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Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?

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Re: Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?

#51

Post by telesilla »

smackeyacky wrote: post #22

America made no sense to me until I read Faulkners "Light In August". Its almost 100 years old but those themes persist. Otherwise I would really recommend Moby Dick. Its a rollicking adventure, a wonderful technical description of bygone whaling and ultimately a starting point for introspection on some questions you may be asking yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_in_August#:~:text=Light%... .

I listened to 40 hours of Moby Dick on a series of long road trips and couldn't wait to start each one, just me and Melville for a few hours every day.

On a business level, Critical Chain (Goldratt) and the Phoenix Project (Kim, Spafford, Behr) were necessary eye-openers once I got into top management.

Re: Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?

#52

Post by bheadmaster »

sumo89 wrote: post #35

As a white CIS male from a middle class family in Western Europe I've found it eye opening reading studies and articles based around global gender studies. For example the journal Gender, Place and Culture https://genderplaceandculture.wordpress.com/ . It's an analytical window to a world that would otherwise pass me by and has helped me be more empathetic to the struggles that of those born in different situations.

> white CIS male

The "CIS" is redundant - meaning of the phrase would be the same without it.

Re: Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?

#54

Post by qzx_pierri »

sumo89 wrote: post #35

As a white CIS male from a middle class family in Western Europe I've found it eye opening reading studies and articles based around global gender studies. For example the journal Gender, Place and Culture https://genderplaceandculture.wordpress.com/ . It's an analytical window to a world that would otherwise pass me by and has helped me be more empathetic to the struggles that of those born in different situations.

What’s the point of specifying “cis” ? That’s the default. Because it appears that adding that bit serves as a low effort social grift.

Re: Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?

#56

Post by dilippkumar »

A couple of books here.

1. Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy.

This is a biography of Julius Ceasar. There’s a story in here about a teenage Ceasar, with no institutional authority and effectively a student at this point, raising a navy to go capture pirates who had previously kidnapped him. I spent many years thinking about influence without any authority after reading this story and it’s probably had a significant shift in how I see the world and my role in it.

2. The WEIRDest people in the world by Joseph Henrich

I grew up in India. This book helped me understand so much of the cultural differences between American culture and what I grew up with that it is easily one of the most valuable books for any immigrant or anyone from America who has to work across cultures.

3. Debt - The first 5,000 years by David Greber.

The single most valuable thing I took away from this book came pretty early in the book - Buying stocks in a company is effectively loaning money to the company. This book shifted my perspective significantly- I use to see the world as a network of power relationships. Now I see the world as a network of debt relationships. I can not recommend it enough.

Re: Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?

#59

Post by unmole »

dilippkumar wrote: post #56

A couple of books here. 1. Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy. This is a biography of Julius Ceasar. There’s a story in here about a teenage Ceasar, with no institutional authority and effectively a student at this point, raising a navy to go capture pirates who had previously kidnapped him. I spent many years thinking about influence without any authority after reading this story and it’s probably had a significant shift…

> Buying stocks in a company is effectively loaning money to the company.

It really is not though. Unless you muddle the definitions of debt, equity and ownership to the point of uselessness. Then again, this is the same book that blithely conflates credit with benevolence.

Re: Ask HN: Which book has had the most meaningful contribution in your life?

#60

Post by DamnInteresting »

robswc wrote: post #2

This one is really hard tbh. I don't think I could name one. There was a period where I worked in a warehouse and listened to audio books and college lectures and all those together allowed me to make connections I don't think I would have made otherwise. A very meaningful book I read was "A Short History of Nearly Everything" just because it showed me how much to the world there was to discover. It made me very opti…

Another vote for A Short History of Nearly Everything. Eighteen years ago, I enjoyed that book so thoroughly that I started researching and writing my own nonfiction. The pay is terrible, but the work is fulfilling.
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