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Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
241–250 of 280 posts
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#242The Personal MBA. Deep Work. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Think and Grow Rich. The E-Myth Revisited. The Science of Selling. (stuff about stoicism)
Why the downvote???
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#243How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization by Jeffrey J Fox
I found this book in a library's junk pile, evidently unread. It has one of those bad 80s covers that suggest it'll be terrible, but to my great surprise, it's great! It's 80 or so one page missives/dictums/edicts that'll take barely half an hour to read through - I re-read it every time I have a job interview coming up or a some kind of major life choice. The author's tone is abrasively direct; this is how it is, not how it should be. And the advice isn't just for wannabe CEOs, it's accessible and attainable for everyone.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#244Autobiography/Memoirs: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard Feynman What Do You Care What Other People Think? - Richard Feynman Crime and Guilt: Stories - Ferdinand von Schirach Fiction: The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov Technical: Bulldog: A Compiler for VLIW Architectures - John Ellis
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov - this is a great book, I am lucky my Mom gave it to me when I was a kid...
I should finish this. I got two or three chapters in on a move interstate, and it got lost in the unpacking process.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#245The slight edge
This is a very interesting book that emphasises how small persistent things matter in life. Changed my worldview for good.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, because a thorough understanding of the Bible shows that its teaching is quite different to what is often portrayed in media and in the assumptions of people like myself who had not previously read it. You can take many individual parts of the Bible out of context and make it sound like madness but reading the whole in its entirety has a narrative that many miss. For those raised on the internet and faste…
If you're already christian, I'd recommend not reading the bible cover to cover. I did, and it made me an atheist.
Reading the bible and seeking answers to the difficult questions that presented (rather than tossing it out at the first seeming inconsistencies) is what began my journey from atheism to being a follower of Jesus.
Further reading that helped along that journey: 1) Mere Christianity by CS Lewis 2) The Reason For God by Tim Keller 3) Anything by John Lennox 4) Many discussions by Ravi Zacharias
Regardless, this is not me attempting to invalidate all the points already made to the contrary, but an attempt to point out that belief in the bible isnt the most rediculous thing concievable and there are thoughtful, scientific people who identify as Christian, are not republican, trump-supporting or homophobic. Example: Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#247"How Not To Die" by Dr Michael Greger, Gene Stone. It really changed my mind about how to achieve long term mental and physical health.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#248The Human Zoo - Desmond Morris ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/333063.The_Human_Zoo )
Morris uses his background as a zoologist to examine human beings as a regular animal; many books have come out of this approach. In this one he draws parallels between the city-dwelling human and the caged animal. This sort of perspective gives you self-awareness about your own tribalism and how we as a species deal with the opposing forces of individuality and longing to belong to a group. Also some ideas on the urban-rural divide that has consequences that leave people on either side puzzled (Brexit, Trump etc.)
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#249A little late to the game but this book changed my perception of reality.
Saving the Appearances: A study in Idoltary by Owen Barfields
You won't regret it.
Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?
#250Don Quixote. Specifically the translation by Edith Grossman.
In high school I was assigned this book but I didn't read it all, it seemed like a waste of time to read 1000+ pages about a silly knight.
A few years ago I got into reading a lot of fiction translated from Spanish and Don Quixote got back on my radar so I decided to give it another try. I was blown away. It's astounding that a book from 500 years ago is still so funny and engaging today. Grossman's translation makes the book accessible and very enjoyable. If you didn't know the history you'd believe it had been published in the last few decades.
I recommend this because it's the best example of how literature can be time travel. When I smile at one of the adventures in the book I know that I'm sharing an experience with readers across centuries. There's almost no other way to get that feeling.