Your choices needn't be only math books. They can come from any discipline or genre.
When you mention any book please add a line or two as to why it made you a better thinker and problem solver.
Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
1–10 of 248 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#2Peak: Secrets from New Science of Expertise
The book is not actually about problem solving, but about deliberate practice. It is a bit tangential, but in seen problem solving as a skill, you can see how the principles in that book apply. A good book - however, like many books of this style, I find it somewhat repetitive too.
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#3Wooldridge's Introductory Econometrics.
I don't do statistics in my day job, but having a solid foundation in the math and the theory and the proofs really had a profound impact on how I approach problem solving generally and root cause analysis specifically (just thinking about e.g. model specification and how you do it is a good exercise). It's still on my bookshelf and I'll pull it out and do a problem set from time to time just to stay sharp - even though, again, I don't do this for my job. Maybe, one day, I'll get a job with a baseball team or something. Understanding heteroskedasticity for example is one of those things where once you "get it", it really opens your eyes to a lot of things and you can't "unsee" it.
PS there are packages in R nowadays but back in the day we used STATA.
PPS if people don't like Wooldridge, what else would you recommend?
Edit: I know you said "Your choices needn't be only math books" but this is a statistics textbook, so it probably doesn't count as "math".
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#4Wooldridge's Introductory Econometrics. I don't do statistics in my day job, but having a solid foundation in the math and the theory and the proofs really had a profound impact on how I approach problem solving generally and root cause analysis specifically (just thinking about e.g. model specification and how you do it is a good exercise). It's still on my bookshelf and I'll pull it out and do a problem set from ti…
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Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#5Atlas Shrugged for reasons I will not disclose.
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#6Only 3 books (or set of books…):
Zero to One by Peter Thiel: philosophy for building companies and future.
Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson: a life of one of if not the most influential founder of our time.
Incerto 5-Book Set (Black Swan and Antifragile included) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: how to understand and win in life, literally.
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#7«Systems thinking» by Levenchuk.
Masterful distillation of the most important parts of current systems engineering and systems management into a broadly applicable systems thinking approach.
The book is now reworked to a course and is currently free: https://eem.institute/open-endedness/systems-thinking/
TBH I read the original (in Russian), and English translation does not seem to be of stellar quality.
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#8From a software engineering standpoint:
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (doing all the exercises is key). This book helped me think about how programs run, how state is stored, how you can build out asynchronous computation, and how you can build your own languages.
- Designing Data Intensive Applications. This book profoundly changed how I think about application performance and data. It describes so much about different kinds databases and query languages, that now I feel like I've got a big picture view of the whole industry.
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. This book really taught me to think rationally and logically. I think I really did not understand the scientific method until this book.
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#9Zen and the art of painting and An actor prepares.
These I read when I was a young art student. I learned a lot from the way they mapped the interior process of creative thought.
Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?
#10Principles by Ray Dalio.
It helps you apply systematic thinking to get the best out of complex situations in life.