Trying to decide what books to bring with me on my upcoming trip.
Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
1–10 of 101 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#2Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It taught me to pay attention to nonverbal language in decision making
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#3As a kid? I'd probably name "Goedel, Escher, Bach" and "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language" as the two that had the biggest impact on me while I was in high school.
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#4I’d like to say
- Factfulness or
- Sapiens or
- Richard Feynman’s various writings
…but the most measurable impact was probably from something like
- “Strunk and white The Elements of Style” or
- “How to win friends and influence people” or
- “Oh! Pascal!” Or
- “the dictionary” or
- some specific bus timetable that enabled a pivotal moment in my life
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#5Language in Thought and Action by S.I. Hayakawa
Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Tao Te Ching (various translators)
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#6The C Programming Language
Course of Theoretical Physics
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#7As a kid, "The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science" by Isaac Asimov. As an adult, "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx.
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#8I’d like to say - Factfulness or - Sapiens or - Richard Feynman’s various writings …but the most measurable impact was probably from something like - “Strunk and white The Elements of Style” or - “How to win friends and influence people” or - “Oh! Pascal!” Or - “the dictionary” or - some specific bus timetable that enabled a pivotal moment in my life
> some specific bus timetable that enabled a pivotal moment in my life
Story time? Don't leave us hanging :)
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#9I'd suggest books like:
https://equalityfiles.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/thomas_sza...
and any of Byung-Chul Han's philosophical books over the last ten years, though The Burnout society is probably the place to start.
My favorite thing about these books is that if the title piques your interest, it's a quick read because of the aphoristic style keeping the aforementioned short.
Re: Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?
#10I made a page of some of the all-time favorite books I have read, re-read, and would recommend - https://brajeshwar.com/books/