Ask HN: What are your favorite books of all time, and why?

This review claims it's the best book of 2017 and sums it well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R24LMIB16JWMLC?ref_=glimp_1...

There are a couple of books that had a big impact on me whose titles I long ago forgot. Periodically searching has not uncovered them.

One was a history of the deep south. Another was a book about about raising money for non profits.

I grew up in the deep south. Reading a history of it helped me understand my life and my country better. The second book had some pithy passages. One of my takeaways was "Don't say no for them." In other words, don't fail to ask because you assume the answer is no.

There were some other pithy, wise bits in the book that boil down to "If you really care about this project and the people it impacts, you need to get over being a thin skinned crybaby and keep at it in spite of repeatedly dealing with rejection, etc." I think the story was repeatedly told that someone would come to her all upset about something and she would say something like "I will put on my best therapist hat and tell you to get over it."

It was a surprising attitude to run into. The author was very practical. She also talked about the fact that she kept doing what she did because when things went well, there was no better feeling. I have done a lot of volunteer work in my life and there is a whole lot of touchy feely stuff that goes along with such work. This book was a breath of fresh air.

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs for showing that you can think rigorously and compose beautiful programs out of simple pieces.

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty for showing that it's possible to think and feel about politics while maintaining a profoundly ironic and groundless mind.

The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry for its beautiful view of civilization as materialized caring and of the inflicting of pain as metaphysically destructive.

Being-in-the-world by Dreyfus for introducing me to Heidegger and showing how continental philosophy inspired by Heidegger was a major force in the evolution of AI and how AI researchers tended to be influenced by rationalist philosophy in the vein of Descartes which leads to huge misunderstandings of the nature of being.

Dhammapada translated by Gil Fronsdal because it's a beautiful exposition of early Buddhist poetry and clearly shows the worldview of south east Asian Buddhism.

Debt by David Graeber for making me interested in money and credit systems from an anthropological point of view.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace for being hilarious and sad and buzzing with neurotic perceptive overeducated thought in a way that mirrored my own precocious self-consciousness and made me feel less "marooned in my own skull."

The Uses of Disorder by Richard Sennett for giving a defense of the anarchy of urban life that views conflict as necessary for growth.

After Virtue by Alisdair MacIntyre for showing the contemporary situation in thought and ethics as profoundly abnormal and difficult, being the aftermath of the Enlightenment project's failure to ground morality in objective reason, and pointing to virtue within traditions as the only way to live coherently.

The Teachings of Huang-bo for being a merciless and hilarious attack on sanctimonious and ritualistic Buddhism, displaying the role of sarcasm and wit in spirituality, and generally just shouting "wake up, lazy pretentious idiot" on every page.

Fanged Noumena by Nick Land for diving deeply into amphetaminic insanity thus accurately mirroring the schizophrenia of postmodern capitalism.

The letters of Van Gogh.

Phillip Lopate's personal essays.

Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton.

On the Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.

The reason for those is just that I can't imagine ever being bored reading them.

Maybe also Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes) for being a really creative concept (the way the story is told) and for being a wonderful example on how interesting modest sci-fi can be without resorting to "LAZERZ!!!".

Edit: Another contestant: Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Physicists. Grim yet humorful. I generally really like Dürrenmatt's dark endings.

Edit 2: And another one: Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, specifically for how well he got me to understand Gauss' weird reactions and motives without going into his work at all. Before I've read it, I would have sworn that a book that tries to present one of the greatest mathematicians would need loads of math in it.

Anyone else read it?