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Ask HN: What book changed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#411

Post by vidarh »

throwawaybbq1 wrote: post #192

"Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" - sort of like an autobiography of Richard Feynman but from recordings of some conversations. I'm a scientist and this resonated with me a lot. "The Game" - very immature and sophomoric book. I was given this book by an acquaintance who was also geeky like me. I was painfully shy of girls until grad school, and this book gave me much needed confidence to talk to the opposite gender.…

"The Game" is certainly juvenile, but it's also a funny look at a very odd world at a point in time that also changed the industry it described massively by making people aware of the tactics and forcing the companies involved to massively reinvent themselves. It seems half of them doubled down on getting worse and creepier, and the other half tried - with varying success - to move to more mainstream self-help.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#412

Post by cookiengineer »

I'm was a network engineer and I have to admit I wouldn't be on the peer-to-peer path I took if I wouldn't have read the book "Honeybee Democracy".

It's an amazing non programming related book that teaches a working concept of swarm intelligence and their communication algorithms and behaviours. In the networked computers world this has so many potential applications, especially when you have to think outside the box to be able to scale and analyze network traffic patterns.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#413

Post by tpoacher »

prometheus76 wrote: post #279
tpoacher wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bible expert, but the old testament in particular has books that are effectively 'legal' (rather than theological) in nature. The kind of thing you quote here is likely from that kind of book (and typically the kind of thing quoted in TV shows needing to show how 'silly are the things Christians believe in'). If you put it in that context, then it's not that much sillier than stuff like "Owning a pet lobster in…

I would invite you to re-evaluate your position on books like Leviticus not being "theological". For example, Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement, shows you on so many levels what Christ accomplished. The reasons many of the rules and laws are put into place is to show how reality is structured ontologically. And to show you that mixing categories can be harmful, and that fringes are necessary to keep the rest of the…

I'm not saying the 'legal' books shouldn't be part of the bible because they have 'no theological value'.

I'm saying that when a hollywood actor in a film makes fun of christians and says something like "oh go sacrifice a goat like it says in your bible", they are willfully misrepresenting those verses as "cherry-picking your beliefs and conveniently leaving out the goat stuff", when in fact typically they're quoting verses of legal/historical significance, rather than of a dogmatic/theological nature.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#414

Post by nicbou »

How to win friends and influence people, at an early age. It’s a manual for being pleasant to work with and seeking mutual benefit. Despite the title, it describes a very genuine way to act.

Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman. It inspired me to be curious for the sake of curiosity, and not just in my field. It made me a little more adventurous. What gripped me wasn’t the science, it was the ants and the bongos.

Grapes of wrath. It’s poverty explained to those who never experienced it. This book just sticks with me. I can see why they make students read it. It’s also a damn good book.

No more Mr Nice Guy. Plot twist: you’re not nice, you’re insincere and manipulative. Don’t shame people into giving back. If you want your needs met, ask for things. Be nice when you mean it, not as a tool to earn approval.

Wages of Destruction. This book doesn’t explain what happened from 1933 to 1945, but why. It added contextual clarity to a topic I’ve been reading about for years. It changed how I perceive other historical events too. It’s not a casual read though.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#415

Post by Micoloth »

analog31 wrote: post #30
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.

As a high school student, I had all sorts of interests: Math, science, electronics, music, computers. GEB reinforced my interest in math as being more than just useful (for physics and electronics), and led me to choose math as my college major. Not surprisingly, getting interested in math as an end unto itself was what got me good enough at it, to actually make it useful for those other things, and I ended up doing…

+1, Same here. Like, I'm not even happy about it, I could have done something very different if i didn't read that book. "It blew my mind at an impressionable age" is a comment I read online about this book, very accurate!

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#416

Post by nicbou »

johngo54 wrote: post #41

Not so much a life changer but certainly reshaping the way I look at things, the way I judge things, and the way I let things ruin my day: 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck' by Mark Manson The book is full of examples and while reading, you go "hey, that's a bit like my friend X", or "hey, that sounds like my Uncle Y". And then, when Mark describes certain personality traits, you think, "hole smoke, that's ME!"

I couldn’t get far because I don’t like how he writes.

I found The Subtle Magic of Not Giving a Fuck to be a lot better. The sample is enough to get the point: you can apply Marie Kondo’s method to obligations that don’t spark joy.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#417

Post by nicbou »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #396

So many great books I’ve enjoyed are mentioned here. And it’s hard to pick just one that’s changed my life, many have. But in the interest of variety in this thread, I’ll throw out Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It inspired me to go deeper in my beloved cooking practice towards growing food and hunting, and through all that I’ve found much gratitude for and understanding of life and what humanity h…

If you want to further develop that gratitude, you might like At Home by Bill Bryson (and everything else he wrote, really)

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#418

Post by jackthetab »

issa wrote: post #301

Difficult to pick just one, but I will go with The Stainless Steel Rat. It was a great introduction to the idea that society's rules don't always make sense. I haven't read it since I was in grade school, so I don't know if anyone older would enjoy it. But it definitely planted the seeds of anarchism, hacking, punk, and not taking rules too seriously. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat

Yes, us olds would, and did, enjoy it. I Was in my early 30's when I read them.

Now I'm getting nostalgic and need to go back and read them. Tsundoku is such a bad/good/fun addiction...

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#419

Post by v-erne »

tpoacher wrote: post #413
prometheus76 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would invite you to re-evaluate your position on books like Leviticus not being "theological". For example, Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement, shows you on so many levels what Christ accomplished. The reasons many of the rules and laws are put into place is to show how reality is structured ontologically. And to show you that mixing categories can be harmful, and that fringes are necessary to keep the rest of the…

I'm not saying the 'legal' books shouldn't be part of the bible because they have 'no theological value'. I'm saying that when a hollywood actor in a film makes fun of christians and says something like "oh go sacrifice a goat like it says in your bible", they are willfully misrepresenting those verses as "cherry-picking your beliefs and conveniently leaving out the goat stuff", when in fact typically they're quoting…

Hold on a minute - You lost me here - how can description of animal sacriface on na altar not have theological nature?

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#420

Post by emptysongglass »

armitron wrote: post #351
johnthedebs wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Darkness That Comes Before is stupendous. It took Bakker a decade to write, which shows. His books after are written too quickly and the introduction of dragons spoils what could have been a purely own creation free of the poisoned tropes of fantasy.
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