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Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

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11–20 of 76 posts

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#11
Not one book - but a series. The Encyclopedia Brittanica. (That's right, the old-school hard bound set of books taking up an entire shelf.)

My 3rd grade class had a set, and I devoured each one. They turned me into a nerd thanks to a teacher who told me to never stop reading.

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#12
post #6

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes. That book taught me to be a decent person.

Since you've mentioned it, I've looked at the free sample. I'm kinda impressed how good it is. I wasn't expecting it to be very well made. In fact I'm buying it now

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#13

Not one book - but a series. The Encyclopedia Brittanica. (That's right, the old-school hard bound set of books taking up an entire shelf.) My 3rd grade class had a set, and I devoured each one. They turned me into a nerd thanks to a teacher who told me to never stop reading.

Boom ditto!

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#15
"Shreemad Bhagvad Geeta" - A book that believed to be narrated by God Krishna on lessons of life living in spiritual way.Though it is considered as most religious book in Hinduism, yet proved good for motivation and being a confident in life

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#16
On a personal level the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins because it explained that "evil" is not evil but "mathematically" inevitable, thus allowing me to find (relative) peace of mind.

On a professional level The Mobile MBA by Jo Owen, because it explained to me - the programmer - valuable management skills in no bullshit way (I can not stress this enough), thus allowed me to grow in my career.

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#17
This may be because I have always admired John Carmack, and because I love video games - although I am drawn to all kind of different book genres, but "Masters of Doom" had a profound effect on me.

I read it every few months, and I have gifted it to family and friends, and most of them loved it as well.

It’s not the writing, nor the story per se that stand out, it’s not just about how it beautiful highlights and highs and the lows of the Johns’s symbiotic relationship and their accomplishments, it’s not even about how their skills, strengths and weaknesses play into their success and failures (which I am sure is typical of most co-founders stories).

It’s about empowering the reader to believe that everything’s possible, and how smart, hard-working people can build technologies that affect the lives of many.

This book works wonders for when I am going through burn-outs, or I am not motivated enough to pursue a problem or a project. When I am done reading the book, I am excited and eager to get back into the game. I can’t recommend it enough.

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#19
post #10

A series of essays and books impacted my life the most. It all started on a sunny day, when I was a structural engineering intern full of hope and a beautiful girlfriend, waiting for my code to run(blah blah iteratively determine deflections of structures with non-linear stress-strain responses blah blah), when I read: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD103... I quit my job the next day. This wa…

Wow you gotta lighten up man. You care alot about stuff that matters only a tiny little, weensy bit.

Get out of the house.

Re: Ask HN: What book impacted your life the most and how?

#20
post #6

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes. That book taught me to be a decent person.

Since you've mentioned it, I've looked at the free sample. I'm kinda impressed how good it is. I wasn't expecting it to be very well made. In fact I'm buying it now

I bought the entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes.
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