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Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

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Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#581

Post by anderspitman »

MikeCapone wrote: post #211

So many, and I wish I could write a long paragraph on each, but I'm unfortunately short on time. I'm posting any in case just one person who hasn't heard of those checks them out and gets value: -Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hosfstadter) -The Mindbody Prescription (John E. Sarno, completely cured my long-term crippling RSI that kept me from using computers and was ruining my life) -Feeling Good (Dr. Burns, cognitive…

I developed bad RSI starting about 5 months ago. It's manageable now (mostly from stretches and nerve glides my physical therapist taught me, and using an ergo keyboard and foot pedals) but was scary there for a bit. I've read about a third of the way through The Mindbody Presciption (after seeing it mentioned on HN) but I feel like he just keeps repeating himself and hasn't actually told me anything useful yet. I know I need to finish it but I'm curious what your experience was.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#582

Post by agumonkey »

Balgair wrote: post #113
LyndsySimon wrote: post #47

Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. Bottom line: judge your success in life by how well you make your decisions, not by your outcome. You have full control of your decisions, and often no control at all over their results.

A similar line of thinking is Annie Duke's Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts. A good discussion on the book can be found here: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-make-better-d... Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0735216355/ref=tmm_h...

reminds me of the dice man

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#585

Post by DyslexicAtheist » 

  - Jacques Ellul "The Technological Society"
  - N.N.Taleb "The Black Swan"
  - Danny Kahneman "Thinking Fast & Slow" (also his papers with Amos Tversky)
  - Thomas Ligotti "The Conspiracy against the Human Race"
  - Peter Wessel Zapffe "On the Tragic" & "The Last Messiah"
  - Sokal, Alan D "Intellectual Impostures"
  - Simon Herbert "A The Sciences of the Artificial"
  - Herbert Marcuse "One-Dimensional Man"
  - Schopenhauer "Parerga and Paralipomena"
  - Lewis Mumford "The Story of Utopias"
  - Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punish"
  - Edward S. Herman "Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media"
  - Franklin Foer "World Without Mind The Existential Threat of Big Tech"
  - Ben Goldacre "Bad science"
  - Emil Cioran "The Book of Delusions"
  - Gracian "The Art of Worldly Wisdom"
  - Heidegger Martin "The Question Concerning Technology"
  - Jacques Ellul "Propaganda The Formation of Mens Attitudes"
  - Mumford Lewis "The Culture of Cities"
  - Orwell "1984", "Down and Out in Paris and London", "Animal Farm"
  - Huxley "Brave New World", "The Doors Of Perception"
  - Michael Pollan "How to change your mind"
  - Jeff Hawkins "On Intelligence"
  - Fyodor Dostoevsky "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "Notes from the Underground", "The Brothers Kasamarov", "The Gambler", "The Idiot", "Crime & Punishment"
  - Peter Smith "Teach Yourself Logic"
  - Thomas More "Utopia"
  - Emil Cioran "The Trouble With Being Born"
  - Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago"
  - Nietzsche "Complete works"
  - Bulgakov "Master and Margarita"
  - Gerald M. Weinberg "The Secrets of Consulting"

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#589

Post by nickpsecurity »

jpollock wrote: post #75

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.

The Lifetime Conversation Guide by van Fleet is good follow-up to that with more specific tips:

https://www.amazon.com/Lifetime-Conversation-Guide-James-Fle...

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#590

Post by 0898 »

aphextron wrote: post #326

Ulysses, by James Joyce. It will change your whole conception of what language is and how it can be used. It’s not about the characters or plots; they are recycled from antiquity. It’s about the absolute mastery of interrelation between words and imagery. It is something that has a meaning entirely emergent of its’ own self referential structure, rather than what is being described , in a sense that is almost mathema…

I couldn't get past the first three pages. I had no idea what was happening. Am I thick? Or is it a difficult text?
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