I had to think deeply about this and particularly about a book changing the way I think about things and how often I think back to things in the book. For me it has to be Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain. It made me realize that I am more creatively skilled than I thought I was — a realization which has enhanced my life greatly. To some lesser degree The Artist's Way has influenced me as well. Perhaps the most…
A related book, and the basis for much of whats in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is The Natural Way to Draw, by Kimon Nicolaïdes. It is a text book and has structured lessons in it, so if you need formal structure its helpful. Following the lessons is not required to gain a lot from this book.
Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - it changed how I approach teamwork and conversations. It made me aware of how my behaviour was limiting outcomes. :) Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should change. However, it wasn't necessarily the book, but the course that I found really useful.
I read that book. It definitely changed how I look at people. It also made me a lot more cynical. I realized around halfway through that the author was (very skillfully) deploying his techniques in the direction of the reader. Further, the author is long-dead. We cannot possibly have a genuine emotional connection. This helped me understand that genuine empathy is irrelevant. All that matters to convincing people is…
In another book titled "Never split the difference" the author distincts empathy and sympathy. You can be empathic aka. understand how and why the other person feel. This helps you understand the other person and ask the right questions. You don't necessarily have to agree with it (sympathy).
Both have an important role in your connections with other people but its useful if you learn to separate them.
Animal Farm was a really important book for me. I picked it up aged about 10 or 11 and I remember being really struck by how easily the pigs were able to exploit the other animals' grievances with humans to secure their own power. It felt like a grown-up story with some quite powerful, disturbing meanings under the covers. So I told my English teacher about it and all she told me in response was to go look up the Rus…
Does anyone have any recommendations for reading up on the Russian Revolution? Books, videos, or otherwise.
Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler, is another allegorical book about the Russian Revolution, more specifically the Moscow trials that followed. The book had a strong impact on me.
War and peace by Tolstoi. It made me aware that someone as successful and powerful as Napoleon himself was by a large extent only a product of the people and the mood at the time. What I mean is that it wasn't him who inspired the people; it rather was just the Zeitgeist he was the perfect person for. I'm not a native speaker and can't really put it into words, but it completely changed my view of the amount of influ…
War and Peace came immediately to mind for me as well, but mostly because I do not think I have ever read a more magnificent novel. I'm a literature professor, and in academic literary study, we don't spend a lot of time talking about which books are "better" than others. But personally? I'll just never get over that one. I suppose I'd have to add Aeschylus' The Oresteia (the oldest of the ancient Greek tragedies we…
I'm about halfway through "War and Peace" right now, and am amazed at how much life Tolstoy packs into the book. So many amazing scenes, and pithy characters. What's striking me now is both the characters' greatness mixed with their weakness. There's something to me inexplicable about my admiration of Pierre, Natasha, Count Rostov etc., but interesting how as the book continues their faults are revealed. Also, the timeless conflicts/themes/impetus of money, politics/social hierarchies or groups, marriage, etc.
Due to its simplicity and truthfulness for me: Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi.
Not only did it help me see that no matter how accomplished/famous/old someone is, there is the demystifying shared thing that we all do, but also humbled me when I get too full of my skills or experience with anything in life. It’s a pretty silly thing but always pops in my mind and changes my behavior almost instantly.
Obviously it didn’t change the way I think about everything but changed the way I think about everything with people and social situations.
"Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. Not an easy read, but it deeply changed the way I think about incentive structures and the law of unintended consequences. It's a tough pill to swallow for people (like myself) who cling to utopian ideas, but the older I get the more I realize we must live in the world as it exists, with human nature as it really is. Dreaming of a better world is counter-productive if one does not…
The Quest for Cosmic Justice is another great book by Sowell that challenges the utopian mindset that underlies many modern policy discussions. It contrasts utopian "cosmic" justice with the much more prosaic (but achievable) "human" justice
In similar veins, his 'A Conflict of Visions' and 'The Vision of the Anointed' are two stunning incisive books that show pretty directly why we are where we are now, as divided as we are now. Likely corresponds strongly with Haidt's 'The Righteous Mind', referred to elsewhere in this topic.
"Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
Sounds nerdy and specialized, but Abelson & Sussman's SICP; 1st read an early draft in a CS class ~1985 and it changed the way I thought about computers, programing, science and problem solving forever...