I understand the point author of the question makes (which I suppose is "to recommend one book you liked" essentially), but if I would take it literally, as written, then - no single book ever changed the way I think about everything, or even about majority of things.
Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
861–870 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#862Animal 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…
Does anyone have any recommendations for reading up on the Russian Revolution? Books, videos, or otherwise.
Gresham College: Lenin and the Russian Revolution, lecture
might be a good start.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/lenin-and-the-...
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#863Maybe trite, but the Bible. For a mind-blowing experience, read Matthew chapters 5–7, and have in mind that the topic is: “what it means for a person to be righteous, or good.” The analysis of the role of moral rules, the place of worry and anxiety in driving us to short-sighted compromise, the tension between “secret” good-doing versus good-doing for public recognition, are all potent, helpful, and life-changing.
+1. even for "non-believers", there are practical gems that will benefit anyone who cares to really read it.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#864The short story of how, if you're rowing a boat over a river and you hit another boat, you shout at the person in the boat how careless they are and why aren't they paying attention, and you're incensed and annoyed at their stupidity. Then you turn and look, and the other boat is empty and drifting, there isn't anyone in it.
I don't think I've ever stopped thinking about that story and how, even if there was someone in the other boat, I could react as if there wasn't, and things would be better.
Not a book, but once I'd read and re-read enough https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ articles to start to understand his view on narcissism and how it's an epidemic problem in the West.
Something like https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdow... from 2013 about the government shutdown, or https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/01/randi_zuckerberg.htm... from 2014 about why people are really so obsessed with Facebook and why we fill our home lives with work.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#865I understand the point author of the question makes (which I suppose is "to recommend one book you liked" essentially), but if I would take it literally, as written, then - no single book ever changed the way I think about everything, or even about majority of things.
The point of the question is not books you like, or books which changed everything, but books which changed you.
If you grew up, as most people did, your world view was shaped by a child's world view seeing a small slice of local life and some nationwide lowest-common-denominator TV/media.
If you haven't read anything which has shaped, changed or distorted that brain you see the world with, you either had an unusual upbringing or you haven't read anything very interesting.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#866The pig that wants to be eaten.
I was very young and impressionable and I think this book is like philosophical crack cocaine.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#867The Tao Te Ching was very important to me. Every time I feel I learn something about life, I check the book and it's there already!
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#868Meditations, 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 Little Bets by Peter Sims
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#869Meditations, 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.
Meditations is what immediately came to my mind also. It's a humbling and reassuring look into the mind of a great leader and stoic; to know that there was this man, the most powerful in his time, who strived - and struggled - to be the best he could, is inspiring.
Are we really going that low to take beliefs from WER (white, educated, rich) people? I mean wasn't Seneca the rich man during that time? And also Marcus Aurelius book doesn't seem appealing to read because it was never meant to be published.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#870Can someone make a Show HN link composing of all useful books discussed in this thread? :P