Is there any book or essay that has lead to a change of perspective, a new view on reality so novel to you, that you decided to completely change certain aspects of your life based on the premise of the text or your conclusions resulting from it?
"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."
I lost someone very close to me in my early 20s. Reading through the grief C.S. Lewis went through after he lost his wife was very cathartic. There will be setbacks (death, sickness, divorce, etc.) in life that will violently shake your core and make you feel as though you cannot go on. What I learned was communing with the grief, staring it straight in the face no matter how painful, is an absolute necessity. You will always carry the loss with you, but that does not mean your life has to be dominated by it.
I think his book really help me put "life" into perspective. Setbacks big or small can be overcome, and exploring the grief caused by them really helps with the process of moving past them, despite how painful it may be.
I had just encountered the internet for the first time, after coding every day for 6-7 years with the help of a few books and magazines, but having no idea there was a large electronic community out there. Nobody told me about the internet!
Then I found the GNU Manifesto as I was exploring GNU Emacs, and it changed my life.
I know it sounds strange now, 30 years later, but that was the first time I was really exposed to the idea of putting in significant work to help other people, backed by a persuasive argument. Doing something not just to learn, but to give away and design for other people's benefit. The way it was put in the GNU Manifesto felt empowering and inspiring.
It's informed how I've treated people for decades since.
(My thinking has evolved a lot since, and there have been other inspiring books, but that was a significant and memorable shift.)
Those were foundational for me as well. Along the same lines of "Outgroup", Johnathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" gave a lot of insight in to why people hold certain values and beliefs.
The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way by Amanda Ripley. Three American students are sent to three of the smartest countries (based on PISA scores): Finland, Poland, and Korea. The same was done vice versa. It was fascinating to learn how these three leading countries are able to perform so well with dramatically different policies. And it provides interesting insights as to why America is struggling to compete.
- Snowball by Alice Schroeder (it's a biography of Warren Buffett). So many life lessons here (in addition to teaching you a way to think through investing)
- The Goal (and its descendants). Changes the way you look at organizations
- Inner Engineering by Sadhguru [0]. Changes the way you look at yourself. I'd say base some of your life decisions around this and you'll live better
- The little book that builds wealth [1] . No, despite the corny title it's about companies that have managed to build moats around them. If you are / want to be an entrepreneur, I am sure you will get some wonderful ideas from this. My personal favourite (to invest in - Waste management companies :) )
There were a few milestone books, the kind that had such an outsized impact they spring to mind almost immediately:
1. The Goal/ E. Goldratt.
I read this first when I was a teenager, and kept returning to it (and some of its sequels) again and again. Adopting a systems thinking mindset. When analysing problems looking for the bottleneck, then figuring out how to elevate that constraint.
2. Topics in Algebra/ I. N. Herstein.
During the first summer at Uni I decided to read this book cover to cover and solve every single problem in it. Which I did. Sadly, twenty years on, my algebra game is poor. But that summer, of abiding in algebra, was a really spiritual experience. And it's left a mark.
3. The Orchid Thief/Susan Orlean.
By my early twenties it was clear to me I enjoy non-fiction more than fiction. But I enjoyed it for the intellectual experience, it would never leave me rattled the way fiction can leave you. And then I read this book and my mind was blown. I was outraged that people in the world can write like that, and that I am not one of those people.
4. Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama/D. Goleman.
I randomly picked up this book, it was lying around at this place I was staying at. This was my first intro to Buddhist analytical analysis and I came out of it a different person. Not a better one, sadly, but for sure one more determined to learn more, and to bring these principles into my own life. It's been a journey since, but that's where it started.
5. On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant/D. Graeber.
It's kind of funny that this essay, which was tongue-in-cheek and deliberately provocative, would end up being like a real thing. But by the time I read it (and later, the full book) I was really questioning what was wrong with me that made everything feel so...meaningless. In his lingo, I had shit jobs and I had bullshit jobs, and I was really struggling to see how I can productively manage decades to come of work if these are the only two choices. But airing this problem in this way also helped me, eventually, walk down a path I was more comfortable with. It took a long time, but I finally like the path I'm treading.
6. Not an essay, a film. Searching for Sugar Man/ M. Bendjelloul. I don't even know where to start on this one. I mean, the story's pretty radical as non-fiction goes (see above), but there were moments in and around it, where it's like someone comes and slaps you in the face to wake up. And then the meta aspect, of the director's own sad story. I spent A LOT of time thinking about this film.
The movie Adaptation., based on The Orchid Thief, is probably my all-time favourite movie. Did you see it, did you like it? Thanks, I will check out the book.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street - It changed how I invest my money. I went through the dot com boom bubble, lost all my investment. After that book, I applied "Trust in time rather than in timing." method, I survived and thrived the Great Recession and COVID crash, while many of my coworkers bitch and moan about their portfolios.
The Book Thief and Educated made realise how important is to have the freedom to learn and how improving yourself is never a waste of time.
Crucial Conversations improved my communication skills by 10x.
In terms of tech I really enjoyed The Unicorn Project. Made me realise how awesome our industry is and how easy you can make your work count.
"On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines" - By the guy that started Palm. It is from 2004, and probably deeply flawed in a lot of ways, but I read it at the right time and it "clicked." I think about it often.
The C Programming Language, by Brian W Kernighan and Dennis M Ritchie.
I had tried to learn BASIC and Pascal. And it never really clicked. But K&R’s book explained the language, how it worked, and how to program — in the most primitively satisfying way.
When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the insurgence. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly. What to do?!
Someone said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.” Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia.
How “the fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on foot and delivered his letter to Garcia—are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
The point that I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?” There is a man whose form should be cast in bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land.
It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, to concentrate their energies: do the thing—“carry a message to Garcia.”
Unfortunately, it's a fictionalized story by the inspirational writer Elbert Hubbard, and almost none of the details are true. Wikipedia says:
[S]omeone said to the president there was 'a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you if anybody can.' Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How the 'fellow by the name of Rowan' took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia – are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
"In fact, the only true statement Hubbard wrote was that Rowan "landed ... off the coast of Cuba from an open boat". All the rest, including McKinley's need to communicate with Garcia and Rowan's delivery of a letter to the general, was false."
Sarah Bakewell's 'How To Live: A Life of Montaigne': https://sarahbakewell.com/books-3/how-to-live-a-life-of-mont... - the book started my journey into philosophy. Montaigne's life is extraordinary, mainly in how he was the first person (that we know of) who wrote essays about everything. Everyone can relate to what he writes of. And Bakewell does this by boiling down his many essays and biography into one single book. Absolutely engaging.
* William Burroughs - "Naked Lunch". This book tore me up when I first read it when I was 12 years old. Not your atypical yoot book.
You need this in case you don't already have it: Michel De Montaigne The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters hardcover edition published by Everymans Library Classics. :-)
“Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, were blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions. They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to reason; but in the face of them my reason tells me, wrong and most wrong, that to dream and live illusions gives greater delight. And after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, living is a worthless act. To labour at living and be unpaid is worse than to be dead. He who delights the most lives the most, and your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to you and more gratifying than are my facts to me.”
He shook his head slowly, pondering.
“I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams must be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more filling and lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for your moments of intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional delight is followed by no more than jaded senses which speedily recuperate. I envy you, I envy you.”
He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical smiles, as he added:
“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.”
“Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a fool,” I laughed.
“Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of fools. You have no facts in your pocketbook.”
“Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s contribution.
“More freely, because it costs you nothing.”
“And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted.
“Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. You spend what you haven’t got, and in return you get greater value from spending what you haven’t got than I get from spending what I have got, and what I have sweated to get.”
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky, it is a book that explains a lot of human behavior (it's soo complicated) and as I went reading a lot of "clicks" happened in my mind of why some people do what they do.
There's a 25-part lecture series by Sapolsky on Human Behavioural Biology. Evolution, how genes work, how brains work, how emotions work etc. He's a great storyteller, very funny, apparently kind and considerate, and knows his stuff. What an amazing course. No prerequisites, I think anyone could understand and enjoy it. My very unsciency girlfriend adored it too.
I went through the calculations in the book and it was eye opening for me. From then I did a 10 month 5000 mile hike and then lived in China for 10+ years. Absolutely made my life much happier and content.
I've read many many books that have changed my life.
That's probably one reason why I read.
To say that Pound's translation of the Analects was more profoundly important than the Tao and Faulkner's The Town and Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Hobbit from my youth and The Three Little Pigs read nearly nightly to a child doesn't make sense.
The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World by William D Nordhaus, 2018 Nobel laureate for economics and professor at Yale. He makes a compelling argument that market mechanisms, such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, is the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions. I now understand why the majority of economists agree with this approach.
That was written in a time when slowly reducing emissions seemed a plausible approach. Given that we've pumped way more carbon into the sky since it was written, with no deceleration, and the climate is already undulating dangerously, most of these proposals are outdated. If we want a livable planet we need to phase out carbon immediately. The IPCC said that shooting for 2030 would only give us a 2/3 chance of staying near 1.5°C of heating.
"Planet Without Laughter" - Raymond Smullyan (there are multiple perspectives and thoughts, I was more interested in suspension of disbelief, about something known to be false but is useful)
Misc:
Some musings on socialism, capitalism, anarchy. Essays and books by Kropotkin, Engels, Marx and even Einstein are obvious recommendations
Now I’m dissatisfied with what I put. There are just so many but these popped in my head first.
Saw others put “the moon is a harsh mistress” ++ to that.
LOTR I feel like changes me for the better with every re-reading.
Two essays that have brought me to where I am in so many ways: "An Apology for Idlers" by R.L. Stevenson - neither key word is the obvious meaning. And "Self-Reliance" by R. W. Emerson. High class writing in both cases.
A few have yes. Off the top of my head both fiction and non-fiction, Feyerabend's Against Method, Capital Marx, Orthodoxy Chesterton, Blood Meridian McCarthy, VALIS P.K. Dick, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Le Guin, Sirens of Titan Vonnegut, Finite and Infinite Games
James P. Carse, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning Girard, Discipline and Punish Foucault, Capitalist Realism Mark Fisher, some of Land's earlier work like Meltdown.
That's some of the stuff that comes to mind as having shifted my perception on things in some fundamental ways. I don't think I've ever practically changed anything in my life though as a response to reading a book, not sure how that would even manifest.
I'm a jazz musician & artist who also studied philosophy a lot for a long time. Aged about 30 I was reading a lot of philosophy books about art, and about philosophy of music, both the classics and the latest books. Trying to understand how on earth Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony could have the effect on me that it did. But it seemed each new book just split the subject into finer pieces, about which they knew less and less. Plus a lot of recent philosophy of music books seemed...stupid, blind, written by people unqualified to write them. Anyway, Lakoff & Johnson in Philosophy in the Flesh mention John Dewey as someone who never fell victim to the Subjectivist/Objectivist split.. So I picked up Art as Experience where it had been on my shelf for years, unappreciated. And..instantly all my problems with understanding music were solved. He talks a lot about things in everyday life—someone poking a fire, or (my favourite) a job interview!—showing how the energies, tensions, patterns are the same as those in art. Maybe sounds obvious, but the philosophy books I'd been reading got further and further from life. So, I stopped reading about philosophy of art. I'm not saying I suddenly understood everything about how art does what it does, but it was no longer a confusing, troubling problem. It just seemed natural. (Dewey doesn't have the most exciting prose style, but what he says more than compensates for that.)
Emerson - Essays
(My first book had Essays, first and second series, Representative Men, and some other stuff) It was hugely inspiring every day for many years, from when I was about 20. He writes precisely to be inspiring. He teaches you to be yourself. But also at first it was as though he'd had written about 10,000 things I'd experienced but thought were impossible to describe. If I don't read him so often now, his themes are part of me; usually it's to look up some lines I partly remember. I've probably spent more time with him than anyone.
Vonnegut - Sirens of Titan
I discovered it aged about 15. The first novel I really loved, that somehow spoke to me, that I could totally relate to. Very funny too. I read it over and over again on the school bus, a 40 minute trip, for 6 months or so. Some years I later enjoyed his Breakfast of Champions a lot too, but nothing was like Sirens. At 15 I had a telescope, was into Carl Sagan, wanted to be an astronomer, so I guess the space aspect appealed. p.s. I was later in a free jazz/rock band called The Ghosts of Saturn. Coincidentally, my brother was once in a rock band called CSI (Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum!)
The Global Empire by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist (2002) had a profound and lasting impact on me.
Bard is a controversial person and I will certainly not stand for all his stupid quips through the years. But I definitely found this book worth its while.
I’m not sure if it would hold really hold up to scrutiny if I were to re-read it today. But it sure gave me a lot to think about. And it was there I said goodbye to socialism.
The book that immediately sprang to mind is one I hesitated to share here, and will only devote a paragraph to. It is "The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ". I believe it truly is a record of God's dealings with men, and have changed my life to live according to what it teaches.
Now, onto the sorts of books you were more likely looking for, although most of these have only changed my perspective, and not my day-to-day:
- "The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World" by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart (1995). The most mind-blowing thought was that if you, say, accurately simulate an atom, and then build molecules out of it, then, while the atoms are fake, the molecules are real/true/useful.
- http://worrydream.com has presentations and essays by Bret Victor on using the computer to augment what humans can think and accomplish. Everything here is good; "Up and down the ladder of abstraction" talks about seeing a problem at different levels. "Stop drawing dead fish" discusses creating interactive simulations by drawing. "The humane representation of thought" discusses how knowledge work has been constrained to rectangles and we should move beyond it and engage our whole bodies.
- I highly recommend all the books by Dan and Chip Heath. "Decisive" is on making decisions. "Upstream" is on solving root problems, and not just symptoms. "Made to Stick" is about spreading ideas and having them be remembered.
- "Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error" by Kathryn Schulz—looks like she's also done some Ted talks—talks about how we can be deceived and why we are wrong in so many domains. Similarly, "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt was very interesting as it suggests why people understand the world so differently. By analogy, imagine that we all have five taste receptors on our tongues, but some people use different ones to inform what they like. Fascinating.
- "Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, Sexy, and Smart—Until You're 80" by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge. I don't fit the categories the book is for, but saw it on my library shelves, and it applies to everyone. It maintains that your body is either growing or dying, and you need to put time in every day getting your heart rate up if you want to live a full and healthy life.
- "Growing Up with Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps" by Steve Grand. Written before GPU-powered machine learning, this book, by the programmer behind the "Creatures" series of games, gives interesting insight into artificial life.
I'm certain there are lots of good books I've read that I'm not recalling at the moment.
I think more than tips, Marx is a highly persuasive writer. He has caused mass propaganda and death through the power of his ideas. Reading his book may open your eyes to the extent that you are exploited, which provides motivation and understanding. If I could write as well as Marx, I may lend you a tip. But the tip is read
"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."
I lost someone very close to me in my early 20s. Reading through the grief C.S. Lewis went through after he lost his wife was very cathartic. There will be setbacks (death, sickness, divorce, etc.) in life that will violently shake your core and make you feel as though you cannot go on. What I learned was communing with the grief, staring it straight in the face no matter how painful, is an absolute necessity. You will always carry the loss with you, but that does not mean your life has to be dominated by it.
I think his book really help me put "life" into perspective. Setbacks big or small can be overcome, and exploring the grief caused by them really helps with the process of moving past them, despite how painful it may be.