Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.
Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
621–630 of 747 posts
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#622Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#623"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig takes you deep into the philosophy on what is 'quality'. Once you see it you can't unsee it. A powerful excerpt from the book: 'So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows natura…
Despite all the praise it got, I really struggled with that book. I hated it so much that I had to check if I didn't pick the wrong book by accident. I found that it's a very polarising book. It's life-changing for some, and garbage for others. There were a few insightful passages, but most of the book was pretentious rambling. It was difficult to understand what the author was even trying to say, with his head so fa…
I came to the conclusion that the book is actually about mental illness, whether intentional or otherwise.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#624The innovator's dilemma
Systemantics
A farewell to entropy
The nature of technology - what it is and how it evolves
On being wrong
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#625"Debt" and "bullshit jobs", both by David Graeber.
The first book really tears apart several of the "foundations" of economics. For instance, the creation of money as portrayed by Adam Smith? It's a myth, and no single place like he described ever existed.
Bullshit jobs is about the myriad bullshit managerial jobs we have and how we really shouldn't have them. It's capitalism, it's supposed to be efficient and yet, when he published a piece about bullshit jobs in an obscure anarchist magazine in 2013, it made so much impact The Economist wrote a response!
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#626Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very specific question but... Stoner by John Williams is one of my favorite books. It was also more difficult for me to read than other books I typically pick up which are primarily sci-fi and NYT bestseller fiction books. When I read the Wiki for Stoner years ago I saw this line, "Bryan Appleyard's review quotes critic D.G. Myers saying that the novel was a good book for beginners in the world of "serious…
I take well known lists (e.g. Gates') with a grain of salt, but cross referencing with personal recommendations has worked well. I ended up getting a copy of Stoner after it came up a few times in as many weeks, so it was handy last time I went on vacation. I also usually search HN for threads like these when I'm looking for things to read. I'm fairly certain that's how I came across Seveneves .
Fantastic. That's two books I will look into.
I did a little searching this morning and did find D.G. Myers old blog where he posts a few of his favorite novels, including Stoner. Link here: https://dgmyers.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-favorite-martians.ht...
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#627Super serious question. Of the 278 comments that have been posted to this thread in the last 8 hours, has anyone suggested a single female author? I looked for a while and saw exactly zero. Isn’t that kind of notable?
Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor. While a lot of people treat it as a dog training book, her work in behavioral psychology and training has much broader applications. It can really change the way you approach interpersonal relationships.
Came here just to post this one. Life-changing book, esp. on parenting.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#628Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's life-changing for some, and garbage for others. I feel this way about Catcher in the Rye. My English teacher recommended it to me obviously on the basis that I was an angsty teenager that would identify with Holden Caulfield. But what a pile of crap it is. I still want back the hours I wasted on reading that stupid boring book.
That's a weird recommendation. I think you might have viewed it differently as a bit of a retrospective or perspective piece. I can't possibly so how the teacher thought suggesting that book to an angsty teen to be a good idea. That's the time kids need to have their world opened, not their angst re-affirmed. Very strange.
Thing is I was already reading some pretty bleak stuff at the time, e.g. Brave New World and 1984, and as you can probably imagine the trials of a mopey teenager didn't really impress much when put up against poor Winston and Room 101 etc.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#629Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. I feel like it left me subtly but permanently changed, as if seeing through new differently tinted lenses.
Before reading Gravity's Rainbow, I read every book with a voice in the back of my head telling me that I should have thought of that idea first, I could've done that story better. Pynchon killed that part of me and I'm not sure if it will come back--not that I'm complaining.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#630Mere Christianity , by C. S. Lewis. Any of his nonfiction works have a style of writing that I seldom find. He has a dedication to reason and a step-by-step approach. The Elements of Style , by William Strunk and E. B. White. I liked writing since I learned how to. I didn't find this book until I was 17, and it unlocked me to write in a way that better helped others. The Language Instinct , by Steven Pinker. I guess…
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis is truly worth reading. Lewis's non-fiction is much better than his fiction, and his fiction is world-renowned. Mere Christianity is just so pure and clear.