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Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
811–820 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#812I Am a Strange Loop, 2007 book by Douglas Hofstadter
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#813* 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…
"The Selfish Gene" was also a great discovery for me. I guess that coming from a CS background it was a big revelation to understand the biology in such a different perspective. Really worth reading.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#814* 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…
The Blind Watchmaker , also by Dawkins, is the book that really undermined the necessity of a Creator to explain the complexity of life.
The God Delusion was also pretty good and eye opening
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#815The Bullet Journal Method.
It helped me think about my time spent in relationships and how should I address my sorting problem under constraints of time
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#816Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. i has become a much calmer person after reading that, taking hardships way more relaxed
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#817I have chosen three books:
1. The first book I read that changed my view of my own mind, that is, taught me to "think about thinking", was Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I truly felt like my view of myself and the world I live in changed dramatically.
2. The second book that had a huge impact on me was Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.
3. The third book has to be The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Alexander Solzhenitsyn (the abridged version by Edward E Ericson, Jr). When I mention this book, I meet a lot of people instantly debating the death toll numbers presented by Solzhenitsyn, but for me, the main point of the book is about complicity in the context of the Stalinist regime and complicity in evildoing more generally.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#818Oh I loved Freakonomics!! What an excellent question. I want to propose 2 books:
1. Getting Things Done by David Allen. It really changed how I approach not only my workday but pretty much everything that could constitute "work" in my daily life. It's a bit of a learning curve to start, but once you implement GTD in your life it becomes second nature. You can learn about it here: https://gettingthingsdone.com/ and there's a good intro to it here: https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-thin....
2. How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger. When you start thinking of plants as medicine it really changes your whole approach to food and life in general. I've started following his 'daily dozen' and I've got to say that I feel absolutely incredible. (Check out his website here: https://nutritionfacts.org/)
Amazing works of fiction that I come back to again and again include Anna Karenina and The Three Musketeers
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#819One 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…
Thank you for this! I love Alan Watts too. Recently I've started listening to "chillstep" mixes of his talks on youtube (while doing yoga/meditating). They're really fantastic. Eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLu1wP9HhYM
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#820* The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins ;
* Human, too human, by Frederick Nietzsche ;
* The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris ;
* La Femme est le propre de l'homme, by Rolf Schappi ;
* Biologie de la mort, by Frederik Revah ;
* The Manipulated Man, by Esther Vilar ;