Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
91–100 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#92"Das Kapital" by Karl Marx is still the most accurate analysis of the causes of economic crises. His labour theory of value gets to the root of what's going on behind the smokescreen of market forces presented as fact in western Economics courses.
"On The Road" by Jack Kerouac was a liberating, mind-expanding experience with no drugs involved. Kerouac's free-form style and open-ended approach to life made a great impression.
"Cosmic Loom" by Dennis Elwell debunked the narrow-minded, reductionist attitudes of scientists towards astrology and opened up my mind to the value of symbolism.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#93Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand
It has a strong character which put work above everything else in life, highly idealist one.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#94Replay, by Ken Grimwood. It made me look at my life and think about how I'd replay it if I could. It's about as introspective as I ever get.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
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Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#96"Dumbing us Down" by John Taylor Gatto. The author is a decades-long schoolteacher. Throughout this book, I got to know the history of compulsory government-provided schooling as we know it and began to question whether such a system is even necessary.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#97The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson https://www.amazon.com/Illuminatus-Trilogy-Pyramid-Golden-Le...
RAW's Cosmic Trigger and Prometheus Rising for me: I read both when I was 13 and was a recently-converted Southern Baptist. I quickly shifted my entire understanding of epistemology and the nature of reality.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#98The Lessons of History written in 1968 by historians Will Durant and Ariel Durant. They distill a lifetime of research into a small 100 page book. The result is a survey of human history, full of dazzling insights into the nature of human experience, the evolution of civilization, the culture of man.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#99I highly recommend Jean Case's book "Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose." It's packed with some incredible stories (some you'll know of, others will be new to you) about people overcoming their fears to create change. (Full disclosure: I work for Jean so this is somewhat of a shameless plug, but I promise the book is amazing!) https://readbefearless.com/
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#100I imagine I’ll take heat for this, but the first answer that comes to mind is A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari. It has been justifiably criticized by many people on many grounds, but as with OP and Freakonomics, certain of the concepts in that book frequently appear in my thoughts 20 years after I worked through some of it. I don’t associate it with truth; but some of the mental models have really stuck with…
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