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Ask HN: What book changed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#351

Post by armitron »

johnthedebs wrote: post #330
armitron wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found Rothfuss comically bad as a writer and Kingkiller #1 nothing more than superficial wish fulfillment aimed at teens that were bullied at school. Not that Sanderson is much better.

Certainly everyone is entitled to an opinion :). I'll echo the posts you replied to and say that the current 2 books in the KKC series are by far the best fiction I've ever read. I've listened to them at least 3x each on audio (a combined ~71 hours per pass through the series), and I enjoy them in a new way each time. I'd be curious to hear which fiction series/authors appeal to you and why.

I don't particularly like fantasy, but I have read my fair share. I've enjoyed "The Darkness that Comes Before" because I thought it was intelligently written, philosophically consistent and deep, and didn't hand-hold the reader.

These are all attributes that your average mass-market fantasy (Sanderson, Abercrombie) lacks, maybe delibaretely so in order to chase popular appeal.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#352

Post by kk6mrp »

Minor49er wrote: post #257
Buttons840 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware that the NWT is a translation produced by a single church, a single sect of Christianity. Those wanting to study the Bible as a literary exercise should consider a translation accepted by more than only one sect of Christianity. Another comment here suggests an interesting translation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30735352

It's important to compare translations and understand why they exist and where they differ. Books like "New Age Bible Versions" by G. A. Riplinger give insight into changes with modern versions like the NIV and NKJV that make deliberate alterations to the text. But even still, it's important to remeber that translations like the KJV has replaced words like "She'ol" and "Hades" with "hell", or even replacing the name…

I agree that there is a huge difference between literal and dynamic translations of the text. That being said, I was recommended "New Age Bible Versions" before and was not impressed, I read through the first several chapters and compared the accusations to the other translations actual text and found most of them to be blatantly false. False as in, her charts said the other translations used words they did not use. I really enjoy the KJV also but do not consider other translations satanic like the Riplinger's book attempts to portray.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#354

Post by mmazing »

labarilem wrote: post #3

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid Introduced me to the beauty of logic and its limits. Also gave me solid mathematical thinking foundations. Pro tip: Try listening to Bach while you read about Bach.

I picked out GEB randomly at a bookstore like 20 years ago. The cover grabbed my attention and I started flipping through it and was instantly curious. My mom ended up buying it for me, on Valentine's Day I believe, ha.

Read the whole thing pretty quickly after that, I couldn't put it down.

I quite like your description of what you got out of it, it's been a pretty fuzzy concept to me for a long time but "the beauty of logic and its limits" is a great way to put it. :)

I need to re-read it.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#355

Post by philliphaydon »

I wouldn’t say life changing but the book. The Inmates Are Running The Asylum. It really made me think differently about software design and how users interact with it. I think a lot of “ux” people would benefit from reading it because many “ux” experts seem to get so much wrong.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#357

Post by deepspace »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #138

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I read this as part of course but it really stuck with me.

I really liked ZAMM the first few times I read it, when I was very young, and for a while thought it was the greatest book ever. With age and experience comes wisdom, though, and over the years I recognized that there is a lot of pretentious pseudo-scientific crap in there.

The part about "Gumption Traps" is very true and valid, however, and following Pirsig's advice on that front has saved me countless hours of fruitless troubleshooting.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#358

Post by kk6mrp »

voisin wrote: post #106
geocrasher wrote: post #95

First and foremost: The Bible. Not the watered down "everybody goes to heaven" theology that most people subscribe to, but rather an evidence based approach that uses the Bible to interpret itself as it was designed to do. Secondarily, this book saved my life in the sense that it helped me understand my depression, a clinical depression so deep that my psychologist had never seen such a thing previously: Get Out of Y…

> but rather an evidence based approach that uses the Bible to interpret itself as it was designed to do. Can you expand? Did you create this approach yourself or just read the Bible directly?

From my understanding, this is the oldest approach to understanding scripture. To keep from deviating from the truth you must examine the text in light of what has been written before. Acts 17:11 bears this out, "Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so."

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#359

Post by jonah »

Finite and Infinite Games Paperback – by James Carse

"Play" with the purpose of continuing play rather than ending by winning.

The Design of Everyday Things – by Don Norman

See the details of the ways we interact with the world around.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#360

Post by rg111 »

rmnull wrote: post #227
rg111 wrote: post #198

There has only been three books so far that have changed my life- 1. "Sei Somoy" (Those Times) by Sunil Ganguly. It is a novel about the past of Bengalis. The Bengali Reneissance, its central characters, progress, the conflict- all are beautifully depicted. I had no collective identity as a person before. And disliked whatever I had. This book made me feel really good about my identity. Suddenly, I was more confident…

> Strangly, Neal Stephenson's " Cryptonomicon" ... The idea that something so profoundly good can exist for people like us, convinced me to read only very high quality literature of all kinds and sci-fi of only the highest kind. Also made me give up watching TV/web series to a large degree. I don’t compromise with the quality of entertainment that I consume anymore. I consume only the best and most desired things. I…

Sorry, the author is George Leonard. My bad.

"Best", and "most desired" mean- I am not going to compromise with my choices for what is considered by others as worthy.

I will only consume what I want- what things best fit me- choice wise, genre wise, level wise, and so on.

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