Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?

I'm huge on investing. I believe building wealth is extremely important and 18 is a great time to start.

Therefore, I would recommend "The simple path to wealth" and "The little book of common sense investing".

David Allen - Getting things done

Steven Pressfield - The War of Art + Turning Pro

Tony Robbins - Awaken the giant within (maybe he's released a better book than that now, but it was impactful personally back in the 90s)

I'm pretty sure I'll get downvoted, but Ashlee Vance's book on Elon Musk. Hear me out. I'm not recommending it for Elon's story but more to understand how to build companies, understand complex problems, look for great talent and how to build better systems by looking at things from a slightly different perspective. I read it when I was 18 as well and I learnt that Tesla wasn't actually (not entirely) Elon's acheivement. It was actually JB Straubel's passion project. As an engineer, I deeply admire JB and the things he has acheived (by being at the helm of Tesla), and what he will acheive through Redwood Materials, his new recycled batteries project. If his resillence and stint at Tesla/Stanford etc are any indication, we can soon expect some revolutionary things from him (once again).

It also showed me how SpaceX was born when Elon and his team crunched some numbers on a trip back from Russia, only to realize that it would be cheaper to build their own rockets rather than rent Russia's.

That book is filled with stories about complex systems that humans broke down into simpler problems and hacked them together into monolith companies. Contrary to popular beliefs (mostly held by people who haven't read the book), its not entirely about Elon.

My two cents.

Read the Christian Bible. Even if you are not religious its worthwhile to read it from cover to cover.

The Player of Games by Iain M Banks.