Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything? ↗
The books people recommended
2019-02-05 · 2,009 points · 1,165 comments · 278 books named by at least one person here and at least 3 people overall. The number on the left is how many people named it in this thread.
- 30
- 25
- 20
- 18
- 18Animal Farm
- 15The Master and Margarita
- 13
- 13The Design of Everyday Things
- 12Guns, Germs, and Steel
- 10Meditations
- 10The Fountainhead
- 10Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
- 9The Brothers Karamazov
- 9Thinking in Systems
- 9The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Carl Sagan
9 here · 18 all-time · #49 overall
- 9A Thousand Plateaus
- 8
- 8
- 8Antifragile
- 8The Righteous Mind
- 81984
- 7Siddhartha
- 7Why We Sleep
- 7Basic Economics
- 7The Illuminatus Trilogy
- 6The Dictator's Handbook
- 6Freakonomics
- 6Finite and Infinite Games
- 6A Guide to the Good Life
- 6Economics in One Lesson
- 6Factfulness
- 6Rich Dad Poor Dad
- 5The Black Swan
- 5Fooled by Randomness
- 5Influence
- 5Ender's Game
- 5Brave New World
- 5Ishmael
- 5Stranger in a Strange Land
- 5Mindset
- 5Difficult Conversations
- 4The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- 4The Goal
- 4Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman
- 4Measure What Matters
- 4Getting Things Done
- 4Never Split the Difference
- 4Nonviolent Communication
- 4Tao Te Ching
- 4Ulysses
- 4The Power Broker
- 4The Art of War
- 4Manufacturing Consent
- 4Feeling Good
- 4Stoner
- 4The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- 4The Better Angels of Our Nature
- 4The Blind Watchmaker
- 4Hackers & Painters
- 4The Gulag Archipelago
- 4On Intelligence
- 4The Elephant in the Brain
- 4The God Delusion
- 4The Red Queen
- 3Zero to One
- 3Man's Search for Meaning
- 3Walden
- 3Crime and Punishment
- 3The Power of Habit
- 3War and Peace
- 3The Alchemist
- 3Jonathan Livingston Seagull
- 3Debt: The First 5000 Years
- 3Narcissus and Goldmund
- 3Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- 3Nicomachean Ethics
- 3The Enchiridion
- 3Autobiography of a Yogi
- 3The Blank Slate
- 312 Rules for Life
- 3Philosophical Investigations
- 3A Pattern Language
- 3A People's History of the United States
- 3On the Shortness of Life
- 2Dune
- 2Snow Crash
- 2Catch-22
- 2Anna Karenina
- 2The Phoenix Project
- 2The Beginning of Infinity
- 2Principles
- 2Outliers
- 2Crucial Conversations
- 2Deep Work
- 2The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Julian Jaynes
2 here · 10 all-time · #144 overall
- 2I Am a Strange Loop
- 2Homo Deus
- 248 Laws of Power
- 2Thinking in Bets
- 2The Catcher in the Rye
- 2Why Nations Fail
- 2Prisoners of Geography
- 2Flow
- 2Candide
- 2So Good They Can't Ignore You
- 2Bhagavad Gita
- 2Enlightenment Now
- 2Behave
- 2Understanding Power
- 2A New Kind of Science
- 2The Wisdom of Insecurity
- 2Desert Solitaire
- 2The Extended Phenotype
- 2Bad Science
- 2Sophie's World
- 2On the Road
- 2Dubliners
- 2Bullshit Jobs
- 2The Art of Worldly Wisdom
- 2The Game
- 2The Book of Mormon
- 21491
- 2The Technological Society
- 2The True Believer
- 2Peak
- 2Extreme Ownership
- 2The Machine Stops
- 2Dark Emu
- 2Sane Society
- 2Ideas
- 2The Obstacle Is the Way
- 2The 4-Hour Workweek
- 2Food of the Gods
- 1
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman
1 here · 49 all-time · #7 overall
- 1Cryptonomicon
- 1
The C Programming Language
Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie
1 here · 24 all-time · #25 overall
- 1Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
- 1Foundation
- 1Anathem
- 1The Lord of the Rings
- 1Blindsight
- 1The Pragmatic Programmer
- 1Peopleware
- 1Discworld
- 1The Dispossessed
- 1House of Leaves
- 1The Lean Startup
- 1The Glass Bead Game
- 1Infinite Jest
- 1The Culture
- 1The Soul of a New Machine
- 1The Diamond Age
- 1How to Change Your Mind
- 1Nineteen Eighty-Four
- 1Don't Make Me Think
- 1Traction
- 1The Book of the New Sun
- 1Design Patterns
Design Patterns
Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides
1 here · 10 all-time · #131 overall
- 1The Republic
- 1Foucault's Pendulum
- 1Rationality: From AI to Zombies
- 1Steppenwolf
- 1The Algorithm Design Manual
- 1Steve Jobs
- 1Sirens of Titan
- 1The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
- 1Quiet
- 1Getting to Yes
- 1East of Eden
- 1Liar's Poker
- 1The Mind's I
- 1Propaganda
- 1Sherlock Holmes
- 1Cat's Cradle
- 1Lila
- 1Les Misérables
- 1The Fifth Discipline
- 1The E-Myth Revisited
- 1Capital
- 1Skunk Works
- 1Gravity's Rainbow
- 1Discipline and Punish
- 1Four Steps to the Epiphany
- 1The War of Art
- 1The Art of Learning
- 1Predictably Irrational
- 1Start With Why
- 1The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
- 1Radical Candor
- 1Prometheus Rising
- 1The Undercover Economist
- 1The Denial of Death
- 1Skin in the Game
- 1The Charisma Myth
- 1To Kill a Mockingbird
- 1Economics: The User's Guide
- 1The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- 1The Little Prince
- 1A Brief History of Time
- 1The Vital Question
- 1Our Mathematical Universe
- 1Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
- 1My Struggle
- 1How to Measure Anything
- 1Chaos
- 1
- 1The Logic of Scientific Discovery
- 1Solaris
- 1Contact
- 1The Idiot
- 1Notes from Underground
- 1Don Quixote
- 1Crossing the Chasm
- 1Critique of Pure Reason
- 1The Law
- 1Out of the Crisis
- 1Incerto
- 1Das Kapital
- 1The Quran
The Quran
1 here · 4 all-time · #376 overall
- 1The Anatomy of Peace
- 1I Am That
- 1Replay
- 1Qur'an
- 1Moonwalking with Einstein
- 1Metaphors We Live By
- 1Harry Potter
- 1Ficciones
- 1Childhood's End
- 1Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces
Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces
Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau
1 here · 4 all-time · #420 overall
- 1Sometimes a Great Notion
- 1Confessions of an Economic Hitman
- 1Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
- 1The Idea Factory
- 1Watership Down
- 1The Three Musketeers
- 1The Cyberiad
- 1All the Light We Cannot See
- 1Consider Phlebas
- 1Can't Hurt Me
- 1Mind for Numbers
- 1Fahrenheit 451
- 1How to Lie with Statistics
- 1Tools of Titans
- 1Emperor of All Maladies
- 1Mindstorms
- 1Natural Way to Draw
- 1Brief Answers to the Big Questions
- 1The Inner Game of Tennis
- 1A Treatise of Human Nature
- 1The Art of Loving
- 1Psycho-Cybernetics
- 1The Machine That Changed the World
- 1Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution
- 1Secrets of Consulting
- 1Normal Accidents
- 1Educated
- 1The Power of Now
- 1Information theory, inference and learning algorithms
- 1Hero with a Thousand Faces
- 1The Way of Zen
- 1The Rational Optimist
- 1Beyond Good and Evil
- 1Anthem
- 1Notes on the Synthesis of Form
- 1How Not to Die
- 1In Search of Lost Time
- 1The Moral Animal
- 1The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
- 1The Hidden Persuaders
- 1Babel 17
- 1Sandman
- 1Pragmatics of Human Communication
Pragmatics of Human Communication
Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas, Donald D. Jackson
1 here · 3 all-time · #584 overall
- 1Commonwealth Saga
- 1Don't Shoot the Dog
- 1The Holy Bible
The Holy Bible
1 here · 3 all-time · #608 overall
- 1The Magus
- 1The Question Concerning Technology
- 1The Oresteia