Ask HN: Which book/essay changed your life?

Is there any book or essay that has lead to a change of perspective, a new view on reality so novel to you, that you decided to completely change certain aspects of your life based on the premise of the text or your conclusions resulting from it?

A Random Walk Down Wall Street - It changed how I invest my money. I went through the dot com boom bubble, lost all my investment. After that book, I applied "Trust in time rather than in timing." method, I survived and thrived the Great Recession and COVID crash, while many of my coworkers bitch and moan about their portfolios.

C.S. Lewis - A Grief Observed

"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."

I lost someone very close to me in my early 20s. Reading through the grief C.S. Lewis went through after he lost his wife was very cathartic. There will be setbacks (death, sickness, divorce, etc.) in life that will violently shake your core and make you feel as though you cannot go on. What I learned was communing with the grief, staring it straight in the face no matter how painful, is an absolute necessity. You will always carry the loss with you, but that does not mean your life has to be dominated by it.

I think his book really help me put "life" into perspective. Setbacks big or small can be overcome, and exploring the grief caused by them really helps with the process of moving past them, despite how painful it may be.

Capital by Karl Marx.

Understand labor exploitation and avoid being a victim of it.

I've read many many books that have changed my life.

That's probably one reason why I read.

To say that Pound's translation of the Analects was more profoundly important than the Tao and Faulkner's The Town and Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Hobbit from my youth and The Three Little Pigs read nearly nightly to a child doesn't make sense.

Sometimes I walk through Castaneda's world.

Sometimes Knuth's.

Other's I am in my head with Vonnegut.

Profoundness is out in the world.

And many books point to it.