A Farewell to Alms by Gregory Clark. It changed my mind about the nature of industrial civilization.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and the sequel, What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Mindstorms by Seymour Papert
Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
341–350 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#342So many, and I wish I could write a long paragraph on each, but I'm unfortunately short on time. I'm posting any in case just one person who hasn't heard of those checks them out and gets value: -Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hosfstadter) -The Mindbody Prescription (John E. Sarno, completely cured my long-term crippling RSI that kept me from using computers and was ruining my life) -Feeling Good (Dr. Burns, cognitive…
I can't believe this is the only post with Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! Such a fun, creative book. Parts that stuck with me: lock picking, finding safety hazards at Oak Ridge, playing drums, working intensely.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#343"I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Legacy of Male Depression" by Terrence Real, a relational therapist.
The ideas in this 20-year-old book are just starting to catch traction, but basically it's that depression manifests differently in men than in women. This is because, the book's thesis goes, of the differences in social conditioning between men and women.
I recommend this book all the time.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#344I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this one yet: "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion", by Jonathan Haidt [0]. This book fundamentally changed how I think about religion and politics. It helped me understand a lot of behaviors which I'd previous considered absolutely incomprehensible.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Relig...
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#345Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - it changed how I approach teamwork and conversations. It made me aware of how my behaviour was limiting outcomes. :) Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should change. However, it wasn't necessarily the book, but the course that I found really useful.
I read that book. It definitely changed how I look at people. It also made me a lot more cynical. I realized around halfway through that the author was (very skillfully) deploying his techniques in the direction of the reader. Further, the author is long-dead. We cannot possibly have a genuine emotional connection. This helped me understand that genuine empathy is irrelevant. All that matters to convincing people is…
> This helped me understand that genuine empathy is irrelevant. All that matters to convincing people is that they feel empathized with.
You have proposed an Emotional Turing Test! The price for failure looks high!
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#346Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. Bottom line: judge your success in life by how well you make your decisions, not by your outcome. You have full control of your decisions, and often no control at all over their results.
I found William Irving's A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy a very legible contemporary (if somewhat idiosyncratic) introduction to Stoic thought, and maybe more accessible/applicable than the classic sources.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#347Animal Farm was a really important book for me. I picked it up aged about 10 or 11 and I remember being really struck by how easily the pigs were able to exploit the other animals' grievances with humans to secure their own power. It felt like a grown-up story with some quite powerful, disturbing meanings under the covers. So I told my English teacher about it and all she told me in response was to go look up the Rus…
Does anyone have any recommendations for reading up on the Russian Revolution? Books, videos, or otherwise.
To The Finland Station
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#348On the Evolution of Cooperation. Unbelievably simple and yet conveyed one of the most powerful ideas I've ever come across.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#349Definitely "The Machine That Changed the World" by Womack, Jones, and Roos [0]. This is "the first book to reveal Toyota's lean production system." Before reading it, I had never imagined just-in-time production or value chain mapping, or vehicle assembly lines that can profitably produce quantity one of a product before being reconfigured to produce a different model (SMED: single minute exchange of die). Now I see…
In software people use agile as an excuse to not think through the core architecture.
I believe agile was invented to incrementally improve an already well thought production process. Once the assembly line was setup, agile was used to eliminate the unproductive activities. I am not sure agile will be helpful to build the assembly line itself?
In most scenarios that's what people try to do with agile.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#350Animal Farm was a really important book for me. I picked it up aged about 10 or 11 and I remember being really struck by how easily the pigs were able to exploit the other animals' grievances with humans to secure their own power. It felt like a grown-up story with some quite powerful, disturbing meanings under the covers. So I told my English teacher about it and all she told me in response was to go look up the Rus…
Does anyone have any recommendations for reading up on the Russian Revolution? Books, videos, or otherwise.
Sci-fi author China Mieville recently wrote "October: The Story of the Russian Revolution".