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Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#411
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

No other book has made as significant a difference in both my personal and professional life. Concepts like the emotional bank account and seeking first to understand (then to be understood) have been the key things that have helped me find a partner, develop a relationship with her, and develop a great career where I'm given a lot of autonomy and trust to solve problems in my own way.

I find myself teaching concepts from the book to coworkers while mentoring them through work-related interpersonal problems and without fail they come back ecstatic about what a difference it made in their work relationships.

I genuinely can't recommend it highly enough.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#412

The Holy Bible

Absolutely, it is very impressive that it has been preserved for so long. (Since we humans tend to destroy stuff…) And it is the book that is most printed and distributed around the world. Plus available in the most languages of all books. That alone makes it the best book.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#413

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

Canticle for Leibowitz was pretty good. Regardless of political opinions, that monologue in the middle of Atlas Shrugged is some quite poor writing. TBH if someone said their Atlas Shrugged was their favorite book, I would assume they were making some sort of political statement, which seems like a bit of an intrusion on what otherwise ought to be a fun chat about books. I was a teenager when I read her books, and th…

The best part of the monologue is in-universe, it supposedly takes 3 hours, but everyone on YouTube takes 4-5 hours, which means John Galt was speaking at 1.5x speed.

Honestly Ayn Rand's sexual politics are more interesting than her economic politics. The books are mostly about masculinity and its definition. The ideal men in her books are immutable flawless beings, and the (good) women learn to define themselves by dating progressively better men.

In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny goes from Francisco d'Anconia (no ambition playboy) to Hank Rearden (ambitious steel magnate that's a slave to the state) to John Galt (genius that refuses to compromise on anything). Dagny achieves fulfillment by collecting personality traits from the people she dates—which ultimately leads to her realization she is the one responsible for her own self-actualization (kind of contradictory lol).

The Fountainhead engages with this more, because the conformist Keating is portrayed as more harmful than the physically abusive Roark.

I'm convinced Ayn Rand defined the "sigma male" and she'll get no credit for it as a woman. She engages with the concept much more than the manosphere, because her sigma males end up poor, homeless, and societally unsuccessful because of their inability to compromise.

Contrast the dream sold to young men on social media, which is "not compromising on anything will make you rich and attractive!"

I don't agree with Rand's value system but she accurately describes what happens to people that hate compromise. The only reason why one would be a sigma is if one prioritizes "being right" over every other aspect of one's life.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#414
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett has my favorite entertaining read about signaling networks. In addition to the invention of a working mail system, you’ll read descriptions of semaphore towers working in a way that is similar to the Telegraph, except with light rather than pulsed waves over wire. It’s also hilariously funny and deeply philosophical at times. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Thanks! From the blurb, this looks perfect, and I've been meaning to read some Terry Pratchett. I really enjoyed being a substitute postal worker in Yoku's Island Express.

Every book is unique, but they all share his unique philosophy and wit. Highly recommend any of his works. The more you read of discworld the more of a world it will build, but none are so highly coupled that they can't be read independently.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying it is your favorite book is one thing. Saying it "changed your life" is another and yes, I'd think anyone who's life was changed by that particular book is indeed an idiot. I just don't see myself wanting to continue to engage with that person after a comment like that. Maybe I'm just impatient shrug

a better strategy would be a follow-up question on how it changed their life i'm with the parent commenter here as i find your response very much telling on how you evaluate things and frankly, more idiotic than someone's life being changed, even by the "intended" interpretation of the book e.g. would you say that everyone who liked / was influenced by reading "mein kampf" is a nazi?

yes pretty much or at least a wanna be one.

Who start reading "mein kampf" beside scholar anyway?

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#416
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

She was a great visionary and turned the Science Fiction genre upside down. This book is a thought provoking story; an "An Ambiguous Utopia" (this is the subtitle of the book. It really makes you think but also a mocking glass for our society. Close second is The Left Hand of Darkness from the same author.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#417
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that someone who hears Atlas Shrugged is your favourite book might react similarly? I'd be polite, but note you down as either an immature thinker or someone who likes to provoke. With a little more prodding, possibly also one of those people who has to be right about everything, and this is their hill. I guess I'm on passive radar and you are on active.

> Have you considered that someone who hears Atlas Shrugged is your favourite book might react similarly? I'm not the author of the post you're replying to, but that line of reasoning reminds me of an hiring bias that I read a while ago: avoiding a bad hire is more important than getting good hire. In this context this could mean that the tb_technical really cares about avoiding people with extreme viewpoints, even i…

> In this context this could mean that the tb_technical really cares about avoiding people with extreme viewpoints, even if that means missing a few people they might get along with.

That's a defensible idea. Making friends with the wrong people can really mess up your life.

And yet, I keep reading about this epidemic of loneliness...

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#418
post #416

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin She was a great visionary and turned the Science Fiction genre upside down. This book is a thought provoking story; an "An Ambiguous Utopia" (this is the subtitle of the book. It really makes you think but also a mocking glass for our society. Close second is The Left Hand of Darkness from the same author.

I am reading it right now. I will leave this thread to avoid any spoil.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#419

"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…

15 years ago I had a colleague who was obsessed with Ayn Rand. I didn't know anything about Ayn Rand and her philosophies. I was/am good friends with that person.

Fast-forward a decade and I know who Ayn Rand is and her philosophies. I know generally what type of people adhere to her philosophies and they are the opposite of who I would normally associate myself with.

My opinion of my friend has not changed now that I am more familiar with Ayn Rand. It provides additional background for some of the values that my friend has, but does not change who that person is or my ability to be friends with them.

I think that a lot of times it is easy to distance yourself from someone who has opposite beliefs from you, but at the end of the day, I don't think that is the only criteria in determining if someone is worth associating with.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#420
post #145

Taking “best” to mean, “About to be banished to a small, rocky island in the North Atlantic, can pack one book”: Ulysses , and it’s not particularly close. The book is fractally intricate and intellectually puzzling in the best sense—something new and special to notice every time you pick it up. But it also wears like old leather, and I find myself returning to favorite chapters simply to sink indulgently into the ch…

This seems to be a very polarizing book. I for one thought it was among the worst I've read, but know plenty who have said it's one of their favorites. It's certainly not a traditional novel.

Ulysses feels more like Joyce showing off his command of the written word and extensive vocabulary - of which both are greater than any other writer I've read - than it feels like a novel meant to tell the reader a good story.

In that sense, the novel wasn't particularly entertaining. If he could choose between a well known word for something and a very obscure word for something, it was always the latter. The same goes for sentence structure.

As a way to show off literary skill though, there's nothing else that comes close.

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