Star Maker, by Olav Stapledon.
Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
31–40 of 151 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#32Catch-22.
We're all playing a game and most of us aren't even aware that we can choose not to play. Yossarian is one of the bravest characters in all of literature. He stays true to himself even in the face of overwhelming evidence that all of the world disagrees with him.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#33Foucault's Pendulum.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#34Sgt. Rock. Last warrior standing.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#35Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon. Both the short story and the book (I read the book first, so I'm more attached to it). It is still deeply moving after all these rereads, decades on.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#36The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkings. (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
The idea that organisms evolved to be survival vehicles for our genes totally inverted and simplified my view of life. It gave me a plausible explanation for how we came to be, and put the final nail in religion's coffin (for me).
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#37"Elements of Set Theory" by Herbert B. Enderton....
ℝ ≈ P(ℕ)
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#38"Human Evolution" by Robin Dunbar ( http://www.amazon.com/A-Pelican-Introduction-Human-Evolution... ) The book is a mind-boggling journey through our own evolutionary history and delivers surprising and sometimes funny insights on many aspects of our behavior as modern humans (e.g. it attempts to explain the origins of religion, dancing and music). The beauty of the book lies in the fact that it makes you understand…
I read 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond in College and it is single handedly the most insightful book I have ever read.
One of these days I will buy all of Jared Diamond's and Robert Greene's books and read them multiple times.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#39The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The core story is one of stalinist Faust but the whole arc is much better.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind blowing book you've ever read?
#40Solaris by Stanisław Lem. Well, maybe the loneliest might be a more accurate description.