Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything? • Hacker News Board

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

#731

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:38 AM UTC

cloverich wrote: post #515

3minus1 wrote: post #298

* The Selfish Gene - our bodies are vessels for DNA as they travel through time. Also colony insects and birds are fascinating. * Thinking Fast and Slow - study after study shows that we exhibit so, so many cognitive biases, as our minds take shortcuts. there are some things you can do to recognize and mitigate these biases. * Imagined Communities - the notion of a "nation" is only 300 years old and has no objective…

Love your list, but wanted second Imagined Communities. I don't see it as much as the other's (frequent HN recommendations). Drags a bit, but is short and impactful. I especially thought its exploration of how _language_ influenced nation's was particularly enlightening. If you find the Selfish Gene to have powerful explanatory effect, I bet you will feel similarly about Imagined Communities.

Read Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism, Azar Gat.

https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2014/07/23/reality-may-not-ha...

> Basically, Gat is refuting a modernist view, which has arguably gone from being revisionist to normative, that the concept and execution of a nation is a historically contingent construction of early modern Europe, and more precisely Revolutionary France of the 1790s.

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

#732

Post by bill-lumbergh » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:42 AM UTC

The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib Totally changed my view of running a business and gave me real structure and clarity about marketing is and how to effectively do it as a small business.

Highly recommend if like you are like I was - wondering when and how the next client was going walk in the door

https://www.amazon.com/1-Page-Marketing-Plan-Customers-Money...

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

#733

Post by chadcmulligan » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

cynicalbutt wrote: post #361

A rant. The question itself is kind of absurd if you think about it. But it leads to a nice parade of skimmed and unread books. Sorry, if I'm too cynical. I just have seen these questions about books thousand of times and every time I have the same feeling: that people are grossly overestimating the impact of the books they have read and they are just approval junkies. Surely, no book can change your thinking about a…

Hmm, not every one is like that, there are some no doubt, I remember seeing an add for books by the meter many years ago to fill up your shelves.

For me, I love books, have since I was a kid. I used to love having books on my book shelf and looking at the books every now and then, and remembering the stories. When having friends over looking through the books was something we did (that and CD's/LP's), likewise going to friends places and looking through their stack was always fun. I'm always keen to discuss books I've read and recommend books I enjoyed, or in this case changed my view of life, there are a few.

Now they're all on my ipad and I can carry my library round wherever I go. In many ways I think people are made of stories, we all have our stories about ourselves and people we know, and the stories we read and share are just an extension of that. The stories are about people we may never know and things that we may never see, or never even exist, to want to share these with others seems natural to me.

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

#734

Post by tokyodude » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:45 AM UTC

borski wrote: post #15

“The Design of Everyday Things” changed the way I see literally everything. You’ll never look at doors the same way again, and prepare to forever be frustrated by poorly designed objects, and delighted by incredibly well designed ones. There is no better book on the philosophy of UX, imho.

I haven't read the book but I feel like it would make me even more grumpy from noticing even more poorly designed things than I already do.

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

#735

Post by CJKerr » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:45 AM UTC

* Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K. Anders Ericsson

Much of our upbringing and education is underpinned by the assumption that "talent" is a real thing. Peak dismantles that assumption pretty thoroughly. The implications are far-reaching and I recommend it to everyone.

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

#736

Post by reidacdc » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

Charles Perrow's "Normal Accidents". It's sort of the beginnings of a general theory of systemic risk in technology, moving away from the particulars of various technologies or management strategies. There are several technology areas he fits into his model, including civilian nuclear power, jet aircraft, chemical processing plants, and cargo ships. The model focuses on what kind of energy density is involved, how complex the actually-existing engineered system is to be in order to achieve its objective, and how bad the situation is when unexpected interactions (arising from the complexity) lead to the energy being released.

This kind of clear, higher-level thinking about technology is rare and valuable. In the IT world, there's presumably a way to use the model, substituting "data" for "energy", but I've never seen (or come up with) one.

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

#737

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:48 AM UTC

scarecrowbob wrote: post #285

scrumper wrote: post #162

Animal Farm was a really important book for me. I picked it up aged about 10 or 11 and I remember being really struck by how easily the pigs were able to exploit the other animals' grievances with humans to secure their own power. It felt like a grown-up story with some quite powerful, disturbing meanings under the covers. So I told my English teacher about it and all she told me in response was to go look up the Rus…

One of the strangest things about that text is that very few of the folks I've talked to about it seem to feel that the issue with the pigs at the end is that there is a farmer. That is to say, I very rarely find anyone who will agree that the book is anti-capitalist at teh same time that it's opposed to Stalinism. I see the book continually taken happily anti-communist text. But the text is certainly not _just_ abou…

Animal Farm can really be read as Orwell's retelling of Trotsky's "The Revolution Betrayed"

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

#738

Post by whoisjohnkid » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 3:57 AM UTC

I have quite a few:

- The Structure of Magic

- The Game by Neil Strauss

- Antifragile

- How to win friends and influence people

- 48 Laws of Power

- E-Myth

- Field Guide To Lucid Dreaming

- Turtle Trader by Michael Covel

Structure of magic may be the most impactful one out of all of them, but they are all hella good.

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

#739

Post by ratbr » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:00 AM UTC

Not a book but the novella “the machine stops” by E. M. Forster. I read this in the late nineties and it still pops up in my head frequently — especially in our age of the internet.

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

#740

Post by henriquemaia » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

As a book lover, and a very frustrated one at that (for I never seem to have time to read all the books I would love to have already read), I've found Pierre Bayard's How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read both inspiring and liberating.

The title sounds it's appealing to some kind of self-help shenanigans on how to fake your knowledge on books, but in truth is a very coherent metaliterary theory that delves into memory, psychoanalysis, honesty, and creativity.

Because of this, and since it correctly argues that the line separating what you have read from what you haven't isn't as clear or obvious as it appears, it's inspiring because it shows you a way through the seemingly endless human library; and liberating because it allows you to reconcile yourself with your limited knowledge of any particular set of books.

Since it's impossible to know even a fraction of all that has been published, and because your memory is fallible, whenever you are talking about books, whatever book it may be, in some sense you are always talking about a book you haven't read.

That being so, it's far better to own it as it is and to take advantage of that fact, talking confidently about any book. And this is where this book can really come handy.

Ever since I first read it some years ago, I felt I had a weight lifted from my shoulders. I'm not as bold as Pierre Bayard is, and I still find myself awkward for not having read so many important books. But now I'm more at ease, knowing that others, whoever they are, are also in a somewhat similar situation. Instead of feeling an ignorant sod, I now know I'm surrounded by an endless throng of likewise ignoramuses.