For me, it’s How to Lie With Statitics. It opened my eyes to how much lies are in numbers. Also, another good one is 1984. It really made me think about my online life depending so much on Google.

“How to Win Friends and Influence People” is a good one.It’s a nice reminder on how to treat people.

I&#x27;ve had a copy of this from a book sale sitting on my shelf for over a year. I&#x27;ll have to get to it.

I can second Guns, Germs and Steel. I&#x27;m continually evaluating how much things are a result of my own work vs just a byproduct of the environment I&#x27;m in.

I would argue that “changing the way you think” doesn’t require the book to be factually accurate. The idea that external factors like geographical starting conditions can have a huge impact and shape things as complex as human culture is a powerful one, regardless of the conclusions drawn in the book.If anything, the way it has been challenged and shown to be flawed is a lesson on and of itself - that complex systems have emergent properties, and that those starting conditions are not as deterministic as it might appear at first blush.

Strongly disagree. The geographic determinism theory of GG&amp;S is frustrating and ignores significant factors in the rise of the West.This review is something I generally send out to people after they&#x27;ve read GG&amp;S, and strongly recommend Eric Wolf as an author. He puts many of the points I would make significantly more eloquently:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livinganthropologically.com&#x2F;eric-wolf-europe-people-without-history&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livinganthropologically.com&#x2F;eric-wolf-europe-peo...</a>

Diamond is bunk science, however. We discussed this not a week ago. Some <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19045376" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19045376</a> here , more on r&#x2F;askhistorians

recent HN thread discussed how flawed guns, Germs and Steel is: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19034468" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19034468</a>

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

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

That&#x27;s great input&#x2F;insight, I think I agree with with most of what you&#x27;re saying. What I really got from this book is that I was not managing my goals correctly. As a programmer when I&#x27;m given a problem the first thing I do is break it down into small, easily achievable pieces that then build up into the final solution.I wasn&#x27;t doing this with my goals and a byproduct of that was that I wasn&#x27;t able to measure to progress of my final goals.It&#x27;s really more about how you manage your goals, not what they might be, but even with something as broad as happiness I think this is still possible. If you set &quot;being happier&quot; as your final goal, you can start to set daily, monthly, yearly... goals that fold into happiness. Happiness may not be strictly measurably, but if you know that working out 3 times a week makes you happier you can set that as a weekly goal. You then can set monthly and yearly goals around what working out steadily will improve (lifting more weight, running further and faster) and those things will usually be easily measurable.There&#x27;s edge cases for sure, as with most things. I will say it works better in a work environment where most progress can be easily measured (Even though it often isn&#x27;t), but I think a good goal system is something that can be beneficial for any goal you may set.However I do agree with #3 &amp; #4, if your final goals are not in the right direction any adjustments to the daily, weekly, monthly goals will not improve that and may have a negative overall effect, but I think that resolves to a much larger issue than your goal management system.

Have not read the book. Could you elaborate?Here is what I have figured out regarding this topic.1) most times what really matters to you is impossible to measure. When you drill down to core motivation&#x2F;drives.E.g how does one measure “happiness”, relationship quality, friendship, quality of life, learning etc.2) Due to 1. we measure a proxy for the outcome we seek.3) if we get this proxy wrong, and we optimise&#x2F;improve it we have no effect on the outcome. Maybe we even have the opposite effect.4) We often import&#x2F;take-on other peoples definitions&#x2F;proxy metrics for the outcome. Not our own.Think it was Russel Ackoff who said
“rather do the right things wrong then the wrong things right”In other words. Start with what you actually value&#x2F;want and make sure the metric will get you there.

I think this book was suggested by Bill Gates.

Measure what Matters by John Doerr had a similar effect on me to what you&#x27;re describing with Freakonomics. I don&#x27;t remember a lot of details from that book, but the way I set and measured goals after reading it changed almost overnight.

Thanks for mentioning Bulhakow. This is my all time most favourite book.I mean, come on, the devil himself vs the communist party of Russia, sprinkled with loads of humour. What else do you need?

Is there a recommended order of Watts’ books, a fundamental one to start with? I’ve ended up buying a few of his books, but haven’t started on them yet.

There is a game available on most gaming platforms, PC and console, called Everything which is home to an experience crafted using Watts&#x27; lectures.  It is quite an interesting experience.  Not quite a game but more of an interactive philosophical exercise, but quite good, and a very interesting introduction to Watts&#x27; work.

Great quote, Watts is truly inspirational. What a happy surprise when Ctrl+F takes you right to the first comment ;)If anyone doesn&#x27;t have the time or attention span to commit to a full-blown book, The Joyous Cosmology [0] and Become What You Are [1] present some of Watt&#x27;s ideas in a more condensed format. The former is a ~30 page essay freely available online. The latter is a collection of ~15 very short essays (1-12pg each) - a perfect replacement for smartphone scrolling when confronted with 5-10 minutes of free time.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;joyous_cosmology.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com&#x2F;wp-content...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Become-What-You-Alan-Watts&#x2F;dp&#x2F;1570629404" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Become-What-You-Alan-Watts&#x2F;dp&#x2F;1570629...</a>

If we&#x27;re sharing Alan Watts related stuff, check out Everything [0]. It&#x27;s currently 75% off too.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;582270&#x2F;Everything&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;582270&#x2F;Everything&#x2F;</a>

When you mentioned Alan Watts and his quote, I thought I&#x27;d share a small animated clip that presented that quote well.
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WGoTmNU_5A0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WGoTmNU_5A0</a>

&gt;I wish everyone read or watched Alan Watts lectures and books. The world would be a much nicer place if that was the case.Parties would become a lot more insufferable.

Russian is my native language so I read it in Russian for first and second time. Never read it in English so can&#x27;t say. But I think this is one of those books that will lose some of its &#x27;magic&#x27; in translation.

I LOVE the Master and Margarita but I&#x27;ve only read it in English. When you say you read it in Russian for the first time, did you mean you&#x27;ve read it in English before? If so, were there huge differences?

Really appreciate your phrasing - I feel the same way about Anthony Bourdain&#x27;s material (while on a very different matter) - has convinced me to check out some more Alan Watts.

Any particular reason for preferring that translation? I&#x27;m always curious to hear others&#x27; thoughts before picking one to read.

Was amazed when I saw the recommendation on the top comment. My fiancé recommended me this book and I just finished it on my commute this morning (this specific translation). Still thinking about it! Wonderful book, super engaging and just absolutely beautifully written. I couldn&#x27;t put it down. Highly recommended!

About depth of the book: we&#x27;ve studied it in literature class in Russia for a month, because it&#x27;s a kaleidoscope of interpretations, one would definitely miss too much without a guide (especially in 17 y.o. as myself). The only piece with more class time is War and Peace for obvious reasons.

My experience with secondary literature about MaM is negative. I went to the University Library and checked out a massive commentary on it and a book about its interpretation.The latter argued that, contrary to a common notion, Woland is emphatically not the Devil. I did not get far in trying to understand it, but this and the similarly non-understandable commentary really took away some fun out of reading the book, because I constantly felt I was too stupid to get it.Reading commentary is good, but maybe on a way lower level than literature professors trying to make a name.

Thanks for mentioning an amazing book of literature. The Master and Margarita is my favorite fiction book! I&#x27;ve read it in two translations and I prefer the Burgin &amp; O&#x27;Connor to the Glenny, but both are great.Everytime I read it I gain more insights. I absolutely recommend reading this book alongside a readers guide which gives more background and depth, there are many biblical, historical, and author-related references that won&#x27;t be understood otherwise. The author&#x27;s own life is massively relevent to the events of the novel. I recommend this guide:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Master-Margarita-Critical-Companion-AATSEEL&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0810112124&#x2F;ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1549396109&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+master+and+margarita+criticism" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Master-Margarita-Critical-Companion-A...</a>

That last quote with music: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;hJj_4ir12-w?t=385" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;hJj_4ir12-w?t=385</a>

There&#x27;s a rather modern and new German translation which has been turned into an audio play by Bayerischer Rundfunk. I adore that! They have cast an Austrian as Fagott, with a wonderful Viennese dialect.No idea whether Fagott has some linguistic extravagance in the original, but it works really well on this Master of Ceremonies.

As a more technical companion to Freakonomics, I would recommend &quot;The undercover economist&quot; and its sequel by Tim Harford. It&#x27;s a great introduction to the way economy shapes our lives and choices. You will never drink coffee or sit in a queue the same way after reading it.Another book that changed allot about how I look at the world is &quot;The long tail&quot; by Chris Anderson. Maybe too thin of a concept for a whole book, but definitely interesting.

&gt; Cowardice was undoubtedly one of the most terrible vices - thus spoke Yeshua Ha-Nozri. &#x27;No, philosopher, I disagree with you: it is the most terrible vice!&#x27;(This is Pontius Pilate&#x27;s response to Yeshua.) To me this is about staying silent when you see evil being committed. But it doesn&#x27;t even have to be &#x27;Evil with a big E&#x27;, it&#x27;s just about speaking up when you see something that doesn&#x27;t sit right with your morality.The other big takeaway for me was about how Margarita threw away all the rules of society to save the Master (her beloved). But she did it for more than just his sake, I think; she certainly took her liberation from society&#x27;s expectations of women.

Could you share a few quotes or ideas from Master and Margarita that changed how you think?I really liked the book, but mostly because I thought it was funny and had great plot. I fear I missed all the deep wisdom.

Thank you for this! I love Alan Watts too. Recently I&#x27;ve started listening to &quot;chillstep&quot; mixes of his talks on youtube (while doing yoga&#x2F;meditating). They&#x27;re really fantastic. Eg. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=gLu1wP9HhYM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=gLu1wP9HhYM</a>

I&#x27;ve registered here to write this.
It is interesting that two most voted books here, Master and Margarita and Animal Farm are both about Stalin.In MoM the all 3 main characters have real prototypes. Master is Author (Bulgakov), Margarita is Author&#x27;s wife Elena, Woland is Stalin.
Bulgakov was under assault of Soviet regime, he wanted to emigrate, but Stalin kept him in country. He was in constant fear of being detained for anti-soviet propaganda. Her wife which he loved a lot was forced to became secret informer, she reported periodically to officials against him. Bulgakov knew that, and this theme also in book. This moment is so tragic and central, because her wife was editor of the book. MoM is about exceptional courage of Bulgakov, his personal response to Staling, his sole main reader. At that time, just comparing Stalin to Statan was enough to be executed.I highly recommend this course to understand better MoM
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arzamas.academy&#x2F;courses&#x2F;39" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arzamas.academy&#x2F;courses&#x2F;39</a>
unfortunately it&#x27;s in Russian.

One book that changed me was reading Master and Margarita in Russian for the first time.It was the first book I started reading I could not put down until the end. Gained a lot of appreciation for literature at that time.The other book that I enjoyed and changed me was ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ by Alan Watts. I was a fan of Alan Watts works through his lectures already and it was wonderful to hear his ideas in writing for the first time.The book is available to read for free online (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;07&#x2F;wisdom-of-insecurity.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;07&#x2F;wisdom-of...</a>).I wish everyone read or watched Alan Watts lectures and books. The world would be a much nicer place if that was the case.My favorite quote is by him:‘We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.’

Rhizomatic values and actions vs arborescent ones, de- and reterritorialization, the drawing of lines of flight, and nomadic war machines, more than anything else. I’m not sufficiently grounded in Marx or Freud to follow their narratives confidently, so my interpretations are probably overly simplistic; but I think they’d have approved of my taking the words and making them my own.More than any of those individual terms though, I took from the book a sort of gestalt of expansive, additive, richly intellectual ideation, one based not on truth values, but in thinking new thoughts. In my edition, the translator’s introduction portrays D&amp;G’s notion of a concept as a brick that should not be used to build a courthouse, but to be thrown through a window. This whole way of being in the world was enormously refreshing to me when I read it.

What&#x27;s an example of a concept from A Thousand Plateaus that has stuck with you?

I know what you mean. It’s hard to avoid feeling like what appears to be glossolalic nonsense would all be revealed as a majestic tour de force, perfectly comprehensible and life-changing, if you were familiar enough with Marx, Freud, Leibniz, Spinoza, Bergson, Kant, Sartre, and god knows whom else, to put it all together. I’m not, so I can’t prove or disprove the case, which makes it a weird answer to OP’s question; but per above, it remains the case for me that images and terms from that book have never stopped working in my ideation processes since I picked it up.

One thing with Thousand Plateaus is that you don&#x27;t have to read the book in sequence. You can start with random chapter.  That&#x27;s the only thing I remember from the book.

Perhaps try reading Freud&#x27;s account of his treatment of the &quot;wolf man&quot; first - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sergei_Pankejeff#Der_Wolfsmann_(The_Wolfman)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sergei_Pankejeff#Der_Wolfsmann...</a> - then read the chapter &quot;One Or Many Wolves&quot;, bearing in mind that it&#x27;s dripping in sarcasm. That chapter had me laughing out loud.

I&#x27;ve wanted to read A Thousand Plateaus for a few years. The first time I tried it, all that stuff about wolves and geology just lost me. I will have to try again. Honestly, I found it harder than Heidegger&#x27;s Being and Time, which I worked through while listening to Hubert Dreyfus&#x27;s lectures on iTunes U a few years ago.Whenever I read about Deleuze and Guattari I get this feeling they are on to something - I just don&#x27;t know what!

I imagine I’ll take heat for this, but the first answer that comes to mind is A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze &amp; Guattari. It has been justifiably criticized by many people on many grounds, but as with OP and Freakonomics, certain of the concepts in that book frequently appear in my thoughts 20 years after I worked through some of it. I don’t associate it with truth; but some of the mental models have really stuck with me.Edit: also Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse. It’s slim and user friendly to a fault, and would be easy to underestimate at first glance, but imho contains great wisdom and beauty.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky - introduced me to the rationalist movementThe First Immortal by James Halperin - introduced me as a sixth grader to things like cryonics, nanotech, etc. Got me thinking about a realistic ambitious nearer term future for humanity, rather than a more fantasy-like one in the other sci-fi I&#x27;d read at that point, like Asimov and HeinleinAs a Man Thinketh by James Allen - gave me much greater agency in life. Made me realize “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; 
you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”

Brief Answers To The Big Questions by Stephen Hawking, both inspiring and terrifiying at the same time!

RAW&#x27;s Cosmic Trigger and Prometheus Rising for me: I read both when I was 13 and was a recently-converted Southern Baptist. I quickly shifted my entire understanding of epistemology and the nature of reality.

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

Wilson&#x27;s &quot;Everything is Under Control&quot; was another important one for me after the Illuminatus! Trilogy.  That&#x27;s what sent me down the path into Thomas Pynchon, Hakim Bey, Noam Chomsky, etc.  Can&#x27;t really turn back after that.

The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Illuminatus-Trilogy-Pyramid-Golden-Leviathan&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0440539811&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Illuminatus-Trilogy-Pyramid-Golden-Le...</a>

Oh yeah I’d second that, this book is spectacular

+1 for this gem.  At least once a day I catch myself thinking some everyday object (or app) I’ve encountered could be more usable if it had certain signifiers to better illustrate its affordances, or lacked certain signifiers to obfuscate unintended affordances.  Should be required reading for anyone who aspires to put products out into the world.

Indeed, I think of that book (which I read over a decade ago) every time I push or pull a door the wrong way. Reading it is like being able to see the matrix - but it’s simultaneously enlightening and frustrating when you realize how poorly so many things are designed.

not only UX. programmers can actually learn a lot about building software if they see the meta in the book (replace door w&#x2F; interface. think about the mental model your library user is going to build for your library. make things easy to use when the correct pattern is employed and impossible if improperly done. minimize cognitive load) the book is brilliant

This book made me feel normal again. I am constantly being embarrassed by doors. Now I know I am not alone.

+1 reflecting back I think this is one of the books that has been key to changing my thinking. Was one of the first design book I read, but the lessons have been with me for the last decade+.

Great book, and you&#x27;re right, everyone I know who&#x27;s read it (including me) says the same thing about doors afterwards.

I find &quot;Living with Complexity&quot; equally interesting.

This book got me interested in interaction design as a teenager. 10&#x2F;10

Have you heard the old design joke?If you really hate someone, teach them about kerning

I haven&#x27;t read the book but I feel like it would make me even more grumpy from noticing even more poorly designed things than I already do.

The first time I tried to read this book after Luke Kanies the founder of Puppet recommended it I barely made it 15% in, but after 6 months of noticing poor design everywhere I went back and gave it another go. I&#x27;m not in UX but I think about this book almost daily.

“The Design of Everyday Things” changed the way I see literally everything. You’ll never look at doors the same way again, and prepare to forever be frustrated by poorly designed objects, and delighted by incredibly well designed ones.There is no better book on the philosophy of UX, imho.

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

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

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

Reading Ender&#x27;s Game as a child instilled a sense of agency at a young age.

Seconding fast and slow. I&#x27;m working my way through it right now. It&#x27;s pretty mind blowing.

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

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

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

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Please do go on, you seem to have similar taste to mine (Why We Sleep and Design of Everyday Things) so I&#x27;d love to know which other books make it into your top 10 or whatever.

I have forever changed my sleeping habits ever since before I even finished reading Why We Sleep. Best time&#x2F;money investment I made in 2018.

+1 to Why We Sleep. I&#x27;ve been cutting back caffeine, alcohol, light, and spreading the sleep gospel since reading it.

The Design of Everyday Things makes me rethink every user interaction or problem I face, and not just at work. Every time I open a door, I begin to think about that experience.Recently, Educated by Tara Westover, and in the past The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, both have taught me to approach individuals with the true ignorance of their lives that I have. You don&#x27;t know where people come from and what life led them to where they are when you meet them. Try not to make assumptions. Additionally, I have to remind myself that I grew up loved, cared for, and privileged compared to so many other people.. the fact that I could read their story and post here is a testament to that, helps me try to stay down to Earth and that I had some advantages growing up that others did not.Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker... I used to be a chronic advocate for sleeping less until I read this and did my own scrappy post-research. I&#x27;m much more conscious of my health and my sleep now.I could go on and on..

One of the great courses.Your Deceptive Mind - A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thegreatcourses.com&#x2F;courses&#x2F;your-deceptive-mind-a-scientific-guide-to-critical-thinking-skills.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thegreatcourses.com&#x2F;courses&#x2F;your-deceptive-mind-...</a>This course helped me find places where i was allowing my own mind to run the show by default without thinking critically about my own motivations, thoughts, memories.

This book changed my worldview too. For me more the idea that the world is how you perceive it, that events and objects have more than one aspect, property or interpretation.

My go-to vote as well. Some of my favorite passages pertain to the awareness of-and management of- one&#x27;s internal motivation and thought process when attempting to do good work.&quot;So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one&#x27;s surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.&quot;

Same. Almost every time I see a can the phrase &#x27;best shim stock in the world&#x27; jumps into my brain!

I read it 45 years ago and liked it. But the only thing that sticks in my memory -- and it is enough, I suppose -- is the author helping his friend fix his motorcycle with a piece of shim made on the spot from a Coke can.

Great book for learning how to debug systems.

The sequel, Lila, is also really great. He&#x27;s worked out the structure of Quality, in detail, and it makes a lot of sense. p.s. If you love Pirsig, read Thoreau&#x27;s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) - the form is identical.

If this subject interests you, there is a fair chance you&#x27;ll like &quot;Narcissus and Goldmund&quot; by Herman Hesse.

My personal understanding is that much of the point of the book is less to give you a direct understanding of Quality itself, which he says is not directly understandable, but to surround the concept, give you the parameters, where it is where it isn&#x27;t, being able to identify it when you see it.

Yes! This book also got me to read Walden by Henry David Thoreau, which was also life changing.I never fully understood what Pirsig meant by Quality though. I could not understand what it really was, but I didn’t need to. I got so much good out of the book. But if someone could explain better I’d love to hear.

My inspiration when it came to me learning&#x2F;building&#x2F;programming computers and most everything else I undertook in my 20&#x27;s. It made me strive to be a know-er of things, not just a user.

im sorry i love these threads and all the people contributing  but this book is overrated. Please explain to me what is so great and life changing about this book.

+1 For Zen &amp; The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This book lead me to accept a lot of parts of myself and seek to integrate all those parts together. I credit it with starting the journey that changed my life.

Zen &amp; The Art of Motorcycle MaintenanceThis helped me understand the duality of the logical&#x2F;mechanical and the creative&#x2F;artistic. Then merging the two.

On the surface, it&#x27;s about how to have conversations about difficult topics. Often these are conflict resolution type conversations. These range all the way from &quot;you never take the bins out&quot; to marriage breakups to large international political conflicts. These conversations can often go off the rails and conflicts are made worse, not solved. Whatever the scale, these kinds of conversations tend to follow familiar routes.If you dispair at the way that conversations tend to devolve into personal attacks in national politics, office politics or your day-to-day interactions, this book is a very insightful handbook.The book is the result of a big study at Harvard Business School of a large number of case studies. It spots the patterns that humans tend toward. In each case it identifies the pattern, why it happens, what the result can be (usually negative) and how to spot it coming and mitigate it. It also has snippets of conversation as case studies.It&#x27;s been a while, so I can&#x27;t remember each item. But one example is that people tend to connect their identity to the point they are trying to argue. You challenge the point but to your conversation partner it feels like a direct personal attack. If you can find a way to acknowledge that connection, gently separate it from the identity, you have a much better chance of resolving the conflict.I find a particularly strong parallel in the Gang of Four Design Patterns book. These are the broad problems that people try to solve with software, the structures that tend to emerge as people solve problems.And, like design patterns, some things are deeply insightful and some things are obvious. E.g. of course &#x27;iterators&#x27; are a thing. But development is so much better for having vocabulary to talk about them.

What is Difficult Conversations about?

&quot;Difficult Conversations: How to discuss what matters most&quot;. I bought this on the strength of an HN suggestion.It&#x27;s like Design Patterns for human conversations: the result of studying how people interact, common patterns that work, and how things break down. Really crystallised a lot of insights I&#x27;d perceived but never thought about systematically. I highly recommend it.Word of warning - there are a few books with this title. Look for the one by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen.Also Thinking Fast and Slow, recommended elsewhere in this thread.

The Power Broker. I picked it up out of urban interests, but it gets into so much more of how our political system has been shaped over the last 100 years, and it&#x27;s scary (or reassuring?) how little it has changed. But also all the insane things Moses did to reshape how cities were built in the USA and how hard it will be to fix his urban sprawl motivation.

Me too, but The Fountainhead struck me more.Likewise. In addition, The Fountainhead was, IMO, better written... and it has the additional perk of being shorter than Atlas Shrugged. If anyone was thinking of sampling Rand, I&#x27;d almost always suggest starting with The Fountainhead.

Me too, but The Fountainhead struck me more.Reading Rand’s essays both made me appreciate her views more and made me cautious to accept her epistemology as a whole. I don’t consider myself an Objectivist, but I still consider her work to be a strong influence on my life.

It really is underappreciated how much 4chan has shaped Internet, and now mainstream, culture.

It&#x27;s such a weird twist of irony that someone like Dawkins invented a term that has been so abused and deformed beyond all recognition. As expected, he hates what it&#x27;s become; but it has truly evolved, beyond his control, so there&#x27;s a wonderful truth there!

That book also gave us the term &quot;meme&quot; which, in its original form, is way more interesting than &quot;animated GIFs spread on social media.&quot;

Seconded. This is the only book I’ve read that truly “changed” the way I think (excluding school textbooks) in a fundamental way. It was like discovering a new spacial dimension orthogonal to the existing 3. Like, how did I even live before this book?

I always think it&#x27;s really interesting how our upbringings shape us. I&#x27;d never even heard of god until I was 4, when I must have heard the word mentioned, asked my dad what it mean, and it was explained to me as a thing up in the sky that some people believe in.

I enjoyed that and some of his other books, but it was The God Delusion that did it for me. Having been born in a religious society makes it hard to break out of needing to assume there is a god, but that book could give people enough explanation to drop that assumption.

This book has had a monumental, life altering perspective shift in everyone I know that have read it.Warning: If you go over the fence, there is no returning back. Your thought process will change forever (for the good in my view).

I also recommend Dawkins&#x27; follow-up book, &quot;The Extended Phenotype.&quot; Dawkins&#x27; most popular writing may be on atheism and the critique of religion, but I think his greatest contributions were really found in this book plus The Selfish Gene. Though as a caveat, &quot;The Extended Phenotype&quot; requires some more technical sophistication in evolutionary biology than Selfish Gene.

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

Glad that somebody pointed that out. IMO, if somebody wants to get a quick overview of genetics, their time would be much better spent watching lectures 4-7 from Sapolsky&#x27;s Human Behavioural Biology lectures [1]. In those 4 lectures Sapolsky&#x27;s explores contradicting theories about (among other things) the unit of selection and gradualism. Highly recommend the whole series.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_dRXA1_e30o&amp;list=PL150326949691B199&amp;index=4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_dRXA1_e30o&amp;list=PL150326949...</a>

This is news to me. I didn&#x27;t realise Dawkins&#x27; theory had been so thoroughly refuted. What&#x27;s the evidence for this?

I think the claim that Dawkins views are &quot;just too simplistic to reflect reality&quot; is probably too simplistic itself. For a start, you can check the Wikipedia article on The Selfish Gene and its section on units of selection: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Selfish_Gene#Units_of_selection" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Selfish_Gene#Units_of_sele...</a>

Note, of course, that he was wrong about the gene being the unit of selection. Selection happens at an organismal level. As we&#x27;ve come to understand the interconnectedness of the genome, this has become even more clear. Dawkins&#x27; ideas generated a lot of debate among evolutionary biologists in the 1980s, but have largely fallen out of favor. They&#x27;re just too simplistic to reflect reality.

Dawkins is amazingly lucid when he sticks to topics he knows very well. “The Selfish Gene” and “The Extended Phenotype” were world altering for me. Like integral calculus, I rarely have cause to apply the concept in the domain in which it was described, but the understanding that his conveyance of the material shaped in me is something I feel in my thinking every day, more than two decades later.“The Mating Mind” by Geoffrey Miller (another biologist who would do the world a favor by sticking to his domain of expertise) came to me more recently but has left a similar impression. It impeccably elaborates upon the power of sexual selection and how it intertwines with natural selection.

Hmm, I&#x27;ll check that Darwinian Fairytales out. However, I must say, I&#x27;ve read Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments against Evolutionary Psychology, to see what critics of Dawkins and evolutionary psychology had to say, and found it rather poor.So, for now, my considered view is that Dawkins has many interesting insightful things to say, while his critics are often attacking straw men.

&gt; &quot;Darwinian Fairytales&quot; by David StoveThe search engine coughed up a PDF. I randomly opened it (p. 173) and read up to this author-provided &quot;TL;DR&quot; on p.176:The main reason, however, for thinking that sociobiology is false, is the simple
one I gave at the beginning: that it is obvious that human beings are the most
intelligent and capable things on earth. But genes are not human. Therefore (etc.).Uhhhm. Really?

Yeah, that was a biggie for me, until I read &quot;Darwinian Fairytales&quot; by David Stove. Everyone who has read Dawkins needs to have a look at this.A philosopher has a look at what Dawkins actually says and realizes it is basically medieval demonology dressed up in pseudoscientific verbiage.

Seconded. I actually read &quot;The Blind Watchmaker&quot; first and that had just as big an impact on me. As someone else said, no going back after reading it. It also gave me the confidence to realise I was actually an atheist, not an apologetic agnostic!

just go for it man, yolo.tldr: Talk about how genes influence organism, is like reading animal planet

What&#x27;s the big deal and why are so many people raving about this book? Can someone summarize the key points in a paragraph or two?

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

&quot;Silence&quot; by John Cage. Before it, I thought of Zen as an abstraction; after reading it, I saw how it could be (and ought to be) a way of life.

&quot;The Dawn of Day&quot; by Nietzsche. It turned me into an atheist at the tender age of 15.

The only book I&#x27;ve ever bought judging by the cover (well, the title) only was George Lakoff&#x27;s Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. It wasn&#x27;t what I expected (what did I expect??), but it was insightful and thought provoking. One of the first books I&#x27;ve come across that shows you that the world is much, much more complicated than the simple (and &quot;obvious&quot;) stuff we are taught in school.

Past few years have led to a rise in conservative&#x2F;right-wing ideology in the mainstream discourse and he is pretty influential in that world.

Why is that you never hear about Sowell and his work? I consider myself fairly well read, but I&#x27;ve only discovered him the past few years. I wish I had found him earlier!

&quot;Metaphors We Live By&quot; by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson changed how I thought about language and how I use it to orient myself in the world.&quot;Thinking in Systems: A Primer&quot; by Donella Meadows changed how I approached designing&#x2F;troubleshooting software systems as well as changed how I think about political policy decisions and their results.&quot;Object Thinking&quot; by David West dramatically altered how I approach designing OO systems. I especially liked the chapter(s) where he used different real-world metaphors for designing systems. For example, asynchronous communication (email) is often more appropriate than synchronous communication (calling someone on the phone). Delegation of tasks without &quot;micromanaging&quot; (i.e tell don&#x27;t ask).&quot;Ever Wonder Why?&quot; by Thomas Sowell gave me an insight into some of the underpinnings of Conservative thought. I&#x27;d never had the opportunity to hear any of the arguments he brings up in college or in my own liberal social groups.

Marvin Harris&#x27; theories of material anthropology. I can&#x27;t one-line the meaning behind his findings and theories, because it&#x27;s wonderfully complex.It&#x27;s an explanation that makes sense out of otherwise nonsensical human habits of cultures (tribal, ancient and modern).If you&#x27;re curious and want to read something enjoyable—he&#x27;s a decent writer—check out &quot;Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches&quot; (preferably one of the later editions), or for something a little denser: &quot;Cannibals and Kings&quot;.

Steps to an Ecology of Mind by Gregory Bateson. Almost convinced my wife and me to get dolphin tattoos ; read the book and you will understand.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steps_to_an_Ecology_of_Mind" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Steps_to_an_Ecology_of_Mind</a>

The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.Presents a compelling case for being optimistic that economic growth really will keep making the world continually better on average, and in particular explores the reasons why the contrary position is often so prevalent in the media, popular opinion etc.Regardless of whether you agree with the thesis of the book per se it&#x27;s a fascinating read which will definitely give you a lot of new perspective on debates on big topics - things that come up often on HN such as AI, climate change, international relations etc. I thoroughly recommend it.

The Selfish Gene by Dawkins was very influential on me.Another was Nineteen Eighty Four by Orwell.I&#x27;d also cite The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand as having influenced me, although I read it when I was older and found that it mostly reinforced ideas that I was already sympathetic towards. Similar situation with Atlas Shrugged, also by Rand.I could probably also call out The Soul of a New Machine by Kidder, as being a primary influence that pushed me in the direction of getting involved with computers.

I came from a deeply religious family and read this book after reading Contact (a friend lent me). It too had a lasting impact on my worldview. I cultivate a skeptical worldview nowadays thanks to this book.

Came here to say this more or less verbatim.

I read this book at a time when I had lost my religion which had been very dear to me and the foundation all of my thinking. I was reading lots of different religious texts. This was the first thing I read that said that how we know what we know is more important than what we know. It was the first philosophy I had encountered that would challenge even evidence in favor of itself on the grounds that that evidence didn&#x27;t meet a certain bar of quality. That was huge and this book helped me understand that concept. Which really made scientific skepticism stand out from other belief systems.

He took me out of the pit of my sunken thoughts, I wake up, I take off the blindfold, it was the first book to open my mind and I will always be grateful

It&#x27;s very high on my list of &quot;We&#x27;d be better off if everyone read this&quot; books.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan.It changed the way I see the world, how to have a sceptical mind and not only how but why one should question.And also, it shows to me that, if you don&#x27;t have a answer for something, doesn&#x27;t mean that it can not be true. It&#x27;s just that you don&#x27;t know. And for a lot of things, this is the correct and only answer that we can have now.

The idea of &quot;Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts&quot; reminds me of this TED Talk:&quot;If you ever struggle to make decisions, here&#x27;s a talk for you. Cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths shows how we can apply the logic of computers to untangle tricky human problems, sharing three practical strategies for making better decisions -- on everything from finding a home to choosing which restaurant to go to tonight.&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ted.com&#x2F;talks&#x2F;tom_griffiths_3_ways_to_make_better_decisions_by_thinking_like_a_computer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ted.com&#x2F;talks&#x2F;tom_griffiths_3_ways_to_make_bette...</a>

A similar line of thinking is Annie Duke&#x27;s Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts. A good discussion on the book can be found here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.artofmanliness.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;how-to-make-better-decisions&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.artofmanliness.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;how-to-make-better-d...</a>Amazon link: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;offer-listing&#x2F;0735216355&#x2F;ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=used&amp;qid=1549391677&amp;sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;offer-listing&#x2F;0735216355&#x2F;ref=tmm_h...</a>

I&#x27;m a big Seneca fan. You can read all of Seneca&#x27;s dialogues, including &quot;On the Shortness of Life&quot;, for free at Standard Ebooks: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;seneca&#x2F;dialogues&#x2F;aubrey-stewart" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;seneca&#x2F;dialogues&#x2F;aubrey-st...</a>

If you enjoyed Marcus Aurelius, you&#x27;d probably enjoy reading Seneca.&quot;On The Shortness of Life&quot;[1] is my favorite work of his, though there are many other gems among his letters.[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tripinsurancestore.com&#x2F;4&#x2F;on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tripinsurancestore.com&#x2F;4&#x2F;on-the-shortness-of-life.pd...</a>

The George Long translation is available as a proofed and libre ebook at SE if anyone wants to read it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;marcus-aurelius&#x2F;meditations&#x2F;george-long" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;marcus-aurelius&#x2F;meditation...</a>

If you are interested in stoicism, &#x27;stoicism and the art of happiness&#x27; is a good book

I also liked this book. Also because it shows how similar problems people had then. 
For more stoicism I would recommend &quot;Daily Stoic&quot;. It&#x27;s one meditation per day.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Perseverance-ebook&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B01HNJIJB2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Persev...</a>

Are we really going that low to take beliefs from WER (white, educated, rich) people? I mean wasn&#x27;t Seneca the rich man during that time? And also Marcus Aurelius book doesn&#x27;t seem appealing to read because it was never meant to be published.

Meditations is what immediately came to my mind also. It&#x27;s a humbling and reassuring look into the mind of a great leader and stoic; to know that there was this man, the most powerful in his time, who strived - and struggled - to be the best he could, is inspiring.

I&#x27;d like to read it. Of course, there&#x27;s the Enchiridion:<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;classics.mit.edu&#x2F;Epictetus&#x2F;epicench.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;classics.mit.edu&#x2F;Epictetus&#x2F;epicench.html</a>Which is quite short.

It was more accessible to me. There is a lot of misunderstanding of who a stoic is, and what stoicism is. I think this book clears it up well.

I found William Irving&#x27;s A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy a very legible contemporary (if somewhat idiosyncratic) introduction to Stoic thought, and maybe more accessible&#x2F;applicable than the classic sources.

&gt; Is an outcome not the other side of the decision-making coin?No, and that&#x27;s the key. You cannot truly control outcomes, so judging your life and self-worth on them is leaving your happiness and fulfillment to chance.&gt; That is, how does one get good at making decisions? By seeing positive results flow from them.Nope. You get better at decision-making by being reflective about your past decisions. Outcomes can be a factor in that, but only insofar as they can point you to the realization that you missed information that was available to you.There are many decisions in life where there is no &quot;good&quot; outcome. There are some where the &quot;good&quot; outcome is catastrophic for you personally, and that catastrophe is avoidable if you compromise your ethics. If you see a child drowning in a river and know that there&#x27;s a good chance that you will die if you attempt to rescue them, rational self-interest alone tells you to walk on by. Stoicism puts a layer on top of that - can you live with yourself without regret if you do that? Are you willing to accept the risks to live up to your own standards?

Is an outcome not the other side of the decision-making coin? I understand that the outcome should not carry all the weight, but it surely often carries a lot of the weight of a particular decision. That is, how does one get good at making decisions? By seeing positive results flow from them.

I liked him from his quotes and his biography - the book didn&#x27;t add much at all. If anything, I like him less after having read it.

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

Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. MeadowsMan’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. FranklA Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine

1491, and 1493 by Charles C. Mann. These books completely changed my worldview about the scale and complexity of human development in the Americas before European contact. They also opened my eyes to how much older globalization is than we normally think.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanStreams of Living Water by Richard FosterScrewtape Letters by CS Lewis

Theory of Harmony, by SchoenbergThe book takes music theory as its subject, but explores perception, culture, the meaning of art, innovation, and other related ideas in its lengthy footnotes and tangents. It shows a world of practical considerations that go into art, which many would assume is primarily subjective.Schoenberg is known as a composer for exploring atonality, and for having many students who became important composers.

&#x27;He loves quiet chats over his own dinner table
with such friends as Gerhart Hauptmann
and Professor Schrodinger. He reads only
little. Modern fiction does not seduce him.
Even in science he limits himself largely to
his special field. &quot;Reading after a certain
age diverts the mind too much from it&#x27;s creative pursuits. Any man who reads too
much and uses his own brain too little falls
into lazy habits of thinking, just as the
man who spends too much time in the
theater is tempted to be content with living
vicariously instead of living his own life.&quot;
In his own field of thought Einstein follows every development with keen interest.
He has the gift of reading at a glance a whole
page of equations. Einstein can master a
whole new system of mathematics in half
an hour.&#x27;<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saturdayeveningpost.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;satevepost&#x2F;what_life_means_to_einstein.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saturdayeveningpost.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;sateve...</a>Not really the total repudiation of reading that this quote is being implied to be

I&#x27;ve found that most of the Einstein quotes I&#x27;ve seen online don&#x27;t have a valid source, where did you find that one? Just as a heads up, since Walter Isaacson never mentioned anything similar to that on his biography of him.

The primary form of escape reading provided for me was an escape from poverty. Books were my ladder, and my hope. Having few mentors to tell me of a &#x27;world&#x27; outside of the one I was living, books were able to transport me to foreign lands, they helped me understand myself, others around me and the world a little better.Through good books, I could have access to mentors who would would never know me, but I knew them through their writing, and I acquired the tools to add value to the world.Yes there are many mass marketed B.S books, that&#x27;s why I tend to read older books that are battle tested and still relevant today(Lindy effect).Yes, some books have more impact or less depending on what period in our lives we read them, our personal motivations or what prior knowledge and the context that makes the book relevant to us.Of the hundreds of millions of books in the world, we may only get to read maybe a thousand or so if we try. Someone could invest years of their life into something that takes 8 hours or so to read. I think there&#x27;s a high chance that their experience reveals to us something which we wouldn&#x27;t have imagined and amazes us about the world we share.

Most of the advice in &quot;How to Win Friends and Influence People&quot; is fairly relevant and can be learned at any age - the book and Carnegie&#x27;s courses were originally for older businessmen. The problem with the book is that its title and chapter titles have not aged well - they sound manipulative. The actual advice is very good and focuses on empathy and kindness; timeless concepts.I&#x27;ve definitely seem people change their behavior after reading it well into their 30s and 40s.

I think what you gain by reading is exposure to someone else&#x27;s way of thinking. You won&#x27;t get that by sitting in a vacuum. If you&#x27;re impressionable, you just assimilate the author&#x27;s way of thinking without any criticism. That shouldn&#x27;t be the goal here.The key part of that quote (whether it&#x27;s real or not) is the &quot;and uses his own brain too little&quot; part. It&#x27;s not as helpful to read a book mindlessly like you&#x27;re watching television and I think you&#x27;re missing out on so much by just reading technical manuals. You need to form your own opinion about what you&#x27;re reading by drawing on your own experience and things you&#x27;ve learned.I&#x27;m pretty sure you didn&#x27;t develop your way of thinking by yourself. You were influenced by mentors and other people&#x27;s thoughts and opinions. So why would you intentionally stop evolving? How do you know you&#x27;ve reached some &quot;optimal mental state&quot;? As an aside, if you&#x27;re into well-written technical books that are enjoyable to read, check out Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces:
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pages.cs.wisc.edu&#x2F;~remzi&#x2F;OSTEP&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pages.cs.wisc.edu&#x2F;~remzi&#x2F;OSTEP&#x2F;</a>

Bullshit. Reading pays off. Always. Just read good books.You have only one life. But by reading you can assimilate cumulative wisdom from thousands of lives.Sure, don&#x27;t just read, personal striving is also needed for a wholesome life.I agree that if a book claims to be amazing and life changing, it likely is not. I find books can offer singular insights, and intuition about how people and organizations operate, what psychological and historical principles are general, and so on.

I believe you are doing your self a disservice.As you grow older and “wiser” you realise that your time is precious. So you understand the opportunity cost of reading a book. You should then choose books that are foundational that are often the sources used by other books. You see more deeply into the meta meanings in the books, drawing many more links to other concepts hence you understand them better. This also means you could probably read much more deep&#x2F;technical or difficult books.

&gt;mass market rubbishYep, that describes so much of what&#x27;s popular.One book I find goes in the opposite direction--I didn&#x27;t get much from it when younger, but when I revisited it as a grown man, I suddenly saw a lot more value in it: The Bible. Which is about as far from &quot;mass market rubbish&quot; as you can get, considering quite a lot of it was written by people who were persecuted, tortured, and killed for writing it!

I read Freakonomics and Guns, Germs and Steel in college and was initially &#x27;amazed&#x27; by it. Now, I see it as mass market rubbish used to influence a particular demographic.But that goes for pretty much everything really. Catcher in the Rye in high school. Carnegie&#x27;s &quot;How to Win Friends and Influence People&quot;.I think books can &quot;change the way you think about almost everything&quot; when you are younger, naive and idealistic. As you grow older, wiser and understand the world more, you leave those childish things behind.Also, as einstein said : &quot;Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.&quot;I&#x27;m sure I&#x27;m not the only one that used reading as a crutch and a form of escapism and to waste time.But if you want a book that left an impression on me, K&amp;R&#x27;s C Programming Language is one. It showed me that a technical book can be concise, well written and enjoyable to read.

&quot;The Power of Positive Thinking&quot; — I read this when I was in junior high and a real jerk. It instantly ended my jerkitude and put me on a much better path.

1) Carlos Castaneda&#x27;s first three &quot;Don Juan&quot; books: read them while I was in med school in the early 1970s and they ALMOST made me drop out, they were so powerful (then). I looked at one recently and thought &quot;meh.&quot; People change.

Conveniently, I can just tack onto this list two more books and there we will have the 4 most important books on my life so far.Sexual Personae By Camille PagliaCapital: Volume I By Karl Marx

Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhanWalden by EmersonGodel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter

Interesting mix. Going to check out Sapiens I’ve only heard good things.

- How to Win Friends and Influence People- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

&quot;Free Will&quot; by Sam Harris. A buddy told me to read this after we got in a long debate about free will at a bar. Basically, he told me I wasn&#x27;t even grasping what free will is, and that the hour to read the book would totally change everything for me. Lo and behold, he was right and the next conversation we had about free will was much deeper and largely framed by the insights in this book. It convinced me that the real question isn&#x27;t &quot;Do we have free will?&quot; but rather &quot;What is free will?&quot;&quot;The Beginning of Infinity&quot; by David Deutsch. It&#x27;s difficult to pinpoint this book as being about a thing or a set of things, but my best attempt is to say it&#x27;s about attaining knowledge and the non-existent limits to human knowledge. I&#x27;ve never felt more inspired than when I finished reading this book and reflected on the infinite lengths humankind has to go on technological progress. Overall, it&#x27;s an incredible argument for optimism about what is possible.

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

I was surprised no one else mentioned at least one book by Dostoevsky, actually. At least, at the time of commenting.

Thanks for contributing to Standard Ebooks. It&#x27;s a great resource. Since you modestly didn&#x27;t plug it, let me:An excellent source of carefully formatted and corrected free ebooks (mostly classics).<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org</a>

Can’t edit the original comment, but Karamazov went through review at SE and is now available at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;fyodor-dostoevsky&#x2F;the-brothers-karamazov&#x2F;constance-garnett" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;standardebooks.org&#x2F;ebooks&#x2F;fyodor-dostoevsky&#x2F;the-brot...</a>

It’s so good. I just finished reading the Constance Garnett translation and it’s just gripping all the way through. Well, I guess apart from Zossima’s life story in the middle, but that definitely has its place.The Gutenberg HTML of it is definitely a labour of love and extremely high quality: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gutenberg.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;28054&#x2F;28054-h&#x2F;28054-h.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gutenberg.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;28054&#x2F;28054-h&#x2F;28054-h.html</a> . I converted it to a nicely formatted epub for Standard Ebooks and it’s in review now, so hopefully will be available this week.

Too many things. It implanted the idea that people, all people can be understood explicitly, through empathy (and that all people can be empathized with). It showed me a way of thinking that was based off of human emotions and understanding but also analytical. Father Zosima&#x27;s conversation with the woman with the dead child also helped me resolve the question of how much of a part one&#x27;s thoughts and intentions play in whether you&#x27;re a good person, and in general what it means to be a good person and how that can change. There are other things, but on first reading those are the ways that it directly influenced my viewpoint (that I can remember now).

Could you elaborate? I got nothing out of that book when I read it.

The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky. At the time I didn&#x27;t realize that it changed me, but looking back on it, the perspectives I learned from it fundamentally how I viewed and understood other people.

Dale Carnegie&#x27;s Winning Friends and Influencing people is so simple, but the technique really works.Become genuinely interested in people, make them feel good, they will appreciated it. The advice is essentially don&#x27;t be a jerk and do talk to people about the things they are interested. When you start doing that it&#x27;s like playing life on easy mode.

Absolutely loved this book. Very thought provoking.

Check out his sequel: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ynharari.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;homo-deus&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ynharari.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;homo-deus&#x2F;</a>

It was a funny book in that he introduced very few facts about the world that I didn&#x27;t already know, but that he tied all of it together so well. I find that I&#x27;m a much more empathetic and rational person whenever I try to frame my opinion of something&#x2F;someone the way Harari would.

I just finished this recently and would definitely recommend as well. It really made me question a lot of assumptions I had about humanity and history. For example it&#x27;s really not obvious that the agricultural revolution should have ever taken place considering the challenges associated with changing from a proven system for survival.

Fantastic and I completely agree. The book helped me to get perspective on current events and helped provide relevant historical precedent for almost everything in the world around us.For example, I never thought about how ideas that are touted by organizations or religions are frequently argued to be &quot;natural&quot; or &quot;divine&quot; or somehow sewn into the fabric of the universe. The book helped me to become a little more skeptical by portraying how versatile and diverse human societies can be, and how there is truly very little that is &quot;natural&quot;, &quot;eternal&quot;, and meant to be.Similarly, the book helped me to realize how unprecedented the current rates of economic and technological growth are. Its an exciting time to be alive, filled with almost infinite possibilities, and that fact is especially inspiring when you understand how much more restrictive previous generations and cultures were.

I would argue &quot;Guns, Germs and Steel&quot; is actually better than Sapiens. I felt Sapiens was a bit biased in a number of points.

If you enjoyed this then I highly recommend Ideas: A History by Peter Watson, a far superior book in my opinion.I found Sapiens to be shallow and full of useless waffle after reading Ideas. It really highlights the fact that Harari presents one particular version of history and there are many great thinkers that have an opinion on the things he discusses. E.g. Harari speculates on how and why money came to be used where as Watson presents a plethora of ideas on the origin of money and discusses the merits of different views.

I&#x27;m finding it a bit hit and miss. I agree, the &quot;shared myths&quot; notion is very appealing. And I enjoy learning the facts that form the skeleton on which he pins his thinking. However, I can&#x27;t help feeling that a professional thinker -- philosopher, whoever -- would debate his proposals. It seems to me that a collaboration with a second author would have leant robustness to his philosophy. As it stands, it comes across as an historian stepping outside of his expertise unchallenged. All well and good, but a bit flimsy.I look forward to reading further books published in response by others.

&quot;Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind&quot; by Yuval Noah Harari.Hands down the book that most influenced me. The book had (for me) not one but several simple-yet-profound ideas that were forever inserted into the foreground of how I make sense of the world. For example, the existence of shared myths that allow humans to cooperate on a large scale. Or how I too, am religious, though I was sure I wasn&#x27;t.Can&#x27;t recommend it enough.

Ayn Rand is reasonably good at diagnosing certain problems, but for her solutions, its hard to tell the poison from the cure.Also, she has no sense of &quot;Standing on the shoulders of giants&quot;, and how an eco systems make some things easier and harder.

Honestly, Anthem.While I think it&#x27;s a pinch silly oversimplification of things, it makes good arguments against central planning and for individuality and liberty.It really struck a chord in an impressionable 16 year old.

2nd &quot;The Alphabet vs The Goddess&quot;

A People’s History of the USA Pattern LanguageThe Alphabet Vs The GoddessAloud: Voices From the Nuyorican Poets CafeThe Fire Next Time

I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank &quot;The Irishman&quot; Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride of Jimmy HoffaAmazing insights on the corruption of the USG&#x2F;Nixon 
And the ties between the unions&#x2F;cia&#x2F;and the mafia.

Indeed.  The central point of the book is really the importance of human empathy.  If you want to influence people, you have to consider their needs and wants rather that just being self-absorbed and entitled all the time.

I found the content manipulative and I honestly can&#x27;t understand why this book is so revered. Maybe my expectations were set too high but reading it left me feeling underwhelmed.

incidentally, Dale Carnegie didn&#x27;t write that title. The main title and all the chapter titles were written by an advertising copywriter named Vic Schwab. Arguably the titles made it the publishing phenomenon it is. Schwab also wrote a book that probably changed the lives of many marketers. It&#x27;s title is &quot;How to write a good advertisement&quot;

A LOT of people are put off by the name of the book. I would highly suggest you not judge Carnegie&#x27;s book by it&#x27;s cover. It is filled with brass-tacks advice and concrete examples of how to improve your own life and the lives of others around you. Though the title may seem &#x27;manipulative&#x27;, the book is anything but that. Consider the title as a marketing gimmick from 1933 and read the book nonetheless.

Agreed. Relationships are how we get things done in life. Reaching consensus, asking for help, motivation - all based around relationships with others.Since How to Win Friends is already mentioned, I&#x27;ll add Musashi here. There are so many lessons it&#x27;s hard to pick them all out, plus I don&#x27;t want to spoil it for anyone.

7 Habits made me think about certain things differently, but I had many people tell me that it really changed their life. Didn&#x27;t do that for me, but &quot;change your life&quot; is a really high bar. Definitely How to Win Friends did.

I&#x27;d concur that the book was a huge eye-opener for me. Earlier, I used to think that I only needed to be right (for e.g., while making technical design decisions) and just say it out when I disagreed. This book taught me that the way you put forward your thoughts also matters. You can be right without being a dick and without screwing up your relationships with others.I followed up this book with Stephen Covey&#x27;s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That was another fantastic book for me.For me, these two books fit right into the category of those that literally changed my life.

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

What makes an emotional connection genuine? I firmly believe that Dale Carnegie actually cared about his readers, and was telling them these things in order to make them happier, and make the world a better place. And I am grateful for his efforts. Isn&#x27;t that a valid emotional connection, even though we never met in person?Or think about it another way... when you listen to music by Bach, do you feel an emotional connection? Do you see it as crass or alienated, or are you feeling something that a long-dead composer wanted you to feel, and grateful for the experience?

I read that book. It definitely changed how I look at people.It also made me a lot more cynical. I realized around halfway through that the author was (very skillfully) deploying his techniques in the direction of the reader. Further, the author is long-dead. We cannot possibly have a genuine emotional connection.This helped me understand that genuine empathy is irrelevant. All that matters to convincing people is that they feel empathized with. How you actually feel isn&#x27;t important, though for many it&#x27;s likely to be by far the easiest and most reliable way to get there.Dale Carnegie provided me with a very useful set of tools that I can use to achieve the outcomes I want. For that I&#x27;m appreciative.

Dale Carnegie&#x27;s &quot;How to Win Friends and Influence People&quot; - it changed how I approach teamwork and conversations. It made me aware of how my behaviour was limiting outcomes. :)Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should change.However, it wasn&#x27;t necessarily the book, but the course that I found really useful.

I was reflecting today about how often I think about Freakonomics. I don&#x27;t study it religiously. I read it one time more than 10 years ago. I can only remember maybe a single specific anecdote from the book. And yet the simple idea that basically every action humans take can be traced back to an incentive has fundamentally changed the way I view the world. Can anyone recommend books that have had a similar impact on them?

Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?