OK, it might be a bit embarrassing to post this, but I'm going to say Marie Kondo's "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up." Not so much for the tidying part (though I did find that extremely helpful), but the whole idea of only keeping things in your life that "spark joy" (not an exact translation by the way - "spark excitement" or "spark meaning" are other ways I like to think about it) has had a profound impact on…
Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
521–530 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#522"Debt: The First 5000 Years": This is truly a magnum opus. Until I read this I had taken money, economy, market etc., for granted. And I had held onto the widely accepted, but naive, view that economic systems somehow grew out of barter systems. The range of topics discussed, and the way author shows how seemingly independent concepts are intertwined, is truly astonishing. I'm on my 2nd read.
"Thinking, Fast and Slow": This book made me truly appreciate the value of psychology. I didn't even know the existence of a vast domain called behavioral science until I read this book. Now I'm deliberately conscious about the decisions I take and retrace my thought process multiple times just to make sure that I haven't fallen pray to some of the cognitive biases.
"The Tell-Tale Brain": While I did know that human brain is a unique organ this book opened my eyes to its layered complexities. For instance, how "seeing" is not a single step but a multi step process. From image formation, to identifying the object, to evoking emotional response.
"QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter": The book with the highest signal to noise ratio. I finally understood what science is about, a way to model nature and to keep refining it to fit the observation. There are no true/false theories/models only those that explain nature's behavior better or worse. Nature is agnostic to all our theories and models. She's just the way she is. For details read about double slit experiment.
"How the World Works": This one along with "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order" has greatly shaped my mental model about the workings of contemporary world. I now understand why does military gets all the funding, why do powerful governments tend to keep its subject under perpetual fear, why is it that the cost of education has been sky-rocketing.
"The Hanging of Afzal Guru and the Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament": A glimpse into the working of Indian justice system.
"Broken Republic": This is by far the most accurate description about current affairs in India. How India is being hollowed out and how its most vulnerable section is the one fighting against it.
"Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life": I'm currently reading it (20% through) and it has already made a big impact. The meaning of information is deep and subtle and pervades not just human being but the life itself.
"The Order of Time": The book that well and truly shook the foundation that I had taken for granted for my entire life. That space and time aren't something absolute and are personal has had a profound impact on me.
"The Upanisads": A truly remarkable work of human mind. Just to think about some of the concepts uplifts my mood.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#523Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#524Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#525One book that changed me was reading Master and Margarita in Russian for the first time. It was the first book I started reading I could not put down until the end. Gained a lot of appreciation for literature at that time. The other book that I enjoyed and changed me was ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ by Alan Watts. I was a fan of Alan Watts works through his lectures already and it was wonderful to hear his ideas in wri…
No idea whether Fagott has some linguistic extravagance in the original, but it works really well on this Master of Ceremonies.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#526Sometimes when I feel a bit sad I remind myself to read a few chapters. It reminds me what I find important in life. What I can ask from myself and from other. It gives me joy in a good way.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#527Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#528"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…
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#529[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_Will_and_Represen...
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#530I read through the bible every year and each time it shapes my thinking. For example, I was reading Exodus this morning about how we should care for the foreigner. I imagine several thousand years ago this was pretty radical. It also seems very relevant today.
I second that. For a book that's the foundation of our entire Western Civilization it's amazing that so few read it these days. No wonder our civilization is breaking down. Not to mention how mythologies in so many cultures have embedded remnants of its first book, Genesis. Also the inspiration of countless masterpieces of literature like the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1989), mentioned at th…
That might be putting it a bit strongly. "western civilization" derives from ancient greek society, which wasn't christian, but contained many concepts that are considered foundational to our society (such as democracy).