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Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

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Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#121

Post by i336_ »

aisofteng wrote: post #119
i336_ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are born communicators and find interaction with others completely intuitive. Others are born with a brain more ready to understand math, or writing screenplays, or software engineering, or business management - and bumble their way through communication, getting a lot wrong, not knowing where the lines are between their successes and failures, and generally having a miserable time. Books like these defin…

You imply that emotional intelligence and reasoning ability are a tradeoff. They aren't.

Woops, that was unintentional.

Although... now I think about it... when I'm anxious (I have reasonably mild but fairly broadly scoped anxiety), I can become more emotional/instinctive/reactive to things, and my ability to reason can be greatly impacted as well.

So I do think there is some indirect correlation, in practice.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#122

Post by papaf »

bradbatt wrote: post #59
smaddox wrote: post #54

Non-Fiction: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, because it changed my understanding of people for the better. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard Feynman, because it gave me a model for how to enjoy life. "Models" by Mark Manson, because it helped shape my understanding of heterosexual relationships. "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald Weinberg, because it illu…

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, because it changed my understanding of people for the better. Absolutely everyone should read this book. I wish it had a better title. "Understanding People" would be an excellent one.

I like the story of the factory manager who sees some workers breaking the rules and smoking in in the factory.

He gives each of them an expensive cigar and says something like "I'd appreciate it if you guys smoked these outside."

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#123

Post by aisofteng »

mindcrime wrote: post #75
ankitank wrote: post #11

A wild sheep chase by Haruki Murakami

You can never go wrong with Murakami. I haven't read that one but it's on my list for Real Soon Now.

Murakami never manages to keep my interest and halfway through I just want it to be over. I've always attributed it to losses in translation.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#124

Post by mindcrime »

aisofteng wrote: post #123
mindcrime wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can never go wrong with Murakami. I haven't read that one but it's on my list for Real Soon Now.

Murakami never manages to keep my interest and halfway through I just want it to be over. I've always attributed it to losses in translation.

Interesting. I had exactly the opposite experience with my first Murakami. I was at Barnes & Noble one Sunday evening, grabbed one of his titles (After Dark) off the shelf, intending to flip through a few pages; and next thing you know the store is about to close and I'm halfway through the book. I bought the copy, drove home and finished reading it that night. I was hooked pretty much from the get-go.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#125

Post by grimoald »

sngz wrote: post #68
bradbatt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, because it changed my understanding of people for the better. Absolutely everyone should read this book. I wish it had a better title. "Understanding People" would be an excellent one.

I've seen this book recommended many times. I read a few chapters and don't feel like it was useful. Some of the stuff is obvious common sense like smile don't criticize others, be a good listener etc. Then it tells you to be genuinely interested in someone. How can you force yourself to be interested in someone? Does the book go into anything actually useful later on?

You're lucky if this is common sense for you. Sadly, for me, coming from a family where bad mood and malice is daily fare, this book was an eye opener.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#126

Post by udkl »

_jgdh wrote: post #69

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It gave me a good understanding of where we, as a species, came from. What did we do, why did we spread across the planet, how did we replace other hominids? What I really appreciated was his ability to explain some of the underpinnings of society like religion, nation states and currency with a relatively simple idea. Afterwards I felt like "damn that's so simple, I should have thought…

"Freedom at midnight" is a very well written book that describes the scenes a couple of years before and upto the freedom in 1947.

The way the french author duo paint the then lifestyle of the Britishers, the kings and the common man left me satisfied.

Currently I'm slow reading "India - A History" by John Keay. Another well written book.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#127

Post by Joeri »

aisofteng wrote: post #119
i336_ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are born communicators and find interaction with others completely intuitive. Others are born with a brain more ready to understand math, or writing screenplays, or software engineering, or business management - and bumble their way through communication, getting a lot wrong, not knowing where the lines are between their successes and failures, and generally having a miserable time. Books like these defin…

You imply that emotional intelligence and reasoning ability are a tradeoff. They aren't.

Even if they are orthogonal, they are less likely to occur in the same person than either apart.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#128

Post by ArmandGrillet »

smaddox wrote: post #54

Non-Fiction: "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, because it changed my understanding of people for the better. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard Feynman, because it gave me a model for how to enjoy life. "Models" by Mark Manson, because it helped shape my understanding of heterosexual relationships. "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald Weinberg, because it illu…

Very good list. "Models" is an exceptional book (even if poorly written) about how to live a life that will maximize your opportunities to find a partner.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#129

Post by Joeri »

vizvamitra wrote: post #57

"The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman. Technically this book is about how humans interact with things, but actually it covers a lot more topics that one can think: how humans act, err, how they make descisions, how memory works, what are the responsibilities of conscious/subconscious. Also you'll start to dislike doors, kitchen stoves and their disigners)

This book changed how I look at the world. I highly recommend it.

Re: Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?

#130

Post by gmunu »

The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.

You hear 'ancient wisdom' on how to lead the good life all the time. These ancient aphorisms came from a time before the scientific method and the idea of testing your hypotheses. Tradition has acted a sort of pre-conscious filter on the advice we get, so we can expect it to hold some value. But now, we can do better.

Haidt is a psychologist who read a large collection of the ancient texts of Western and Eastern religion and philosophy, highlighting all the 'psychological' statements. He organized a list of 'happiness hypotheses' from the ancients and then looked at the modern scientific literature to see if they hold water.

What he finds is they were often partially right, but that we know more. By the end of the book, you have some concrete suggestions on how to lead a happier life and you'll know to the studies that will convince you they work.

Haidt writes with that pop science long windedness that these books always have. Within that structure, he's an entertaining writer so I didn't mind.

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