they should be a separate entity. And on research - I don't know much, but I know something about epigenetics. There was a chapter that touched upon epigenetics (about how stressors change the expression of our genes), and the papers were cherry-picked to agree with what the author was saying. I didn't like that and this made me doubt some of the cited literature in other chapters that I cannot judge on my own.


Thanks for the response.

Our experiences definitely differ somewhat, but I also didn't have time to read the book as thoroughly as I would eventually like.

Wishing all the best too you, and hope you've been able to make progress on your issues!


Not a book I would recommend without a trigger warning.


For the Art of War? If you need a trigger warning for a book that’s been around for 2500 years you should stick to Golden Books.


If you know the art of war, and you do understand that it requires no trigger warning, why would you assume it applies to it and not the book you do not know about?

Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.


No, the first book I recommended.

The above commenter is very right - that's the role I'd intended the line beneath it to fill, though it clearly doesn't.


I'd say that The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't [0] is the book for the current moment. Don't be put off by the subtitle. It's not about condemning a particular group as fuzzy thinkers. Rather, it's a manual for overcoming your own biases with immediate, actionable advice. For example, if you express your beliefs as "percent confident" rather than "true or false," it's easier to update them based on new evidence.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Scout-Mindset-People-Things-Clearly-e...


This sounds wonderful, thank you


It sounds like you might like Susan Haack's "Evidence and Inquiry."


It's probably cliché, and there are so many good books.. I must say "1984" because I read that as a kid, and it was not only the first "real book" i read from cover to cover, but also the one that I felt most strongly influence my thinking.


I know people love 1984 but I found it exceedingly boring when I tried to read it. But it does have some very interesting ideas. My issue with 1984 may have been prior exposure to it's best ideas elsewhere.

Orwell is a great writer, highly recommend both "Homage to Catalonia" and "Animal Farm". Complex topics written in an accessible style.


Yea, I'm not sure how well it'd have fared with me if I'd read it in my 20's, but at 13, it was mostly new stuff to me (this was also before The Internet was really so much a thing, so my exposure to ideas was somewhat limited).. I did also enjoy the dystopian style described, I still remember it described the hallway as "smelling like cabbage" and I pondered the significance of this and found that cabbage was "poor people food" and other such details that enriched my experience, but yeah.. I'd be surprised if some single book could introduce wholly novel and interesting ideas into an informed adult in 2022. LaVeys bible would be a healthy read for a lot of people I think, but it's kind of difficult to convince people to read that one..


1984 is not boring; it takes commitment to read and think about the idea of "Power" it paints. Once you "get it" it can be Worldview altering. It may talk about "The Party" but that is just a stand-in for any Group; for example, think of any "Religion" and its hold on its followers.

Here is O'Brien's monologue on "Power"; read it and see how widely it is applicable - https://artist-tyrant.tumblr.com/post/69668613937/obriens-mo...


>1984 is not boring

Maybe not for you. But it was for me. I am not sure how claiming that it is not boring for all people could be true (implied by your comment). Much easier to defend the counterfactual that all topics are boring to at least one person.

It's not like I was not interested in the ideas in the book. Merely I had seen them explored elsewhere before I bothered to try and read 1984.


I think Animal Farm is better.


Mini-Habit by Stephen Guise.

"A mini habit is basically a much smaller version of a new habit you want to form. 100 push-ups daily is minified into one push-up daily. Writing 3,000 words daily becomes writing 50 words daily. Thinking positively all the time becomes thinking two positive thoughts per day. Living an entrepreneurial lifestyle becomes thinking of two ideas per day (among other entrepreneurial things). The foundation of the Mini Habits system is in “stupid small” steps."

I did a summary here : https://www.chestergrant.com/26-highlights-from-mini-habits-...


This idea sounds like “tiny habits”, elaborated in the book by BJ Fogg? Have you read both? If so which would you recommend?


I've read Tiny Habits, Atomic Habits, and a different book from Stephen Guise.

BJ Fogg's writing is much better organized than Guise's. Between Tiny and Atomic, I find Tiny covers much more conceptual ground on human behavior. The interplay of motivation, ability, and prompts is relevant even for behaviors that aren't habits. Also, Tiny covers much better the "why" and "then what" of these small habits.

Another book I would recommend that ties in nicely with Tiny Habits is The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. She covers a lot of ground on the topic of why we do or don't do things. I think it could be a helpful debugging guide if you're struggling with a habit or behavior and need more depth than Tiny Habits.

Between all of the books mentioned though, just to be clear, Tiny Habits would be my pick if you were only going to read one. It's much more than just "make a habit of doing something really small". It's changed how I work on my own behavior and how I manage my team at work.


I never read his book, but I have taken a course by him via email. But yes, I believe they are the same thing. I think BJ Fogg has a more academic bent to it while this is a book from someone telling a story about what worked for them. I tend to like personal stories backed up with scientific evidence(I don't know if tiny habit is like that since I never read it). But, I like the practical implementation steps given in a personal story. What this book has over the stuff I was doing via email is that it is less complicated.


There's also atomic habits.

It seems authors were in search of the smallest habit possible. Probably smaller = easier for readers searching for shortcuts to build willpower

Can't wait for subatomic habits!!


I'm actually writing a book called "Quantum Habits".

I've only gotten to the title, so far.


Maybe it should remain a quantum book as well ;]


As a "general" recommendation I think "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster (1909) is an especially interesting read today. Extremely prescient and a fun, short book.

For someone more ambitious I might recommend "The Anatomy of Melancholy," by Richard Burton (17th c.). At least the preface (around 100 pages) and maybe a smattering of the book proper. It's hard to explain - better to look it up.

For something more recent and immediately relevant, I think "Are Prisons Obsolete?" by Angela Davis was quite eye opening about the history of racism in law enforcement and the production of the modern prison system.


The best two books for engineers are

1) “How to win friends and influence people”

2) “Never split the difference”

The first one will teach you how to work with people. The second will teach you how to negotiate salaries, raises, and promotions among other things.

I don’t recommend many technical books because engineers can find all of that on the internet and are much more at risk of being bad at people stuff.


> The second will teach you how to negotiate salaries, raises, and promotions among other things.

“Never split the difference” is a really good book, but I'm really confused by this context. The book is 90 percent 'how to encourage rational thinking in your counterparty.' The author's experience is in suicide prevention and hostage negotiation, where all you really want is the counterparty to do whats already in their best interest. Hence the focus on emotional IQ advice, like slowing down, mirroring, building trust, etc.

In contrast, salary negotiation is a completely different beast. The book has a single chapter on "classic" MBA negotiations, but the counterparty is far more well informed than you are, and engineered the entire process to favor them -- multiple candidates, salary bands, structured interviews.

Where this book shines in the business world is project management and resolving priority conflicts, where you need to build cross functional relationships built on trust.


Granted, I'm just a single data point, but I've applied Voss' recommendations when negotiating purchases, salaries, and daily with my children. It's really improved my negotiation skills across the board.

In fact, negotiation is about helping people realise what's in their best interest among the options out there, rather than the options they want to be out there. But people won't hear what the available options are until they're sure you've heard what they want the available options to be.

Another good book in the same vein is How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk. It's not just about children.


Do you know any books which can help in salary negotiation?


I mean, I've never used it but Fearless Salary Negotiation[1] is commonly recommended?

[1]: https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com


"How to win friends and influence people" contains so much self-repetition that it should be easily compressible to four pages, no doubt many people on the Internet have done that. Read one of those instead.


This reminds me of a communication professor I had. He claimed that, over time, professors have the ability to explain something simple in 5 minutes or 2 hours.

I think the point is, there's many ways to make a point. Communication is hard. Reading a four page overview of a book is not the same experience as reading the actual book. Neither is reading a four page overview written by somebody else.

I also didn't like Carnegie book for the same reason you mentioned, but I wouldn't dismiss it for that reason


You can say the same for >95% of the "self-improvement" book market.


Yes but _How to win friends and influence people_ started that genre, and is an extreme example of the style. All those anecdotes...


> 1) “How to win friends and influence people”

The folks I know who have this on their bookshelf tend to be dishonest, manipulative, self-centered pricks.


They didn't read it then. I read it a while ago and from what I can remember there was nothing about manipulation or dishonesty. In fact I'm fairly sure manipulation and dishonesty were explicitly discouraged.


I never read it cover to cover, but paged through some random parts and it certainly contained guidance away from authenticity and towards identifying and saying/doing the right things to achieve your goals.

It's not a bad thing to read though, but more in terms of understanding what your competition is reading and tools they're potentially weaponizing (lots of copies have been sold). Just like I recommended my sister at least skim The Game when she was frustrated by her post-divorce dating experiences, which based on her description were at least partially being influenced by assholes having read it.


I feel like you might be unfairly judging the book by its cover (or title?). I'd be happy to be proven wrong if you can cite some examples of what you claim. I'd like myself to cite some passages where manipulation is explicitly frowned upon:

> Of course flattery seldom works with discerning people. It is shallow, selfish and insincere. It ought to fail and it usually does.

> Looking at the other person’s point of view and arousing in him an eager want for something is not to be construed as manipulating that person so that he will do something that is only for your benefit and his detriment. Each party should gain from the negotiation.

> The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.

> If we merely try to impress people and get people interested in us, we will never have many true, sincere friends. Friends, real friends, are not made that way.

> If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return - if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.

> So let’s obey the Golden Rule, and give unto others what we would have others give unto us, How? When? Where? The answer is: All the time, everywhere.

> Be honest, Look for areas where you can admit error and say so. Apologize for your mistakes.

> Promise to think over your opponents’ ideas and study them carefully. And mean it. Your opponents may be right.

etc.


He's not judging the book, but the type of people it might tend to attract.


I think the main message of the book is to "put yourself in the shoes of others". And that definitely does not create dishonest, manipulative, self-centered pricks.

In fact, that teaches people empathy.


Empathy is an important part in understanding how to manipulate others. Without being able to put yourself into their perspective it's difficult to determine what actions will have which effects.

People over/misuse the word empathy, often conflating it with sympathy and/or compassion, when they're very different things.

A book can teach empathy while guiding people to be manipulative or exploitive of others. Just because you're able to see things from another's perspective (empathy) doesn't mean you'll give a damn about them or feel what they're feeling (sympathy).


I get your point indeed.

I'm not a psychologist or something, so this is my opinion. But once you have empathy, you must be a real psycho to not feel a damn at that point.

I cannot imagine having empathy but then totally lacking sympathy (in a sane person).


Learning to separate empathy from sympathy with a conscious choice is part of adulting, a facet of establishing and enforcing (emotional) boundaries.

Those who lack that ability are quite vulnerable, it's one of the most rampantly exploited human flaws. "Bleeding Hearts" are a hugely exploited demographic, where people largely experience reactionary emotional sympathy and effectively lack empathy as a distinct observation they may then deliberate on what response is appropriate.

The psychopaths are the ones who either after deliberation never care, or can't even bother to deliberate on what they're seeing, which to the observer is tough if not impossible to disambiguate from a lack of empathy. Psychopathy is a pretty blurry thing though IMHO.


Chris Voss (Never Split the Difference) is largely responsible for my income level today.

Absolutely life-changing book.

He also made a MasterClass.com video course with the same content, if you'd rather watch than read.


> 1) “How to win friends and influence people”

I found it kind of bad. Like, really bad. 50% 'oh my, this is common sense' and 50% 'so that's where the cliche of Americans thinking that we Germans are honest, direct and potentially abrasive come from.'

I mean, I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it, but I found it very lacking and when taken literally, a bit absurd.


I’ve tried reading “How to Win Friends” and all I kept thinking was how it completely would never apply to a person such as myself.


Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut.

It is a book about turning beauty into ruin. About the stupidity and cruelty of man. And also about the authors love of humanity and finding joy and love in the fate we all share.

Vonnegut stared into the abyss and never lost his idealism.


I generally list this as my favorite book. Have read it god knows how many times.

Recently found an audio version read by Vonnegut himself - originally released on vinyl. It was great to hear him tell it, though it is quite abridged.

A different (and unabridged) audio version I found recently was read by the actor Ethan Hawke — and though I respect the man, his voice/acting just couldn’t do the material justice.

Great work of art.


I know this is irrelevant for most people on here I pick Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning'. I started having thoughts of ending myself for the past two, three years and this book really helps my brain get out of that mental state. It's a very short book than can be read in an afternoon.


Essential reading as far as I'm concerned


Thank you for the recommendation.

Please don't think it's irrelevant.

I will read it tonight after work.


I decided to learn/understand why Religion is the center-stage for almost every event that happens to humanity. This year, I’m planning to read the books, at least, of the top 5 religions of the world.

Read Bhagavad Gita[1], had read the Bible[2] in hotel stays but will read it again, and the Quran[3] is waiting in the book-shelf. No, not religious at all; in fact, very far from it.

Some time back, someone did a nice collection of HackerNews recommended books[4].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran

4. https://hacker-recommended-books.vercel.app/


This is maybe a completely un-informed comment, but does religion have much to do with the actual books? From my own personal experience 90% of the people I meet who call themselves religious couldn't quote more than 10 lines.


I have found this particularly amongst my Christian friends and relatives. In general I know more than probably 90% of them. I have asked about events, people, themes in the bible and they come back clueless and just quote whatever they heard at church out of the mouth of the priest/preacher. It seems like they are comfortable with other people injected their morals and how to live life every rather than seek out education and personal development.


As a non-religious myself, I can't understand how you found the willpower to read the Bible and even want to read it again. I tried reading some chapters and was either bored to death or couldn't understand the text because of how badly it is translated/written.


For me, the Bible didn't become appealing until I aqcuired a fascination with ancient history. Being able to track the lineage of certain writings through the Bible is a massive thrill for me. Here's a few examples of what draws me in...

Famously, the story of Noah is also recorded in the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. One of the psalms in the new testament contains parts of the egyptian opening of the mouth ceremony, which I believe was also recorded in the book of coming forward by day (aka the egyptian book of the dead). The crazy thing about the book of coming forward by day is that parts of it were regarded by the ancient egyptians as being of immense antiquity, stemming from a pre-cataclysmic source thousands of years prior. If anyone is familiar with Plato's Crimeus and Timmeus, Atlantis was supposed to have founded Egypt as a colony, and if we're willing to humor this sole tenuous connection, we may consider that there are sections of the Bible containing quotes/memes/symbolism from Atlantian culture :)

This is all just food for thought, just one more way of approach the Bible as hypermedia (per se).


Religious myself. Agree that having a modern translation can make a great difference in readability. I've read parts of the King James translation, and the language makes it a though read.

Personally I enjoy this translation: https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/ I read it in Dutch, but it's available in multiple languages.


As a bit of an experiment (/procrastination) I randomly clicked through until I arrived at some text. I ended up Judges 19, which is a bizarre story of a concubine (*) that cheats, returns to her parents, then her husband (after a four month delay) goes and finds her there. There's an odd narrative detour where the father in law continues to pressure the husband to stay, but eventually he leaves. While stopped at a strangers home on the journey back, some bandits want to rape him but his host offers his own virgin daughter and the concubine instead, so they rape and kill the concubine. When the protagonist finally gets home he cuts up his dead concubine's body and sends the parts across the land.

This leads to a war (Judges 20) where tens of thousands of people were killed but I decided to stop at this point!

https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/judges...

Wikipedia article on the story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levite%27s_concubine

(*) Searching afterwards, I found this is a somewhat rough translation of a role that doesn't exist in today's society: a lower status wife that hasn't been paid for (!) by her husband.


By the way: (would be an edit but it's too late)

This is not meant to imply any particular judgement on the bible in general or even this particular story. I just found myself on a journey that seemed to me to be very odd, and thought I would share in case others found it interesting.


You are right KJV isn't easy understandable ... the NWT is easy to read


NWT also contains small changes to accommodate the Russellites' belief system.

I don't even speak English natively and can read KJV. I guess it just isn't more difficult than reading in foreign language in general.

Update: Samuel Johnson's dictionary helps with word definitions from 18th century. Noah Webster's dictionary is good too.


Does that even matter though? The KJV was written to best fit in with Christianity in that period of time and situtation. You won't find a Bible or any religious text without bias from those who are translating it.


The dynamics of the KJV were different. N competing Versions had caused divisions among the people, so the king ordered the making of one universal standard. The translation committee was aware of the goal and tried to avoid bias. Curiously it didn't result in N+1 competing Versions, but KJV was almost universally approved and many older Versions were retired. Readers have been content for over four centuries now.

In the case of NWT I think the bias matters because JWs deviate fatally from Christian orthodoxy.


Note that the Christian Bible is not a single book but a collection. As such the order of the books within it is not optimized for comprehension.

New readers should start from Matthew.

Many of the English translations try to keep much of the paragraph structure from the older English translations which limits readability also. I'd encourage more radical translations like The Message over New King James as examples.


It's a collection elaborated over thirteen centuries. I think having in mind the shifting context of writing and the various forces bearing on it make it a far more compelling text. Otherwise a lot of it just reads like out of date mythology and antiquated propaganda. You can see the evolution of Canaanite polytheism to Jewish monolatry and monotheism over time, the political conflicts between the groups of the region following the Bronze Age collapse, the conflicts between Canaanite polities, the retcons to invent a unified Kingdom of Israel, the creation of a literate orthodoxy with the Babylonian exile etc. And that's just the Jewish stuff. The dynamics of Late Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity are also fascinating.


If there is a story, try to adapot it for nowadays. Keep asking what is the point of it and what would happen today.

Of course there are boring parts with family trees etc., so skip it.


try this: https://thebricktestament.com/legacy.html


May I recommend the Ten Minute Bible Hour podcast? It’s a podcast that goes through the entirety of the book of Matthew, but without the sermon. Instead he covers historical, social and cultural context to help people better understand how the original audience would have read it and come to a better understanding of what the Bible says. Again: without the sermon.


His YouTube content is great too


> why Religion is the center-stage for almost every event that happens to humanity.

If that's the question you're after, you'd probably enjoy The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, and some parts of Sapiens by Harari, both of which approach this question from outside of religion (while I'd argue that reading the books on your list approach it much differently).


Bhagavad Gita. Sure why not. India does not have enough problems. Its still not recovered from the caste system. Why not bring the strict version and fuck it up like the pre British era.

And please do not spread the lies on British for the caste system. The varna system(caste system) is the basis of the vedas(hindu religous book).

For those who wants to know what the caste system is, read this essay by an scientist and activist https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readin...


My dear friend, throwaway-account-created-just-to-comment, I have also read Mein Kampf[1] a few times. Will you now, assume, I trying to be a Nazi or practice anything in that quadrant.

I'm reading up on religion, so I can understand or at-least try to understand, why some people are so tangentially religious that they will flip and take sides and have to be part of something to defend their thoughts.

Religion or beliefs are weird and many a people tend to get sucked in so bad, they neither see logic nor reasoning to try to be see the various sides/perspectives and what-ifs.

Now, I know why my wife always warned me before going to parties and social gatherings, "Do not explain topics to people even if they are wrong and you are right." No wonder, she is the go-to person whom everyone wants to tell their fun/sob/love stories but she never pass on any of the messages or talks about anyone to another. ;-)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf


I have always been skeptical of religion and think the service that it provided is now obvious and religions are obsolete and no longer needed. At its core is a way to understand the “why” and the “how”. Why should we be moral? Why should I be honest? How did we get here? All of those are can be answered much more precisely and to a much better approximation with philosophy and science without the need for woo-woo beliefs. Sure we should all understand and tolerate religions to an extent but by and large the service they pride is served much better by other sources.


as an atheist, the new testament was a pretty fun read. if you put aside all the stuff about Jesus being God and also his son or whatever, the character was very revolutionary and anti-establishment.

"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."


> "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."

There he implicitly refers to the creation week, that is the rationale for keeping the sabbath: "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:11)

Jesus stresses that God gave an example to rest on the seventh day, for in his time it had been turned into a religious ordinance with strict rules to follow. IOW people were on their toes to avoid doing anything banned instead of resting.

> the character was very revolutionary and anti-establishment.

I guess you can get that impression depending on how much you put aside as "stuff about Jesus being God and also his son or whatever".

In Matthew 23 he says: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not."

I would say that he opposed the establishment to the extent that it was wrong, but he definitely opposed rebellion:

And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. (Matthew 26:51-52)

That was when Jesus was being captured.


I've gifted copies of Six Easy Pieces [0] to numerous people now, it's the only book I can say that for.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5553.Six_Easy_Pieces


Would you recommend his lectures on computation too?


Dunno, but I do hand out the youtube link for his Eselan talk on computer heuristics whenever people want to understand how a computer works.

The thing about Six Easy Pieces is it's an exceptionally accessible subset, so it's a great gift for folks that could benefit from a quick physics refresh/primer. It's a small booklet.


With respect to those in this thread, I'm seeing a lot of suggestions of fairly niche books that I have never heard of or would consider reading.

It may be that there is no one book that I think everyone should read. Everyone has different tastes and interests, and what I think is a must read is probably on someone else's list of books never to read.


>I have never heard of

That's the point

>or would consider reading.

Why? The point of lists like this (and of learning) is to go beyond what you're comfortable with and expand your horizons and knowledge.


There are many books people suggest I read which I have heard of but haven't had a chance to. On the other hand, some suggestions here are slightly outlandish. To their credit, some of these people have provided a brief synopsis to enable one to quickly decide if it's their cup of tea or not.

My ultimate point is it strains credulity to think that there is a one size fits all approach to books. What you think is a great read others would say otherwise.

There is no one book I would recommend everyone read. Maybe if we got specific into a particular academic field, there is. Not generally, though.


I would not recommend a single book for everyone to read, because people have different tastes and interests - and even if you recommend a single book based on people's interests - if they are really interested in that and the book is important to that interest it's likely they've already read it.

So probably a recommendation on any field should be made based on calculations both of how essential it is, but also how it's reading may change assumptions about the field if the person has not read it. It seems somewhat arrogant.

And in the end it's annoying to get recommended a book one considers essential to the field, as it implies one does not know what one knows.

All that said - for the field of:

Fantasy - Gormenghast

America - Democracy in America

Programming - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs


I haven't read the English translation, but Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman had a profound influence on my trust in people, and expecting good intentions by default. Especially during bad times (COVID, geopolitics, etc.) it was a source of well-founded positivity that I needed.


This would be my recommendation too, also Utopia for Realists his earlier book is a great read.


Anna Karenina would be my recommendation. I had a lower oppinion on novels in general before reading this, but Tolstoy is just phenomenal with his characters.

It made me realize how great books should help improve your empathy towards others, and being more understanding to behaviour you'd normally just vilify.


Influence by Robert Cialdini. We live in a commercialized world - Cialdini gives a very engineer friendly, pragmatic and empirical review of the psychological tricks used to make people comply.


I read Discworld novels for relaxation, they are hilarious and full of humanity, wisdom and insightful fury at injustice. But it's very hard to recommend just one.

_Small Gods_ is about religion, belief and humanity's relationship with their gods, and about eagles dropping tortoises onto stones to crack them open.


I have gifted numerous copies of the book - “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse. I think the book changes the way you see the world.


It's been a couple of decades since I read Siddhartha and I am very curious how my take on the book will be different from my younger self.


The Bible - as an original source of all types of stories and narratives you’ll find in 99% of all fiction books and movies.

New Testament — as an original source of most of moral principles and ideas modern european civilization is based upon (also fundamental stories and narratives).


I’ve read the Bible and frankly I wouldn’t recommend. Putting aside that the different translations can sometimes drastically change the meaning of some stories, the English Bible as a whole is harder to grok than Shakespeare.

Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out. And some of the male testaments were only included hundreds of years after the death of Jesus. And then you have parts that are routinely taken out of context (because it’s such an massive and hard to read body of works) and other parts that contradict itself.

Regardless of whether you believe in God or not, the Bible isn’t a particularly good book in my opinion.


I second the commenters that counter-argue that just because a book is hard, it does not make it a bad book.

While it's hard to understand for the following reasons

- It's not "a book" but a canon of dozens of books bound together, written by different people;

- cultural distance: Middle East versus West;

- temporal distance: authored approx. 2000 years ago;

almost every book written afterwards refers to it explicitly or implicitly or depends on it in some way, and you will never understand the later works fully without having read some of the Bible.

To read the Bible, a layperson needs guidance. Having said this parts of the New Testament are more easy to follow. For those who prefer to watch, this movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058715/ (created by an atheist to better understand it all) uses the original words of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the result got praise from the Vatican, ironically.


> you will never understand the later works fully without having read some of the Bible

Generations of kids have grown up understanding stories just fine without having read the Bible.


A huge amount of language in the western world is based around biblical stories, and you need to know dozens of them to understand common idioms and metaphors. From the snake in the garden of Eden to being the David to someone's Goliath, to being a good Samaritan, to camels going through the eye of a needle (and here's dozens more https://city.org.nz/blog/eo-bible-20181101).

Beyond that, especially in English, the King James bible's phrasing of dozens if not hundreds of biblical passages are now common turns of phrase - where not knowing their origin reveals you as a uncultured.

Same as Aesop's or La Fontaine's fables, really -- you know it's fiction, you don't have to think it is a good story, you don't even have to agree with the morale -- but since everyone literate in the last two centuries is familiar with it, you will look out of place not knowing it.


I’m not disputing the historical significance of the Bible. I’m disputing the need to learn it to understand modern literature. And again I reference that generations of kids have managed just fine without reading the Bible.

It is entirely possible to explain as phrase without reading its original source material.

To give another example of this: Star Trek does exactly this with Picard and others referencing Moby Dick. I understand exactly what that dialogue is about and yet I’ve never read that specific book.


I didn’t say it was an easy read. For good or for bad - those books require efforts.

But once you dig to at least 1% of the stories and ideas - you save weeks skipping tons of shallow books out there.


Reading something unenjoyable just for the sake of not having to read something else that you might enjoy doesn’t sound like a particularly compelling reason to read the first book.

Besides, if all you’re trying to do is compress lessons in story writing then you’re better off skipping the Bible and picking up a collection of kids stories - particularly for ages 6 and below because those will often also follow the same lessons of morality to help children understand how to interact in a modern society and are only a few short pages long so much quicker and easier to read than the Bible :P

The only reason I see to read the Bible is if you have a specific interest in the history of Christianity. Even Christians these days pick an choose which parts of the Bible to read and then distil those down into short stories and songs rather than reading the texts in full.


I don’t enjoy a book that has nothing new to say to this world, just a waste of paper/bytes.

Thanks to the bible, i can focus on and admire the rest 1% of truly worthwhile books.

In other words it makes me better prepared as a reader, as I did my homework


> Even Christians these days pick an choose which parts of the Bible to read and then distil those down into short stories and songs rather than reading the texts in full.

It is lamentable if true. They don't know what they miss.


> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out.

Does the gender of a books author really matter?


It does when those books were purposely excluded because the author was female. It also matters a lot when one of the books excluded was written by the person who was actually closest to Jesus too. Thus her accounts should surely matter at least as much as the mens (probably more so in reality).

The New Testament was collated in an era when organised religion was used as a tool for man to retain control. To that end, much of content of the “modern” Bible is about man and why one should follow man because he speaks on “behalf of God”.

This isn’t some new morality interpretation in the new age of political correctness either. This is an observation that’s gone back as long as I’ve been alive (40+ years) because, as I’ve said above, the testaments of those closest to Jesus were even excluded.


I do not think it matters whether a book is written by a man or woman, if the discussion is about worthwhile books to read.

The bible is not just any other book though, and I understand why you'd have political, moral or religious ideas against anyone reading it. I do not think it was being recommended for any of those reasons though. Looked at as just a book, its very much worth reading regardless of what was edited out or translated out.

The idea is to read it as a book, and not some 100% accurate 100% inclusive 100% politically correct collection of books.


You post as if the only argument I made was about the gender of the authors but that’s not the case. I had also made points about why it’s also not a good book from a literacy standpoint too.

My point was it doesn’t work either as a factual piece, as a piece of literacy nor even as a set of moral principles. It’s just not a good set of texts by any modern standards.


> You post as if the only argument I made was about the gender of the authors but that’s not the case.

In an online forum, people will usually only respond to things they strongly agree or disagree with. I just strongly disagreed with the idea that a book should not be read because of the gender of its author.


I got that but you’re being disingenuous to my point by distilling it down to the gender of the author. I’d never suggest one should read or not read a book because of the gender of the author.

My point was that the sincerity and authenticity of the Nee Testament is comprised because they withheld accounts. Thus if you were to choose not to read it, it wouldn’t be because the authors were male, it would be because it lacks authenticity. I also gave other examples of how it lacked authenticity too so even that point about authenticity wasn’t just about gender.

So while you’re free to disagree with me, please at least disagree with the actual argument I’ve made rather than creating these straw man arguments that even I wouldn’t agree with.


> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out.

> My point was that the sincerity and authenticity of the Nee Testament is comprised because they withheld accounts.

You spoke only of one withheld account, that of Mary, and you said it was because of her gender.

And when you say it lacks authenticity, is it because it's a mans account? Meaning a mans account cannot be authentic in its own right.. it has to be balanced by someone else's account? Is this a court of law where two people (genders in your case) are fighting for I don't know what and both sides have to present their case to the jury/readers? Is this the test for authenticity.. that a female point of view must be included for it to be real?

> So while you’re free to disagree with me, please at least disagree with the actual argument I’ve made rather than creating these straw man arguments that even I wouldn’t agree with.

You are still saying the same thing: the bible is fake/"not authentic" because it was written by men.


> You spoke only of one withheld account, that of Mary, and you said it was because of her gender.

Yes, and I explained why I did in the post above

> And when you say it lacks authenticity, is it because it's a mans account? Meaning a mans account cannot be authentic in its own right..

Fuck me this is getting repetitive.

Let’s just forget all mention of gender because my points stand up without that context. The points being the Bible lacks the accounts from those closest to Jesus and his teachings. And let’s just say, for the context of our discussion, the reasons for that omission is a historical curiosity but mostly irrelevant to this conversation.

Now you can argue whether missing texts affects the authenticity or not. And whether that even matters for a recommendation. At least if we disagree on that, we’re arguing the same topic. :)

> You are still saying the same thing: the bible is fake/"not authentic" because it was written by men.

I don’t really know why you’ve got fixated about gender nor why you find it so offensive that was even mentioned in the first place. I wasn’t trying to undermine the feelings of any alpha males on here, I was just adding some background for anyone who might have been interested.


> Let’s just forget all mention of gender because my points stand up without that context.

Good. I rest my case then.

> The points being the Bible lacks the accounts from those closest to Jesus and his teachings.

Moving on, assuming you are talking about Mary here, and have read the gospel of Mary, can you tell us just a few things that it contains that are lacking in the other gospels, written by men who were also very close to Jesus?

> I don’t really know why you’ve got fixated about gender nor why you find it so offensive that was even mentioned in the first place. I wasn’t trying to undermine the feelings of any alpha males on here

hmmmm... ok


We’ve gone through all this already.

For someone who’s advocating we read, you’re having a hard time doing that yourself.

The sad thing is I genuinely would have enjoyed your insights into the Bible but I guess that was too much to ask.

As also mentioned elsewhere, I’m not going to bother replying further because I think you’ve already exhausted all possible iterations of this repetitive argument you’ve got us on.


> It does when those books were purposely excluded because the author was female. It also matters a lot when one of the books excluded was written by the person who was actually closest to Jesus too.

Which book was this? How do we know about it, and have you read it?


Background as to why Mary Magdalenes account is so important when discussing Jesus and the New Testament. Also shows the tension and resentment some apparently had towards her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene

Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a book that is believed to be an account of her albeit not directly written by her. Though it should be noted that there are some disagreements about whether other books from the New Testament were actually written by their respective disciples either.

https://www.compellingtruth.org/gospel-of-Mary-Magdalene.htm...

This last link helps illustrate how the Bible is collated by man to fit a narrative defined by man. What isn’t explained in that article though is how religion was used to control a populous, often even used as a legal system. Which should cast scepticism about the motives behind the various rewrites and decisions behind what gets included and what doesn’t.

https://www.compellingtruth.org/lost-books-Bible.html


> Also shows the tension and resentment some apparently had towards her.

This is life. There will always be tensions, envy, politics and resentment whenever people come together, regardless of gender. Jesus was betrayed by one of his very own disciples after-all.

So you say you've read the whole bible, but have you read the gospel of Mary Magdalene which you consider would "redeem" the bible by? Why, haven't you read it?

> Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a book that is believed to be an account of her albeit not directly written by her.

There are many books in the bible that give a females account. You should know about them as someone who's read the whole book (an impressive feat).

And what do you think of the many other books omitted from the bible, for example the gospel of Thomas? Is it because it was written by a man?

> This last link helps illustrate how the Bible is collated by man to fit a narrative defined by man.

Is there really anything in this world that is written and collated that does not fit a narrative defined by their authors?

> Which should cast scepticism about the motives behind the various rewrites and decisions behind what gets included and what doesn’t.

The changes have been greatly exaggarated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ5cgQUJnrI


> This is life. There will always be tensions, envy, politics and resentment whenever people come together, regardless of gender. Jesus was betrayed by one of his very own disciples after-all.

Clearly. But that’s an irrelevant truism when the point is that the accounts of the individual who was most familiar with Jesus’s teachings wasn’t included.

Honestly, the reason they weren’t included isn’t even relevant when the point is about the authenticity of the book. I just bought them into the conversation to add some context for those who might not have been aware.

> So you say you've read the whole bible, but have you read the gospel of Mary Magdalene which you consider would "redeem" the bible by? Why, haven't you read it?

I have read it.

> There are many books in the bible that give a females account. You should know about them as someone who's read the whole book (an impressive feat).

It’s not that impressive of a feat.

> And what do you think of the many other books omitted from the bible, for example the gospel of Thomas? Is it because it was written by a man?

I’d already answered that question.

> Is there really anything in this world that is written and collated that does not fit a narrative defined by their authors?

My point is that those collating it are not the authors. Ie the narrative is defined by doctrine centuries after the original authors. This, in my opinion, compromises the authenticity of the book. You seem to disagree though, which is fine.


If you have read the gospel of Mary, why don't you tell us more about your take on in? How does it differ from the other male written accounts? What in your opinion makes it more authentic? What does it talk about that the others don't? Please give us something more details that the generic "not authentic" refrain.

> It’s not that impressive of a feat.

Indeed. If you don't remember the books in the bible that give a females account despite saying that's what the bible lacks, then reading the whole book isn't that impressive at all. It's also really interesting how you said that it is "harder to grok than Shakespeare", then turn around and say that reading the whole book isn't that impressive anyways ..

> My point is that those collating it are not the authors.

There is actually a whole profession that revolves around modifying the work of the original author. They are called "book editors". If I want to hear someones pure, pristine, unedited account, I'll have a face to face conversation with them. Not read their books.


> If you have read the gospel of Mary, why don't you tell us more about your take on in? How does it differ from the other male written accounts? What in your opinion makes it more authentic? What does it talk about that the others don't? Please give us something more details that the generic "not authentic" refrain.

Given the conversation that lead up to this point, I’m going to respectfully decline this offer because I’m not really in the mood to risk another argument on another topic.

> If you don't remember the books in the bible that give a females account despite saying that's what the bible lacks

I didn’t say the Bible lacked any female accounts. I said it lacks specific accounts from specific people who, in my opinion, absolutely should have been in there.

> It's also really interesting how you said that it is "harder to grok than Shakespeare", then turn around and say that reading the whole book isn't that impressive anyways ..

Reading Shakespeare isn’t all that impressive either.

And yes, I did say the Bible is harder to grok than Shakespeare. But that doesn’t mean completing either is a spectacular achievement.

I’ve got to say, I’m not loving the sub-text you keep deriving from my comments given you’ve been wildly off on pretty much every assumption.

> There is actually a whole profession that revolves around modifying the work of the original author. They are called "book editors".

Book editors generally work in conjunction with the author but at least we are now on topic. :)

I take it from that is that you don’t see an issue with reading a reinterpretation that happened without the authors input?

Weirdly I enjoy that sort of thing in music but dislike it in literature. Which probably doesn’t make much sense but you like what you like.

> If I want to hear someones pure, pristine, unedited account, I'll have a face to face conversation with them. Not read their books.

Unfortunately Mary and Jesus aren’t around to converse with but I do take your point.

Putting aside questions about the truth behind Bible specifically, can I assume from your comment that you view non-fiction works as a dramatisation too?


> I’m going to respectfully decline this offer because I’m not really in the mood to risk another argument on another topic.

lol!

> Then there are issues about how it was written by man, in the literal sense. Female testaments were left out.

> I didn’t say the Bible lacked any female accounts.

It looks like I'm doing a better job than yourself of keeping track of what you've said.

> Book editors generally work in conjunction with the author

Generally? That's a "wildly off" assumption

> I take it from that is that you don’t see an issue with reading a reinterpretation that happened without the authors input?

A "reinterpretation"? That's not what a book editor does.

> Putting aside questions about the truth behind Bible specifically, can I assume from your comment that you view non-fiction works as a dramatisation too?

Drama, by definition is a specific type of fiction. So how can non-fiction works be dramatized and remain non-fiction? And just because something is non-fiction does not make it the absolute truth. We all have perception filters and imperfect memories so seeking that kind of intimacy with a books author through their work is a futile exercise. A book is a one-to-many communications medium, not a face to face communication. And everyone derives their own version of the truth from the same book. Even if Mary miraculously appeared and told you her story, if you asked her about it again one year later many of the details will have changed! Long story short: that absolute truth you seek does not exist.


> A "reinterpretation"? That's not what a book editor does.

I know! You’re the one that made the stupid argument about book editors and I told you at the time that wasn’t what a book editor did.

> Drama, by definition is a specific type of fiction. So how can non-fiction works be dramatized and remain non-fiction?

You say that and then go on to say absolute truth doesn’t exist and if you ask people the same question twice you get a different version of the truth. Literally contradicting your opening sentence.

> It looks like I'm doing a better job than yourself of keeping track of what you've said.

You’re either incredibly piss poor at reading comprehension or just trolling. I’m assuming the former given conversing with you has been like trying to hold a debate with someone who’s suffering from severe mental trauma. You repeatedly contradict yourself (sometimes in the same post), build up entire arguments around some subtext you’ve derived and then refuse to move past that even when it’s pointed out that you’re completely in the wrong.

Either way, this could have been an interesting discussion where you presented why you might recommend the Bible but instead it’s been a frustrating affair of you demonstrating how some people are incapable or reading any form of texts.

With that in mind I’m going to terminate our conversation here because we are just going round in circles with yourself repeatedly missing the mark at every opportunity.


> You’re the one that made the stupid argument

lol.

> You say that and then go on to say absolute truth doesn’t exist and if you ask people the same question twice you get a different version of the truth.

lol! Different accounts !== different versions of the truth. Once you've calmed down enough to think clearly, go and reflect on the term "absolute truth".

> You’re either incredibly piss poor at reading comprehension

> conversing with you has been like trying to hold a debate with someone who’s suffering from severe mental trauma

> some people are incapable or reading any form of texts

The insults are now flying fast and furious, all over the place, lol! I do agree with you on one thing though: this conversation is now over.


Everything you're saying is true but does not to attest to whether the Bible itself is a good book, judged solely as a literary work. It is possible for it to be an enjoyable and interesting read despite all of your valid complaints.


I think it's a valid political complaint considering the role of the book in the world but I don't think it's a valid literary complaint because men (and groups of men) write some books and women (and groups of women) write other books and neither are bad for the reason that they are written by only one gender. If the latter were true, then all books written by groups of women are also bad, which is absurd.


My point exactly. I don't think politics has any place in this discussion. The request was for good book recommendations for everyone, not good book recommendations for republicans, christians, feminists etc


The issue here is you’ve focused on the political context and not on the actual reason I disagreed with the recommendation, which was:

1. It’s not authentic for a plethora of reasons (you disagree on that point, which is fine)

2. Even treating it’s stories as just stories, they can differ a lot from one translation to another. Even when you look at different versions of modern stories, at least the basic premise remains roughly the same. Some of the translations of the Bible change key events in hugely significant ways. Which then begs the question, which version of the Bible should one read?

3. It’s also just not well written by modern standards.

It’s fine to disagree with some of the political context but you’re being disingenuous to my original post by distilling it down to an argument about gender and politics.


I wouldn't go that far. I think one could make an argument that one should not recommend the Bible because of these reasons. It doesn't have to be a bad book to be a bad recommendation.


+1 for the problem of the translations.

Considering the room of interpretation it is outragous that some claim to take their (often random) translation at hand literally.

Nobody should take the collected stories of a far away tribe (time and space) and take it word by word.

Enjoy it as it is: a mixture of early philosophy, politics and mysticism.


You realize it’s the books you dont agree with that are most worth reading?

The capitalist should read Marx’s work. And the diehard communist should read Hayek.

To filter out a work like the Bible (or Koran, etc) because it goes against the grain of your current politics is retarding your intellectual growth, not expanding it.


I wasn’t saying I don’t agree with any political messaging. I was saying it’s an objectively bad book to read by modern literary standards. Even those in this thread defending the Bible has literally said it’s not something you’d read cover to cover.


I have read it cover to cover multiple times and plan to continue reading for the rest of my life.


The Bible isn't really the source of any narrative archetype, it's recycling stuff that's been around the Middle East for thousands of years before the Iron Age. The Old Testament is really to be credited with theological innovation. By the time Rome came around, Jews stood out extremely in the religious landscape.

I won't even get into the New Testament. Jesus brings a lot of radical ideas, but he's starting from ideas of the Pharisees and the Zealots. And that's not accounting for the fact that the interpretative framework that makes our entire understanding and perception of the New Testament is entirely Greek, all the other currents of Early Christianity have disappeared.


Can you name any other written source systematizing all popular narratives befor the bible?


Is it original though? For example, the story of the flood is a very close copy of an earlier Babylonian flood myth.


Also Jesus' execution and resurrection is the (I think) fourth iteration of the same story.

Authors copied ideas back then just as they do today. Nothing wrong with it, though it doesn't help the claim that it's a holy book.


I don’t think the bible is worth reading. Study it sure, but don’t read it cover to cover like a novel. Huge amounts of filler and many of the narratives, whilst early, are not very well told.


Agreed. The King James version especially is full of "Huh, so that's where that phrase came from" moments. If you like literature at all, definitely read The Book.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bible

In terms of literary quality, I especially recommend Ecclesiastes and the Gospel of John.


Agreed with this one. But whole chunks of it are incredibly boring. So not one to be read cover to cover. I wonder if someone could point to an annotated bible or even a text book on the historical and culturally important points that are central to the bible.


Or th4ey


I've keep a record of my books read (and unfinished, and written up etc) over the last few years here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WSI8g_9BnNmfUM0ZupN1...

If they're 'Written Up', they're generally pretty good.


Great idea! What does 'Written Up' mean?


I took notes and summarized the book for myself. I do this after some time has passed to consolidate the memory


I guess it would depend on the category, like if you are doing any sort of front-end dev then one book I'd recommend over any other is Don't make me think which is still relevant today.

For the smb/indie-hacking I think E-myth revisited really changes your whole perspective about running a small business, especially when you read yourself on the pages.

Also there is one book which I don't think everybody should read but was truly life changing for me was Driven to distraction. It helped me get a evaluation and understand that ADHD is a very real thing (real as something which Doctors can spot on a MRI and it's not something you can overcome with strong will and determination).


The E-myth revisited seems to be one of those business books where they took something that could have been an article, or maybe even a paragraph, and dragged it out into a whole (extremely dull) book.


If the book were a paragraph, you wouldn’t be exposing yourself to the idea during the X hours that it takes to read the book.


If it is the duration/repetition that matters, couldn't I just read the same paragraph over and over? It wouldn't be any more dull than the book.


What? Three different anecdotes carry strictly more information than the same anecdote three times. Thus they are more novel and less dull. That’s even assuming no value in the new information - in reality different points of view of exactly the same model can be useful to learn it better.


> ADHD is a very real thing (real as something which Doctors can spot on a MRI

That always makes me wonder: why then is ADHD not tested via MRI? Wouldn't that be more reliable than the series of tests they make people fill out?


Maybe not for all but,

Bhagavad Gita: As it is.

Do not read the explanation which are biased to god and religion.

But you can definitely read the stanzas. The idea that we are actor whose duty is to act is a powerful concept, especially when you are feeling low.

The book also has some egoistic stuff like "I am god, obey me." But once you filter some of these, you see bigger picture.


Definitely not a recommendation I see often.

I only came to know of the Gita by this quote: "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof". Resonated with me, and brought me to the concept of "karma yoga".

How did you come across it?


Alternative worded quote :

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." - Jean-Luc Picard


Hm, I would disagree. I think they are 2 different quotes, both meaningful in their own ways. I could elaborate more if you'd like.


Short story: I was lost during the early college days. I already had the book in my home for a while and decided to go through it. Once I finished it, I adopted some of the ideas from the book. Immediately, I realized how powerful the concept of acting (karma yoga) is!


Can I ask if you're Hindu or born in India (only if you are comfortable sharing)? Because I don't see many outside of those 2 circles knowing of this text - and I'm really looking for a different interpretation / view of it, rather than the traditional one. (I am neither, if it matters)


I would suggest this critique of Bhagavad Gita.

Who Wrote the Bhagavadgita: A Secular Enquiry into a Sacred Text by Meghnad Desai https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21454853-who-wrote-the-b...

Many people consider BG to be unchallenged book and that all it's ideas are good. But this book by Meghnad Desai opened my eyes and now I am disillusioned for the good.


+1 for Bhagavad Gita, I read it a few times, If one could understand Karma Yoga, result is ultimate peace. In short if the outcome/result of a work does not affect you, you'll be at peace.


Is there a particular version you'd recommend? I tried an online one a long time ago, yet found it hard to read and gave up.


I recommend the following;

* The Bhagavad Gita translated by W. J. Johnson and published in Oxford World's Classics. This is a good succinct translation in the spirit of the original.

* The Bhagavad Gita translated and interpreted by Franklin Edgerton (2 vols in one). Edgerton was a noted Sanskrit scholar and this translation contains a lot of background and detailed material in the form of illuminating essays.

The above two paired together will give you excellent insight into the text.


Not sure if it's the only book I'd recommend if I have to stick to the rules, I think others have already done that for me here but:

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

is very funny but also the back story to how it got published is both sad and interesting.

...and if I can pick a second book:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance by Robert M. Pirsig.

...and a third:

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller


Wow! More or less the three books I would've suggested in the same order. I would happily get some more suggestions until I encounter a book I haven't read (e-mail in bio)


Thank you, that’s very kind to say.

So many good books in this thread already. I could suggest though:

Hagakure - Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuk

For something lighter I like anything by William Gibson or Neal Stephenson. The Quicksilver trilogy is great as is Anatheme.


To have or to be - Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm is a great author and in this book he looks at the difference of having (owning stuff) vs. being (enjoying experiences). He argues that too many people are focused on "having", and that our whole society and even language is built around that. For example, you would say "I have a relationship". He argues that it's a weird choice of words, since you don't own the relationship.


Is it really common to say "I have a relationship"? I would instinctively say "I am in a relationship". Maybe though it is also because my mother tongue is German and in Germany people say "Ich bin in einer Beziehung".


My mother tongue is also German, so maybe I picked a wrong example for this :D A better one would be "I have a partner" maybe? I've read it some time ago, so I don't remember the exact examples, but you get the idea.


I think at the exact same time you posted this I also recommended an Erich Fromm book.


He's great!


Erich Fromm came to mind as well. The same ideas and themes also appear in the books of Hermann Hesse.


Also - The Art of Loving


How about "Zero Waste Home" by Bea Johnson

For its potential impact on humanity...

> Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot (and only in that order) is my method to > reducing my family’s annual trash to a jar since 2008 -- Bea Johnson

https://zerowastehome.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4n-jOJol3I


Everyone should read a platonic dialogue. Plato's Republic in particular due to its influence on western thought. Although some of the ideas may seem absurd from our modern point of view, it's still thought provoking and a good example of old school philosophy. Also, Plato casually outlines why our current system of government is doomed to fail...which is probably pretty important to understand.


The Republic is arguably more of a metaphor for the well-ordered mind, an analogy for his notion of a tripartite soul, much more than an earnest attempt at constructing a schematic for a utopian society.

I do agree more people should read a few early Platonic dialogues because he teaches you to question things. I think, beyond anything else, that is what he wanted to teach. A lot of people call themselves skeptics today, but they seem primarily interested in debunking ideas and attitudes other people have that they don't share, but don't see that there is a lot of things they themselves take for granted.


Interesting theory. It does appear to be incredibly naive at times when taken literally. Although there are some rather matter of fact conversations about the progression of political regimes to the point of tyranny, i.e., the post-democratic degenerate phase... which reads as a prophesy to me personally in these times.

Totally agree with your other statement.


Additionally, the society he's attempting to explore is a society in which justice is the single overriding principle. I think if there is anything to take away from that, it's that such a society maybe isn't so great.

His critique of democracy does absolutely have a few good points. A lot of people get really mad when they see it, but I don't think that is at all constructive. If democracy is a good idea, it must stand on its own legs. We can't counter its criticism with what it promises to deliver, but only the reality of what it delivers. Denying or attempting to conceal its problems makes addressing them that much harder, and which problems are easier to fix after having festered for a long time?

At the same time, I think the very Athenian democracy he criticized solved many of our problems today. Athenian officials had real skin in the game in a way ours do not. They risked ostracism (10 years of exile) if they misbehaved.


People get mad because its a concept they have faith in, have been indoctrinated to believe, and they also depend on it to keep political chaos at bay. You can't just pull the ideological rug out from under them, for they will fall--into the abyss. We aren't dealing with pure concepts here, but ideas that have life attached to them. Some ideas are preserved simply to preserve the life bound to them.

I'm afraid this is all a moot point because democracy has already disappeared in the U.S.. We're a democracy in name only. Hopefully we don't go the way of the DINOsaurs.


The Little Prince. Ages young and old will get something out of it.


This is one of my favourite as well. I like the symbolism and how reading it at different stages in my life has given me different meanings.


Basic yet eye-opening for me was "Talking to my daughter about the economy" by Yianis Varoufakis (ex Greek finance minister).

It does an "explain like I'm 13" for how the idea of markets and money started, how and why it changed through the centuries and where we are now.

It's so easy to read, that it took me a couple of days to finish it.


The Enchiridion, aka The Handbook.

Simple language. Simple lessons. Life changing guidance that has stood the test of time.


Good suggestion.

My favourite translation with commentary is Keith Seddon's Epictetus' Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes: Guides to Stoic Living.


Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky


It is waiting its turn on my table btw.


1984.

Yes, I know you've probably read it already, but it's probably time to read it again.


I never read this book. I bought it at some point in mid-2020 and it was too real, i had to put it down because it was making me angry.


I think Animal's farm is better and a lot closer to our current system


Some people think that 1984 is mostly about surveillance, but that’s a superficial reading IMO. I think it’s a lot more about bending the truth and suppressing ideas.

A quote that haunts me: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” Do we have that freedom in the west, today? Will we have it tomorrow? It’s a lot less clear than one would hope.


Exactly.

Surveillance is one of the methods of control, but it's really about oppressing the way people think, shaping it to suit the needs of The Party.


It seems some people say they have read it even when they haven't. (Citation needed.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y83UkvHpYk


I can believe that more people started to read it than actually finished it. Plot points from the latter half of the book are only referenced very rarely.


Starting Strength by Rippletoe

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius


I would only recommend Ripptoe if you’re already strength training or have a passion for the mechanics of strength exercises, because if it’s not immediately practical or a fascination, the book will likely bore you.


Opposite of my experience, helps you have the proper mechanical info to learn the basics, skipping marketing nonsense and mumbo jumbo. Knowing how to lift something heavy safely goes beyond the practice of strength training, it's a life skill.


It's multiple hundreds of pages, and a gigantic waste of time for anyone who isn't interested in the mechanics of strength training.

Not everyone is interested in the same things as you.


Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Not that the analysis is flawless as there are many critics. The reason to read the book is to understand the how and why different societies have evolved and why there was a massive difference between Western Europe and other parts of the world. From geological impediments to the evolution of the large animals in the region (zebras are quite skittish and harder to tame/ride than horses), the environment is a major contributing factor to these civilizations development.


Phenomenal book. One of the few books I have gifted to friends over the years. Gets one to think about the randomness of situations (geography, diversity of flora, etc) that lead to critical outcomes (advancement of a society).


Books:

Most of you will know it, but to make sure: I wouldn't want to die without having read

"Gödel Escher Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid" (Douglas R. Hofstadter),

a 1000-page recursive poem about consciousness, bio-chemistry, mathematical versus musical beauty, zen koans, recursion, symmetry, formal rule systems, AI and more. Every second chapter is written as a dialog.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky)

In our time, media manipulation is at its historic peak, so perhaps everyone should know a bit about the political-economic underpinnings. How issues are framed and chosen, the influence of money, reporting biases.

Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with the World's Most Wanted Militants (Phil Rees)

A former BBC journalist tells about meals with 'interesting' people and the trickiness associated with the definition of 'terrorism'.

I'm also going to throw in some movies for good measure.

Films:

Meaning of Life https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085959/

Adam's Apples https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418455/

Harold and Maude https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067185/


It's hard to pick only one but "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Gordon Malkiel gave me some much needed financial literacy in my 20s.


Medicine Stories by Aurora Morales.

Refuses to accept the narrative of the colonizers, oppressors, slavers, winners of wars, and rewrites it, calling things and events by their real names.

Pulls the veil of lies and delusions. Gives voice to the people who survived and endured.

Exposes the methodologies of propaganda and oppression and offers roadmaps of healing from the normalized violence of poverty, racism, colonialism.

Incredibly well written - concise, unflinching and yet levelheaded.


According to wikipedia Aurora Morales is a "radical jewish writer" ... in other words instead you'll just consume another subjective narrative by someone who has a stake in pushing it for their own ideological aims. Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather read the actual sources (eg Seutonius etc) and make up my mind also weighting the facts of who wrote it (winner/loser/hack like Jordanes) in. Everyone knows history is written by winners and not subjective. Not interested in another "storyteller" ...


Eh. All journalism is subjective. The only thing one can change is the stylistic tone to sound more formal. Make no mistake, all articles are subjective even when made to sound dry and robotic. The only thing that isn't subjective is statistics, but such data is missing much qualitative information and can be manipulated to fool you as well.

Much of the way we interpret the world is colored with a qualitative human experience. World War 2 is given to us with a bunch of numbers and statistics is meaningless. Unfortunately this "qualitative" is inevitably colored with bias.

So in short I'm saying, the author of that book isn't disguising his book with a false sense of subjectivity. He is presenting his view point as a human narrative that is inevitably colored with his bias; and that is not always a bad thing.


> calling things and events by their real names

How are the real names determined?


The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

For an insight into how our logic engine doesn't, itself, function in what we would consider a logical way. Reading this book made it easier for me to empathise with people whose situations I could relate to but their reactions to said situations made me question their sanity.

Be thankful for a high functioning brain. Be understanding that very minor differences have majorly different outcomes.


Someone else mentioned it, but I'll add some meat to the reasoning: Taleb's Fooled by Randomness.

He's cooked quite a lot of soup on this stone, and he's built a comically aggressive persona, but the original book is still quite relevant.

Being aware of randomness will change how you think of just about everything, not just financial markets. Jobs, relationships, rivalries, morality, competence, and so on.


Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation

Product-led growth for deep tech category creation sounds like a new thing, but there's almost a century of quantitative social science on pretty much that. The book is a super easy & enjoyable distillation of it.

~10 years after reading, still inspires a lot of my first-principles thinking for how we approach basic product, marketing, partnering, etc


The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins. Everybody should understand evolution.


I haven't read The Selfish Gene - but The Blind Watchmaker was an excellent book also about evolution. Probably more appealing to the tech crowd too (it has programs!)


This book also gave us the neologism 'meme' in the way most people know it today.


The power of stupidity, Giancarlo Livraghi

Quite unknown, I discovered it more than 10 years ago. It is an easily and pleasantly readable book: I discovered my stupid actions, and I still use it to evaluate what I am going to do. It isn’t a survival guide or a “how to” manual, but it offers practical solutions to improve those human qualities that counteract stupidity.


Things nobody tells you about relationship dynamics when you are young. Whats a head of you emontionaly? I recommend these to my son.

Erich Fromm The Art of Loving

David schnarch Passionate Marriage: Sex, Love & Intimacy in emotionally committed relationships.

And before you get married... Get some new perspective why ...

Wolfgang gädecke, Sexuality, Partnership and Marriage : From a Spiritual Perspective


Fear of Freedom from Erich Fromm is also good. The Unfettered Mind by Takuan Soho is one of my favorites. Short but to the point.

Here is my virtual library link: https://vengrams.blogspot.com/p/books.html


There were many similar threads on HN in the past, and my recommendation is always the same: "The problems of philosophy" by Bertrand Russell

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm


Absolute stand-outs from my teens, twenties and thirties, respectively, are The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien, Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

Every visual/graphic/product/web designer should read The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst.


I don’t think I can suggest a singular book everyone should read, but I can say which book probably had the biggest effect on my way of reading.

I’m dyslexic and growing up reading was always a challenge, despite doing well at school and university I was a slow and uncritical reader. My girlfriend (now wife) was teaching The Great Gatsby to a class and practically made me read it. The process of reading that book and discussing it with her completely changed the way I read, it was an enlightening and incredibly enjoyable experience. It was as much about the discussions we had about the book as the book itself.

So my recommendation is find a book that you can read and discuss in depth with someone else. For me it has become a delight for us to both read a book and then talk in depth about it. You gain so much more insight.


If you're in software, read Peopleware. _Especially_ if you lead, or intend to lead, any kind of team.


The Chimp Paradox is probably my #1 general book recommendation because I think we would all be better off if we could better identify and manage our irrational impulses. It's one of those books that can genuinely improve almost every aspect of your life if you take it onboard. It's helped me with countless things in life, from sticking to diets and just being a more reasonable person generally.

There is also a book by the same author called, "My Hidden Chimp" which I believe is a child-friendly version of the The Chimp Paradox. I've not read it myself, but my girlfriend teaches at a primary school where the kids are reading it at the moment. She seems to think highly of it so that might be a good alternative for younger audiences.


Sounds great. Thanks for the tip.


Dune. I'd like to recommend all 6 by Herbert, but since I can only recommend one I'll say Dune. My favourite book. I even have this beautiful edition: https://imgur.com/LQPoi4m


Enchiridion of Epictetus (and other Stoicism works like Marcus Aurelus Meditations). I myself prefer the epicurism point of view, but this book learn you mainly than there is not point to be to much emotional on the many things in life than you cannot control.


Agree, both books really changed my point of view on many subjects such as life and death


Nonviolent communication is a very good one.

It’s not “the one book” but it will help a lot of people immediately.


Impro by Keith Johnstone. Still the best book about improvisation and life, full of warmhearted stories about loss and renewal of spontaneity. I recommend the first 2/3 of the book to literally everyone (Masks is quite specific to stage work).


The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. An absolutely brilliant account of the founding of Australia. A review: https://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Personal/Books/Hughes-Fatal-Shore/ Questions to think about as you read: Why weren't criminals transported to the Americas instead of to Australia? What if they had been? Do governments ever consider the long range implications of their policies? Were German the only people who practiced government-sponsored barbarism against subsets of their own people?


Not everyone but since this is HN I'll say Developing Quality Technical Information: A Handbook for Writers and Editors. It's intended for technical writers as an audience, and there's a couple chapters developers can skip that are about formatting with pretty diagrams and using DITA and stuff, but at least 80% of it is applicable to all kinds of writing that devs will have to do, and everyone needs to be able to communicate with the written word effectively. Literally every developer should read this book (and everyone should read some writing book relevant to their own field). It's amazing.


- Way of the peaceful warrior

- Range

- Conversations with God

- Factfulness

- Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations


Book of Ecclesiastes (part of the books of wisdom of the Hebrew bible)

ancient era existentialism written in poetic form. Unlike the other suggestions here, it can be accessed for free and takes only ~20 minutes to read


“The Scapegoat” by Rene Girard, which suggests that we are deeply vulnerable to imitating others; and that when we imitate, this tends to lead to deep conflict, for we often imitate desire for scarce objects (e.g. a certain role at work, a particular romantic partner, etc.). We also tend to imitate hatred for a given party, as we tend to imitate hatred, too; thus engaging in the process of scapegoating, when, in fact, scapegoats are almost always innocent.


Girard has a very casual relationship with evidence for his theory. For example, he says that both Oedipus and Jesus were scapegoats, with (IIRC) Jesus being scapegoated by his own followers. If you point out that that's not what the accounts say, Girard says that societies that scapegoat don't say out loud that they're doing that, so the accounts won't come out and say so. That lets him read pretty much any account as evidence for his theory, and the fact that the account doesn't actually say that as further evidence for his theory.

That is very much not how evidence works. But if all you've got is an axe to grind, I guess every text looks like a whetstone...


Well, if you look at Oedipus and Jesus, they appeal to Girard’s definition of being scapegoats in that they didn’t do anything wrong, but are presented as resolving a serious problem, which they don’t actually solve. In the case of Oedipus, he is accused not merely of marrying his mother and marrying his father, but of bringing a plague into Thebes, which is just silly and demonstrably impossible; and his death does not resolve. With Jesus, he irritated a bunch of Jews and Romans, but wasn’t really guilty of causing that problem either.

In both these cases, Girard is being plenty honest and reasonable, and his point still stands (which you take issue with) — namely: that those that engage in scapegoating don’t realize they have, which is also true— the people of Thebes and the Jews/Romans, respectively.


But if I understand correctly, that isn't Girard's point. Girard is saying that they do realize that they are scapegoating, though they don't admit it publicly. The society knows, but it's on the quiet - they don't acknowledge it out loud, but they know.

So, yeah. Evidence for that is somewhat lacking - it requires interpretation, which a cynic could call "making stuff up".


We are not in agreement. Girard takes issue with any process where someone is blamed for misfortune, for which they are not actually guilty — ie the process of scapegoating.

You propose that all the individuals involved in scapegoating are always aware. This does not accord with my reading of Girard.

What Girard does believe, in my understanding, is that individuals _can_ become aware of the fact that they scapegoat; he is even perhaps hopeful in that he proposes that some folks even _hide_ the fact that they are scapegoating from themselves; but can become aware of it, with the advantage of truth on the other side.


This sounds very interesting !


Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson.

Just an amazing survey of how people have thought and created over the course of human history. For me, it put so many periods into context; I finally know the different between the renaissance and the enlightenment!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/408204.Ideas


The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile [1]

It's one of the biggest longitudinal qualitative studies on work life and company succes. It has given me by far the most valuable insight into what really matters in building happy and effective workspace.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11721498-the-progress-pr...


I'll make a suggestion that is somewhat odd for HN since it is effectively poetry:

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

This little book stumbles into my life every 5 or 10 years and always reinvigorates my appreciation for the beauty of life. It is like being swept away by a beautiful piece of music - it can touch your soul. Then again, like music, it is not for everyone nor even repeatable for yourself depending on what mood you are in.


The three-body problem.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CF4JFZ?searchxofy=true&binding...

Just ignore the last volume which is a joke from another author.

I'm unable to enjoy any other Sci-Fi fiction after this one.


The Real Story of Money, Health, and Religion by Loren Howe.

I found about it thanks to this HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29801661. I thought the video was amazing so I searched for the author and found the book written by the same person. It didn't disappoint.


Talebs Fooled by randomness.


Not for everyone, but some people would probably benefit from reading Clayton Christensen's books such as The Innovator's Dilemma, Competing Against Luck and How Will You Measure Your Life?

His explanation of Correlation vs Causation while likely obvious to some was eye-opening for me as well as his idea of looking at products from what Job they fulfill standpoint


The Autobiography of Malcolm X

This is one of the best books I've ever read in my life. I'm a big fan of Malcolm X. The change in his life was huge and with every big change that happens to his ideas he doesn't get devastated or shocked but he pursues it with a better understanding. The culture and will power of this man is something respectable.


That's two books, but:

The man who mistook his wife for a hat - Oliver Sacks

The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind - Julian Jaynes


A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science by Barbara Oakley.

The book is almost childish in some sections, but the lessons are great. I'm still using many of the lessons daily such as taking a break when stuck on a hard problem, doing the most difficult task of the day first or that it is okay if you don't understand something immediately.


I've thought about this multiple times myself and I'm torn between two -

Mister God, this is Anna - by Fynn

Finite and Infinite Games - by James P. Carse


A very classic one, also recommended by many other people:

How to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie.

It was the original "self help" book, and the principles there are so simple yet powerful that will resonate a self evident. However these are mostly ignored, and the same as with common sense which happens to be the less common of the senses.


I really liked Epictetus' Discourses. He has a very sort of no-nonsense Dr House vibe going with his bum leg and constant criticism of his pupils. A lot less full of shit than some other Roman Stoics. Maybe not everyone's jam, but I found the tools it provides for dealing with shitty situations highly useful.


Checkout Robin Hard's translations in the Oxford World's Classics series (all are excellent);

1) Epictetus Discourses, Fragments, Handbook

2) Marcus Aurelius Meditations: with selected correspondence

3) Diogenes the Cynic Sayings and Anecdotes: with Other Popular Moralists


Indeed, I think it's a big mistake to cheap out and go for some impenetrable 19th century translation when reading this type of book. Philosophy is difficult enough without dealing with the ridiculously elaborate and flowery language of older translations.

Modern Oxford World Classics or Penguin Classics translations are significantly more pleasant to deal with.


You Are The One You've Been Waiting For: Bringing Courageous Love To Intimate Relationships by Richard C. Schwartz

Despite the horribly long title it turned out to be a great book on what we actually look for in relationships, and how to deal with the difficulties every relationship causes. A very non-boring psychology book.


Since we can only pick one -> "Animal Farm", no question about it. Easy read, succinctly describes human nature.

But if I could, I would supplement it with these two, because they were so prescient in describing what happened to us in the past 30 years:

Erich Fromm - "Escape From Freedom"

Aldous Huxley - "Brave New World"


Never even heard of Chimpanzee Politics. Sounds great. Thanks for the tip.

non-fictional: everything Robert Greene

fictional: everything Dostoevsky


Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software.

Wonderfully written book on how computers work.

It's even a good read for the curious non-technical reader. However, some chapters might be a bit hard for them. The first road block seem to be the chapter on logic gates, but with some help it's not that bad.


And once you've read that, continue with "Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces", and "Crafting Interpreters".

CODE is great to get a sense of what a processor is and does.

Operating Systems shows how processes, file systems, and hardware abstractions make a processor useful to users.

Crafting Interpreters implements a programming language on top of that.

With these three books, you have a good overview of how a computer works.


“Too loud a solitude” for yourself. “Daemon” for the world. “Godel Escher Bach” for everything else.


The Nature of Consciousness, by Rupert Spira.

If you set aside your preconceived notions and read it as a series of hypotheses that must be confirmed within your own direct experience, it will transform your experience of reality and set you on the (pathless) path to enlightenment.


Honestly surprised that "Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan was not mentioned so far.


Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden


'The Book' by Alan Watts


I wasn't particularly impressed with this one. He came off as very preachy. Watts is an entertaining guy, however. Definitely the pill I needed at one point of my life.


He used to be an anglican priest, so no wonder he's coming off as preachy. :) By abandoning the anglican church and incorporating eastern religion and philosophy, he was able to teach much broader and also more suitable for his audience in the 1960s (and onward).

Much of what he says is very inspiring but he also tends to over-generalize in order to make his point salient. It should be reflected upon and taken with a healthy grain of salt.

My experience was similar to yours, I think. The book opened my perspective on how to think about myself and the world around me, and it was a stepping stone towards the original sources of Hinduism and Buddhism.


Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel.

Perfectly explain the progressive religion we find ourselves under.


Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt. Makes you look at work so differently. We aspire to do our best work, but what if the outcome of the work on the world is adding up to it becoming a worse place?


Citadelle (titled in English as The Wisdom of the Sands) by Antoine de Saint-Exupуery. He didn't finish the book but it's about philosophy of his life and I think that Antony was a good example of a strong-willed man.


Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius


Nice! Which edition is your favourite ?

Mine is Seneca Selected Letters translated by Elaine Fantham and published in the Oxford World's Classics series.


War and peace by Leo Tolstoy


Brave new world


The Enchiridion By Epictetus http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html


If you haven't already, checkout Keith Seddon's translation with commentary: Epictetus' Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes: Guides to Stoic Living.


https://hackernewsbooks.com/top-books-on-hacker-news this website is pretty cool!


Journey to the West

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West

..and not just for the fun Monkey bits.


Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt, written in 1946.

Talks about minimum wages, inflation, tariffs, devaluing currency and so on in a very small book, based on (rather game-theoretic) analysis.

Reads like it was written today.


The Road - Cormac McCarthy


'The road' is compelling, but pretty grim reading.


Yes, absolutely. The effect it had on me was that I got more humble, which is why I recommended it.

What I see on HN is that there is a lot of "Success" literature promoted, which from my point of view is a little bit too much focused on self-optimization.


Tao Te Ching.


Accelerando - Charles Stross (actually Glass House as well)


This is an often overlooked book. Definitely worth the read.


No one mentions Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari? I liked it very much. I know it can be biased but really makes you understand how humans operate.


Good Economics for Hard Times, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Great introduction to current social issues and how modern economics can help us make sense of them.


The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street and Get on with Your Life by Bill Schultheis. Short concise, actionable advice.


Easy to read and highly recommended for everyone comes Rutger Bregman and his Humankind. It paints a cool new'ish perspective on the human.


How Emotions are Made, Lisa Feldman-Barrett

IMHO, it will take another century before the world works through the full consequences of what she's written.


I’m vulnerable to recency bias. The books that my recent life has pivoted on are Die Wise and Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson. Both books are journeys that bedevil any effort to summarize. I highly recommend listening to the author read them as audiobooks - the words move too quickly on the page, and the author is kindling a modern spoken tradition. The early going to Die Wise was difficult, but my mind gave way to curiosity and they stole my heart and mind away from the rat race.


Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman


The 7 habits of highly effective people.

The section about "stewardship delegation" alone makes this book priceless.


How to win friends and influence people


David Allen's Getting Things Done


The death of Superman (Graphic Novel)


This was literally the first comic book I ever read. Got me hooked.


A book that everyone should read, at an individual level, is a book that no one should read.


''The Man Without Qualities'' - Robert Musil (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften)


Infinite Jest


Despite the "literature major" stigma the readers get, this book is an incredibly powerful read.


Thiking Forth. Even knowing that you will never touch Forth in your life is really worth it.


Getting More by Stuart Dimond is a good book on negotiating and building relationships.


Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.


I would recommend No More Mr Nice Guy for everyone with low self confidence


Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable


Scout Mindset by Julia Galef.

It is a light read so I recommend it widely. It is about the general topic of making good decisions and having correct opinions which is helpful to all of us.

Caveat: I expect many HN readers to be familiar with LessWrong, SlateStarCodex, and the rationality community in general. In this case, there is probably nothing new in the book for you.


tongue in cheek

The dictionary! It’s THE book you need to write many other books!


Messiah by Boris Starling


Firstly, as a meta comment I think HN has jumped the shark.

Secondly, come on. You can listen to around 200 audiobooks per year while commuting, doing chores, excercising etc.

Lastly: if you only ever want to read a couple of few books, these should be the dictionary and thesaurus.


Apologising in advance to derail from the point of this comment. Lately, I've been giving audiobooks a go. It really does make "consuming" a book much, much easier. Listening during commute/chores is a huge plus. But also, I can't help but feel that listening to books is far less engaging, rewarding than reading them. I've found this holds not just for immaculately written books, but even for easy reads (e.g. wheel of time; pulp sci-fis).

And so I'm at a cross w.r.t. audiobooks. If its not half as gratifying, should I continue to pay thrice as much for a book that I'd enjoy twice as less? On the other hand, am I better of consuming said book (/audiobook) than not?

I guess I want to ask if (i) it's just a me thing? and (ii) if not, where do you (/you all) stand on the matter?


Honestly I find I have a fairly low success rate with audiobooks. Temporary distractions might cause me to zone out and miss a part of the story, and "rewinding" to listen to the same part again isn't as easy as just re-reading a paragraph. I also find that I can be put off good books by poor narration, particularly if there is a lot of dialogue involved.

I find I have most success with "pop science" books. Not too deep or difficult to follow, little or no dialogue.

> should I continue to pay thrice as much for a book that I'd enjoy twice as less?

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying you are paying three times as much for an audiobook as for its physical equivalent? If so, where/how? I've cancelled it now, but when I had an Audible subscription, it worked out as way cheaper per book IIRC.


> Temporary distractions might cause me to zone out and miss a part of the story, and "rewinding" to listen to the same part again isn't as easy as just re-reading a paragraph.

I agree. I think it also explains why I find them less rewarding. When reading, I'm usually just ... reading. Maybe walking and reading. But when I'm listening to audiobooks, I'm involved in a commute, doing some chores, or just fiddling on the phone. The audio input enough is not enough stimuli for me to focus on. I'm literally giving myself something to do along with. It makes complete sense I would not be as involved in the story.

> success with "pop science" books.

That actually sounds like a good idea.

> Audible subscriptions

I didn't have the Audible subscription up until very recently (using Audible.in and paying with a french debit card doesn't allow for recurrent payments), and I would just buy the audiobook at the offered price. Most books go for 900-1700 INR (10-20 EUR), whereas their ebook variants go for 300-900 INR (4-10 EUR). I've seen similar ratios on french stores as well.

E.g. the paperback of Turtles all the way down (John Green) [1] is 10,30 EUR on Amazon, Kindle ebook is 5,20 EUR [2] and Kate Rudd's narration is 23,50 EUR [3].

[1] https://www.amazon.fr/Turtles-All-Down-John-Green/dp/0525555...

[2] https://www.amazon.fr/Turtles-All-Way-Down-English-ebook/dp/...

[3] https://www.audible.fr/pd/Turtles-All-the-Way-Down-Livre-Aud...


It's not just you. What I experience with audiobooks is similar to listening to the description of a picture. Maybe the outcome is, in theory, similar, but I have the feeling I am missing the real thing.

I prefer to read books, and while I am on the move I listen music or podcasts.


It's a silly question, any book with facts not philosophy.


The Myth of Sisyphus, by A. Camus

If a single book, it would be this one.


Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger.


The Overstory by Richard Powers

A book that encourages your imagination


Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us


Rational Male, you will not understand it anyway


Real time relationships, the logic of love.


The New Testament, or any book that explains the key themes. Even if you are not religious, Western societies are built around this. If you live in the West or do business with the West, it explains many explicit or implicit cultural norms.

If you want to go deeper in understanding the West, it's recommendable to also get a rough idea of it's philosophers, especially the Greeks and the important ones up to Kant, including Descartes' idea of the social contract.

If you still want to know more, you should read about the most important economic ideas, e.g. Smith, Keynes, Marx.


I'd toss in St Augustine as well, at least Confessions. You can't properly understand western thought without understanding the catholic church, and you can't understand the church from the bible alone.

Maybe Cicero too, like De Officiis at least (although De Natura Deorum is a more enjoyable read imo). Cicero was a second rate philosopher and incredibly full of himself, but he was extremely influential for a very long time.


The Tao Te Ching


Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.


I think you have to read the sequel Lila too, as it explains so much that the first book merely hints at, particularly all about Quality, which it explains the structure of in detail...and it makes perfect sense. There's less crazy, more anthropology. I don't know which book I like more.


I found Lila much weaker. ZatAoMM seems more coherent both in how it touches subjects and the parallel (life) story.

Lila seems like it might tell you more but it kinda just... hints towards a great reveal that never comes. Then it just ends.


The World without us

Its an incredible non-fiction book


On genealogy of morality - Nietzsche


Escape From Freedom by Erich Fromm


The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan


Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday


Idries Shah, Knowing How to Know


Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince


Man, this is a book that really needs to be paired with an explainer, or you will miss the subtext and come across the exact opposite conclusions: The Prince is a _satire_, a gift to the Medici family that arrested, tortured and exiled him. Everything it praises should be avoided, especially the hypocrisy and corruption of Italy. It dwells on the virtue of a guy who was appointed to lead the papal armies after his dad(!) was elected Pope. It should be obvious its not a straight book by the time you get to the part where it recommends nobles arm the populace, but we see countless "Machiavelli for the boardroom" books that didn't quite pick that up.

It was published posthumously, but was banned by the Church. Ostensibly because it recommended nobles behave awfully while pretending to be pious, but more likely because it pointed out the church was corrupt and its patrons more so.


Sorry to answer this late, I saw your comment just now.

But I have to completely disagree with your view. The reason I recommend "The Prince" is, because Machiavelli confronts the reader with what actually happens in the real world and not what people think is morally acceptable.

This whole book is rational. It asks you what you want to achieve (or conquer) and gives you a guide on how to achieve it. Without any illusions of moral and what else human kind "invents" to prevent them from achieving certain goals (or prevent them from doing the necessary).

Machiavelli ignores, on purpose, what we call "good" and "bad". He focuses solely on what is purposeful in a given context, which is what I love so much about it.


> This whole book is rational.

But like, it literally _is not_. Most obviously an entire chapter is dedicated to how arming the general population is the best way of securing your noble estate, and that is objectively a bad idea for petty dictatorships. There's a reason the British governors of America outlawed guns, and why the US Constitution enshrined the right (and why the slave states did not afford blacks this right[1]).

Even the intro uses a flawed metaphor to explain its qualifications: he claims its easier for a painter to paint a mountain from the valley, because you can see the whole thing. But, as anyone living near the Italian Alps can point out, the mountain is often obscured by foothills, and if you want to see many examples of a mountain peak, climb to the top of one and look around.

He recommends sending your own troops into battle first, and avoiding alliances because they diminish your reputation. Taking that advice is a great way to lose your principality entirely. Without your own garrison, neighbors and mercanaries will have far greater leverage over you, and without alliances you will be at the mercy of those who do have them.

He advises a ruler be feared but somehow not hated or despised. If it were possible to achieve that, his examples laughably do not -- appointing a bastard to govern a city and then parading his head on a pike when that goes badly is not something the burghers will praise, any more than appointing a shitty middle manager who abuses staff and firing them six months later would. Everyone knows you picked the guy, and his failures rub off on you.

If readers today cannot pick this out, then perhaps it is because too much of the context is lost. We no longer live in the era of kings and cannons.

> what actually happens in the real world

I don't think you need to read a book to learn how sociopaths behave, and I don't think the sociopaths themselves need Machiavelli's help on being more sociopathic, and we shouldn't be handing them carte blanch to hang themselves with (nor does Machiavelli do so).

The rest of society deals in what Smith calls "man's desire to be loved and be lovely." We want to earn the respect and admiration of those around us, and we want to believe those are earned honorably, even when we think _everyone else_ is a bastard. Hence bankers arent greedy, they're just "efficiently allocating capital to its highest social value" and earning a small prize in the process. Machiavelli's chief advice of hypocrisy runs counter to this, and the stories we tell ourselves.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers...


How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis


The Palgraves Golden Treasury.


Since someone’s done Hofstadter — Italo Calvino Le Città Invisibili or Invisible Cities. It’s a novel about complexity and civilisation and the difficulty and intangibility of memories, history and storytelling. It’s told in a series of 55 miniatures, each about a city that reveals some aspect of human experience. It’s like nothing else and utterly brilliant.


For European, I would recommend Basic Economics from Thomas Sowell.

To have a total opposite mindset of the socialist we have here was mind blowing for me.


I really liked his book "Intellectuals and Society" as well. Of course, it is opinionated but there's also a lot of great insight on the root of disagreements in politics. His theory being that there are two broad competing visions of the world: the utopian vs the tragic. Thomas Sowell himself adheres to the tragic vision (e.g. human nature is essentially unchanging and that man is naturally inherently self-interested, etc.).


Yes, Sowell has that effect on people. Once you get your mind back together, I recommend that you (and anyone) read Zola's masterpiece, Germinal, a testament to the virtues of capitalism.


the bible


Sapiens


I’d also recommend it but encouraging to get familiar with the criticism around it before reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/jbrfqp/sapie...


The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged by the same author

It’s striking how fundamental the principles from those books are. An assembly code of the society:-)


at the risk of sounding like a broken record freedom from the known


The Denial of Death.


1984


How the mind works - Steven Pinker.


the mind illuminated


God Emperor of Dune

The 4th book of Frank Hurbert's dune saga. Or I personally think it's THE ending of the actual dune story line. Not only it completes the cycle started in Book 1 titled "dune". The 2 later books are really spin-off that tells a much smaller story.

God emperor shows Hurbert's astounding depth and width in understanding humans as the building blocks of the civilization. And gave an unprecedented interpretation of humanity (and ruthlessness).

The words are poetic with a sense of intonation built-in that renders a supernatural feeling, and had made me rethink how humans should live together.

It's also a book that ends at the beginning, and used one sentence to reveal the climax of the whole dune story line. One had to appreciate Herbert's immense imagination and skills to bring those into words, that depicts minuate details that are enthralling yet always points to the ultimate idea. A literary genius and magnificent architect in human language at the grandest scale.

That's the one book Ill bring along if I am on an one-way trip to Mars!


Karl Marx - Das Kapital


When I see comments such as a book needing a "trigger warning", or concerns with the race or gender of the author, I can only shake my head with sadness. Those who believe such things have been poorly served by their education. Those who recommend books such as Das Kapital are either trolling the thread or historically ignorant of the death and destruction caused by Marxism. Try something like Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Nozick and quit being part of the granfalloon.




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