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Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

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Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#201

Post by fsloth »

gregd wrote: post #83

Two books that aren't mentioned, surprisingly, are: The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz In my humble opinion, these two books alone, have the ability to change one's life.

Eckhart Tolle was a quite divisive author for me. On the other hand he had very usefull visualizations on the nature of pain that were really valuable to me in difficult times.

The painbody visualization was especially therapeutic to me and helped me to cope in better ways than I would have otherwise.

But on the other hand I find most of his philosophy just bonkers.

The book is bit like "drawing on the right side of the brain" - great exercises wrapped in non value adding chaff.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#202

Post by olifante »

Eleutheria wrote: post #167
david927 wrote: post #43

Capital in the Twenty First Century, Thomas Piketty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Cen... I've always been a bit embarrassed for the economics profession; it's always seemed to me that it could be where math meets sociology and psychology, but is instead where politics meets unfounded conjecture. Piketty changed that for me. He does true science here. I read it because I noticed that it has…

So capitalism has problems, he failed to determine the cause (the state) and failed to propose efficient solutions (more taxes, austerity for the people, more interventionism) and you praise it as true science? That book is a marxist pamphlet in a thousand pages. For the love of god, never read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt or you would consider him the bastard son of Einstein when he was fifteen.

Marxist Pamphlet? What non-sense. It's a book written by an avowed defender of capitalism, worried about its excesses in the age of slowing growth. Piketty is a social-democrat from the mainstream of European politics, not a marxist in any way or shape. Bill Gates gave the book a mixed review with many positive points, and he's not particularly known for being a marxist sympathizer.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#204

Post by Panino »

gregd wrote: post #83

Two books that aren't mentioned, surprisingly, are: The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz In my humble opinion, these two books alone, have the ability to change one's life.

The Power of Now is at the top, for me.

I'll also mention Vagabonding by Rolf Potts -- a great book that's as much about travel as about life.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#205

Post by salemh »

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are Alan Watts http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Taboo-Against-Knowing/dp/0679...

It has been a while since a book from even 10 pages in breaks my model of reality a bit.

Just saying "I have a body" as a separation, instead of "I /am/ body" etc.

Very interesting, fun (witty) succinct.

Its my first Alan Watts book, so that could be part of why it hit me nicely.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#207

Post by sambe »

carlaldrich wrote: post #70
gooseus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say Black Swan, which I would say has changed how I think about myself, knowledge and the mechanics of society and the world this year. I've got Antifragile queued up next.

Fooled by Randomness is excellent also; they all have the same message but it's the most direct

I haven't read the Black Swan. I skimmed a few places and know a Taleb fan who has read both Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan. With moderate confidence I'd say FbR is the better book - Black Swan seems to be much of the same material presented for a wider audience. I thought FbR was excellently written, regardless of the content.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#208

Post by ph4 »

salemh wrote: post #205

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are Alan Watts http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Taboo-Against-Knowing/dp/0679... It has been a while since a book from even 10 pages in breaks my model of reality a bit. Just saying "I have a body" as a separation, instead of "I /am/ body" etc. Very interesting, fun (witty) succinct. Its my first Alan Watts book, so that could be part of why it hit me nicely.

Wonderful book. Try "The Wisdom of Insecurity" next. And to anyone considering either of these, I think TWoI is a slightly better intro to Watts' work.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2014?

#209

Post by egypturnash »

Decrypting Rita, the graphic novel I've been working on since April 2011. http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/

I made a major mistake in the prepress process and had to eat it, losing all profits from the Kickstarter from the second volume. It has also gotten kind words from more than one Hugo winner. On a productive month, its Patreon is starting to pay about half of my rent; I feel like the push of publicity for the final volume (somewhere around April 2014 if all goes well) will do some pretty interesting things to my career as a comics creator, with my bills quite possibly being paid entirely by the fraction of my fan base that chooses to support me on Patreon somewhere around next winter. Assuming they don't vanish en masse when I start the next project, which will be very different in tone and subject matter...

I know you were mostly looking for books to read. But none of the fiction or non-fiction I've read this year has really done much of anything to my worldview. I think the last one that did that was probably Robert Anton Wilson's Prometheus Rising, which basically turned me into an occasional magician.

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