Ask HN: What 3 Books Would You Recommend to Anyone?

Books that you think everyone should read at least once. Not necessarily the "best" or most famous ones, but the ones that left a lasting impact, shifted your perspective, or helped you grow in unexpected ways.

Fiction or non-fiction — doesn’t matter. I’m curious what comes to mind.

Thanks in advance for sharing

A person who is ready to pick up the bar, for instance, would benefit from Rippetoe's Starting Strength but if you don't pick up the bar it's just another book (you might get something from just plain lifting Schwarzenegger's Modern Weighlifting though, if not the Misner, Thorne and Wheeler book Gravitation.) Similarly Super System will change your life if you are serious about playing poker, otherwise it's just a fun read like the D&D Monster Manual I'd say that Ashcroft and Mermin's Solid State Physics was a great adventure even if I didn't end up doing physics in the end, but I was a grad student in condensed matter and I took Ashcroft's class. When I was wanting to explore the edges of applied philosophy and literature I felt Alain Badiou's Being and Event was meaningful to me but a lot of people would say it is obscurantist French trash like Derrida and if you believe that I can't change your mind.

I'd tend to reject categorically that fiction could be life changing but maybe that's harsh. So often people nominate books that to me are trash like Atlas Shrugged, The Illuminati Trilogy or Hitchhiker's Guide. From time to time though I do discover an author with a large body of work that I'm obsessed with for a few months, like last year I rediscovered Poul Anderson (want to see Dominic Flandry have a fight with Kimball Kinnison) and got into Pratchett's Discworld.

I think a lot of books that offer simple answers to things like books by Malcolm Gladwell and Robert Greene are often harmful and also I think Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl is absolute poison for 21st century people.

2.) The Democratic Party: A History by Frank R. Kent 1928 (an important read of where both modern USA political parties came from).

3.) Native American Anarchism by Eunice Minette Schuster..1970 (bias is a funny thing).