The Pragmatic Programmer
What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
11–20 of 36 posts
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#12Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Fountainhead
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#13Hmm, so in general no philosophy or literature, but plenty of cheap ideology (Rand) and self-help crap.
For me, probably the surrealist texts, esp Breton, Henry Miller and the beatniks. And from the phil. side, some Plato, Hegel, and lately R. Girard.
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#14Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#15Demian - Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund - Hesse
Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#16[deleted]
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#17I can think of a handful of books that have had a major impact on me. Off the top of my head:
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
The Game - Neil Strauss
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank
Business @ The Speed of Thought - Bill Gates
The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#18I've never read a book, no matter how weird or even badly written that didn't have a bit in it somewhere that stuck. There is gold to be found just about everywhere. A single book that has changed your way of thinking, and I would assume that you meant 'in a positive way'?
For me if I had to point at a single book it would have to be Bill Bryson, A short history of nearly everything.
It shows besides being a very compact overview of how we got where we are today how often we repeat our mistakes and how easy it would be to make this world a much better place than it is today and which forces are holding that back. It changed maybe not my way of thinking but definitely my view of the world in a way that changed how I lie my life. I used to be an idealist thinking that we could achieve some lofty goal of human accomplishment during my lifetime (for instance, an end to wars of commerce) but now I realize that we may not realize that goal ever.
So, effectively this book freed me from fighting windmills and freed my resources to try to improve the lives of those directly around me instead of on a larger scale. The effects have been pretty dramatic.
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#19I've never read a book, no matter how weird or even badly written that didn't have a bit in it somewhere that stuck. There is gold to be found just about everywhere. A single book that has changed your way of thinking, and I would assume that you meant 'in a positive way'? For me if I had to point at a single book it would have to be Bill Bryson, A short history of nearly everything. It shows besides being a very com…
I completely agree. One of those books which was in some passages extremely hard (or even painful) to read is "Thou shall prosper" from Daniel Lipman, a (right wing) Rabbi! It changed the way I look at business. Some arguments convinced me, others I still can't accept. But it showed me that axioms which seem counter-intuitive to me can build a very practical world view.
Another book which is rather on the extreme side is Eckart Tolle's "The Power of now!". Again, I sometimes couldn't stand his opinion. For example whenever he quotes Jesus and explains that most people get it wrong but in fact it would be like this or that.
But the book showed me that I was worrying and thinking way too much and that this is at best useless and sometimes even dangerous.
Often books don't even tell you something new. And I think even this is worthwhile as long as the author explains what you already know in a very different way.
Re: What is the book that has completely changed your way of thinking?
#20I can think of a handful of books that have had a major impact on me. Off the top of my head: Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury The Game - Neil Strauss The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank Business @ The Speed of Thought - Bill Gates The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki
The Game is an interesting book for a lot of reasons; I don't agree with the idea of picking up tons of random women or some of the methodology he espouses, but it's a powerful book for making people sit up and realize that yes, you can change your life, and yes, you have the tools to do it. It says that "Hey, people think in certain ways and you can hack that," which may be the first time a lot of people encounter any kind of social engineering.