Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of Our Nature" and the sequel "Enlightenment Now" briefly helped to restore my faith that humanity is not entirely an evil virus best gone the way of the dinosaurs. Don't get me wrong though, these books are not easy reads. In the first one Pinker does spend an inordinate amount of time cataloging humanity's centuries of evils against itself before he can make the case that we're doing better now, so don't consider these to be light reads.
Ask HN: What book changed your life?
11–20 of 539 posts
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#12Painting and Experience in 15th Century Italy by Michael Baxandall
This is unusual in these types of threads. Could you expand on this answer? Why and how did it change your life?
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#13Basic Economics from Thomas Sowell. It show me there is another world if you go outside socialism and that socialism has a lot of bad consequence that are never talked about
What bad consequences of socialism are never talked about?
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#14The Compass of Zen by Seung Sahn. I was a much angrier and stressed person prior to reading it.
Not perfect today by any means but far, far better. And no, I'm not a "practicing" zen buddhist or anything close - the book just sort of reset my mind and outlook on life and dealings with others.
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#15Kurt Vonnegut probably had the biggest impact on me. Mother Night and Timequake in particular. Two quotes I use all the time: "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." And "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
"Mother Night" is excellent. I have not read the other, thanks, will do.
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#16Exterminate all the brutes by Sven Lindquist
It got me into reading about history and taught me to be more critical of media.
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#17Thinking in Systems - Donella Meadows
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#18The Gita-- Eknath Easwaran's translation is the best
Gilgamesh--Stephen Mitchell's translation
Dear Author, you need to quit by Becca Syme-- a book for fiction writers, it opened my eyes to the fact that I dont need to follow the advice of "experts", thats its okay to write what I love and keep my writing a fun hobby. I only recently read this, and it allowed me to restart writing after a 2-3 year gap.
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#19A classic: How to Win Friends & Influence People - D Carnegie
this should be top comment
though honestly I was more influenced by movies than books, I guess strongest influence on hour I vote the world around me had Fight Club, Falling Down and American Beauty plus the car speech in Se7en and Collateral as well, Taxi Driver as well
Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?
#20One of the recommended lectures on a logic class I had at my school, which was run by missionary nuns from Minnessota (and the teacher himself was catholic), was Carl Sagan's The demon-haunted world. It turned me into an atheist.
me too - but it also turned me toward a love of science and inquiry that I had missed out on