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Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

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161–170 of 185 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#161
post #64

The Space Merchants, co-written by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. Mind you, I was barely a teenager at the time I read it. But: -It led me down the path to the realization that advertising in almost all of its current forms is unequivocally evil and has no credible moral justification in our current society. I have been running adblocking software on all of my devices (and that of my family's) and feel mildly dis…

I think you will enjoy The Fifth Sacred Thing if you haven’t read it already.

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#163

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I learned to be less Arthur and more Ford about my approach to living my life in general, and dealing with Fenchurch winking out of existence in particular.

Did you learn how to fly yet? ;) I think at that point, Arthur learns how to be less Arthur himself. I don't think things between him and Fenchurch would've worked out, had he been the same person he was at the beginning of the books.

Then again, the last book really depressed me - I can't imagine having my Fenchurch being ripped away from me...

That part was probably worse than the ending for me.

I hope you are doing well.

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#164
Mrityunjaya, the death conqueror. A novel depicting the life of Karna (one of the Mahabharata character). Once you read this, your entire view of Mahabharata will change. I read this in my teenage years. It has changed my view of looking at life, and I started to take life seriously.

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#165

Mrityunjaya, the death conqueror. A novel depicting the life of Karna (one of the Mahabharata character). Once you read this, your entire view of Mahabharata will change. I read this in my teenage years. It has changed my view of looking at life, and I started to take life seriously.

I have this book in my shelf for so many years. I am going to read this.

I ordered a Hindi version first but couldn't make head or tail of most of the parts and later ordered the English one.

But procrastination prevailed. These days I am feeling a bit lethargic about reading; reading this comment make me to go and give it a try again.

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#166

Mrityunjaya, the death conqueror. A novel depicting the life of Karna (one of the Mahabharata character). Once you read this, your entire view of Mahabharata will change. I read this in my teenage years. It has changed my view of looking at life, and I started to take life seriously.

Could you mention some of things you realized reading this book and how you are using it in daily to daily life.

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#167

Mrityunjaya, the death conqueror. A novel depicting the life of Karna (one of the Mahabharata character). Once you read this, your entire view of Mahabharata will change. I read this in my teenage years. It has changed my view of looking at life, and I started to take life seriously.

Could you mention some of things you realized reading this book and how you are using it in daily to daily life.

I realized that life is not always fair with you. But however cruel it is, be firm with your principles. Know yourself and ignore the discrimination by others. I read this in my teenage year, the time in life which makes you, and the values of Karna become my values. I was so impressed by this book, that some year later, in my college days, I read another book by same author on Krishna's life named Yugandhar (roughly meaning emperor of Era). Now every time I am in tricky situation, I always think what will Krishna do in this situation.

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#168
post #11

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I lead a team to translate the whole book to Vietnamese fifteen years ago as a freshman highschool student, and released it for free online. We beat the printed book publisher by months. I should have gotten into tons of troubles, but everyone was kind enough to not beat me down. I didn't get into any legal troubles partly because people saw the values in doing it, partly be…

This is awesome! Order of the Phoenix has a special place in my heart as well, because this was the first book I have read in English :D Me and my mom didn't want to wait half a year for translation.

But actually on-upping professional translators? That sounds amazing!

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#169

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I learned to be less Arthur and more Ford about my approach to living my life in general, and dealing with Fenchurch winking out of existence in particular.

Did you learn how to fly yet? ;) I think at that point, Arthur learns how to be less Arthur himself. I don't think things between him and Fenchurch would've worked out, had he been the same person he was at the beginning of the books. Then again, the last book really depressed me - I can't imagine having my Fenchurch being ripped away from me... That part was probably worse than the ending for me. I hope you are doin…

I'm doing well now. Thank you! Hope you are too.

Re: Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?

#170

The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky, without doubt. Seriously, the chapter with the Legend of the Great Inquisitor forced me to ask myself what was the meaning of "freedom", and this in turns urged me to reconsider a lot of beliefs I had hold before.

For me it's The Idiot, due to Myshkin being such a distinct character. But all of Doestoevsky's work was eye-opening for me.
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