Books that have changed my life:
Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace
Illuminatus Trilogy
Neuromancer
Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
61–70 of 143 posts
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#62The Holy Quran
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#63The first Dune book.
Same :)
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#64Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington. Teaches you anything is possible despite your circumstance. Thankful my kids have read it and taken it to heart. This should be a must read for anyone IMO.
More recently, Disparities and Discrimination by Thomas Sowell was a real eye opener for me.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#65There's a book called Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft by Zachary, G. Pascal
The book itself is pretty interesting but there's one line in there about how Dave Cutler always takes his vacations on time, every time without question.
It never goes into any more details but that seemed totally at odds with what I expected? At least when hustle culture and the idea that leaders don't take breaks seems somewhat prevalent nowadays (or at least in the mid-2000s)
As someone whose parents don't take vacations all that often, and came from a small town where there's that sort of "I'm a good person because I work harder than you" mentality, I was kind of hoping Cutler might reveal his philosophy of why he takes holidays without failure.
Maybe he just likes holidays and I'm over thinking it haha
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#66I grew up studying in a catholic school. Once a teacher that was involved with the convent, teaching us some logic basics, gave us some copies from the chapter 2 of Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World as a recommended lecture. Could get the whole book and read it and ended becoming an atheist.
Atheist or hard agnostic?
Agnostic as in “I haven’t had an experience to suggest there is a God”.
Atheist as in “my faith-based initiative is to totally believe there isn’t a God”.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#67Urban Shaman, by Serge Kahili King.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#68Although I am an avid reader and have been reading on average 1 or 2 books each week for the past 15 years, I don't think I've ever read a book than "changed my life". Looking back, I think the most impactfull book for me was The Art of Loving (1956) by Erich Fromm because it opened up a world of psychology and psychoanalysis and significantly altered my view on how humans think.
Among the classic fiction the best so far were: T. Dreiser - The Bulwark, S. Maugham - Of Human Bondage, L. Tolstoy - The Kreutzer Sonata and E. Zola - l'Oeuvre & Germinal.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#69Mort, by Pratchett. It is a great introduction to the Discworld and one of my favorite books ever. It is a good read over the holidays and you’ll be thinking about some of the lines in it for years to come. “ History isn't like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for…
„Small Gods“ is another good one, probably my favorite Discworld novel.
It's the time of the year to read 'Hogfather'.
Re: Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?
#70Books that have changed my life: Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace Illuminatus Trilogy Neuromancer
No Cuckoos Egg????