Ask HN: What book changed your life?

"The Game" - very immature and sophomoric book. I was given this book by an acquaintance who was also geeky like me. I was painfully shy of girls until grad school, and this book gave me much needed confidence to talk to the opposite gender. A lot of the content is garbage but this book was definitely a life changer.

"Hobbit" - Great story that got me into the LOTR. Shorter than LOTR and hence why I put that on this list. Also about being brave I suppose. I'm seeing a pattern here.

"Good Omens" - Not sure why but when I read this book, I was convinced it was the best book ever written (and I used to read a lot of books in youth). Just witty writing and the occult I suppose.

1. "Sei Somoy" (Those Times) by Sunil Ganguly. It is a novel about the past of Bengalis. The Bengali Reneissance, its central characters, progress, the conflict- all are beautifully depicted. I had no collective identity as a person before. And disliked whatever I had. This book made me feel really good about my identity. Suddenly, I was more confident in a conscious way, and did things better.

2. "Maitreya Jatak" by Bani Basu. Buddha is a human character in this novel. And so is the time and place of India. The pre-big-Empire India is beautifully depicted. I got deeply interested in Buddha and that opened a new path of life for me, which transformed my life.

3. "Godel, Escher, Bach"- learned deeply about logic and its limitations. How human constructs such as mathematical symbols and human languages- all are so limited. Completely changed me as a person and gave me a new outlook.

There are other books that did not change my life completely, but added layers to my perception and thinking.

1. "The Black Swan" by N. Nicholas Taleb. It has added a filter to my entire thought process. I call it the Nicholas filter.

2. "Innovators" by Walter Isaacson. Learned about computer history, collaboration. The idea of " collaboration through time" got really etched into me.

3. "The Little Schemer", 4e and Graham Hutton's Haskell book made me a better programmer in ways I did not expect.

4. Strangly, Neal Stephenson's " Cryptonomicon" has taught me to never waste my time on entertainment or learning that is not fully ideal. The idea that something so profoundly good can exist for people like us, convinced me to read only very high quality literature of all kinds and sci-fi of only the highest kind. Also made me give up watching TV/web series to a large degree. I don’t compromise with the quality of entertainment that I consume anymore. I consume only the best and most desired things.

5. "Mastery" by Leonard Gordon has, above all, taught me that a boring life should be desired where the brain's desire for novelty is not awarded, and instead, time is spent on honing much fewer number of skills.

6. "Deep Work" by Cal Newport has really helped me with my productivity and happiness, and made me give up social media. Same goes for "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning" by Andy Hunt.

7. "Atomic Habits" by James Clear has been effective in many ways of my life.

8. "Mindfulness in Plain English", "The Mind Illuminated", and " What the Buddha Taught" have made me a better human- in all aspects. As if my character's level has been upped in the video game of the world.

9. "Fundamentals of Physics" by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker and my whole familiarity with Feynman through Feynman Lactures and recorded lectures made me intolerant towards dry learning materials. Now, I use learning material that are not marely useful, but also overly entertaining.